This week

Now that we have our general idea, we have spent this week refining the concept along with what exactly we will be doing in our individual roles. Our goal was to refine the vision each of us had for the game, while also ensuring that we all shared the same collective vision for our game. We wanted to establish what we would need for the core game experience, to ensure we knew what our requirements were for a minimum viable product.

Game Functionality Requirements:

• Selectable options for gameplay variety
• Flexible system that responds and adapts to choices
• Functionality for point and click based gameplay
• Chapter/gameplay progression
• Gameplay and visual evolution
• Multiple end states

Reasoning

We chose these core features because they aligned with our design pillars. We want the player to have clearly defined agency with multiple ways they can go about each situation that is presented to them, so having multiple selections and a system that respects that is vital to the player experience. We wanted to avoid creating an illusion of choice where there are only two outcomes based on “correct” and “incorrect” responses, as when it comes to replayability, it really destroys the immersion for the player.

We also want the gameplay to evolve through the chapter progression, as we mentioned in the previous dev log. To prevent the game from feeling too stale or repetitive, we want to give the feeling of progression through the chapters, with the player’s options visually and functionally changing each chapter to keep things interesting.

Naturally, this means having multiple endings is a given. We want to reinforce the notion of making a difference in the game world by changing how the game can end depending on their actions. If the player decides to play through the game a second time while doing things differently but still ends up at the same ending, it can take away from that core experience that we want for the players. It would create a feeling of pointlessness for the player. 

Why?

So why is it that we want to have multiple endings? Why do we want to give the player so much choice? Doesn’t that just add a lot to the scope? Won’t it make things more difficult?

One part we focused on while conceptualizing the game was keeping gameplay simple. While it is true that having a responsive game like this increases the scope, the core of the game itself has stayed rather simple: a text-based narrative driven point-and-click 2D game. Not every aspect of the game will be text based, but that is a key feature in the core concept. It is because we tried to make everything simplistic that we are able to expand in so many directions, not just with the multiple endings and player agency, but what changes as the game adapts and evolves, potentially even outside just a text-based game, all while keeping things within a reasonable scope.

We want to give the player this kind of experience because it really lines up with our core values. We want to give the player an experience where they really feel like each choice matters. Each choice they make as the AI impacts the client they are working with in different ways, and we want the player to really feel like they are making a difference. Not just for each individual, but on a larger scale as well with the different endings. We want to make a game that changes as the player goes through these decisions, and overall give the player the feeling that they are really a part of the small world we create.

References:

One of our biggest inspirations was Paper’s Please. What we took from it is the inherent point and click gameplay that was engaging, the progression in mechanics as you go through the days, and the newsletter “endings” that pop up with news about the current state of Arstotzka. Though for our idea, we plan on focusing more on how the player can interact with the clients rather than just the result, but given how we all really love Paper’s Please, we are excited to use it as a reference for our own unique idea!

Other references:

As we are not closely familiar with point-and-click gameplay, we are using popular examples to the full when designing engaging activities for the player to do. Papa’s Pizzeria is something we thought of that is limited to point-and-click, and is still very engaging! We’ll be looking more at games like these when we get further into development of our concept.

Next Steps:

The next steps for our team will be to create more detailed concepts for what will actually happen within the game. This can consist of the UI and game layout, the prompts and choices of the game, and the changes and chapters that the player goes through as the game progresses. Now that we have done more in the area of refining the concept of the game and what we want to create, we want to focus more on the game itself, so we can soon begin creating a prototype. Hopefully we will be able to make more progress and really start to see our vision come together.