Week one was experimental and a way to generate game ideas. We were given our brief in which we had to make a games design document (GDD) for a digital game. A GDD is a descriptive living document that serves as a blueprint from which your game is to be built. We discussed what makes a good GDD such as being detailed, accessible, clear, and includes no unnecessary jargon.
During our lecture, we learned about the essential experience and its importance in making the game believable as well as getting players invested.
The Essential Experience
“You don’t need to perfectly replicate real experiences to make a good game. What you need to do is to capture the essence of those experiences for your game”
– Tomas Gonzalez
During this lesson, we focused on these three questions: What experience do I want the players to have? What is essential to that experience? How can my game capture that essence? To help us further understand this concept, we looked at pre-existing games and their core experiences. The Sims at its core strives for creativity, freedom and imagination. Silent Hill on the other hand aims for the players to experience thrill, eeriness and helplessness.
After a brief reminder of what autobiographical and empathy games are, we were tasked with designing our own game based on our experiences. I chose to make it about motivation and productiveness.
| Goal | Execute your plans and be productive |
| Conflict(s) | If you don’t carry out your plans, it will decrease your mood into becoming more negative. Too much of one type of activity can be draining. |
| Resources | Spending time outside, with friends, leisure, sleep, food, hygiene |
| Desired Outcome(s) | Rather than just wanting, the player does these things and has a good balance so your mood is lifted. |
| Undesirable Outcome(s) | If you are unable to be productive or find equilibrium, the character becomes overwhelmed which is also a game over. |
| Audiovisualisation of State of Play | The game begins when the character wakes and progresses through the day. The “wants” (e.g. Brush teeth, text back, etc.) appear in thought bubbles around the character. To complete them, the player drags the character towards the items/spaces that match a thought bubble, otherwise, they disappear. These “wants” are timed and appear randomly but correspond with the environment. If the player does not reach a certain mood level, they won’t progress to the next level. |
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