During one of our sessions we were tasked with creating a game based on the essential experience. Here is the outcome of this session.

We were encouraged to look at a game that we were currently playing and look at the experience it gave. My game was Number Connect, it is a mobile game where as you can imagine you have to connect the same numbers together ie 1 connects to another 1 etc so it ends up being a sequence of 1x1x1. If you connect 2 numbers together you can then connect the same line to the number higher than it i.e. 1x1x1x2x2x2x4x5x6x7 etc.

Here is what i noted down during this workshop:

• What is the core experience of the game?
  • Thought provoking 
  • Relaxing
• What elements support this experience?
  • Simple game rules 
  • Limitless potential if you don’t make mistakes
  • The randomaisation of numbers are created and their positions
• What makes up an experience, how do you describe it?
  • Feelings
  • Memorability
  • Thoughts 

The next step was creating a game then attempting to paper prototype it. The focus was on creating a game that is based on human experience. We then had to cover 5 different questions on the game idea:

• Conflict 
• Resources 
• Desired Outcomes 
• Undesirable Outcomes 
• Audio visualisation of state of play 

For this task i choose the human experience of stress:

The game was a game of balancing. I wanted it to be similar to an idle game. The more tasks you take on the quicker stress builds up but energy points also increase faster. More events you take on with the energy points spent, the stress level increases slower.

Overall goal – Balance stress levels:

Conflicts: If one is too high the other collapses, a game of work life balance 

Desired outcomes: balance work and life by managing your time and energy to enjoy life stress free

Undesirable outcome: If too much focus on is on one side life will get to stressful and life will collapse

Audio Visualisation: similar to adventure capitalist layout. You have two pages, one being the tasks you can take on the other the events you can take on. Lots of city and work sounds going on the more tasks you take on which continues to increase. More events you take on the quieter these sounds get and slower they become to reduce stress levels. 

The last task was a worksheet. Experiential metaphor state of play:

What have I found interesting about this?

During this day I have created so many different game ideas that I would have never thought to create whilst also being based upon topics I feel deeply towards. I enjoyed the dive into the human experience and understanding the importance of implementing this without basing the entire game around the one emotion.