Sprint 9

Lens #3: The Lens of Fun

Fun is desirable in nearly every game, although sometimes fun defies analysis. To maximize your game's fun, ask yourself these questions:


What parts of my game are fun? Why?

Solving puzzles, exploring the overworld, and interacting with characters. These things are fun because the way our game is going to be structured, players will feel very immersed in the world we've created.


What parts need to be more fun?

We need to further refine the overworld mechanics, to make it more interactive and accessible. We also need to work on improving the UI.


Lens #15: The Lens of the Toy


To use this lens, stop thinking about whether your game is fun to play, and start thinking about whether it is fun to play with. Ask yourself these questions:


If my game had no goal, would it be fun at all? If not, how can I change that?

Due to the genre of our game, it requires a goal.


When people see my game, do they want to start interacting with it, even before they know what to do? If not, how can I change that?

Yes, they are curious about all of the objects in the room and how they can interact with them.

Task list: 

Sprint 8: E-Prototype Screenshots

Sprint 7: Inverted Gnome's task list

Sara Detrik – Producer/Script Writer/Sound Designer/Game Designer

Sam Brown – Artist/Game Designer

Zac Singer – Programmer/Part-Time Model

- Program/Coding Multimedia Fusion (Zac Singer)

- Writing Dialogue For Scene (Sara Detrik)

- Art For Scene (Sam Brown)

- Background Audio For Scene (Sara Detrik)

Sprint 6: Lenses

Zachary Singer
Sara Detrik
Sam Brown
Lens 22: The Lens of Dynamic State

•What are the objects in my game?

▫Notebook – Recollection

▫Inventory containing items and evidence

•What are the attributes of the objects?

▫Static objects (environment)

▫Collectable objects (inventory)

•What are the possible states for each attribute? What triggers the state changes for each attribute?

▫They all can trigger events and advance the plot

•What state is known by the game only?

▫How far the plot has progressed

▫Georgia

•What state is known by all the players?

▫In-game location

▫Inventory

▫Characters

▫Liquid

•Would changing who knows what state improve my game in some way?

▫We need to obscure certain aspects of the state from the player

Lens 25: The Lens of Goals

•What is the ultimate goal of my game?

▫Solving a mystery

•Is that goal clear to players?

•If there is a series of goals, do the players understand that?

▫For the most part, but there will be twists and turns!

•Are the different goals related to each other in a meaningful way?

▫They all lead Wellington to the thrilling conclusion.

•Are my goals concrete, achievable, and rewarding?

▫Challenging puzzles and a confusing mystery

•Do I have a good balance of short and long-term goals?

▫Some puzzles/missions MIGHT be self contained, but they will lead back to the main plot

•Do players have a chance to decide on their own goals?

▫Sometimes because of dialogue choices

Sprint 5: Four Basic Elements

Is your team’s game design using elements of all four types?

Inverted Gnome’s game design is using elements of the four types by using the age-old method of point and click adventure, with mechanics that supports and helps the player through the story, as well as an aesthetic that adds exponentially to the ambience of the game, and technology that is accessible to almost everyone.

Could your team’s game design be improved by enhancing elements in one or more of the categories?

Since our game is a new take on old-school point and click adventures, we want to focus on improving the story element as much as we can. 

Players will be constantly talking to the characters inhabiting the world, and seeing Wellington’s thoughts on various items and situations, so we want to make these dialogues entertaining and interesting for the player to read or listen to.

 

Are the four elements in harmony, reinforcing each other, and work together toward a common theme?

The mechanics, aesthetics, story and technology all work together very nicely and fit our game because of its simple and lighthearted style.

•Cartoonish art style

•Fairly simple / self explanatory game mechanics

•Lighthearted and humorous story

•Not a very demanding game

The goal of the game is to find Wellington’s other boot, as well as to have the player work their way through a variety of difficult puzzles. They can try to achieve it through the mechanics, as well as their own puzzle solving skills. They can inspect evidence, collect clues, interrogate NPCs, and combine clues as well. However, in the end the problem solving relies totally on their ability to think logically. It will give them a bigger sense of accomplishment in the end.

 

 

Sprint 4: Essential Experience Goals

What experience do I want the player to have?

• A fun and challenging experience that gets the players to think. We want the players to have a nice sense of accomplishment after they solve puzzles.
• This will be a lighthearted adventure with a fair level of difficulty. Giving the player a fun experience, while making them feel like they accomplished something.

 What is essential to the experience?

• Challenging Puzzles
• Interesting characters
• Engaging and comedic plot
• Making the player laugh
• A good sense of exploration/adventure
• A good sense of progression

 How can my game capture that essence?

• Through a fun and challenging experience that gets the players to think and gives them a sense of accomplishment after completing puzzles.
• Getting the players immersed in the world, and engaged with the characters we’ve created.
• The characters that we’ve created will have very distinguished personalities and humorous traits.

 What are the players thinking as they make choices in your game?

The players are thinking about:

• The items and evidence they have on hand.
• The characters they’ve interacted with.
• The clues they’ve gathered.
• The plot.
• How everything they’ve experienced so far ties together.

 How are they feeling?

• Amused because of the humorous dialogue and general atmosphere of the game.
• Curious because of the mystery and plot.
• Challenged because of the puzzles.
• Accomplished as they’re piecing together the mystery and solving the puzzles.

Are the choices you've offered as rich as interesting as they can be?
 

• We’ll have a better idea once development of our game gets underway.
• Once we have a good idea of what we can and can’t do with our game, we’ll know what kind of choices we can provide the player with.
• However, we plan to give players various dialogue options that may change the flow of the story.
• This isn’t a choose your own adventure, the story will be linear, but we want there to be some variations on how you can advance the plot.

Sprint 3: Visual Research

Games used as inspiration:

Mood Board:

One sentence description of Detective Wellington Turtle:

•  Detective Wellington Turtle is cartoonish, light-hearted, and humorous take on the point and click genre in which you control the actions of the detective, Wellington Turtle through this wacky mystery.

Characters:

• Detective Wellington Turtle
  Wellington is a hard boiled detective who is looking for his missing boot.
• The Bahama Twins
  Tommy and Tammy Bahama are twins who own a restaurant, they help Wellington along the way but only to disguise their own motives.
• Officer Colin Allcars
  Colin is Wellington’s boss, the commissioner of the police department, and full time bear.

Similar character designs:

Sprint 2: High Concept Pitch