Game Overview

GAME OVERVIEW

PLAN TO COVER

Basic Pitch
Overview
Genre
Target Audience
USP
Basic foundations for gameplay and components
SWOT

Phase 4 - Project Proposal

On this section I will be providing a brief 'Game Overview' to make each aspect of our game clearer and use this to help the production of our Project Proposal.

WHERE DO I BEGIN?

I will be using industry techniques and processes to refine gameplay and make our intentions clearer. This will include 'Beat Chart' and a gameplay experience map. I'll begin by outlining a basic pitch and overview for our gameplay experience.

DRAFT PITCH

"A concise description of your game, aims to sell the experience to your audience"

Experience a world of soothing immersive visuals and sound with subtle interactive elements on campus, and the opportunity to reflect and improve organisation through a supportive mobile application.

BRIEF OVERVIEW

Players are provided with an immersive physical safe space on campus, where they're able to physically interact with their digital surroundings and listen to soothing music, enhanced by the use of Surround Sound and an interactive 360 degree display.

This immersive space provides them with the means to escape, focus and reflect to reduce sensations that might be causing them discomfort or make them feel uneasy. The experience will be tailored to encourage physical and emotional regulation through playful interactions and a heavy focus on sound and visual design.

Players will then be able to channel feelings of motivation and positivity through a post-experience reflective mobile app, where they will be provided with the means to create a suitable plan of action to make task management and organisation easier.

GENRE

Health, 360, simulator, Mixed Reality experience. The experience will combine both physical and digital worlds where players will become immersed into an alternative environment. Players will be required to interact with their surroundings and engage their senses with a beautiful 360 degree landscape.

Health-based, mobile application. Designed to encourage better organisation and promote well-being through playful interactions, reminders and the opportunity to personalise your own workspace.

TARGET AUDIENCE/ESRB RATING

Our experience is aimed towards students in college/university between the ages 16-21. We intend to get into contact with education associations to consider providing campuses with an intervention, to encourage physical and emotional regulation within students and raise awareness around mental health.

Our experience will not be appropriate for those who suffer or struggle with motion or simulator sickness as a result of 'latency'. This often happens when a virtual/digital environment transforms around the player and causes them to feel unwell. We must make sure to provide all users with trigger warnings beforehand.

The mobile application is targeted around the same audience however, could potentially be used by a wider demographic - to produce this as an alternative/extra product.

ESRB RATING: T (teen) - Generally suitable for ages 13 and up. No suggestive themes, strong language or violence.

UNIQUE SELLING POINT

A Mixed Reality experience on campus that provides students with the means to reflect, engage and interact. Every aspect of this experience will be tailored to reduce physical and emotional symptoms of anxiety, stress, overwhelm and panic. Our experience will be designed to evoke feelings of calm, comfort and security, and provide players with a space to reflect without the need for verbal communication - during times of desperate need.

Students will be provided with support through the means of playful gameplay and immersive technology.

GAMEPLAY

THE GAMEPLAY EXPERIENCE

During Week 8 (Notion), Emma shared with us a simple technique to separate each component of gameplay and to mind-map the foundations. This includes visual, audio, haptic, ludic and verbal components. This has allowed me to think about the basic foundations of our project.

Link: https://miro.com/app/board/uXjVOSwY-Qs=/?invite_link_id=90344128560

THE BEAT CHART

I then thought about gameplay in more depth, considerate to each gameplay phase.

Within my research section 'Rules of Games Design' (written by Scott Rogers),

I familiarised myself with the use of a 'Beat Chart'. This enables designers to separate each level, chapter or stage of your game and list every component that comes with it - in much more detail than the experience map above. I have used this process in the past and thought it would be incredibly useful to begin thinking about potential assets and components we need to design and develop in Semester Two.

WHAT DOES IT INCLUDE?

This 'Beat Chart' includes every game component needed at each stages of the experience. It outlines the need for audio, haptics, UI, controls and interactions - as well as specifying at which location these elements will be necessary and what players gameplay objectives are.

HOW CAN WE USE THIS?

I will use this to develop a 'Components and functional specifics' list and description within my Project Proposal. This allows me to be direct with what we need to design and develop next Semester, and includes detail on each aspect that will fulfil our project goals and expectations. We can push ourselves further by creating a suitable asset list for the develop of our game later on. To conclude, this chart touches on the components of each stage that will be necessary to fulfil the player experience. For example, haptics will be necessary during Phase 3, to stimulate realistic interactions via rumbles and vibrations - through our controller of choice, yet to be decided upon.

