Workshop A

In this initial workshop there was some work done in defining the problem space and helping to scope out the two different challenges. The results from group brainstorming of social Faux Pas and different game aspects are displayed under the relevant headings.

Social Faux Pas

• Asking a woman if they are pregnant (AND they are not)
• Asking someone their age or weight
• Interrupting other people who are talking
• Awkward Silences
• Talking with your mouth open
• Talking to people while you have headphones in
• Not finishing your food
• Talking to people while you have your headphones in
• Listening to music so loud with headphones everyone else can hear
• Reading over someones shoulder / Backseat driving
• Standing on the wrong side of the escalator / Pedestrian road rules
• Taking photos of people (without consent)
• Incorrect attire / dress code blunders
• Wearing your sunglasses inside
• Invading someones personal space

Random Ideas for a Wearable

Something that interrupts the wearer before they are able to ask a stupid question.

• Extending the idea to some sort of embarrassment meter, for after a stupid question has been asked. So that the the person offended can see that you immediately regret your decision.

A Puffer jacket that expands in size when people are too close to it, so as to push them away from you and increase your personal space.

Unpacking Game Components

Hungry Hungry Hippos

• Quick games
• Frantic and frenetic action
• Button mashing
• Competition
• Multiplayer
• Loud

Hangman

• Building pressure (Slow steady pacing and ramp up)
• Challenging (puzzle)
• Educational
• Drawing
• Ability to 'add lives' in a fun and interesting way by adding more sections to the hangman or the noose.

Guess Who

• Process of elimination
• Quick
• Flicking tabs down
• Something so satisfying about flicking people face down. Would this game be half as much fun in a traditional digital form?

Lemmings

• Non-linear / Free-form
• Cute aesthetic
• Helps to provide emotional attachment to the individual lemmings and create a compelling reason to save them.
• Users plays as God type hero with powers to both create and destroy

Game Concept

As a group we then took one aspect from Hangman and one aspect from Lemmings to create an entirely new game mash-up. From Hangman we took the idea of  'cheating' death and the great relief that comes from solving the word before the hangman drawing is complete. We then tried to add the emotional attachment elements that players feel towards the cute little creatures found in lemmings.

What emerged what what the group called Hanging by a Thread which was at its core a hangman style puzzle game but with added pressures and emotions.

Rather than trying to save a stick figure which had yet to be drawn from the noose. We chose to have a cute cat displayed sitting idly under a guillotine blade. The idea was that this would make players more emotionally invested into solving the puzzle because now they would be trying to save the kitten from certain doom. 

The guillotine blade would slowly lower over time forcing players to make faster decisions and choices about which letters to chose, as running out of time would cause the game to end. The blade would also lower when an incorrect letter was chosen. However, all was not futile as by solving the puzzle the blade could be wound back up and time extended helping the cuddly kitten to cheat death for at least a little while longer.

Learnings

While the game we created was rather silly and would potentially upset a lot of people (animal cruelty) it was a great exercise to explore the possibilities that could come out of two different games. Looking at all the different aspects of each game it was easy to get lost in just which parts from which game would work together well or how concepts from one game could be applied to another.

Currently leaning more towards the game mash-up challenge and will be posting a more in-depth breakdown of certain games and the aspects of them that I find interesting.