At this point I have been working on creating my documents. Firstly I wanted to ensure I had the basic layouts for my documents in place. The three documents being: Game Mechanics Document, Interactive Document & the Level Design Document.
I have the Game Mechanics Document together in a basic form, but it needs to be filled it properly, I also have the Interactive Document started, but I wasn't entirely sure on the correct layout for it. This is something I must go over with my tutor. I have had several conversations with my tutor about laying out my level design document and feel comfortable making it, although I need to make a proper start.
Truthfully I should have more together by now, but I at least have a good knowledge on where exactly I want to go with these documents. Therefore I just need to put more time into these documents and getting a good draft together quickly before I drop further behind.
Wednesday, 29 February 2012
Wednesday, 15 February 2012
XB3002 - Chosen my Idea
I honestly wasn't sure which idea to choose from these designs. I got really good feedback from my tutor about my three ideas and how they were all very good. However we did cut my choice down to "Homeward Horror" or "Case 023".
Originally I didn't explain the idea of "Case 032" properly, but after some discussion and after my tutor checked the concept documents, the idea came across much better. Therefore after more discussions I realised I wasn't sure which idea I wanted to do at all, I liked all my idea's and didn't choose from the beginning with one good idea and making two poor ideas.
This made it difficult to choose which one I wanted to do, I could think of some great idea's for both games, and I know I could make them both very interesting and stand out. However I could only choose one.
I wish I could do both, but after some more discussions with my tutor and seeing what other people really like the sound of, I think "Homeward Horror" sounds the scariest idea to everyone. The setting and mechanics I planned behind the game have been taken with good interest and apparent sound pretty scary just in concept, so if I bring these to full design it looks promising.
So with choosing the Homeward Horror idea, I've began setting up my three documents.
Originally I didn't explain the idea of "Case 032" properly, but after some discussion and after my tutor checked the concept documents, the idea came across much better. Therefore after more discussions I realised I wasn't sure which idea I wanted to do at all, I liked all my idea's and didn't choose from the beginning with one good idea and making two poor ideas.
This made it difficult to choose which one I wanted to do, I could think of some great idea's for both games, and I know I could make them both very interesting and stand out. However I could only choose one.
I wish I could do both, but after some more discussions with my tutor and seeing what other people really like the sound of, I think "Homeward Horror" sounds the scariest idea to everyone. The setting and mechanics I planned behind the game have been taken with good interest and apparent sound pretty scary just in concept, so if I bring these to full design it looks promising.
So with choosing the Homeward Horror idea, I've began setting up my three documents.
- Game Mechanics Document
- Level Design Document
- Interactive Design Document
Friday, 3 February 2012
Design
Idea 1
When I moved onto coming up with some idea's it was important to take my research into account. So while trying to pick an interesting scenario I did keep in mind what type of interesting unique mechanics I could bring into these.
Initially I tried to come up with a home invasion style scenario, using being trapped in doors at home and something chasing you. I felt knocking out the power to house and having an entity moving through the electrics and using the TV's and radios to enter and exit rooms could be a scary thought.
I did slowly move myself of using anything supernatural though, as most horrors have some sort of supernatural element too them, and while they are slowly becoming more realistic, I couldn't think of a game that directly used a realistic scenario of a home intrusion, or anything similar to scare the player.
Films such as "The Strangers" showed that super natural elements don't need to be there for it to be scary. I needed to be able to create the same suspense and fear within a realistic situation and that made me push to use realistic fears instead.
This also got me looking into mechanics that would help make this scary, things that people would feel are real and would happen within this type of scenario.
I began looking at movement such as how someone moves in the dark, how we reach out in front of ourselves when we can't see so we don't hit a wall, and how it's easier to trip over things when you can't see. I believed this would be a good mechanic to help bring the player into the game like they were really there.
I also wanted to be able to bring multiplayer into my designs, but without losing the fear, isolation/ vulnerability that you get when playing on your own. To get round this I considered sticking the second player in another place, where only contact via distance was possible. Therefore using a scenario from a neighbours point of view I believed would be a good idea.
Idea 2
While that idea began to form I also chose to look at doing a more action orientated horror like Left4Dead, but obviously standing out differently. Previously in my research I had looked at how the trust was difficult to bring into games, I had also seen the film "The Thing" recently and had taken to thinking of ideas to how that could be changed to work in a game.
To get round this I came up with idea of making "Insanity" within the game. But realistically, no one knows they are going insane. So I came up with a mechanic that could make the players see different to other players, and maybe cause chaos between players.
This needed to be weighed up against needing to be together, so besides just having more firepower, they would also have more team work skills by working together so they could take shorter and safer routes to the end of the level as they try to survive in a similar style to left for dead.
Meanwhile players turning insane could also at a certain point turn against players by mutating into one of the monsters that they were all trying to escape from.
Idea 3
Here I tried making an alternative to either of the previous ideas by involving 2 player co-operative, but needing to reply on each other as the players had different skills that they would need to progress.
I also thought that basing this on police could help bring the idea of using reality TV into the idea, and how I could turn the third person camera into an actual camera man who was filming the police do there job during a case with murder.
This camera would act like a 3rd person camera, but be rooted to the floor like a reality camera man, you could hear him breathing and panicking while you fight, and also it could generate that fear of whats round the corner much like the old Resident Evil games did from set cameras in rooms, but this time be more realistic from a different point of view.
When I moved onto coming up with some idea's it was important to take my research into account. So while trying to pick an interesting scenario I did keep in mind what type of interesting unique mechanics I could bring into these.
Initially I tried to come up with a home invasion style scenario, using being trapped in doors at home and something chasing you. I felt knocking out the power to house and having an entity moving through the electrics and using the TV's and radios to enter and exit rooms could be a scary thought.
