Author: Nivetha Kannan

by Nivetha Kannan

Growing up, I always loved to play casual dress-up games. Though I was a great fan of more mainstream titles such as Mario or Pokemon, the online dress up world still had me captivated for hours on end. I’m not sure why I liked them so much but I think it could have been due to my upbringing. As a daughter of a mostly rural indian family, my clothing choices were monitored very strictly. My Mom and Dad weren’t strict on a lot of stereotypically asian things (they let me major in art, for example) but due to social expectations of women in our culture (and virtually every culture), my clothes were constantly censored by my parents. Dress up games gave me an outlet where I can dress as sexily as I wanted without reprimand. (Try To) Dress Up” is a game than basically acts like the dress up games I loved growing up but simulates my real world experience with dressing up. The game is designed so that you have to get my parents permission before going out in what you’re wearing. Good luck with that- they’re pretty tough judges to please.

Download

Art Game: http://www.pippinbarr.com/games/artgame/ArtGame.html

Dress-Up Game (Generic): http://www.dressupgames.com/

My idea for a game is a play off of the popular dress-up game for casual gamers. However, This game will be slightly like the Art Game in that you have to have your parents’ critique and approval before going out in the clothes you’ve chosen. The clothes you’ve chosen also give you merits such as ‘street creed,’ ‘coolness,’ ’sluttiness.’ These factors will go up and down corresponding to how our society would view these dress choices.

I mainly want to make this game because when I was younger (basically up till right before I came to college). I really enjoyed playing dress-up games online because I could dress the character up in anything I wanted without guilt or pressure from societal judgment and pressure form my parents. I hope this game, masked as a simple game about finding a combination of clothing you and your parents like, will shed light or question a larger societal problem that tells people what they can wear and how based on social norms, religion, etc.

The parents’ preferences will be heavily based on my own parents’ preferences.

Edit: Here is my screenshot:

Here are some art concepts for my modification idea. I’m doing Frogger.

I want to make a Halloween-inspired game where you play as a light that guides a trick-or-treater through a haunted mansion. The object of the game is to avoid the ghosts and grab the candy in a room that is totally dark except for a small light which you control and which the trick-or-treater follows

Here are some pics:

Link to the Game “Whiteout”—> http://primaerfunktion.itch.io/whiteout

After looking through itch.io and the other indie games websites, I found a game called “Whiteout” created by Rene Rother.

Most of the games I like to play are very story or narrative based. I was wondering how to make a game with these elements on a much smaller scale. Obviously, text adventures are one option but the idea of a text adventure seems plain and boring to me. “Whiteout”, on the other hand, feels like a beautiful short narrative piece that is craftily and beautifully executed.

The game basically starts out with a white, snowy scene. The main character, who you control, has lost her friend, Fox. She sets off to find him in the freezing arctic.

The object of the game is to find her friend in the white, vast arctic while maintaining a warm body temperature. As you walk, your temperature drops and the only way to bring it up is to stand close to the fire at your camp. You must also make sure you know where your camp is at all times. The game provides you with flags you can use to mark your way and help you find a path.

The game is VERY long. It is almost impossible to find Fox and the only thing you can do is wander around for a long time. However, what is really interesting is the small features they add in the landscape that is not just plain snow. If you walk for awhile, you will begin to see glaciers, caves, and even frozen whales in the middle of the frozen wasteland. These strange objects combined with the beautiful scenery give this game a very interesting narrative (at least, for me).

Another thing I enjoy about the game is that it is totally immersive – the howling winds and desolate landscape make me feel like I am this character. Moreover, the game doesn’t try to provide you with strategies and tips to survive. Instead, players end up making strategies themselves during gameplay. For example, you start to pay attention to your shadow or the direction of the wind to locate yourself and keep from getting lost.

One thing I didn’t like about the game, though was the fact that you had to use flags to mark your way. I would rather (and I did) play it without using any flags because when I do use the flags, I pay less attention to the landscape and more to figuring out where and when I should place flags down. However, I understand why, game mechanics-wise, this flag system is necessary to give the player at least a hope of winning the game.

