Our first week started with an introductory lecture with Vanessa. Showing how the year is going to pan out and modules we will be covering and the first 6 week game development project, (this.) She also showed us that we are starting the project, with 6 initial ideas and choosing 3 to show a more sophisticated idea on three of them.

We then all wrote a noun, verb and adjective and I randomly selected three to potentially bounce off them and generate an initial 6 ideas for the game. My words were Rivals (noun), Lashing Out (verb) and Inconveniences even though I think that’s a verb too. And I then begun branching Ideas off into paper.

Ideas

Below are very rough thoughts of what could be 6 games along the lines of these words / topics.

1. Lowish quality game where two different teams, not necessarily same size. One team enters a lethal company style map, and has to bring out treasure, while the other team deploys the traps or the monsters to annoy the other team and slow them down and they can trash talk them from the ceiling.
   
2. Game where two people play with two different mice, on the same screen which is either completing puzzles together or against each other. Either couch co-op or from far.
   
3. Game where the narrative in your game berates you or trash talks you as you play, and traverse through the levels. Not great though has been done  before.
   
4. Game where two people play a puzzle where there are levels of communication between teammates blocked and it turns them against each other, and the puzzles simulate anger in a sense, group project we did.
   
5. Just another foddian game or something.
   
6. A game where you have to do a super simple role, but really minor inconveniences get in your way, like the game ends when you complete it. E.g. you really want an apple but your kids won’t stop getting in your way, life is the rival or something.
   

I then had to bring these ideas down to three to present for Friday. I decided to remove 3 and 5 as they weren’t really game concepts and they had both been quite popularised as things and didn’t really have anything innovative going for them.

I then also decided to not look further into the idea of 4 as it was a group discussion of a game idea which I didn’t contribute to much too and I know others really wanted the idea.

The first Idea I researched into was Idea 1: and the idea that friend slop games create annoyance and within that adding a ranked system that people tend to ‘lash out’ when loosing or on a loss streak, below is my research.

Looking into the “friendslop” genre:

• The idea of the genre friendslop is essentially a small party game that can be played amongst friends
• The term “friendslop” a recent term that has been around a lot less long than the genre itself and originates from a tweet by ‘wooosaaaahhhhh’ and is comprised of the words ‘friend’ and pejorative suffix ‘slop’
• It has had a very popular uprise in the recent year / years
• It is usually developed by indie developers as they are cheap and usually low quality, so much so that it is considered a sub-genre of cooperative indie games.

The genre after lockdown didn’t really then resurface until late October of 2023 when lethal company was released another game of the genre. Brining a small wave of other games such as content, warning after it. However the genre truly blew up at peak, released in 2025, a game where you climb up a mountain that a bunch of games within the genre starting to release and the genre became very popular named and a bit of a ‘breeding ground’ for low quality games.

Why friendslop games are so popular:

• They lean into Bushnell’s Law, which is an aphorism (memorable expression for a principal.) Which essentially is the concept “easy to learn, but almost impossible to master”. 
• Bushnell’s Law by Bushnell (obviously) who is the founder of atari, is also the main motto for development of most Blizzard games.
• The idea of a low entry difficulty to games allows lots of people to play the game easily, and lets them focus on the social side of the game.
• “Harper Jay MacIntyre of Inverse described friendslop as a response to the loneliness epidemic, giving players an essential space for socialization and communication despite their isolation.” – Wikipedia / Inverse Which means people use it who are lonely as a social aspect in life.
• She also states that they give more unique gameplay and funny moments than AAA games which is why people play them more than mainstream games like similar FPS games.
• Only issue is friend-slop can tend to get what seems to be forced hate at the creation behind the game is low quality or can have simple concepts, like househouse’s ‘big walk’ where you walk.
  

They also gain large amounts of popularity online for those funny moments as clips of them go viral.
Also good because low poly and easy to make so might fit into small time constraints we have.
The selling point issue with a lot of these games is that they have a decline, as the gameplay tends to be very repetitive as it is simple and is fun the first and second time but maybe not the third so they don’t tend to have a returning audience.
Adding a ranked aspect to these sort of games will make people want to master the game and play it more.
And ranked = lashing out.

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As you can tell I by the long text spent a lot of time on my first idea as I was so sure I wasn’t going to use my second and third idea I showed little to no research and time in because I was so certain I wasn’t going to follow along with the ideas.

The third idea I did not research at all and the second idea I started researching the concept of mouse/cursor usage in games through the game Cursorblade.

I thought the cursor would react different from other games it wouldn’t, and the idea of a mouse only game would still mean it interacts with things but just not involving a unique mechanic like in cursor blade.

However after doing physical research and plugging two mice into my computer I realised It worked differently to anticipated. It is possible however it would not operate in couch co-op with two different cursors how I thought it would. And both mice would have to control the same cursor. Some games have two different cursors on the screen but over different devices. So that is possible.

Changing the idea.

Having two mice control the same cursor but the time they have to do stuff and alternates, one player controls with the left click on their mouse and the other with right click. They have to do different on screen tasks or puzzles, and compete against each other. 

I think the idea of two people competing next to each-other really creates this physical sense of rivalry, that couch co-op games create like in a lot of the Nintendo games such as Mario Kart.

There would also be a large inconvenience to the fact you would have to pick off the position of the cursor from the other player’s finishing point.

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Here is the initial power point and the one I decided to cut down to present in class(its mostly whats above) :

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Feedback

From the presentation I gave feedback on other peoples ideas as well as get feedback on my own .

And the feedback I received: