HW4 The Game Experience

Chapter 2: The Designer Creates an Experience

• Forgetting about the game, think about your player. What are the experience(s) you want your player to have. 

• My team's game will hopefully help the player to experience the excitement of surprise, confusion, and a sense of accomplishment, but hopefully with some amount of responsibility and a small amount of disappointment.

• What are the essential element(s) of that experience. 

• A not too easy to solve maze, opponents that come on unexpectedly, items to collect for protection as weapons against opponents and as shelter for nighttime are the essential elements. 

• Suggest a few ways your game might capture those experiences. 

• Since players will be exploring a maze of an island city, it is an excellent opportunity to throw in surprises.  Players will be concentrating on finding their way through the maze, so that not knowing what will pop out at them will add the excitement of surprise and the expectation that they will need to not limit their focus.  The confusion will come out of the quality of the maze.  The maze should not be too easy, allowing the confusion to be solvable only with some effort on having foresight, which will add to the sense of accomplishment.  The feelings of responsibility and disappointment will add depth, by requiring players to invest thought and effort into finding their way through a maze without it being a given that they will get the outcome they desire.  Excluding the opportunity to feel responsibility and disappointment would lose the player's engagement by making the game too easy.

• The maze will not be a direct path from the player's starting location to the escape boat.  Players will zig-zag through a maze with multiple paths to the goal, obstacles, and dead-ends.

•  Players will be faced with opponents at a moment's notice, which depending on the opponent, they may or may not be required to collect defenses against in advance.  

• Discuss a few ways in which you might include surprise in your game

• Surprise will be incorporated by having opponents who show up without warning.  These will generally be other people and animals, but will also include falling debris and buildings.  It will also be incorporated through the collection of items that are needed for protection.  Items will be come across in unexpected places, which may be easily passed by if the player is not alert or thinking of the potential use of the item.  The first time the player plays the game, he or she will be likely to pass by an essential item.  Another surprise will come from falling buildings and debris, which can change the path through the maze and pose a risk to the character.

• How will your game be fun? 

• People who like to explore and collect will hopefully consider the game to be fun.  The player will be engaged by the dynamic nature of the maze and the need to think about and find the tools necessary to survive.  The player will also have the opportunity to learn the landscape of the city, which for some people is an enjoyable brain exercise.

• Discuss the goals of your game (as it stands now).

• The main goal of the player will be to escape the island.  The goal of the game itself is to provide an opportunity for the player to explore a new landscape that offers surprises and requires forethought to engage the player.

• State your thoughts on how you will make the player attached to your game, or motivated to play the game. 

• I believe that the player will be motivated by the puzzle aspect of a maze, but more importantly, by the dynamic nature of the maze and the obstacles faced within it.

• What problems do you expect the players to solve in your game? 

• A path through the maze.

• Collection of weapons, such as a pipe or gun, for fighting opponents.

• Collection of items for night-time shelter, such as a box or fuel source for fire.

Chapter 3: The Experience Rises out of Game

Contribution to group game: I collected additional objects to be used as the animal opponents for the player to fight, and made suggestions about the type of island environment we should use to copy.  I was thinking that doing a version of Hashima Island, off the coast of Japan, that incorporates some aspects of the actual island would add to the user experience, because it is a real place that they can explore through documentaries and Google Maps, in addition to through the game.