So I knew coming in to this course that graphics were my weakness, which makes this assignment a particular challenge for me. But here goes nothing:
Idea 1: In a world of very basic geometric people, your life is very bland until this very exclusive club moves into town. You are faced with the options of continuing your boring life or trying to get past the bouncer and see what’s inside.
Idea 2: Stick figures at a party. You play as a college freshman at his first party, where you discover that consuming alcohol temporarily gives you the ability to read minds. This would be a very dialogue-centered game where your social abilities can propel you to great heights, or perhaps great depths.
Idea 3: Seven minutes in heaven. This would definitely be the most challenging game to do technically, but given my skill set, may be the most viable. Maybe. The only visual is a black screen and a dim light that shines from the other side of the closed door. You are trapped in the dark with someone you can’t see, and you have seven minutes until the game ends. My idea is to have a voice actor read the script and record it, and come up with an interesting enough personal narrative that people will want to play more than once. Another way to develop it could be to develop a string parser and go more along the lines of facade, which could be possible in Python.
I’m liking the second idea. Hmm. If the player changes their behavior a lot based on how the NPCs react internally, it’ll seem pretty inconsistent to the non-mind-reading NPCs– will people get weirded out if you do that? That could be cool.
Idea 1 doesn’t sound like it’s quite fleshed out enough. I don’t have a clear idea of who you are as a character and what exactly your motivations are.
Idea 2 sounds interesting, but I’d like to also see what types of characters you are interacting with. Will it be goal oriented (i.e. you must use your mind reading powers to get a girl by the end of the night), or will you just explore to see what your mind-reading powers can do at a party?
Idea 3 strikes me as the most unique and I think it’s the idea I like the best. I don’t think you need a voice actor, but you could potentially have some great dialogue going since you’re only focusing on 2 characters.
The first idea doesn’t have enough of a story to it and I don’t know what kind of conversation you’d have with the bouncer to make this a viable game. I think 2 and 3 are the most interesting but I’d need more information one what kind of conversations you’d have for idea 3 to get a better feel for it.
I actually like all three ideas and think you could develop an interesting game with any of them. Personally I would go with the first or the third. With the first, I think you can approach the game with a mystery/labyrinth-type feel where the player has to pick up clues to figure out how to get inside and then once inside clues to get to the next room and the next. The third idea could be enhanced by the development of some characters and the relationship between each of them (sort of like Prom Week from home play). I think this would give the player a little more motivation to play and see who they end up in the closet with and why.
The first idea sounds a bit generic and not so interesting. I would have little or no motivation to want to get in the club unless the dialog is really great, so unless you have some really good ideas there, it might be best to pick one of the other two.
The second idea sounds fun, especially if you have the ability to get really exploitative about how you use the information you are given. It could turn into a pretty fun examination of the kind of atmosphere that those parties have. But it could also be a pretty generic party sim, so play up the weird.
The third idea sounds great. You should definitely use the voice actor if you have someone you know. If not, I have a talented friend who would love to help you. It’s going to depend a lot on the quality of the writing, obviously, so write a lot of drafts and show it to a lot of people. The only issue with this one is that good writing, especially script writing, takes a long time. At least you don’t have to worry about visuals!
The second idea sounds like lots of fun. I think its because it is a power anyone would like to have and because everyone has imagined being able to read minds. This kind of simulation is something which interactive experiences have the potential to do in a way that can actually impact how we act in real life. I think Michael Mateas tries to create simulations that can have this kind of impact, the paper he wrote on expressive AI made me think about some of the thoughts I just wrote here when I read it.
Out of the three, I think the second one is the most feasible and with good situations it could be really great. The third idea is really vague sounding, but could potentially be very interesting. However it sounds much more ambitious tan the others. I don’t think you need the voice acting to make this project work which could make this idea more feasible.
I would say go with either the second or third option.
The second would be more straightforward design-wise, though I really like the idea of exploring the ramifications of talking to people about what they think is private knowledge. If you do make it, I would say focus on that.
The third is a really great idea though. Just be sure you are really dedicated to the writing. If you are confident you can write a text parser, go for it – but be aware that like that like Facade, immersion breaks down really, really easily if the player decides to push the system. Adding voice acting is wonderful though, especially in a game focused on dialogue.
i think you could do a lot of things with the 3rd one and i really like the 2nd one because you can see past peoples appearances and actually get down to what to say. the first one seems like the least interesting to me