 

 

I did task number 40 – Heal yourself

http://www.learningtoloveyoumore.com/reports/40/40.php

Not sure if this is how she intended it but I just rolled with it….

Step Ball

So Swetha, Ticha, and I got to play step ball. This was essentially a football game where you could not take more than a step. Each team needed to get the ball to the opposite end of the field for a goal. However, people could only take one step when the referee yelled “STEP”. Then whoever had the ball had to through to someone. So these were about the only instructions we were given – which was actually quite nice since we all got to improvise a bit because of the lack of strict, detailed rules. During the gameplay, we found out that if a team is able to intercept the throw of a ball, they could keep the ball. Even if they could not catch it themselves, as long as they made sure it did not go to any person on an opposite team, their team was allowed to have the ball. However, due to this rule that came up during gameplay and the fact that someone had to be there to yell “step,” it seems the game is almost totally reliant on having a judge. Also, because the actual rules were sparse, there needed to be a judge to tell us what to do in a situation not covered by the two rules (ex. “can you pivot in your position? can you jump to catch the ball? etc). I’m not sure it is good game style to have the play so reliant on a judge. Another big flaw in the game was that tall players had a HUGE advantage. If you were taller, you were able to intercept more tosses and  bring more points to your team. Especially since shorter players weren’t sure if they were allowed to jump (or at least I wasn’t) it was very easy for tall players to intercept balls.

Mont Trottoir

So this was a game where there NEEDED to be a judge/interpreter and someone to enforce the rules and keep a record of who is winning. This game was basically a horizontal mountain climbing game. Each group of two had to be attached by a rope at the start of their turn and could only take two steps and play a card each turn. Each teem could also “karate chop” the rope of another team which will send the player not in a ‘safe’ zone back to their home base. Each team got a set of card that let you do different things. For example, one of them was a ‘yeti’ card which let you ask someone not in the game to impersonate a yeti and whoever is closer to them would fall back to home base. The game had so much cards and rules and it was hard to tell who’s turn it was. Honestly, if we did not have the judge, we wouldn’t have known what we were doing at all. Even at the end of the game, I couldn’t make out how each turn worked… I would suggest the game should be a computer game simply because of how many elements we had to keep track (it would be easier to display and store the data on a computer) if not for the amount of fun I had actually physically performing the game. The physical aspect of the game was really fun for me. I had no idea what I was doing but I had a ton of fun simply because we were moving and playing a game different from anything I had played for awhile. I also liked how partner-based yet confrontational the game was. Overall, the game was fun and I really enjoyed it. However, the sheer number of rules and things to remember while playing this game could be a turn-off.

• 3 bullies start with 5 stolen lunches. Bullies want to become alpha bully. Eugene has 3 lunches. Bullies want.

  Each turn bullies take a decision in Rock Paper Scissors style. Bullies can prepare to beat up Eugene (fist) or take the higher road (putting their hand up in a “NAW THAT AIN’T ME MAN” kinda way)

  There are 4 possible outcomes:

  Outcome 1 – One bully beats up Eugene. He gets all the lunch for the day. Alpha bully. Beat up other bullies. Win two lunches from other bullies.

  Outcome 2 – Two bullies beat up Eugene, get distracted. Third bully steals all the lunch for the day. Steal two lunches from other bullies.

  Outcome 3 – Three bullies beat up Eugene. Bully with most lunches is clearly the alpha bully. Alpha bully decides how to split lunches. If one bully agrees to decision, decision approved. If no consensus is made, lunches go bad. No lunch for the day.

  Outcome 4 – Three bullies take the higher road. Eugene tells the principal, all bullies lose their lunch for the day.

  The game ends when the first bully runs out of lunches. Bully with most lunches wins.

My video and most my description is here.

I ended up playing Jones on the Fast Lane wrong and uncovered a few things which I highlight in my video. Mainly though, I realized….

1. You literally do not need to ever pay rent

2. You can go to class naked

3.If you are naked, you will get money for relative who feel sorry for you.

nivethaart.wordpress.com

Hello. I’m a Junior in CFA studying art. Pleased to meet you.