At the end of my last presentation, I shared some ideas with the class based on the nodenogg.in feedback and some thoughts I had, leading from that. I wanted to explore 4 game ideas from these and maybe combine a few of them.
I wanted all of these ideas to have Trauma, Community and/or Aestheticism as their main themes.
- A doll was given to the protagonist as a child to calm them down; they lost it in a salon, haunting them years after, wherever they go.
- Braiding a childhood doll’s hair (abstract with text bubbles), from the child’s perspective.
- Doll gains sentience through hair coming alive, and discovers all the trauma the owner holds.
- OOAK Doll who wants to escape from their owner and discover a world outside confinement.
Breakdown
Overall, I want these game ideas to be easily broken down into core components. Some ideas are more one than the other, and I’ve made that clear in the table.
Components:
- Both Hairbraiding and BJDS
- Mostly Hairbraiding
- Mostly BJDs
| Idea | Description | Tagline | Genre Ideas | Main Mechanic | Win Conditions? | Games with a similar feel | Am I taking this idea forward? |
| 1 | A doll was given to the protagonist as a child to calm them down while their hair was being done. They lost it in a salon, haunting them years after, everywhere they go. | You lost that doll years ago, so why does it haunt you everywhere you go? or After years of going natural, you decide you go to your old hair salon. But why does your past haunt you wherever you go? | – Idle Clicker with narrative and timed events, slight psychologic horror elements but not scary | Get a few pieces of hair braided with every click, talk to the aunties (or don’t), take breaks, investigate the doll. | Getting your hair done (this is inevitable), and (optionally) exploring the salon. | – Toca Boca Hair Salon 4 | ✅ |
| 2 | Braiding a childhood doll’s hair (abstract with text bubbles), from the child’s perspective. | You want to be like your aunties, carefully interweaving pieces of hair. Watch, learn and listen to their conversations. | – Narrative puzzle game | Weave the hair while listening to the aunties stories. | – Game completed when all the hair on your dolls’ head is done. Based on your dialogue options, 2 different endings. | – Florence | ✅ |
| 3 | Doll animated through trauma of the owner (hair trauma) and seeks the owner. | You miss the bond you used to have with your owner. Go on a quest to find her based on clues left. | – 2D platformer side scroller | – Traverse a textured world where everything is bigger than you | – Find the owner | – It takes two | ❌ |
| 4 | OOAK Doll who wants to escape from their owner, and discover a world outside confinement. | A OOAK doll made for collectors, the process of your creation was severely painful. Discover the secrets around your mysterious owner and escape. | – 3D puzzle platformer | Avoid your owner once they notice you’re gone, and free any other dolls you find. | – Find the outside | – Little Nightmares | ✅ |
Survey
I wanted to make a survey to get feedback on my game ideas to see what people would like to see from a game from my family and friends. The one that won the most votes was the 3D game idea, which would be too big of a scope to actually make, but I feel like it’s still a good idea for a future project. The second most voted option was the first idea, which is the one I wanted to do. The least voted is the second option, which I also want to do, but I understand why it isn’t as popular. It is a very simple game premise with not much happening other than the braiding of hair and text prompts.
Overall, this was really helpful to gain insights into what people like about games. I’ve deduced that people like a lot of action and a novel premise, so not just stuff like a generic shooter/slasher/whatever, but they like things they haven’t seen before. I’ll keep bringing ideas that haven’t been seen in games in the future to games as I already intend to.
Tick your favourite game idea(s).
Are there any aspects of the concepts that can be improved? Or additional ideas you have?
Final thoughts. . .
I originally was going to do idea 3 instead of 4 for the prototype roster, but I did not feel like the idea was strong enough. I am heavily leaning towards ideas 1 and 2 as I feel like they are most feasible with the ideal scope of the game (20 mins max).
How will I do the prototypes?
| Prototype | Description | Playable?* | Additional Comments |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Concept art of the game, pixel art style, main character is in a salon | ✅ | – If I have time, make a real BJD to use with prototypes |
| 2 | Unity prototype, if possible. Simple demonstration of braiding hair with text bubbles with simple choices | ✅ | ^ |
| 3 | Blender model of BJD posed with annotations around. | ❌ | ^^ |
*The prototypes ended up not being playable as I did not have time to code them in Unity, but this was the ideal circumstance