University Paper "Game Design" feedback

[DigitalDesignAUT]

Guday

We're a bunch of students doing a new course "Digital Design" at A.U.T (Auckland University of Technology) in New Zealand. We're just into our second year and have accepted the challenge of the "Game Design" paper. there are a total of 20 of us and in our 5th week of uni we start a fully functioning garage studio. with the only profit being the grade at the end.

So Far we know we are using AGS as our program to put everything together and its obviously a point and click game. r The reason for creating this Forum is to communicate to those whom may be playing our game come the time of release. we ask for your feedback and ideas on how we could create our game. we as a class have only initially come up with the most basic of ideas, such as its going to be a quest game thats fantasy and our main character is going to be either a dark character in a light world or vice versa.

We ask you now, what haven't you seen in a game, what would you as our intended audience be interested in playing/ interacting with? anything and everything that would be helpful.

I leave you for now with the link to a blog that covers what we have been doing each week in our classes, read it and leave constructive criticism/ ideas.

http://jdex24-game-design.blogspot.com/

Thank you
AUT Students

[Mould Cheeze]

You cut put some Sex into the game. I think that'll always work fine!

[ManicMatt]

Look at the most popular games made with AGS and see what made them so loved by so many people. If you haven't already.

[DigitalDesignAUT]

Might i refer you to when i said what haven't you seen in a game? we know that almost everything has already been created by someone else but what ideas haven't been used as much or not at all.

for example an idea that has been floating around the classroom is the idea of time travel / breaking time. so a storyline thats similar to maybe Stargate or Alice in wonderland.

[Da_Elf]

neither stargate nor alice in wonderland had anything to do with time travel. alice was a dream. if you dont want to count the part about it being a dream then you can look at wonderland as being a different dimention or plane of existance or paralell universe (whatever term you prefer). star gate is more along the lines of a transportation portal. time travel is more like "back to the future" or you can look at time warping like that stupid movie with the kid who got a watch that slows time (forget its name now)

[Baron]

I think he was thinking time-travel in terms of creating fanciful worlds, more than being literal.....  since otherwise Da Elf is clearly in the right.

Anyhow, you're.... you're actually going to make a game [somewhat] based on the input you recieve in this thread?  It's like the reverse of all those threads where bossy noobs try to get people to make their game for them -awesome!  I'd like to see a......er, a......  a Caveman kidnapped by Aliens!  What does he see?  How does he interpret things?  How does he escape in the end?  Tell me!

[GarageGothic]

Unless you mean actual time travel - like Back to the Future or Day of the Tentacle - I think it would relate mostly to story rather than gameplay. True time travel makes for great puzzles though.

As for something I've never seen in games before... Abortions! I never saw, performed or played the role of an abortion in any game, ever. You could play an aborted fetus waking up in the garbage bin behind the hospital, and your quest would be a grand adventure to find your mother. Damn this a great idea, or well... good luck to your marketing department.

[Tuomas]

So what we've got here is a story of a caveman being abducted forwards in time only to have sex with aliens, and then he'd return in our time to get an abortion?

I highly suggest you consider everything carefully before making a game of it. But it's a tough one to name something everyone would desire. I for example am making a pretty sincere game based on politics and stuff, and most likely no-one will play it except for beta testers and those who think it looks great. Now if you're really keen on going to the fantasyworld, don't make it too cheesy. Try get something personal into it. Err, I had something in my mind, but reading your blog and listening to Porcupine Tree made me forget it   So if it comes to mind I'll say it.

[DigitalDesignAUT]

neither stargate nor alice in wonderland had anything to do with time travel. alice was a dream. if you dont want to count the part about it being a dream then you can look at wonderland as being a different dimention or plane of existance or paralell universe (whatever term you prefer). star gate is more along the lines of a transportation portal. time travel is more like "back to the future" or you can look at time warping like that stupid movie with the kid who got a watch that slows time (forget its name now)

Yeah totally, we were thinking something along the lines of a parallel universe, which would allow for a bit more freedom and expression perhaps. Some other situations we suggested were: Character wakes up in another time, another place, another world... and has to fit into the surroundings and find his/her way home. Thinking of throwing in some emotional factors like maybe getting home and discovering everyone has changed - family is crazy bla bla. Early days though. Personally I find this a little cliche but hey! Cliche's work right?

[DigitalDesignAUT]

I think he was thinking time-travel in terms of creating fanciful worlds, more than being literal.....Ã,  since otherwise Da Elf is clearly in the right.

Anyhow, you're.... you're actually going to make a game [somewhat] based on the input you recieve in this thread?Ã,  It's like the reverse of all those threads where bossy noobs try to get people to make their game for them -awesome!Ã,  I'd like to see a......er, a......Ã,  a Caveman kidnapped by Aliens!Ã,  What does he see?Ã,  How does he interpret things?Ã,  How does he escape in the end?Ã,  Tell me!

Yeah sounds good man. Caveman. Lol. Everyone can relate to a caveman (no pun). Oh man imagine being a caveman thrown into our world now! Poor thing. I'd feel sorry for the guy.
See previous post for other thoughts on similar idea...

