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.Presentation (Part I)

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.Presentation (Part II)

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.Self Reflection

Working on this project was one of the best experiences! The teamwork was great and complementary since each member´s skills were needed to reach the final goal. We really enjoyed working together and creating our new videogame concept... and we hope you like it too!

It was interesting to learn about the professional requirements needed for the submission of a videogame concept and to put them into real practice. We became more aware about the Digital Game Industry and educational game design. We have also improved our written and conversational English a lot since it was the main language for communicating in our intercultural team :D

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.Market Analysis and Elevator Pitch

The Pitch:  Selkie, friend of the sea is an underwater adventure puzzle game with the main topic of helping the marine life in distress. In order to do so, players will need to use the strength of their seal form as well as their human form wisely. 

Market Analysis: There aren’t so far many games that are underwater based. However puzzles can be compared to the app game of Dokuro and game flow to the game Insanely Twisted Shadow Planet. 

Regarding other underwater based games, ours has it’s own uniqueness being that it isn’t about fishing, diving or cultivating more fish, but about using the vast underwater world to create enjoyable puzzles.

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.Our Main Character

Our main character is based on the scottish mythology of selkies, therefore the name. It was mostly inspired by the movie Song of the Sea and we just loved the idea of being able to transform from one kind of species to another.

The seal form will be the same no matter if you choose the boy or girl character. We’ve also decided not to make them overly different looking so beside the hairstyles both of the characters are alike like a set of twins.

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.Gender Neutral Design

We have shown and asked several people to test and review our game concept for gender neutrality and the results are...

That the story concept is rather more on the softer side and more for the female audience. However, it could also emotionally involve the male audience. As for the gameplay most of them commented how it fits for both female and male audience due it being mostly puzzle like style. 

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.Storyline

There was once a family of seals that lived happily under the sea… Until their habitat got damaged, polluted and an unsafe place to live in. However the youngest child of the family was not a common seal, she was a selkie, with the power to become a human every time she shed her seal skin and went to the land. That’s why her parents made the hard decision to send her to live with a kind family of humans, who would raise her in a safer environment on the land. 

The selkie grew up with her human family. She loved them so much, still she could never forget about her seal family… She truly missed them!

Years passed by and the selkie started to hear the call of the sea. She decided to embark on a journey to find her family and make the marine environment a better place to live in! 

During her adventure she will face many challenges and dangers from the ocean. She will figure out how to help the endangered sea species she finds on her way. She will also try to reduce the damage and pollution in the sea with her own human knowledge and with the help of the other marine creatures.

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.Storyboarding

For overall game

Titlescreen

First time starter will be directed to character selection (girl or boy) and naming

First time starter will also be able to view the intro story 

Afterwards the player will enter the first level on the first map

Main Gameplay starts

Once it’s over the player will able to view their score result (at that point they can either choose to continue or restart the level)

After that, the player will be back on the map and the next level will be unlocked

For gameplay interactions

The overall movement will be steered through the up, down, left and right buttons or a digital joystick version of it

In your seal mode you can tap the right lower button for a short dash

In your seal mode you can also tap the right lower button to change it into a song button, with this your seal can calm down distressed or aggressive sea animals (will be also used as a part of future puzzle levels)

In order to transform from the seal mode to human mode, you’ll have to tap the upper right button which is also the display of your oxygen

In your human form your oxygen level will steadily decrease and can only be holded if you change back into a seal

In your human form you can interact with bigger objects, boxes or tools by holding the lower right button. The interactable objects will all be marked with a faint circle that will be filled if you interact with it.

In your human form you can tap the lower right button in order to collect the trash in the level

In your human form you can also complete more complex actions which requiere to tap the lower right button several times or combine the movement button with the lower right one. There will be hints to show what is required to complete the action.

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.Learning Outcomes 1

This one is the map background of the level stages. Each map background will show the basic settings of the levels on it as well as subtle hints to their environmental issues. With the world map button players will also be able to check out small descriptions of each map. For example the first one is called “Blue Coast”.

Blue Coast: Even though the vast sea dazzles in a shiny blue, it will still be inevitably influenced by the humans due to their close living habitat.

Other maps that are planned are...

Dying Coral Reefs will be about the coral bleaching that is happening.

Industrial Waters will be about the water pollution from industrial waste

Black Gold will be about the oil spill 

Melting Glaciers will be about the current global warming

and more...

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.Learning Outcomes 2

The learning outcome about the awareness of trash underwater is handled way more directly here. The player can directly collect the trash in each level and have a significant impact on the end result: the 3 stars will only be filled if they collect all the trash within the current level.

The stars system:

1st star: achieved by completing the main quest within the level (saving the sea animal in distress)

2nd star: achieved by collecting all the shiny pearls withing the level (there are 3)

3rd star: achieved by collecting all the trash within the level 

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.Learning Outcomes 3

One of the main learning outcomes is spreading awareness about different sea animals within the endangerment status from threatened to endangered+. It will be achieved on one hand by saving the sea animal in distress in the levels (may they be trapped, hunted, ... etc) and on the other hand having a small information card about them. The information card will be collected in a book that the player can view anytime they want. The further the player comes the more information cards they can unlock! So...