FOUR PERSPECTIVES OF GAME DESIGN

I recall of this process from Year 2 which enables designers to refine their game experience into four perspectives:

Concept - simple game concept

Paradigm - frames of mind/expected rules

Mechanics- organised by features. Features are the requirements needed to support the paradigms.

Interface - direct user input.

Applying these four perspectives to the main gameplay experience, I can map out the most important parts.

Link: https://miro.com/app/board/uXjVOS3dgvw=/?invite_link_id=224119105271

WHAT DOES IT INCLUDE?

I mapped out the four perspectives of combined gameplay - focusing on both the physical space experience and the reflective mobile game. Starting with the main concept I branched out into 'Paradigm' which are similar to the rules for the game, which include immersion, observation and task management. I then went into the features which we know include a heavy focus on sound and music, interaction in the space and a personalised workspace, to capture thoughts and plans to cope with responsibility. The mechanics of these features involve physical interaction, choosing task options, adjusting the placement and rearranging. This leads us into the Interface, in other words, player input. Interface will include interaction through a controller of our choosing such as touch controllers or the pS5 controller. For the application, players will tap options, drag and drop them into their space, and pinch to resize.

HOW CAN WE USE THIS?

This is a good way to visualise each component of our game, making it easier to think about task distribution and what we need to do to guarantee a successful outcome. For example, from this flow chart I know we have to focus on the interactions in the space as this is one of the main features in achieving immersion and player engagement. We can also use this as a foundation for our design and progress by refining each perspective. It'll be important to begin thinking about the concept and set of rules/objectives players need to fulfil to ensure they get the best experience from gameplay.

SWOT ANALYSIS

The SWOT Analysis is a framework used to identify strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats within an organisation. A threat might include its competitors and a strength is similar to our USP. I learned this technique during my Image and Branding module last year.

I have used this technique to establish these factors according to our own project. It allows us to identify our weaknesses such as inaccessible technology, which will lead us to think about alternative options and incorporate this into the design and testing stages of our methodology.

Link: https://miro.com/app/board/uXjVOS2_HJ4=/?invite_link_id=999756096671

WHAT DOES IT INCLUDE?

Using this analysis, I was able to distinguish the different factors of our project including our strengths and threats. Our main strength I believe is our passion for Games for Change and our knowledge behind how we can help others. We have also combined this with a 'Games Design approach' to combine technology with more playful interactions. In addition to this, we have and continue to put a lot of time into testing with our users because we know that this is the most important part of our project, to make sure our outcome is as effective as we planned.

Areas to be improved include refining gameplay interactions and mechanics, but we already knew this was what we had to work on during the first few weeks of Semester 2. Another weakness includes training in areas we aren't as good at. For example, Kiera and I are aware that we both need to familiarise ourselves in Animation before we produce final assets. We must consider time management and how we can do this without eating into too much of our 12 weeks.

Opportunity is a big factor for us. We have the opportunity to use immersive technology on campus such as the 6m Cylinder, but we can also consider other sustainable materials and resources as planned here: 'The Physical Space'. We are also excited to be able to talk with university alumni and get in touch with education associations to pass our project on as a possible intervention on college and university campuses.

Threats that we might face during this project is inaccessible technology and resources as well as time management and not being able to get everything complete within our 12 weeks. Although, we will overcome this by putting a suitable methodology in place and distributing tasks evenly.

HOW CAN WE USE THIS?

Thinking about our threats and weaknesses, we can use this to influence our framework and schedule for next Semester. We can think about the areas we need to focus on to mitigate risks and turn our weaknesses in to strengths. This will mean allocating more time on the things we need to improve or adapt to ensure the outcome of our project is the way we expected.

REFLECTION AND SUMMARY

I have outlined the basis of our Game Overview and I am pleased with the position we are in. It's time for us to begin translating this information into our Project Proposal and forming a presentation ready to present to our class on the 18th January. This Proposal should include the most important elements of our project and demonstrate visual research behind this to support the decisions we've made.

I am pleased with the outcome for our first Semester and I'm enthusiastic towards being able to further develop this idea. It's something Kiera and I are passionate towards and would love to take further properly. This overview allowed me to focus on every element of our proposal which has helped me to think about what we need to focus on and improve next Semester, this mainly involves refining gameplay, interactions and player input. We have a few ideas for this but it'll come down to testing these methods to evaluate which one is the most effective and feasible.

NEXT STEPS

Our next steps will be to form our Project Proposal and presentation. Documentation and planning for this can be found here:

Proposal Plan

Presentation

I'll be finishing Semester One with a reflection and summary which can be found here:

Reflection