{"id":115,"date":"2024-10-29T19:16:17","date_gmt":"2024-10-29T19:16:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.wsagames.com\/ib8g23\/?p=115"},"modified":"2025-01-10T14:10:09","modified_gmt":"2025-01-10T14:10:09","slug":"week-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.wsagames.com\/ib8g23\/2024\/10\/29\/week-1\/","title":{"rendered":"Week 1!"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Our first week of year 2’s lecture outlined what was expected of us this semester. This was when I found out our brief for the year: to make a Game Design Document for a game concept of our choosing!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What is a Game Design Document? <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In simple terms, a GDD is a process of documenting the game to help integrate all corners of it – because a game in all its unique, overlapping, complexity needs specific guidelines for different departments in order to make a cohesive game. A GDD will keep it cohesive, promote clarity and uniformity, prevents overambition, and ensures that people stick to a schedule. It is much more efficiant to make a game this way. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

To see my full breakdown on what a Game Design Document is, click here to view my Week 1 Reading<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What is my Game Concept? <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The parameters for the game concept were as such: no parameters. Admittedly, I didn’t have many ideas at first. Being able to do anything with zero constraints isn’t very inspiring; it doesn’t get the imagination flowing and ideas sparking. If I wanted an idea – a good idea – I’d have to work for it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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WORKSHOP 1<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our very first workshop was to create a game based off adjectives listed by our birth-dates. Within my group of 3 (Paula, Ejay, and myself), we each would arrive at a set of words that would describe our game. My birthdate dictated a surivival horror or stealth set in a demon-filled hellscape, with my name – I – to dictate the feel: idle, impervious, imaginative, industrious… (Turns out “I” was a bit hard to come up with.) <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Paula’s was a Tower-Defence Masquerade based around the letter P, which we decided would be “paranormal”. This immediately captured all of our attention, so we decided to build a game on that – coming up with the idea of a cute, animal masquerade being haunted by ghosts. You play as the orchestra, blessed with magical instruments that ward away the ghosts trying to possess the dancing animals. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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GAME CONCEPT DEVELOPMENT<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This was my original mindmap of game ideas. As you can see, I reskinned the masquerade tower defence idea slightly, and came up with two others: one where you play a small bumblebee that repollinates the world after its apocalypse – a theme about the regrowth of Earth and nature’s persistance – and one horror game that preys on the feeling of paranoia. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Inspired by Jesse Schell’s Lenses of Emotion, Experience, and Inspiration (which I did for my Week 1 Reading<\/a>) from his book “The Art of Games Design”, for PARANOIA I chose a specific emotion I wanted the player to feel – something to pinpoint – so I could build around that. The emotion I chose was, obviously, paranoia. As such, this was the game I was most excited about. The others didn’t come from an emotion – they might have sweet themes and nice aesthetics – but this felt more tangible… More fun. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The videogames that have historically gripped me the most have always been horror games. When I was 12, I was obsessed with titles such as Layers of Fear and Five Nights at Freddy’s, because of the specific, subtle ways they manipulate the player’s brain. So I began to research how to make a game that would cultivate and prey on a feeling of paranoia in the player. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Goals for this Semester: <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

GDD Deliverables:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \n
  • Mini Art Bible (including at least 1 3D model)<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • Mini Word Bible<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • Mini Narrative Bible<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • Mini Sound Bible <\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • Writing Samples<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • Gameplay Design <\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n

    Creative Writing Module Deliverables:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

      \n
    • A 500 word review of a creative work<\/li>\n\n\n\n
    • A 2500 word portfolio of two pieces or more requiring:\n
        \n
      • One work of fiction<\/li>\n\n\n\n
      • One work of creative nonfiction<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n

        Using WordPress: <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

        While technically only required for my Semester 1 portfolio of a Game Design Document, I have also decided to put my other work here too, to keep it all in one, centralised place. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

        Our first week of year 2’s lecture outlined what was expected of us this semester. This was when I found out our brief for the year: to make a Game Design Document for a game concept of our choosing! What is a Game Design Document? In simple terms, a GDD is a process of documenting […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":352,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-115","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-logbook"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.wsagames.com\/ib8g23\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.wsagames.com\/ib8g23\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.wsagames.com\/ib8g23\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.wsagames.com\/ib8g23\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.wsagames.com\/ib8g23\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=115"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/sites.wsagames.com\/ib8g23\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":573,"href":"https:\/\/sites.wsagames.com\/ib8g23\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115\/revisions\/573"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.wsagames.com\/ib8g23\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/352"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.wsagames.com\/ib8g23\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=115"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.wsagames.com\/ib8g23\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=115"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.wsagames.com\/ib8g23\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=115"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}