Research and Rethinking

It's really quite ironic that, originally, I wanted to make my first idea more intricate and I then had to change my idea completely because it was too much so. After having a play on an iPad I realised just how much more effective the simpler games were and, for that matter, more popular. Also, after looking into popular IOS games I found that 9 out of 10 were the simplest and most basic. I even found myself getting addicted to 'Drainworks' when I used the iPad which is based around manipulating water AND THAT'S ABOUT IT!

With this in mind, I set about making something infinitely simpler than the detailed and twisting, narrative driven game I had originally set out to do. I found that virtual pets were particularly popular including 'My Pet Zombie' which was even on the iPad that I was allowed to use. I realise that the whole virtual pet angle has been done and redone before but I am hoping that my game concept will bring a new and different feel to it.

I also intend for my game to be subtly educational. The game is based around dinosaurs and the rewards at the end of each section of the game are information cards on each dinosaur which can be swapped with other players, thus teaching people about dinosaurs in an interactive and (hopefully) fun way. Dinosaurs are very popular among the younger generation with dinosaur games and movies such as 'Jurassic Park', 'Dinotopia' and 1999 television series 'Walking with Dinosaurs' so I am fairly confident that I have chosen a good genre.

In a nutshell, I have chosen to combine dinosaurs (already a popular genre) and virtual pets (one of the biggest and most popular game elements).

Sauria Concept Art (Contingency Plan)

Here is some of the concept art for my contingency plan.

These are a few of the concept designs for my original haunted circus idea including Stitch whose story I also typed up.

Emergency Contingency Plan

OK, long story short I couldn't make the clown idea work. No matter what I did I couldn't simplify it down so, instead, I moved onto my contingency plan which is a sort of Tamagotchi meets 'Jurassic Park - Operation Genesis' - esque attempt. The basic idea is that the player has to look after various different dinosaurs. It differs from Tamagotchi in that you can look after several at once, even in groups and can perform different actions on them which includes the traditional "Feed", "water" etc. Other actions involve dressing an animals wounds, casting broken limbs, medicating sick dinosaurs and the like. Considering that I changed my idea fairly recently, I'm rather pleased with the result.

Further Development

In class, we were shown a few IOS games that already exist including, predictably, Angry Birds. We were also shown Cut the Rope among a few others. The simplest ones, it was pointed out, seemed to play on gravity (in Cut the Rope, the object of the game was to drop a piece of candy into a lizards mouth via increasingly difficult methods, for example).

I'm hoping to make my game quite a bit more intricate than this, although it was useful to see examples of existing games. Something we were shown that was of great use to me was a shooting game, whereupon the player plays with a sort of 1st person POV and movement was extremely difficult and, considering I need to make it so that the player can move a character through a world, this was handy information to have. I am going to need to find a way round that.

In terms of the work I have done on my game so far, I have decided that, because the theme of my game is originally based on a book (of my own creation, of course) I want a sort of story based aspect running parallel to the game-play. What I mean by that is, whenever the player collects/wins a mask, the story of the character/creature that he/she wins it from is shown on screen and, perhaps, even narrated.

E.g.

Stitch's Story

Steve was a drunkard who could always be found at his local pub. One night he was involved in a bar-room brawl, had his face slashed and was thrown into the streets and left to die. The Ringmaster (who represents a sort of Davy Jones type character) find him and offers him the choice of staying half alive in his world. Steve agrees and he is taken to the "Big Top". He wakes up in the street and, at first believes that he has merely had a vivid dream. He puts his hand up to his face and finds it slashed open and screams in horror. This attracts the attention of a cat by the name of Vudu. Aptly named, for Vudu is a living voodoo doll and, upon finding Steve, he pulls a needle from his shoulder, pulls a thread from his chest and crudely stitches up Steve's face. Vudu and the newly renamed Stitch have been inseparable ever since. 

(Property of Jac Gatfield. No stealing please!)

Ideas

OK, I have really got to get to grips with this blogging thing. So let's make a start now...

At uni we were given a brief on making an Apple IOS Game (a game for iPhones, iPads and the like). Having never even HELD one of these devices before I was having trouble coming up with any ideas (how are you supposed to come up with a game idea for a device you know naff all about?) BUT, I knew that I wanted to do something with a concept I'd come up with years ago which was a world based entirely round a sort of haunted circus type attempt. I'd come up with a lot of different characters who were all twisted or evil in some way. I had 4 evil clowns (think 'It'), a strongman, trapeze and so on. But that's as far as I could go.

I talked to a teacher about this idea and he pointed out that I could do a sort of Pokemon thing with it. Seeing as there were so many characters, I could have someone collecting all their different masks, or something similar and make it possible for people to swap with others to get different masks and complete the collection. Currently I am working on how I could make that work and also researching "Collect 'Em All" games (which is code for "researching Pokemon" really, although I am looking for other, similar games of the same genre).