Game mechanic idea

Game mechanic idea

This weeks task involved us to think up a new type of game mechanic. This game mechanic is to be used with a game that will be published on the Playstation network, therefore it needs to be cheap (or free), fun to play and very addictive. If all of these elements are achieved and good advertising is put in place the game should become a success.

Many games that brought new game mechanics to the market have become an instant success. Examples include the massively popular angry birds franchise and Pop caps Plants vs Zombies. Angry birds was released in 2009 on the IOS platform, this was only about a year and a half after the app store was initially launched so game developers were only just begging to explore this new platform. Aside from the concept (which was brilliant) another element that made angry birds such a huge success was the physics engine and the way the player interacted with the in game characters and world. Speed and velocity of your projected bird determined where it was going to land. The structure that it then hit would move/fall over depending on the force and direction that bird hit it from. It was the first game to properly integrate these type of physics on the IOS platform.

My game mechanic idea mainly comes from 2 existing games which I have combined and adapted. The first game mechanic idea comes from an old 2D flash game called avalanche by TheGameHomepage.com. This game involved a simple game mechanic where blocks would randomly fall from the sky and stack up upon each other. The players objective was to make the little white marshmallow cube jump up onto these blocks to avoid the rising water/lava level from touching you. If you get squashed by the falling blocks or come into contact with the lava you will die and have to start from the begging  The higher you climbed the better score you achieved.

My game mechanic will be built in 3D and use the basic mechanic in avalanche. The falling squares will be replaced with different shapes which will be generated randomly with the next mechanic...

Instead of just having falling cubes the next mechanic will allow the player to physically create the shape they want to drop next. They will do this by collecting different shape icons that will appear within the game. The shape you collect will match up to 10 different corresponding pieces which will then fall depending on which one you choose. This system was adapted from the shape swapping element in Tetris but instead of shapes being randomly generated you have a choice of 3 shapes at any 1 given time and will pick the one that will help you most in the given situation. Once the blocks start falling your character will be able to climb up the set blocks. The character will be fairly agile, moving and jumping like a much similar version of Etzio from assassins creed.

The image to the right is a basic 3D blockout I created showing how I want my level to look and work. As you can see blocks will fall from the sky and compile upon the floor creating a structure. The lava level is indicated with red waves and will slowly make its way up, higher and higher at a growing speed depending on how high you have climbed. The green transparent shapes dotted about can be collected and will determine the next shape that will fall from the sky. The higher you climb the better your score.

If I was to properly develop this game mechanic I would add and develop the existing and new game elements to make it more interesting and enjoyable to play. I think the fundamentals are set out to make it a great game and I think players will easily become addicted to playing it and because the blocks fall randomly each time you play you climb a different set of shapes. 

    

                    

Leaflet Dodger Task

This weeks task was to choose one or two areas of my university experience that I could convert into an effective game mechanic. Me and a few other people in our class teamed up and started spit balling ideas. We wanted to find a certain event that we have all experienced as freshers starting university. There were many things we came up with, a few of which included a game involving washing up, running to late lectures and stumbling back from a nightclub while intoxicated.

Within a few minutes we dismissed these ideas when Kyle Mckeown came up with a killer concept that we all instantly could relate to. He came up with the idea of dodging promoters trying to hand out leaflets on the way to university. We all agreed that this was a memorable event during the two weeks of freshers. After this strong idea we started building the foundations of an effective game mechanic.

To begin we had a brainstorming session to bring our ideas together. We knew the main objective of the game was to get to the university but together we didn't have a clear mindset on how or what the game would look and feel like. Between us we spent a good 15 minutes debating and researching how we wanted the game to work. We all agreed that the game should work and feel very much like Backbreaker by a company called NaturalMotion. This is an American football game which the player has to run and dodge opposing NPC's who are literally throwing themselves at you in order to stop you getting to your objective. We loved the way the player dodged the computer controlled opponents and decided to use this type of mechanic for the movement of our character.

The next topic that we had to discuss was the different types of game elements we were going to include in order to give the game purpose and some variety. Again we spend a while coming up with different ideas between the four of us. We decided that these new game elements should be categorised into both advantages and disadvantages.

Disadvantages:

Promoters - the more leaflets you have the slower you walk

Chewing gum - 2 second freeze if you stand on it

Homeless man - Another obstacle in your way

Photography students - The flash from their cameras temporarily blinds you

Road sweepers - Sweep you off your feet for 5 seconds

Advantages:

Bins - Deposit leaflets here so you can move quickly again

Coffee stops - A caffeine injection gives you a temporary speed boost

Wet floor - Slide forward quickly for 2 seconds with inverted controls

For the visual style of our game idea we decided that we wanted the graphics to correlate with the humorous game elements and mechanics. We didn't want players to perceive the game with a serious aspect, we purposed using cartoony and stylised visuals to help steer the players mindset away from this. The example below is from a game called borderlands, we are intending to use the same sort of visual style for our game.

Finally here are a few screenshots taken from our powerpoint proposal pitch.

This powerpoint slide is explaining what target audience we are going to aim our product at. In this case we have targeted it at 16-25 year olds, this is mainly because of the fast reaction times needed to play. However this is only an advisory age group, there will be difficulty levels that can be set so younger players will be able to participate.

This slide is just reiterating what I explained earlier on in the blog, it just goes over the different types of gameplay mechanics that will be included in the game.

  
Finally one of the last slides of the powerpoint explains what platform the game is going to be ported to and why. In our case we have gone with the IOS and Android mobile platforms mainly because of its popularity and its ease of use for both users and developers.

What I thought of previous University students screen captures

I thought the lesson last week was extreamly informative in many different ways. I think the main thing I have learnt is the fact that so much useful information can be displayed in a screen capture. It also really helps to get your point across to someone if you are trying to explain something complicated, sometimes showing it on screen is much easier. The 3 screen captures that I saw in lesson were edited and cut together really nicely. The running commentary was also informative and explained everthing that was happening at specific moments in time. I also liked the fact that they compared different games to get there points across, they also showed very good examples to back there points up.

For my screen capture I wrote a script before hand so that I wouldnt forget anything I was saying whilst I was recording my voice over. I tryed to use Camtasia's editor to add a few different examples of other games to to validate what I was explaining.

Hello and welcome

Hello and welcome everyone to my blog, my name is Tom Widdowson and I am a game design student currently studying at Sheffield Hallam university. I am a good 3D character and enviroment artist and will be posting many different pieces of my work from both university and projects I have completed in my spare time, watch this space.

I am originally From doncaster and studied a game development course at Doncaster college for 2 years. There I picked up many usefull skills and developed a passion for building 3D artwork. By the end of my time at University I would like to have a solid job in the games industry, I work well with a team and can take strict orders to build essential assets for video games.