Ideation
We did various ideation exercises to come up with lots of game ideas in quick succession.
Here we created mind maps based on emotions and came up with verbs, adjectives and nouns derived from these mind maps. We then chose one word of each type and tried combining them into game concepts.
We also did an exercise of rotating groups and working with randomly generated prompts & limitations to generate more ideas. Through these exercises, I came up with a few ideas to present this Friday that I thought had some good potential.
WEEK 1 PRESENTATION – 3 IDEAS
Presentation Feedback
These are all evocative concepts that don’t have a ton of clarity yet on what the games actually play like. Which is okay, but that’s the next step you need to be thinking about (as you said): what does the moment-to-moment gameplay actually look like, at student scale? Becasue you are evidently inspired by deep narratives and aesthetic exprience, my first thought is that you might want to consider what these games could look like as 20-30 minute visual novel type experiences. This doesn’t mean you can’t do anything with world state, or player state… but perhaps those elements are secondary to the narratives you want to tell, and the worlds you want to convey. The other thing I woudl think about is the aesthetic/style: how can you convey rich and evocative worlds, but in a way that is realistically achievable at student scale? I would look to gems like Limbo/Inside, Journey, Gris, etc… relatively minimal, but beautiful and evocative.
I feel that all three ideas share certain common traits—for instance, they are all highly narrative-driven, which is something I really like. I’m curious about the execution, though; is the core gameplay based on making choices?
I like the second Isea, which the story can go quite deep. The elements are interesting too, like ocean creatures but you can give them a different designed shape.
I really like the first game concept; it feels like it could be developed into a very soothing, story-driven experience. The designs for the souls could be incredibly varied and whimsical, making for a game full of vibrant colors.
I think you should look at soul the Disney movie for the first idea as it has a lot of overarching themes
Loved idea 3 straight away. Sounds very philosophical. Push it further gameplay wise? Sounds like it would be relatively slow paced, maybe think about how to keep players playing? The story would be the main driver I think but maybe the there’s little posters/NPC interactions that aren’t necessary to the story but just interesting to see for story-building. Like you said, Detroit: Become Human has similar theme, robots question themselves/deviating and quite a deep-thinker game.
I love the third idea and the second idea the best, accepting forgiveness, or even more interestingly, accepting that sometimes you wont be forgiven is such a cool concept for a game. The third idea is just pure body horror/acceptance peak, i love the idea of trying to create your ‘best’ self but furthering yourself from your true identity
How would you talk to the fish? I think it would be quite funny if it was “blub blub blub”. Maybe you could condense the 2nd idea into a open world game and create a prototype of it with only a few oceans to clean or lengthen the time in which it takes to clean the ocean and make it storybased. Obviously subnautica links to the oceans, frieren could be to do with the travelling and magic stuff?
A lot of the feedback expressed an interest in the concepts, but wanted clarity on the execution/gameplay. I did realise that these ideas needed to be condensed for the 12-week scope, and to do that I will need to nail down a core gameplay mechanic that communicates/explores my desired theme. I will need to keep this in mind not just next week but throughout the entire development of my pitch.
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