This week we were asked to come up with at least 10 games using random words. I used a random phrase generator to come up with the titles for my games.

Macho Dinosaur Showdown:

Choose your dinosaur and begin your quest!

Experience the prehistoric world in a way never seen before. Customise your dinosaur with a variety of ‘matcho’ costumes and armours as you fight across the expansive open world of Pangaea in order to save the world from disaster (And the King of the Mammals) as you defeat increasingly difficult enemies in dark souls meets WWE style gameplay.

Consoles + PC

Teen

Birth of a New Day:

Experience the undead in a whole new way. You are a zombie, made undead against your will. You have to find the person who made you this way and take revenge while finding enough brains to keep you lucid, all without drawing attention to yourself. Make your way through this open world sandbox game with a compelling narrative that leaves you wondering ‘why?’

Consoles + PC

Teen

On The Ropes:

A tightrope dating simulator. Choose a partner and then see how well you match by walking a tightrope with the other person. Overcome obstacles and keep your balance to see how well you paired up.

Wii U

Young Adult

Keep on Truckin':

A driving game where you have to avoid other drivers who are blocking the road. It gets progressively harder as time goes on.

Consoles

All Ages

Fish out of Water:

You're a fish from the fishmongers at a supermarket that has fallen off the ice. You have to make your way back up to the ice before you go off in 'I am Bread' style gameplay.

Consoles/PC

All Ages

On Cloud Nine:

Platformer. A new drug called 'C9' has hit the streets and you've accidentally taken some, causing the world around you to constantly shift. Avoid the authorities as you try to make it home.

All Platforms

Teen+

Keep your Shirt on:

Platformer. Everytime you jump your shirt lifts up. You have to traverse the level before your shirt goes over your head and you can no longer see.

All Platforms

All Ages

No Ifs, Ands or Butts:

Brain Trainer where you have to beat your teacher through a series of puzzles to eventually leave the classroom, only to moon the rest of the class.

Hand-held Consoles

Teen+

I Smell a rat:

There's a mole in the mafia. While it isn't you, you are the main suspect. The way that you interact with other characters, and how you act in the world will affect how the NPC's view you. Find the true culprit before you get taken out.

Consoles

18+

What Am I, Chopped Liver?:

Platformer. Collect all the pieces of liver to become whole again. Defeat bosses and avoid traps along the way.

All Platforms

All Ages

Happy as a Clam:

Fighting Game. Your pearl was stolen from you while you slept. Defeat the other clams in the ring to discover which one stole it.

All Platforms

All Ages

Burst your Bubble:

Platformer. Rise to new heights by jumping from bubble to bubble, with each bubble popping after it's used. Gain power ups to leap further and be careful of environmental changes.

Mobile

All Ages

In the Red:

 Grandmother's footstep's meets mariokart. Be the first to finish the course using power ups, and avoiding the penalties caused by the random red-light, green-light system.

Consoles

All Ages

     

      For the Character, I want the design to be distinctly robotic, while having some human elements to not distance the player from the character too much. I feel like with the whole atmosphere of my game, it's a good idea to get the aesthetic of possibly the only entity in the game, correct.

      I really like the look of hydraulics and cabling in robots and mechs, as it gives them a little more definition, a little more believability, while also allowing from quite a bit of variance in design. I also feel like it could be a good idea to, given the supposed state of the mech, put some damage into his design, and then have that affect the way that the character moves, handicapping the player in more ways than one.

      I mainly looked at abandoned factories and warehouses to get a good idea of what I want the mood of the whole thing to be, and I quite like the muted blues and purples, mixed in with the occasional bright spot as it would change the tone from something macabre, to something far less sinister.

      Not only that, but it could be an idea that the aim of the game is to effectively return the player's sight by some means, revealing the vibrancy of the colours only after the game has finished and you've travelled however far in darkness, only able to see in black and white for the duration of the game.

      All in all, I think that these mood boards will help me to begin designing the characters and later, some of the sorts of environments that would be seen throughout the game.

      With the start of a new year, we've been given the task of creating a prototype game around the (Titular?) theme of 'Inference'.
      To help myself come up with ideas for an interesting game that I could make, I first got the explicit definition of the word:

      Inference is all about connecting implicit clues together to come to a conclusion. I think that the word can also apply to drawing information from your surroundings to have a subtly higher understanding of your environment based on what your senses are telling you.

      After a quick brainstorm, I had the idea of the player being blind, unable to see, to use their most common sense, but instead, they would use another sense to draw information on their environment. Perhaps, they would only be able to see their character through the lens of a security camera or something akin to a sonar pulse emitted from the character once every few seconds (player activated?) that would help the player to navigate their way through the level. 

      I feel as though this idea works best in a sci-fi, tech-based setting, as it would be easier to portray a robot with the ability to simultaneously see and not see (Matrix?).

      In order to get a good design for my character(s?) and the environment, I need to create a couple of mood boards, one for environment, the other for character concepts. The environment doesn't need to be particularly complex, and while neither does the character, I feel like it should be quite a colourless, drab environment. Perhaps dirty and grungy, as though it is an area that has been left to decay for too long and the character a (broken? discarded?) robot has awakened without parts of itself functioning.