Game Idea – Moustache Time Traveller

After my first four topics presentation I discussed it with my peer E-Jay and we came up with an interesting concept about moustaches where in which you played as a time travelling barber cutting the hair of citizens and important figures from throughout history.
The following are ideations by me and E-Jay.

Ideations

Premise

• You are a time traveler who is going across different eras and locations to cut hair.
  • Reason A: You are some sort of historian trying to learn about these civilisations by posing as a barber.
  • Reason B: You are a time cop that is sent to track down another time traveler. You pose as a barber as you went to barber school and every civilisation needs/needed barbers so it made perfect sense.
  • Reason C: You are a time traveler being pursued by time police, you pose as a barber to avoid suspicion but have to leave each era after a day to keep the cops off you.
• Alternate idea: you are a time traveler who time travels after completing the previous customer’s cut, that way you keep moving across eras and the player is never sure what era or location they’ll be cutting hair for. This allows for more general rules and tells to know how to cut the hair.
• Alternate idea: you are a barber for time travellers going to different eras! You must cut the hair quickly based on their costume and whatever information you are given. Much faster paced game.

Gameplay Ideas

Choice-Based

• You have to read context clues (either from the customers or maybe a history book for time travellers) to know how to cut the hair correctly for the customers in different eras.
• The way context clues work is when you go to a specific era, like in Papers Please, you are given basic information on the social customs i.e. Nobles love moustaches, merchants are clean shaven, poor people like a slight trim, etc. Context clues could be:
  • Gold accessories (indicates wealth)
  • Amount of money the customer has in their hand to pay you (indicates income)
  • General cleanliness (indicates education level) 
  • Etc.
    • May not just be class based – may be occupation based, for instance in feudal Japan could be Samurai, Emperor, Farmer, etc.

Important things to note:

• Do not want to be overly complex and bore the player

Mechanics-Based

• Context clues
• Have to follow specific button inputs (rhythm game-esque) to cut hair efficiently. How well you do per customer effects the outcome of the day and the game
• Another idea: you use different tools to cut hair at different lengths. Essentially it would be like an erase tool, that erases each layer of the character’s face before getting to their skin. You then have to control the cutter to cut the hair in correct shapes and such.
• Idea 2: The player is able to use specific tools that will do the exact same thing every time (For the sake of the small demo) So the player will be asked to use a certain combination of tools for each NPC.
  • The player will then only see if they are correct after the NPC leaves (Like ‘Papers, Please’

• Mechanics could be similar to a flash game of this sort, but instead of clicking hair styles, you read a manual that shows you what the result of using certain tools is

• Idea 3: Create a twine game to outline the narrative aspect of the game idea. With the story being the main focus (Gameplay being secondary, more of  a medium to portray the story). The choices that the player makes influences how the story unfolds, therefore a Twine game could be a perfect way to prototype this. > This could go hand-in-hand with a gameplay prototype like Idea 2
• Idea 4: Turn idea 2 into a paper prototype, that you could play alongside with the Twin game. This prototype could have a documents/ guide that would tell the player what each item does
• Additional Idea: Depending on whose hair you’re cutting, they may interact with you differently, making each encounter very unique. E.g: If you cut Genghis Khan’s hair wrong he might kill you, If you’re cutting Socrates’ hair he will debate you during the cut
• Addition Idea 2: Some NPCs will not specify what they want, and it is up to the player to give them something satisfactory

Game Plan:

• Time travel chief walks in and gives instructions on the objectives to complete:
  • Give good hair cuts
  • Don’t mess with the timeline too much
  • Read the rule book
• Rule Book:

Scissors	Smoothes, trimming wispy areas,
Razor	Large removal of hair
Comb	Neatening

Beard Oil	Makes beard look fuller
Wax	Allows for further styling of facial hair
Beard Fire	Strengthens hair

For the paper prototype:

• Player would use scissors IRL to cut a paper beard according to the instructions given by the NPC, but in the Twine game > They need to use specific items
• Some items used aren’t able to be used in the paper prototype (Like beard oil), therefore we will make a pre-made paper cut out of the final product of the NPC’s desired facial hair for the sake of visual representation.
  • E.g: With Stalin, he will come in with a full beard, then the player will use scissors to cut it down to his desired mustache
  • Then if he asks for beard oil, the player will select it in the Twine game and then we will replace the beard cutout that the player used scissors on, with another cutout with a fuller looking beard (To represent the beard oil being used)
  • NPCs will tell the player if they are doing something wrong > Reducing the amount of money the player is given
  • This money is required to complete the day (The demo)
  • The NPC will mention words that appear in the ‘Guide book’, informing players what items they need to use

Reflection

Brainstorming and creating ideas for this game showed the importance of team work once again. I had a very basic topic about moustaches and by simply presenting it to another peer we created an entire game project that we heavily ideated on. I had fun working on this game and developing these ideas with my peer. Whether or not it turns into a full game is based on whether or not we both want to work on it moving forward.