Tuesdays with Diefenbach

• This class is about innovation, pushing boundaries of game design
• Interesting to him: Locations changing based on user choices (tribals becoming more violent toward you, environment evolving based on actions, etc.)
• Expand on this a bunch!
• Maybe not killing, but also have other "mean" options like enslaving etc
• Pushing more of the design aspect in terms of what changes
• How can we explore cave painting thematically?
• Research cave painting locations more (e.g., the ones in France and their detail)
• Interesting to him: Wall paintings interacting with the PHYSICAL world, how the real world's effects the painting
• Torch on wall for instance would light everything up
• Choose one all the way of the interesting things, or a bit of both
• Both directions could be even taken for THESIS stuff (two different theses)
• Put the two directions back together in the end
• He doesn't care about where the platform game - wherever it goes, if it's in Unity or Adobe Air it has universal deployment
• Some issues with porting but it's expandable
• Trying to release it goes beyond course
• This is really to build up resume

Notes for Feb 17 Meeting

instead of 2 paths, have 1 path with both challenges intertwined and they choose what things they want to do; they can switch between powers on the fly; meeting with spiritual chief in the end you can power yourself up in one class or the other

Maybe contact paul to talk about development stuff (unity multiplatform dev, etc)

DISCUSSION POINT: meeting with paul

class - shaman, warrior, in-between character

controls: button to jump, button to shaman move, button to warrior, button to run

characters have bad and good symbols

skill tree on chieftain antlers; warrior vs. shaman

shaman does his gandalf pose, symbol comes together if the other character is good; if the character is bad the gandalf pose pisses them off and they hit you

Assets:

Dan: Concepts, Tile game, sketches of different stuff to model

Group: Level Design; Maps 1 and 2 [Not Procedural]

[Stealth game and Killing Options both available in levels]

List of Assets

List of Badguys, Good guys, rescued characters, platform types

Grid-based level design, drawing maps

List of variables (anything that can happen and how to make it happen)

Concepts for legend (in-between levels screen); spiritual tree head scenes should be mapped out and understood

Week 4

MDA Paper; http://www.cs.northwestern.edu/~hunicke/MDA.pdf

1. game mechanics and balance are the focus of this round of physical prototyping. Hence the mechanics of your *entire* game should be prototyped as detailed as possible.

mechanics: behaviors and control mechanisms afforded to the player within a game context. Together with the game's content (levels, assets and so on) the mechanics support overall gameplay dynamics. 

some changes:
bigger grid, more emphasis on platforming
character does auto-illuminate upon approaching
upon reaching unknown, cutscene memory of last encounter plays
upon revealing unknown, agency leans to character, he tries to do something by default and you can choose to intervene in a time frame

2. use the MDA methodology to guide your design (I sent out the article in my last email). Think about what is the main aesthetics you want to have and how do you design your mechanics and therefore dynamics to achieve that. For those of you who has a relatively complete demo, this is very important. Change some of your rules to see how the resulting dynamics and aesthetics change accordingly. Please clearly lay out your MDA in your presentation, and present the results of how you changed the rules (yes, you have to play it using different rules rather than simply hypothesizing the affects.) Find at least two external people to play your prototype and document this process (e.g., photos).

Mechanics describes the particular components of the game, at the level of data representation and algorithms.  
Dynamics describes the run-time behavior of the mechanics acting on player inputs and each others 
outputs over time. 
Aesthetics describes the desirable emotional responses evoked in the player, when she interacts with the game 
system.  

Aesthetics: (Choose the ones that relate to game)

1. Sensation
  Game as sense-pleasure 
2. Fantasy
  Game as make-believe
3. Narrative 
   Game as drama
4. Challenge
  Game as obstacle course
5. Fellowship
  Game as social framework
6. Discovery
  Game as uncharted territory 
7. Expression
  Game as self-discovery 
8. Submission
  Game as pastime

3. find 3-5 similar games and study their game mechanics. What works and what doesn't?

4. flesh our a weekly digital production plan (e.g., Gantt chart) for the rest of the term

Cave Tale Paper Prototype Description

1. Player begins with: [4 health], [fire], [2 spears], [2 offerings]. They need to reach the end of the board game with at least 1 health.
2. Player moves across a boardgame style board; each space is traversed by rolling dice (rolling 3 moves 3 spaces, for instance)
3. Upon encountering a "?" the player has a chance of getting an item.  Rolling the die, if the results are:
1. [1, 3, or 5] = Spear
2. [2, 4, or 6] = Offering
4. When a player lands on an Unknown board space:
1. (1) By default, beast or tribal have an equal chance of appearing.
2. (2) Player can [Illuminate], [Spear], [Offer]
1. (2a) If Player illuminates, it then shifts to the unknown's turn.  The unknown has a chance of attacking or remaining docile; by default it's a 50/50 shot.  Attacking can be broken down as: Predators and Tribals each can do 1 damage to the health bar, Super predators can do 2 damage.
2. (2b) The breakdown of spears and offerings to Unknowns is below:
1. Predator
1. Spear + predator = [+1 Offering], [+10% Chance of Attacking], [+1 Predator to Unknown Pile]
2. Offer + predator = [-10% Chance of Attacking]
2. Super Predator
1. Spear + Super Predator = [+2 Offering], [+20% Chance of Attacking], [+1 Super Predator to Unknown Pile]
2. Offer + Super Predator = [-20% Chance of Attacking], [-1 Super Predator to Unknown Pile]
3. Tribal
1. Spear + Tribal = [+10% Chance of Attacking], [-1 Tribal from Pile], [+2 Offering OR Spear]
2. Offer + Tribal = [-10% Chance of Attacking], [+1 Tribal from Pile], [+1 Offering OR Spear]
5. When landing on a "!" Space:
1. IF you helped a tribesman last turn, then [+1 Health]
2. IF you offered to a predator OR were aggressive towards a tribesman, then [-1 Health]
3. Note: "!" only have this effect after the first Unknown Encounter.