{"id":420,"date":"2026-03-09T13:11:09","date_gmt":"2026-03-09T13:11:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.wsagames.com\/mfm2g24\/?page_id=420"},"modified":"2026-05-14T11:49:09","modified_gmt":"2026-05-14T11:49:09","slug":"week-1-2","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/sites.wsagames.com\/mfm2g24\/week-1-2\/","title":{"rendered":"\/Week 1"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

On Monday we started semester 2 and were introduced to the new module \u201cGame Development\u201d, where we would be separated into 6 groups to develop 6 GDDs from Semester 1. Each of us had to vote 6 GDDs by Tuesday 4pm and then pick which roles we would be most comfortable taking up once assorted into a group. I put character artist and Narrative designer at the top.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On Thursday the teams were to be revealed, before so we were given a simple explanation for how the groups were structured with the roles.  Once revealed I found out that I\u2019d be working on backchat that my game was picked which I thought was great.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Once we got together into our team, we began overlooking the GDD to discuss the game direction. We thought about the story, mechanics and the game flow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Backchat plotline involves a 11-year-old child moving to a new school for his 2nd<\/sup> year. Friend groups and classroom dynamics are already established, making it hard for a new student with ASD (Autism Spectrum Disorder) and SAD (Social Anxiety Disorder) to integrate. Someone he used to be friends with in elementary goes there, but that was an extroverted social kid who would already have formed a new friend group, and everyone else would-be strangers. Will their friendship be like it used to be? Will he be able to make any friends at all?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The gameplay involves forming sentence puzzles within a limited timeframe to have successful interactions with the NPCs. Your answers will affect the friendship level with them, which would lead to different endings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So with this in mind we began thinking about things such as the characters\u2019 varying interests and personalities after checking the basic character profiles for the 3 NPCs the player would try to befriend. People tend to bond through shared interests, matching personalities, and they might also clash, so we also thought about how these could be used to cause both conflict and bonding. We also thought that these details should show through the character designs to potentially help the player befriend the NPCs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Because classroom dynamics are already established, we also started thinking about whether some of the characters would have any animosity between each other, which may cause conflict when trying to talk to either party. For instance, if one character tells you they don\u2019t like this one person and they see you talk to them, their friendship points might deplete. This would create depth in the worldbuilding, but it would also amplify the number of possible storylines the game could follow, which we won\u2019t have time to explore.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, we narrowed down the possible endings we could get for a vertical slice, such as one where you successfully make a friend, one where you successfully befriend everyone, and one where no friends are made for our vertical slice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We also talked about the mechanics and how the player may gain or lose friendship points. We talked about how different characters may have different dialogue preferences meaning the player would adapt accordingly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Takeaways for next week<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

We decided to do some research for the sake of the narrative and the mechanics, and Cindy was going to create Character outlines that I could then begin sketching character designs from.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On Monday we started semester 2 and were introduced to the new module \u201cGame Development\u201d, where we would be separated into 6 groups to develop 6 GDDs from Semester 1. Each of us had to vote 6 GDDs by Tuesday 4pm and then pick which roles we would be most comfortable taking up once assorted […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":47,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-420","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.wsagames.com\/mfm2g24\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/420","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.wsagames.com\/mfm2g24\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.wsagames.com\/mfm2g24\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.wsagames.com\/mfm2g24\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/47"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.wsagames.com\/mfm2g24\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=420"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/sites.wsagames.com\/mfm2g24\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/420\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":699,"href":"https:\/\/sites.wsagames.com\/mfm2g24\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/420\/revisions\/699"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.wsagames.com\/mfm2g24\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=420"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}