GOTTA SAVE THEM ALL!

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.Ideas

Goals:

We want to design a game that seeks to fulfill one or more targets of United Nations’ Sustainable Goal 14:

To protect, restore and promote sustainable use of aquatic ecosystems

Conserve biodiversity and provide info about it (the player will get to know about the different animals and plants that live in the sea, especially about the ones that are in danger of extinction)

Enhance the life of animals in the sea (we will focus on animals that are in danger in each level)

Make our oceans clean

References: 

While thinking of some ideas, we’ve talked about animation movies and games that have connections with the sea as a theme and that we might take inspirations of:

Selkies - Song of the Sea

Ponyo

Finding Nemo

The Red Turtle

The River Spirit

Club Penguin - Ice fishing

Game Title: Selkie, friend of the sea

Genre: Adventure, Puzzle, Edutainment

Gameplay Idea:

One of the main challenges is to save sea creatures, especially those who are in danger of extinction. For example: some turtles got stuck on a plastic ring and you’ll need to find a way to free them.

Learning Outcomes: 

To take care of the sea and its creatures and become aware of the damage that human beings are causing on it.

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.Target Audience

Our target audience will be conformed by young adults (students, young workers) between 20 and 25 years old. We have created two personas to have a better understanding of our future gamers:

(Picture might be changed later)

Name: Anna Marie

Nationality: Austrian

Age: 21 years

Occupation: student - Business Management

Hobbies: reading novels, going to the beach during summer holidays, traveling

Story: Anna Marie is a very active and outgoing person. She loves doing sports, reading novels and traveling to warm places during summer to relax at the beach, swim and have a good time with family and friends. She is currently doing her bachelor´s degree in Business Management. She wakes up very early, goes to class and afterwards she meets some friends or practices some sport. Then she goes back home to study and do homework. After a long day she likes relaxing while playing some entertaining video games on her phone, just before going to sleep.

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Name: Marco

Nationality: Italian

Age: 24 years

Occupation: worker - waiter at a restaurant

Hobbies: watching Netflix, playing games, chatting with friends

Story: Marco is a friendly, shy and easy-going person. He likes watching movies and series and going to a bar with his friends during the weekend. He has been working as a waiter in a restaurant for a year now. He works really hard during most of the day. Then it takes him 30 minutes to get back home by bus, so he usually spends this time playing some simple and entertaining video games on his phone so as not to fall asleep during the journey. When he gets home he eats something and then relaxes watching Netflix or chatting with friends before going to sleep. 

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.Role Assignments

We have decided which role would suit each one of us best for the project and also which role we should do together (since there are 4 existing roles and we are only a team of 3).

.Game Producer/Manager - Luisa 

Responsibilities - Overall project organization, resource management, market analysis

Skill Set - Good at setting work deadlines and encouraging the group to follow them, experience in producing video games, good at analyzing and paying attention to details

Most Challenging Task - To learn about all the possible resources we count with and the different strategies we could follow, in order to obtain the best results.

.Game Programmer/Designer - Sonja 

Responsibilities - Game graphics design, player interface, player controls

Skill Set - Basic Knowledge with most of the Adobe programs, drawing characters, simple environment designs

Most Challenging Task - Understanding the strengths and weaknesses of the medium that the game will be on and making use of it for the control and interface. 

.Game Analyst/Tester - María 

Responsibilities - Game-play analysis, target audience analysis, quality assurance

Skill Set - Basic knowledge in usability testing, surveys, good at analyzing and paying attention to details, basic experience playing video games

Most challenging task - Keeping the player’s point of view despite of being involved in the creation process and being able to find the bugs and lacks of the game.

.Game Artist/Modeler

Is a common role that will be shared between the three of us, since we all like to create art. Our responsibilities here will be to create concept art for the game, the game graphics and the screen design.

As far, the most challenging task might come with deciding with which visual style we might want to go with. 

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.GameCity 2019: Game Review

Weaving Tides is the current game project from the indie game studio Follow the Feathers. 

Creators : Follow the Feathers 

Languages: English and German

Game platform: PC / Mac

Mode: Single player

PEGI: 7+

ESRB: Everyone

Genre: Adventure

Category: Dexterity / precision / motor skills

.INTRODUCTION

Follow the Feathers

Is a small independent indie studio from Vienna, Austria. For the past six years they have developed the games YoKaisho and NIVA which were honored with various international awards and nominations. They thrive to create family friendly experiences which captivate the players through their curious game mechanics and mesmerizing art style. They are currently working on their next game: Weaving Tides.

.SUMMARY DESCRIPTION & CATEGORIZATION

Target age group

Mostly teenagers+, since they might enjoy the story and world building more. The minimum age would be 6+.

Game genre

During a chat with one of the members of Follow the Feathers, he confirmed that this game's genre is an adventure game. It was a bit inspired by The Legend of Zelda style adventure where you explore the world and solve small puzzles in order to continue your journey.

