{"id":337,"date":"2026-01-17T03:40:44","date_gmt":"2026-01-17T03:40:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.wsagames.com\/jr22g22-yr3\/?p=337"},"modified":"2026-01-18T17:17:33","modified_gmt":"2026-01-18T17:17:33","slug":"from-themes-to-game-ideas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.wsagames.com\/jr22g22-yr3\/2026\/01\/17\/from-themes-to-game-ideas\/","title":{"rendered":"From Themes To Game Ideas"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading has-text-align-center\">From Themes To Game Ideas<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Phase 3: From themes to game ideas<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Moving from texture to natural disasters:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>After phase 2\u2019s texture deep dive, it has become clear that texture cannot form the core gameplay mechanic for a game. Every idea and attempt at this fell into becoming the art style and visual direction for the game rather than being a meaningful player interaction. This made me reflect and led me to think back to why I started this course. My environmental geoscience background and interest in exploring the link between human choices and environmental consequences.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Why natural disasters?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>In addition to being more passionate about the subject, it has a clear system with a cause and effect loop, unpredictable events, preparation and responses, and resource management.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>It fits itself into the educational genre and raises real questions about risk, survival, community impact and why people choose to live in disaster prone areas.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>It has real world relevance as I have been inspired by events like the 2011 Toukhu earthquake &amp; tsunamI and the ongoing issue of global warming in communities around the world.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>From visual exploration to system design:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>I&#8217;m not just changing the theme but changing my design approach.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Texture was a personal but artistic focus and I&#8217;m now pivoting towards a societal and educational purpose.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>The way I&#8217;m approaching each game concept is changing from \u201cHow will it look?\u201d to \u201cHow and what does this teach the player and make them feel?\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Game concepts:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>My first step when changing theme was to start coming up with as many game concepts as possible. As such in my sketchbook I started to sketch different games based on the theme of natural disasters.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>After this process two main game concepts emerged.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Game Idea 1:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>A short, top down interactive experience where players playfully manipulate different natural elements &#8211; fire, water, and wind without realizing the consequences they are causing<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>After playing around with the aesthetic &amp; satisfying elements the camera perspective shifts to reveal the environmental destruction it has caused with wildfires ravaging forests and local communities, tsunamis flooding &amp; destroying coastlines, hurricanes destroying communities.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>The reveal hits home how beautiful yet deadly natural forces are and how powerful and unpredictable they can be.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>This will bring awareness to natural disasters through a short impactful interactive story game.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Game idea 2:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>It is an educational disaster series which is a collection of short mini-games that focus on real historical disasters, designed to be an engaging alternative to traditional textbooks for GCSE students (age 12-16) studying geography\/environmental science.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>The series of microgames will focus on hurricane Katrina, Tohoku earthquake\/tsunami, Eyjafjallojijukull eruption as each disaster raises awareness to a new cause, impact and response to disasters.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Players have to attempt to prevent or mitigate the disaster effects but slowly learn that this is impossible with 100% success due to real life constraints such as time, money, and environmental factors.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>This concept was inspired by Sporkware as they utilised a collection of microgames that were unified by a consistent visual identity and aesthetic motifs.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Similarly, BBC Bitesize educational games have helped me better understand that I need to aim for better engagement and avoid making it feel like a quiz.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Moving forward:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Both concepts require some form of prototyping to test the feel of the core mechanics and visuals aesthetic.\u00a0<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>This will also allow me to determine if you can balance educational value with engaging gameplay whilst also ensuring the games are considerate of the victims of the tragedies when explaining the lessons learnt about the disasters.\u00a0<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>From Themes To Game Ideas Phase 3: From themes to game ideas Moving from texture to natural disasters: Why natural disasters? From visual exploration to system design: Game concepts: Game Idea 1: Game idea 2: Moving forward:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-337","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-p3"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.wsagames.com\/jr22g22-yr3\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/337","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.wsagames.com\/jr22g22-yr3\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.wsagames.com\/jr22g22-yr3\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.wsagames.com\/jr22g22-yr3\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/23"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.wsagames.com\/jr22g22-yr3\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=337"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/sites.wsagames.com\/jr22g22-yr3\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/337\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":435,"href":"https:\/\/sites.wsagames.com\/jr22g22-yr3\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/337\/revisions\/435"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.wsagames.com\/jr22g22-yr3\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=337"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.wsagames.com\/jr22g22-yr3\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=337"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.wsagames.com\/jr22g22-yr3\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=337"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}