Week 6

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Weekly planning:

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Game brainstorm:

Ideas from classmates:

• Placing the player in different positions to change how they see decisions.
• A game where one player is shadow and one is light and they can only do certain things but in the end they become one.
• Gameworld alternates between black and white, in white you can see more clearly but in black you can see things you wouldn’t usually see. The white world is safe but the black world has enemies lurking.
• You live in a dark world and don’t know what anything looks like, relying on taste, smell, touch and sound. One day you pick up a camera, and can finally catch a glimpse of the world through the flash mechanic. But batteries are limited, and you must find more if you want to continue to see.
• Game that only offers black and white choices, but slowly turn to grey the further into the game you go.
• A game about being trapped in the light.
• A game about a human who becomes a shadow and has to navigate daily life and adapt to not being seen anymore.

My Thoughts:

Placing the player in different positions to change how they see decisions:

• Could use objects and move them around to solve problems by creating shadows of different shapes.
• Could move the player to see things from a different perspective:
  • Could be physical and metaphorical, connected to black and white thinking.
  • Could also connect to propaganda and how we choose to view the world.

Interesting idea but would require some experimentation with shadow puppets and research into shadows as metaphors.

A game where one player is shadow and one is light and they can only do certain things but in the end they become one.

• Would be very similar to fire boy and water girl, but has good puzzle mechanics.
• Would have to try to make it different to games that have come before:
  • Could look into how shadows interact with light and what relationship it creates – how can we show this in a puzzle game format?

I feel like this idea might be a bit too simple for what I want to explore with the topic, and may end up being too similar to lots of games that have come before.

Gameworld alternates between black and white, in white you can see more clearly but in black you can see things you wouldn’t usually see. The white world is safe but the black world has enemies lurking.

• What would determine the change between light and dark? day and night cycles? flashlight?
  • Maybe when aiming your torch around enemies can’t reach you, but you can only aim it in one direction at a time, leaving your back vulnerable. Would create a feeling of paranoia.
• What might you see in the darkness that you can’t see in the light?
  • Fireflies, glow in the dark things, blue plankton.
  • How would these things progress the game? Are you looking for them or do they just add to the games aesthetics?

I think this idea has a good premise and I’d be interested in exploring it further. I would have to decide if it was supposed to be a scary game, or a more therapeutic puzzle and exploration game.

You live in a dark world and don’t know what anything looks like, relying on taste, smell, touch and sound. One day you pick up a camera, and can finally catch a glimpse of the world through the flash mechanic. But batteries are limited, and you must find more if you want to continue to see.

• This was my favourite of the peer feedback ideas because it was very similar to my newspaper collage.
• What do you see? what is the aim? is the aim to just explore the world and see its beauty? is the darkness due to the world, or your view of it? could you eventually begin to see the world without the camera when you change your perspective of it?
  • Could be a story about escaping a black and white mindset, or healing from grief.
  • Maybe searching for the batteries is you searching for something outside of your own mindset, being open to change.
  • Maybe there could be a guide that helps you explore the world through a different lens.
  • Maybe you learn that the world doesn’t need to change for you, but you need to change how you see it.

This is definitely my favourite idea so far and the one I’m most excited to explore. I want to study games with similar mechanics, and play around with a camera in the darkness to see what I can record with its flash.

Game that only offers black and white choices, but slowly turn to grey the further into the game you go.

• Could be more of a text based game, offering the player insight into the characters mind.
• Maybe the player can choose what the players mindset is, through an example of a day in the characters life.
  • Could show how black and white thinking effects our lives and the lives of those around us, from an outsider perspective.
  • Could show how some people easily fall into black and white thinking. The game could take away the players choice of how the character behaves, even if they pick what’s best for the character.
  • Could play from the perspective of an ‘overseer’ not the POV of the character or anyone in their life, but someone looking down on them and trying to decide what is best for them. Maybe this character (the player) is also struggling to see outside of a black and white perspective of what a right or wrong choice for the main character is.
• Maybe eventually the characters learn to escape their black and white prison, or maybe they remain stuck there. Could have multiple endings.

I like this idea but there are so many ways it could be explored in a game, so I’d need to work on the gameplay and format.

A game about being trapped in the light.

