Shift in thinking
After entering Phase 3, the focus of the project began to shift from ‘understanding the theme’ to ‘developing an idea for the game’. In the previous phases, I already had a clear understanding of intuition through keywords and related research. At this stage, I was more concerned with the question: If these understandings were to be translated into game experiences, what form would they take?
In the beginning, I did not try to immediately define a final direction. Instead, I chose to develop multiple game concepts at the same time, taking the same theme apart and looking at it from different angles. This was also done so that I could find better researched and more in-depth game themes.
The three game ideas that emerged in Phase 3, while different in play and form, all revolved around previously recurring concerns, such as the state of the player making judgements under pressure, the way the body reacts before thinking, and how the environment guides behaviour without relying on textual descriptions.
For me, Phase 3 was more of a try-and-contrast process. By comparing them together, I was able to see which one would be more natural in terms of experience, which one had more potential for development or was more interesting to me. That’s what makes this Phase different from the previous ones – it takes the abstract understanding of the previous ones and gradually leads to a more focused development.
Mind map
In order to make Phase 3 more intuitive, I’ve made a simple mind map of how ‘intuition’ expanded into three different gameplay directions. For me, this diagram is more like a record of my thoughts. It doesn’t explain the details of the gameplay, but rather summarises the path of my thinking at that time: which part of my intuition I wanted to express with the game.
After finishing Phase 2, I realised that I was thinking the same thing over and over again – intuition isn’t an abstract term, it’s more like a state of mind where you can’t think fast enough, but you have to react. Therefore, in Phase 3, I first split intuition into three more concrete and easier to implement perspectives: Spatial Awareness, Immediate Reaction, and Decision Under Pressure. These three perspectives basically correspond to my most intuitive understanding of ‘intuition’, and can easily be translated into a playable experience.
The three themes of the game then naturally grew out of these three perspectives: ROOM-9 is more spatial: when players enter a room, they need to judge the direction and find the way out through the environment and details, instead of being led step by step by hints. Falling Mind is more physical: when faced with a falling obstacle, the player tends to move before they think, and rely on the rhythm and sensation to avoid the danger. Parcel Flow, on the other hand, is more about judgement under pressure: in an ever-increasing number of tasks, players need to sort and process them quickly, and mistakes in judgement can lead to failure.
Putting them in the same mind map, they present intuition in terms of space, reaction, and choice, helping me to make clearer judgements in subsequent phases: which is best for further development, and which is more suitable for exploring as a stage.