I did slowly move myself of using anything supernatural though, as most horrors have some sort of supernatural element too them, and while they are slowly becoming more realistic, I couldn't think of a game that directly used a realistic scenario of a home intrusion, or anything similar to scare the player.
Films such as "The Strangers" showed that super natural elements don't need to be there for it to be scary. I needed to be able to create the same suspense and fear within a realistic situation and that made me push to use realistic fears instead.
This also got me looking into mechanics that would help make this scary, things that people would feel are real and would happen within this type of scenario.
I began looking at movement such as how someone moves in the dark, how we reach out in front of ourselves when we can't see so we don't hit a wall, and how it's easier to trip over things when you can't see. I believed this would be a good mechanic to help bring the player into the game like they were really there.
I also wanted to be able to bring multiplayer into my designs, but without losing the fear, isolation/ vulnerability that you get when playing on your own. To get round this I considered sticking the second player in another place, where only contact via distance was possible. Therefore using a scenario from a neighbours point of view I believed would be a good idea.
Idea 2
While that idea began to form I also chose to look at doing a more action orientated horror like Left4Dead, but obviously standing out differently. Previously in my research I had looked at how the trust was difficult to bring into games, I had also seen the film "The Thing" recently and had taken to thinking of ideas to how that could be changed to work in a game.
To get round this I came up with idea of making "Insanity" within the game. But realistically, no one knows they are going insane. So I came up with a mechanic that could make the players see different to other players, and maybe cause chaos between players.
This needed to be weighed up against needing to be together, so besides just having more firepower, they would also have more team work skills by working together so they could take shorter and safer routes to the end of the level as they try to survive in a similar style to left for dead.
Meanwhile players turning insane could also at a certain point turn against players by mutating into one of the monsters that they were all trying to escape from.
Idea 3
Here I tried making an alternative to either of the previous ideas by involving 2 player co-operative, but needing to reply on each other as the players had different skills that they would need to progress.
I also thought that basing this on police could help bring the idea of using reality TV into the idea, and how I could turn the third person camera into an actual camera man who was filming the police do there job during a case with murder.
This camera would act like a 3rd person camera, but be rooted to the floor like a reality camera man, you could hear him breathing and panicking while you fight, and also it could generate that fear of whats round the corner much like the old Resident Evil games did from set cameras in rooms, but this time be more realistic from a different point of view.
Research
Over January I have been working on getting ideas together for a new game design based on my previous research over semester 1.
While the majority of my research was completed in semester 1, its still important for me to have a look at current and recent themes in the world today.
One thing I went over again was the mechanics of recent horror games and what made them stand out exactly. Left4Dead centering its mechanics all around multiplayer, mechanics such as being able to pick up an injured team mate, or the design of the special creatures that would force team mates to come to each others rescue.
Amnesia while not being an action orientated horror, played more on trying to make it feel real, with lots of camera effects and interaction with the world, which helped bring the player more into the immersion of the world.
By looking at these types of games it also allowed me to understand how I could base my mechanics on the style of horror I am going for, as well as making me think of a new type of mechanic I could bring into my game to ensure it stands out.
However while looking at games, I was also aware that I needed to look into the way horror films have been progressing in other industries such as film. I took note of several things that I thought were interesting as I looked as a whole variety of films.
1. How trust is something that is difficult to portray in games, The game "The Thing" based off the movie tried creating a similar style mechanic with a trust meter which could be earned by giving weapons and health to each other to show you were a good guy, while making rash decisions will turn them against you. This was only a single player though and was fairly simple.
2. There are a lot of films coming out using hand held camera film footage. While this has been used a lot in general for reality TV, it was also making it into horror style films and had been used for several films such as: "The Blair Witch Project" some years ago, "Cloverfield", Rec/Quarantine and "Diary of the Dead" though this has never been used within games, and got me wondering how this could be possible.
3. Home invasion was another scenario I had seen a lot of, some films were based completely around it, while others used it for some terrifying scenes. A persons home is usually a place of safety and it was a scary aspect to have someone invading your home.
These three main things stuck in my head more than anything else and I tried to center some idea's around these if possible.
While the majority of my research was completed in semester 1, its still important for me to have a look at current and recent themes in the world today.
One thing I went over again was the mechanics of recent horror games and what made them stand out exactly. Left4Dead centering its mechanics all around multiplayer, mechanics such as being able to pick up an injured team mate, or the design of the special creatures that would force team mates to come to each others rescue.
Amnesia while not being an action orientated horror, played more on trying to make it feel real, with lots of camera effects and interaction with the world, which helped bring the player more into the immersion of the world.
By looking at these types of games it also allowed me to understand how I could base my mechanics on the style of horror I am going for, as well as making me think of a new type of mechanic I could bring into my game to ensure it stands out.
However while looking at games, I was also aware that I needed to look into the way horror films have been progressing in other industries such as film. I took note of several things that I thought were interesting as I looked as a whole variety of films.
1. How trust is something that is difficult to portray in games, The game "The Thing" based off the movie tried creating a similar style mechanic with a trust meter which could be earned by giving weapons and health to each other to show you were a good guy, while making rash decisions will turn them against you. This was only a single player though and was fairly simple.
2. There are a lot of films coming out using hand held camera film footage. While this has been used a lot in general for reality TV, it was also making it into horror style films and had been used for several films such as: "The Blair Witch Project" some years ago, "Cloverfield", Rec/Quarantine and "Diary of the Dead" though this has never been used within games, and got me wondering how this could be possible.
3. Home invasion was another scenario I had seen a lot of, some films were based completely around it, while others used it for some terrifying scenes. A persons home is usually a place of safety and it was a scary aspect to have someone invading your home.
These three main things stuck in my head more than anything else and I tried to center some idea's around these if possible.
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