• Reminds me of the feeling of everyone focussing their attention on you when you don’t want them to. being under the spotlight and trying to escape.
• Maybe people are overly critical of your behaviour and you try to escape them:
  • Like a celebrity trying to escape the paparazzi.
  • Maybe you do some crazy parkour in the game to evade the paparazzi’s flashing cameras. maybe if they catch your escape on camera you lose points or fall to your demise.
• Maybe you live in the desert and are trying to find shelter from the sun.
  • Reminds me a bit of the game ‘No, I’m not a human’ where no one can go outside in the daytime due to the sun burning people.

Another really good idea that I think is worth exploring further. Could look into different ways people or animals can be trapped in light, and brainstorm potential game mechanics from that.

A game about a human who becomes a shadow and has to navigate daily life and adapt to not being seen anymore.

• Could they be a ghost, maybe they died and forgot about it.
• Or maybe they let themself slip so far out of their own reality that they’ve become a ghost of themself. Could be due to depression or social anxiety. Could be due to nobody taking them seriously or listening to them.
  • Reminds me of the game Rain, and the film Spirited Away, when Chihiro starts to disappear.
• How would an invisible person continue with their life? what things could they do now that they couldn’t before?
  • They could explore places that are usually off-limits, like important museums, government buildings, celebrities housing.
  • They could potentially help to catch criminals by witnessing crimes when no one can see them.
• Would they be able to be seen ever again? Would they want to be? Would they be able to speak and move objects, or would their hand pass straight through it?

Another really cool idea, makes me want to look at games with similar mechanics, but also watch The Sixth Sense again, as this concept really reminds me of that film.

I think the ideas from this list I will continue to explore are:

• In white you can see more clearly but in black you can see things you wouldn’t usually see.
• One day you pick up a camera, and can finally catch a glimpse of the world.
• A game about a human who becomes a shadow.
• A game about being trapped in the light.

My unique ideas:

• A game where you control the torch with one hand and the shadow with the other. You need to always shine the torch on the shadow to keep it alive while completing parkour challenges. Idea inspired by Brothers: A Tale Of Two Sons and Fire Boy and Water Girl.
• A game where you work as a news reporter, and have to propagandise media based of the authoritarian rules of your society. You must change certain words and frame stories untruthfully, if you fail to do so you will be punished. Idea inspired by Papers, please.
• A game where you work as a young apprentice in a pointless job – you must categorise items, deciding which wacky category would best suit an item. Your boss will always get mad at you for putting items in the wrong categories no matter which ones you put them in, changing the rules for categorising as the game progresses, increasing the difficulty over time. Idea inspired by The Password Game.

Ideas in more detail:

A game where you control the torch with one hand and the shadow with the other. You need to always shine the torch on the shadow to keep it alive while completing parkour challenges. Idea inspired by Brothers: A Tale Of Two Sons and Fire Boy and Water Girl.

• I think this game would be easy to make and would fit with the scope of the project.
• It would be a simple parkour/puzzle platformer and could work in 2D or 3D.
• The game world could be inspired by everyday objects, perhaps you play as a child interested in shadow puppets and imagining them coming to life.
• What would the goal be?
  • If the game is based from a child’s perspective, then what goals would the child have for the shadow?
    • Maybe to escape the shadow lands (dangerous) and to be free with the other shadow people in the light (Safe). In shadow they disappear but in light they are their strongest self.
    • Maybe the child is making a project for school, and the game ends with the completion of the project.
• The game as it stands doesn’t have much deeper meaning, compared to some of the other ideas, it’s based on the standard physics of shadow and light. Is there a way to apply deeper themes to this game?
  • Maybe the game isn’t played from the perspective of a child, but an adult who is dissociating from reality. Maybe they think they have become the shadow, facing a new and scary world where the light is the only thing keeping them alive. It could resemble someone who has gone through trauma or grief, their world completely changing, and they have to find the source of the light that they are holding on to. Maybe this can help us to explore themes of black and white thinking:
    • At the start of the game, the environment could be very stark – the torch light is the only light, everything else is completely dark, resembling black and white thought patterns. The protagonist could make very negative remarks on the world. As the game progresses and the protagonist begins to realise that not everything is hopeless, The environment could neutralise, and become brighter. By the end, maybe colour is introduced.