Categorization of the game

From what we have experienced in the gameplay, it belongs to the category of motor skills as it requires to control your character for his stitching gameplay. The stitching doesn’t only go in every direction but also up and down. Plus you’ll have to stitch different kind of patterns in order to solve puzzles. 

.OVERVIEW, WALKTHROUGH OF THE GAME & GAME ELEMENTS

Our experience with video games

Sonja: I would calle myself an intermediate player since I do play some games in my free time (like TLOZ, FE, . . .) The instructions for the game were rather easy to understand and to use. It’s explained with short text build into the dialogues of the characters and visual instructions of the controller. 

María & Luisa: We have played some video games before but we don’t have that much experience as players. Luisa has created a video game last semester in her home university too. We understand the instructions, idea and the main goals of the game, and it seems easy and intuitive to us.

Back‐story & conditions for success

The story of the game takes place in a world woven with yarn and sown with textile. The local residents are humanoid-moth like beings and carpet dragons called Weavers. The protagonist, a young human boy named Tass, wants to know why he is the only one of his kind and the whereabouts of his biological parents. With the help of his foster father Killim, a weaver, they set off on a journey to search for them. However there are more truths to uncover since the world is in a state of chaos due to an unknown attacker.

The goal would be to explore the world and find out the cause of the troubles there, as well as the truth of Tass’s origin.

Steps for successful play

The story parts of the game are told in a visual novel like style with all the characters involved being shown on the screen. Usually the active talker is in his original color while the passive party has a darker overlay.

Throughout the game you’ll notice that several parts of the woven ground contain holes. Therefore you need to stitch them together and at the same time you’ll be rewarded with yarn points, which are shown on the upper right corner of the screen. With them you can buy items from the local merchants.

To defeat the enemies, you will need to stitch them onto the ground (sometimes they are also upside down and you’ll need to do an understitch to get them). Most of the time you’ll only need two stitches to defeat them. However, stronger enemies might require more stitches.

To open most of the doors you’ll have to connect those holes with a certain pattern. Most of the patterns have a light sparkly path that you need to follow. Other doors require you to solve light puzzles.

To obtain flying items or flying enemies, you’ll need to sew down the thread so you can reach them.

After meeting other Weavers and finishing their quests, you’ll be able to unlock them and switch your Weavers.

Game play, player interaction & navigation

To sew holes you have to make a stitch from one end to another, bigger holes require more stitching.

Hearts can only be obtained by destroying or dashing through the grass.

Enemies can’t be defeated with the dash, you have to sew them down in order to defeat them.

To open certain doors, you might need to solve stitching puzzles that require you to follow a certain pattern.

You have to use the dash to destroy obstacles like cactus or grass.

Sometimes you might trigger some arena fights, where you won’t be able to go out of a certain area without defeating all enemies.

Confusing aspects

So far the only issue would be the lack of a map that might help the players to realize where they currently are and where they’ve already been. Maybe it was a conscious decision of the developers to let the player explore the world more. But since it isn’t fully released, there might be some changes happening later.

Learning curve time

A short time is needed to learn how to play the game since its mechanic is not so complicated. You need a few minutes into the game at first in order to understand the instructions, actions and movements… and that´s all!

Can the game be saved and restarted from the same point?

No. But certain triggered arenas, door puzzles and items will be saved, so you won’t have to redo or find them again.

Can the gaming objectives be achieved in small periods of time?

It depends on how you play, but regarding the first boss you can certainly reach and beat him within one hour or less within the game.

.PEDAGOGICAL ASPECTS

Suggestions for use in formal education settings    

There’s an interview in their website with Verena Demel, the creative director of the game. She says that players have the chance to defeat their enemies by killing them, but they can also play the game in a completely peaceful way. This could be interesting in education because it might be a challenge for children: they should stop, think and make a decision based on what they think is the best.

Furthermore, the whole game is based on a manual and traditional technique as weaving. This could be interesting in an educational field (specially with children) because it combines tradition and technology and it allows children to explore things they might not usually find that interesting, by presenting it in a very modern and attractive way for them.

Suggestions for use outside of formal education settings    

It could be used at home with children and teenagers in order to introduce them into the weaving world. Not necessarily for them to start practicing it, but as a way of learning about a traditional, artistic and manual activity through technology and digital tools like video games.

.REFERENCES

Website: https://www.followfeathers.com/press/sheet.php?p=weaving_tides

Preview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=2&v=y5Z1CDyFUhQ

Interview Verena Demel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=2&v=CDWXqwN29Wo

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.Our  Rules

These are 6 rules we’ve made for a smoother flow of teamwork between us. We might still stumble onto troubles while working, so in order to avoid most of them. We’ve done our best to establish some ground rules.                 

Let’s work hard!  +.*.｡(❁´◡`❁)｡.｡:+*  

✦ To put deadlines and respect them.

✦ To plan group meetings.

✦ If you have any problem just tell as soon as possible to the group.

✦ Try to begin early for handing in the tasks, don´t leave everything for the last minute!

✦ Upload everything you do/ collect to the Google Drive.

✦ Everyone should have the password of the Tumblr and feel free to post. But also everyone can make suggestions about the posts and think about the best way to handle it.