- Initial Idea Generation
The first thing i need to consider is what my game could potentially be. I need to consider the theme, environment and design if i want to begin. All i know so far is that i want my game to elicit some kind of emotional response from the player, focusing on the narrative and storytelling through the environment.
I’ve started to consider the main key aspects of my game, such as story, themes and the mechanics. two concepts that caught my attention was the idea of having a cosy game but employing these emotional aspects i aspire to achieve. How would this work and what emotions could i portray through this playstyle?
I’ve considered if a more positive or negative emotional them would work best, but i cant seem to decide between the two. Emotions can have a powerful response on the player and sometimes make a game be more immersive. I’m considering if there is a way to include both emotions and have that as a key them for my games narrative, the juxtaposition between the two may prove to be overwhelming but it is a concept i am going to explore regardless.
- Developing Ideas
Key components i want to include:
- Emotive response from player
- Story focused environment
- a puzzle mechanic
Concept one:
One genre I spoke about wanting to explore was the ‘cosy games’ genre. One thing i and many people to find adorable are cats. For this game concept the player would play as a cat, trying to find their owner within an apocalyptic environment. The twist is that this apocalypse only effects cats, yet this cat in unaffected and will do anything to get back to their owner. for the majority of the game it would act more-so like a light hearted comedy despite the apocalyptic environment where the player will have to solve a series of puzzles in a bright colourful dystopia. Naturally the emotional reunition with the players owner at the end would serve as the main emotional hook for the game concept.
Concept two:
This game concept would focus on taking the player through an emotional journey, heavily narrative based and more of an exploration style game. The player would play as an elderly women in her last moments of life, based around the myth of how before people die their ‘life flashes before their eyes’. The twist is that the player character has dementia and the player is experiencing and playing through parts of her childhood she had forgotten due to the illness. Interacting, solving puzzles and mainly exploring their environment to remember forgotten memories in order to pass on.
Feedback:
Since i now had two game ideas i asked for feedback from my friends. I asked them because i wanted to have the point of view from someone not entirely familiar with games design or development, someone who represents the target market for the game. The responses from this survey are surprising; in terms of what people were more likely to play the games came out to an even result. But when it came to one of my main narrative goal, eliciting an emotional response the second game concept was undoubtably the more favourable.
Knowing this now I am going to expand on the second game concept. Between the two concepts i feel as though the second concept if explored properly could be a whole new unique game experience and something that will have a strong emotional response from potential players.
- choosing a name
now that i know which game concept i will be going ahead with i need to decide on a name for the game. A games name is the first impression a player will have, a misleading or generally confusing name by itself could potentially be a games downfall.
Name ideas so far: