Author: tylerporten

This is Ziyun’s + MacKenzie’s + Tyler’s game! It is a game where you are trying to survive in a place full of monsters by imitating the noises made around you. This uses voice input to allow the user to attempt to mimic the pitch and rhythm (and maybe loudness) of the “calls” that the monsters make in the game. Imitate the calls properly and you won’t get eaten! Otherwise, you’ll get eaten!

Plan:

November 11: figure out OSCPitch, connect it to the game “engine”, and figure out voice rhythm recognition, work on art for the characters and sound/music

November 18: make game mechanics and code the game using placeholders for visual elements, work on art for the characters and sound/music

November 25: make the game playable with OSCPitch with the game using placeholders; work on art for the characters and sound/music

December 2: add in art and sound; be presentable to play!

A non-visual game where you try to find a target in the space around you; sound can indicate how close you are to the target. Story: ghost dating simulator, you are going on a date with your ghost partner and there are various things you want to do with your lover (hold hands, kiss, get third base). However, you can’t see the ghost so you have to be careful not to touch inappropriate places!!!!!!!!!! Can substitute imaginary friend from second grade with ghost.

Maybe the idea I had where if you close you’re eyes the game gives more aural information. You’re looking for something in the game, and the target may make a small noise but if you close your eyes it would be easier to hear it. Obviously you need to open your eyes to navigate through the game. Other scenarios: you’re hiding from something approaching; you’re at a cocktail party and someone is calling your name; you are deactivating mines and you need to listen carefully to make sure you deactivate it properly; countless other possibilities.

You’re stuck in a place with a bunch of monsters. The monsters make noises to communicate with each other, and you have to imitate the noises of the monsters around you (loudness and pitch recognition) so you aren’t eaten. However, there are different monsters around, and so you have to change your imitation to fit what monsters are around you (maybe you can move on your own too). Also, if you are with a group of A monsters and there is a group of B monsters trying to eat the A monsters, you have to switch your imitation from monster A to monster B so that you fit in with the more powerful monster.

1. Voice input game: You’re stuck in a place with a bunch of monsters. The monsters make noises to communicate with each other, and you have to imitate the noises of the monsters around you (loudness and pitch recognition) so you aren’t eaten. However, there are different monsters around, and so you have to change your imitation to fit what monsters are around you (maybe you can move on your own too). Also, if you are with a group of A monsters and there is a group of B monsters trying to eat the A monsters, you have to switch your imitation from monster A to monster B so that you fit in with the more powerful monster.

2. Face input game: Maybe the idea I had where if you close you’re eyes the game gives more aural information. You’re looking for something in the game, and the target may make a small noise but if you close your eyes it would be easier to hear it. Obviously you need to open your eyes to navigate through the game. Other scenarios: you’re hiding from something approaching; you’re at a cocktail party and someone is calling your name; you are deactivating mines and you need to listen carefully to make sure you deactivate it properly; countless other possibilities.

3. Body input game: A non-visual game where you try to find a target in the space around you; sound can indicate how close you are to the target. Story: ghost dating simulator, you are going on a date with your ghost partner and there are various things you want to do with your lover (hold hands, kiss, get third base). However, you can’t see the ghost so you have to be careful not to touch inappropriate places!!!!!!!!!! Can substitute imaginary friend from second grade with ghost.

Hi everyone, we have a link where you can play with what we’ve made so far here: http://itbmac.com/games/soulgame/soulgame_webplayer.php

 In Respawn, the player explores what happens in the game after the main character is out of “lives,” basically starting at the point of Game Over. The main mechanic is that the player uses a single button to make the dead character’s soul move between living things on the map. Originally, this was going to be an alternative platformer puzzle, in which you try to shift between elements to get to the goal (a beam of light) that takes you to the next level.

After further consideration, the game is going to be an open-world exploration, in which there is a large map that the player can explore (as a soul), and progressively collect information about why the main character died. This story unravels based on the player’s decisions of where to explore, and into what “things” to move the soul–a short narrative is told by the object the soul is occupying. This does remove the notion of “losing and winning,” but some penalizing/awarding mechanics can be made (such as collecting artifacts, resolving a storyline, running into a “dead” end).

It would be really great if you have suggestions or feedback!

I don’t know where I’m posting this so if it’s in a weird place on the site I’ll move it away later.

So there were a couple things I learned from playing games at City of Play. After playing/observing games like Bottleneck, Searchlight, Weenis Wars, and whatever that gnome game was, I understood that:

1. Fewer rules or simple rules make games flow better with players unfamiliar with the game. Having too many rules creates a lot of awkward “you’re doing it wrong” “am I doing it wrong” “yes you’re doing it wrong stop” moments. Although games that have complex rules are fun to play and offer more, when you’re introducing your game to people who have no idea what you’re going on about, it’s probably a better idea to have only a few rules to the game. Weenis Wars did a good job with just “don’t move your feet” “grab other people’s weenises” as the rules for the game.
2. Don’t assume your players are smart/motivated to play your game. I saw that there were games that required thinking but involved people who couldn’t or didn’t want to, which ended up with a lot of complaining, discomfort, and confusion. Some people just ignore rules or don’t understand how they work, and messes up the entire gameplay for other people. So I guess this means either to 1) only introduce your game to devoted people you know will play it correctly or 2) make your game look interesting enough and debrief the hell out of the players so they know what they are doing and will continue to play as they should. It’s easy for a creator to say “oh, they don’t understand it because they’re stupid” “jesus can you be any stupider” “god why is everybody so dumbbbbb” but in actuality it’s probably the fact that since you made the game you think it’s easy to play (because you know all of the rules, or rather you think you know all of the rules but end up slightly changing them over time to make the game better). We need to understand that people who play a game for the first time each have different experiences with playing games and making a game without considering how players will learn to play it will probably cause unpleasantness when you start to implement it. The problem with the City of Play was that it was mostly impossible to have something like a tutorial and most game creators explained all of the rules at once before letting anyone do anything so when people started to play the game, unless they memorized every word the creator said, they probably don’t know exactly what’s going on.
3. Don’t make games that go along the lines of “the louder you are, the easier it is for you to advance in the game” that aren’t games related to sound/music. E.g. Bottleneck required very quick communication between a large group of players, so what people ended up doing was SHOUT WHAT THEY NEEDED ALL THE TIME SO THE ROOM WAS SO FUCKING LOUD YOU CAN’T HEAR YOURSELF THINK. That’s not very nice, is it? I’m sure it depends on the game’s rules that makes this eventually happen, but it would be a good idea to rehearse your game to yourself before you move on to each stage, because a concept always sounds good, but games almost never go the way you want them to when you have random people play it.

I’m sure there are other things I probably learned, but I can’t remember it right now. One thing I did enjoy about the chaos that came with using so many random people to play your game was the social interaction and awkwardness that comes with it. The pure ridiculousness of what the game required people to do made me LOL sometimes. I think when user-created chaos is properly addressed and implemented in games, it can show good results.

Lastly, here are some pictures I took (for bonus, of course):

Weenis Wars

omg a video (http://www.flickr.com/photos/87831442@N04/9650744462/)

Searchlight

Video (http://www.flickr.com/photos/87831442@N04/9650638002/)

[censored]

Gnome game

That’s it!! Thanks for reading!!!!!!