Yeah we'll be working closely with this community throughout the process of development, so feedback for everything - story - design - puzzles - gameplay etc.

In our last class brainstorm the majority seems to be leaning towards comedy, or at least a game that doesn't take itself too seriously. But still with contrasting elements like

We have 3 story writers: A self-professed fantasy writer and RPG fantasy game geek, a hilarious film/theatre/screenplay script writer/director and a crazy metaphysical psychology writer/poet [in this post that's me].

No idea will go unconsidered! SO BRING THEM ON!!! We'll be taking notes...
Cheers - Joseph

[DigitalDesignAUT]

So what we've got here is a story of a caveman being abducted forwards in time only to have sex with aliens, and then he'd return in our time to get an abortion?

I highly suggest you consider everything carefully before making a game of it. But it's a tough one to name something everyone would desire. I for example am making a pretty sincere game based on politics and stuff, and most likely no-one will play it except for beta testers and those who think it looks great. Now if you're really keen on going to the fantasyworld, don't make it too cheesy. Try get something personal into it. Err, I had something in my mind, but reading your blog and listening to Porcupine Tree made me forget it :(Ã,  So if it comes to mind I'll say it.

Oh dear... what a horrible story. Hahaha 
Cheers for the advice man.
If we do go for a comedy theme then we'll tread carefully. I know I for one am terrible with overdoing the 'cheesy one liners' bahahaha.

[DigitalDesignAUT]

Unless you mean actual time travel - like Back to the Future or Day of the Tentacle - I think it would relate mostly to story rather than gameplay. True time travel makes for great puzzles though.

As for something I've never seen in games before... Abortions! I never saw, performed or played the role of an abortion in any game, ever. You could play an aborted fetus waking up in the garbage bin behind the hospital, and your quest would be a grand adventure to find your mother. Damn this a great idea, or well... good luck to your marketing department.

Yeah paradoxes and the like to screw with your head - time travel.

Brilliant idea about the abortion (you sick twisted individual you ) the fetus would have some nagging questions for the mother I'd imagine.
Anyway moving on... yeah I think abortion may be a bit close to the bone for most of us. You should write that idea into a story though! - I'd read it.

So probably best to avoid blatantcy of sensitive things like paedophilia, circumcision, sex related, religious issues etc. (remembering this is for a class project and we don't wish to offend anyone [yaaaawn]. Allllthougggghhh... there is no reason we can't place those things in a different context, or mask them with a metaphor or something... Yeah. As I said earlier. We will consider anything - simply because crazy ideas will spawn different types of thinking.

[GarageGothic]

So probably best to avoid blatantcy of sensitive things like [...]circumcision

Yes, let's leave that one to Dave Gilbert - "The Bris: A Russel Stone Mystery"

[Radiant]

I would suggest against doing a time travel story as your first project, for such stories tend to be complex and are very hard to do properly.

[Vince Twelve]

Ok, so the aborted fetus' adventure doesn't sound like such a good idea, but I don't think that sensitive issues should be avoided because they're sensitive.  I would love to see a game that explores some sensitive subject matter in a mature and thoughtful way.  Wouldn't it be interesting to see games starting philosophical or moral discussions the way that some movies or novels do?  Not that ever game needs to do that.  The first job of a game is, after all, to be fun.

Anyways, I think not enough games have non-corporeal beings.  Yeah.  Either those or pirates.

[Da_Elf]

shame you cant actually get ags to remember what you do so that you can get it to play back all your motions onto another NPC character of your past self (or future self. or whatever) the trick is to not let your NPC self see you or something like that. which is what supprised me in BTF2 when marty wasnt supposed to let his furute self see him. however the act of going to the future means that the future self should have memories of him comming to the future and therefore there shouldnt be a problem.

[ManicMatt]

I think it was explained with some techno-babble that the future they went to won't be affected until they leave it, for some reason. maybe.

[Da_Elf]

i thought the timeline from harry potter 3 was pretty well done

[DigitalDesignAUT]

I would suggest against doing a time travel story as your first project, for such stories tend to be complex and are very hard to do properly.

thats the exact reason why we want to do it. we want the most twisted and warped chain of events. it will prove difficult to produce and to create a convincing time line but if it works it will be extremely interesting. 20 heads are better than one. I'm sure the complexity will be a great challenge and one that a group of 20 will do better than just one. we've also go a game design teacher who's worked on some fairly large games so we cant go to astray. i hope.

we know its the story that sells a product. take final fantasy for example. the actual game play is extremely repetitive and if i sat you down with a similar kind of game-play but with crap story line then you'd get bored really quickly, but millions of people have played final fantasy. just to prove a point.

[ManicMatt]

Storyline is a very strong element in an RPG, but you are missing another strong element: The addiction. Levelling up your characters gives you a sense of achievement, and it becomes an addiction to make them the strongest bastards in hell. I'm sure someone could word this better than me.. also, doing side quests. For me that is a lot of fun, to stray from the main quest and do little fun errands. (Note the "fun" part. Fun errands, not boring ones)

Anyways.. World of Warcraft. I'm guessing that has little to no storyline, yet millions are glued to it.