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rugeon · 6 years

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Learning to butterfly the videogame chicken breast

New year new potential projects. For final year project 2018-2019. Might as well start with the new ‘ideation document.

Ideation Document

Contexts:

Systemic gameplay - systemic narrative, and otherwise

Gamefeel/ Player Satisfaction/ Juicing

Strong unusual sense of place and people

Unique methods of interactive media storytelling (NITW Text boxes)

Coziness in games

Non traditional methods of mechanical interaction ie. traditional control methods, with more unique player expression

Having an Interesting failure spectrum (Tom Francis thoughts on why MGSV is a fun stealth game, due to its wide array of failure states)

Analogue/varied means of expression within one mechanic or activity (jumping in mario, building a snowman in NITW prologue game, Lost Constellation)

Ethos of messy fast prototyping iterartion and production (inspired by Jenny Jiao Hsia talk about prototyping)

Affecting audio

Techniques

Interaction Design

Branching Narratives + Dialogue

Games AI

Procedural Generation

Advanced Audio and Visual Processing

Inspiring Works

Heat Signature - Suspicious Developments, Tom Francis

Roguelike, top down action/ stealth/ heist game where you play as different intergalactic heist/bounty hunter people that breaks into spaceships. Extremely systemic game that encourages players to find interesting solutions to problems by providing a wide variety of interesting sci-fi tools to the player. Systemic gameplay+ systemic player narratives as told through gameplay plans being made and then changing/going awry as well as conditions constraining players to be creative.

Hotline Miami - Dennaton Games, Jonatan Söderström. Dennis Wedin

Surreal, hyperviolent top down action game about the trancelike sprees that a masked killer enacts, that strongly highlights the violent obsession of videogames and culture. Has several factors that contribute to a sense of good gamefeel, and making what should be a frustrating experience instead induce a flow state.

Sid Meier's Covert Action - MPS Labs, MicroProse

Interesting systemic narrative that the player experiencing by foiling and interacting with various agents and stages of a spy plot. Systemic narrative that is expressed by the gameplay systems. Feeling of the ai acting irrespective to the player. Narrative experience of player feels quite systemic.

Night in the Woods (NITW) - Infinite Fall, Scott Benson, Alec Holowka, Bethany Hockenberry + Finji Adam Saltsman, Rebekah Saltsman, Em Halberstadt

Anthropomorphic animal narrative, platforming, adventrue game that tells the story of a 20 year old that comes back to her home town and and friends after leaving college. Tells an emotive story unconventional by games standards in a very playful way that has some traditional gameplay elements (platforming) but also makes interactive more unusual verbs (a pizza eating section, and pretzel stealing microgame). Creates an extremely strong, cozy sense of place. Expressive within the limits of its digital medium+storytelling (wide variety of personality conveyed through text box animation).

Minit - Vlambeer, Jan Willem Nijman, Kitty Calis, Jukio Kallio, Dominik Johann

Small, short adventure game where you die and every minute and respawn at the same space, learning about the world, optimising your route and changing the world slightly with each successive run. Very polished game with superb gamefeel (all vlambeer games have great gamefeel+juice)

Kentucky Route Zero - Cardboard Computer- Jake Elliott, Tamas Kemenczy, Ben Babbitt

The great american novel in game form. A magical realist story about debt to the past. Extremely important and affective narrative game. ‘The Entertainment’ - Interlude, elucidates relationship and interplay between player and developers that creates the game experience. Creates a powerful atmosphere + utilises branching narrative

I also wrote down a bunch of other stuff I’ve been thinking about in a big jumbled list for help during ideation process. This is just junk floating around, mood board of my head.

