Joseph Roberts

Game Spaces And world Building –

I’ve talked a lot about the essential experience so far, but I’m going to explain by what I mean when I say this. The thing is, the essential experience can change depending on what the designer’s intentions are. Simply the essential experience is the core theme, emotion or message you want a player to experience. Translating this to my game ideas, for Shifting Labels the essential experience i want the player to take away is a message on the societal discrimination and expectations of both women, men and everything in between.

General plan on how to convey the essential experiences

Game Narrative – 

Shifting Labels – 

The core essential experience I want the player to have is the concept of experiencing the struggles of societal roles / expectations for each gender. How i’m going to use the narrative to portray this experience is by having the protagonist (the players character) start the game oblivious to this issue however they are constantly facing issue which their counterparts are not facing, all the men in her team are getting bonuses and starting to realise that she is the only women in her upper management team. As the player progresses through the

Visual Design – 

Shifting Labels –

One of the main ideas I had that would help show the essential experience of gender inequality was the visual design of the game. As the main mechanic is to switch between male and female I had the idea of the colour scheme changing. Some ideas of this was that when playing as a male the colour scheme mimics the stereotype of guys loving the colour blue, and when the female is selected the colour scheme mimics the stereotypical favourite colour of girls which is pink. Alternatively, the colour scheme can change depending on what gender the player needs to complete the task.

Game Puzzles –

Shifting Labels – 

As the game’s essential experience is gender inequality the puzzles should reflect solving / dealing with the issues that happen due to this inequality. i.e. having to navigate the issue of domestic violence. This could be seen in a puzzle through the idea of being locked in a room and having to navigate trying to escape without the person hearing, there will also be notes around the room saying things which domestic abusers say such as “you’re nothing without me”. The puzzle is using things around the room to build a structure to escape out of the small window.

World Principles/ structures/ pillars

Shifting Labels – 

Core pillars- 

  • Shifting Labels = the ability to switch between genders 
  • Social experience recreations = recreating scenarios that happen in real life in game 
  • Shifting Consequences = if you shift to often the player character starts to feel gender neutral and have to go through a level with the struggles transgender people face 

Core themes / mechanics 

  • Switch = the ability to switch genders 
  • Interact = the ability to interact with the replicated real life scenarios
  • Theme of frustration through failed interactions 
  • Mirrors around the world which show the opposite gender to the one the player is controlling to symbolise the issue with identity  

Brief – 

  • In game a player will control a person who shifts between gender roles, the player must navigate through replicated real life scenarios, the reactions of NPCs change depending on what gender the player chooses. The world is covered in different symbolisms of gender identity like mirrors reflecting opposite gender when you walk by, colour schemes playing to stereotypes, and things such as character and clothes design.