A game where you work as a news reporter, and have to propagandise media based of the authoritarian rules of your society. You must change certain words and frame stories untruthfully, if you fail to do so you will be punished. Idea inspired by Papers, please.

• This game might be slightly harder to make, due to the multiple choice narrative format. Having multiple endings would give us extra work, and we’d have to make sure it was rewarding.
• The game could work in 2D or 3D, But I’d personally prefer a 2D style for this format, considering the game would mostly be focussed on looking at and altering documents. Implementing 3D assets would likely be more work than required to make the game effective.
• The game would be inspired by media propaganda that we see in the real world, treating some people as hostile and others as peaceful, when in reality the story is very different. The game interface would resemble news articles seen online and in tv.
• What would the goal be?
  • It depends on the player:
    • They could choose to obey the system and progress in the ranks of media propagandisers.
    • They could disobey and speak the truth, potentially getting caught and risking punishment.
    • Or maybe a third less obvious option… Secret ending??
• The game would explore the way media can often portray situations as black and white, controlling the narrative that they want the population to see. This would challenge that and also help people realise just how they can be manipulated by what they read. Hopefully it could show that conflicts aren’t always black and white, and how we need to be mindful of where we get our facts from.

A game where you work as a young apprentice in a pointless job – you must categorise items, deciding which wacky category would best suit an item. Your boss will always get mad at you for putting items in the wrong categories no matter which ones you put them in, changing the rules for categorising as the game progresses, increasing the difficulty over time. Idea inspired by The Password Game.

• Would probably be easy to execute.
• Could work in both 2D or 3D, but probably best in 3D.
• Inspired by black and white thinking, but also the autistic feeling of always getting things wrong. You might think you’ve categorised an object correctly, just to learn that your perspective was completely incorrect.
• What would the goal be?
  • The goal might change throughout the game, You might start out trying to do everything right, always trying to make your boss happy and following each ridiculous new rule that’s put in place. You might eventually get fed up with following the rules that never bring you success, and begin rebelling by making your own rules and deciding things for yourself.
  • Maybe your goal could be to cause so much trouble that the company goes into liquidation and you become the boss of your own categorising company where there are NO RULES!!! And then you learn the value of moderation, and the importance of living in the grey, rather than one extreme or the other.
• The game would explore how many autistic people often use black and white thinking as a coping mechanism for understanding and categorising the world. Following the rules should equal success, and when it doesn’t, things go wrong. Maybe the game world could respond, reflecting the intense feelings that an autistic person might feel in a similar situation. A melting, hollowing, burning sensation, that causes the world to melt into darkness.
• The game could also explore coping strategies to battle the onslaught of negative thoughts. Perhaps the character could fight them off, like in a typing game, battling negative words with positive ones.
• I was worried that this game might be a bit dull, so gameplay would have to be wacky and engaging to keep up the entertainment factor.

Total game ideas:

• In white you can see more clearly but in black you can see things you wouldn’t usually see.
• One day you pick up a camera, and can finally catch a glimpse of the world.
• A game about a human who becomes a shadow.
• A game about being trapped in the light.
• Control the torch with one hand and the shadow with the other.
• Propagandise media based of the authoritarian rules of your society.
• A game where you must categorise items.

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Prototype planning:

Initially I was going to make some prototypes to help me come up with game ideas, but I had no idea where to start. I started doing some paintings but felt like it wasn’t really helping, so I decided to focus on my game ideas first. Now I actually have a better idea of what I want to experiment with, I’m going to focus on this in reading week.

List of things to potentially prototype and research:

• Shadow puppets
• Shadows as metaphors
• Play around with a camera in the darkness to see what I can record with its flash
• Glow in the dark things
• Different ways people or animals can be trapped in light
• Unity experimentation

Games + films to look into:

• Fire boy and Water girl, and similar games
• No, I’m not a human, or other games about light causing harm / being trapped in light
• Rain and other games about being invisible
• Spirited Away
• The Sixth Sense
• Brothers: A tale of two sons
• Papers, Please.
• The Password Game
• Games like Little Nightmares or It Takes Two
• Limbo
• Epistory – Typing Chronicles
• Kentucky route 0 – crisp visuals and contrast

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Week 7

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Week 5

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