Yakuza, Moby Dick, Dark Souls/Absolver, Atom Zombie Smasher+Brendon Chung, Papers Please+Return of Obra Dinn, FTL+Into The Breach, Hylics, High Hell, devolver, Hyper Light Drifter, Flinthook, Jalopy, Jet-Set Radio, Mark of the Ninja, MGS V, Luftrausers, Shadow of Mordor, The Norwood Suite, Small radios, big televisions, The Endless Express, Alan Wake+remedy games, Assassins Creed 1, Banner Saga, F.E.A.R. , Helldivers, invisible inc. , Monaco, Westerado, spectacle fighters dmc, thomas was alone, reigns, evil dead, sorcerer, valhalla rising, a field in england, hard to be a god, stalker, man with a movie camera, bomb city, taking of pelham 123, assault on precinct 13, escape from new york, fruitvale station, playtime, drive, thief, collateral, taxi driver, lost in translation, tekkonkinkreet, ki-ki delivery service+ghibli, REDLINE, cagliostro, 2049, che, motorcycle diaries, man with movie camera, koyaanisqatsi,VVitch,Sacco e Vanzeti, nocturnal animal, die hard, ghost in the shell, atlanta, twin peaks, fear and loathing,only god forgives,donnie darko, mad max, satoshi kon films, eyes wide shut, dog day afternoon, seventh seal, whiplash, brazil, t2 trainspotting, hellboy comic, fargo, rocky horror, gozu, juno, clerks, slacker, daria, almost famous, lady bird, frances ha, fury, wes anderson colour+ framing, NOIR + lighting, there will be blood, no country for old men, unforgiven, dollars trilogy, run lola run, phone booth, die hard, dr strangelove, apocalypse now/heart of darkness, the wire, adult swim+space ghost stuff, home movies+squigglevision, hannibal, bojack, flcl, true detective, desert punk, QOTSA, them crooked vultures, grunge, idles, talking heads, wu, green kingdom, lizard gizzard, acoustic wizard, tobacco, diiv, mbv, spooky+ over the garden wall, bowie, clash

Initial Ideas

A game where you play as a witch exploring a modern magical realist city at night. Should have an interesting traversal mechanic. All about traversal, dancing and screaming in a city at night, strong sense of place + atmosphere: inspired by films such as playtime, thief, drive, collateral, fruitvale station, lost in translation as well as games like NITW. Thought about more in this doc: one pager section on 2nd page: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1O3NC8HqwmERq57Dcqqc2d2Ih34ZVO4-vEQPnVTKRyOk/edit?usp=sharing

Some kind of game themed around the desert/stoner rock music genre which includes acts like Red Fang, Kyuss and Sleep. Make use of AAVP to have a dynamic soundtrack responding to gameplay that impacts the visuals. The game’s mechanics should be directly inspired by the theming, and common features of the genre, could be action oriented, with rhythm game influences. One game that would probably be worth looking at in relation to this is the recently released Tetris Effect, while I would not be as interested in a game as abstracted as tetris, how they achieve a flow state, and have music and visuals informed by gameplay would be worth looking in to. I feel this game is more likely to involve rapid prototyping.

Create a languid game about chilling out on a ship with crew and passengers. Setting could be sci-fi or more historic - chatting on computer to far flung galactic friends and doing menial space jobs/ tasks aboard ship. The setting and experience of the place can draw from ideas about coziness in games + make use of Branching Narrative/Dialogue. Potentially also think about how procedural narrative could be a factor. Inspired by Moby Dick, NITW and Purgatory

Hotline Miami/Goap/Diehard - ‘Create a systemic top-down stealth action game where the player is asked to foil a developing plot/heist by a group of AI agents whose plan and activities respond to the players attempts to derail it. The focus should be on the player feeling like they are responding to the AI’s adaptations to the player interrupting their plot. Each level would be one plot/ situation the player is thrust into. The project is inspired by the evolving plots of covert action, the setting/circumstances of Die-Hard and the gameplay/perspective of hotline miami. This project will involve development of a complex AI system that could be implemented via a GOAP method.

Walkie talky/radio gameplay mechanic to solicit/disseminate information

Research into the effectiveness of procedural vs authored content in games, as large games increasingly find themselves trying to use procedural generation to meet the demands of growing content demand they are finding it difficult to reconcile this with a desire to create quality, curated content, narrative or otherwise. I propose research into the various ways procedural vs authored content has been divvied up in games, the amount of people working in each area, how much curated work is required for procedural work to be effective and the reception/perception of these two methods to create content for games. The means by which this could be investigated is perhaps by creating some data sets of very simple different possible mechanical games in Unity or more narrative ones in twine, that are sorted into different groups of procedural / authored games. We would then measure the level of player engagement over the course of their time with the games and within the context of how long it took to make the given games. Context + techniques: procedural generation + branching narratives

#gamedev #gameswithgold #IS53007C (18-19)

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