Game Idea Research
After receiving feedback from my game ideas, I have decided to follow the path of my 'Escape the Mansion' concept. While I was told that my other three ideas had promise, I found feedback for Escape the Mansion to be the most positive.
Although I liked the concept of the shooting game, looking back it did seem quite far fetched for my current level of skill this semester, and while both my Cloud Surfer and Getaway ideas weren't poor, they may have also been difficult to programme as they require a high level of skill for designing the aesthetic of the game worlds.
Delving into research for Escape the Mansion, I felt the most important aspect to make it a good game was a solid theme. I would like a fun, but pseudo-horror theme in both the map-design and aesthetic, very similar to the GameCube classic Luigi's Mansion. Luigi's Mansion is a game is I was recommended about by a friend when discussing my project. Upon researching the game, I found the Super-Mario style mixed with ghostly vibes was a great vibe for Escape the Mansion. A horror theme, that has soft edges to it.
While my game will be no where near the level of open-world as Luigi's Mansion, I want to give the theme of objects which the player will choose in this point and click adventure a creepy theme. A possible example could be clicking on an old painting, and in turn a note comes up on the player screen reading 'this family owned this house many years ago... before they disappeared' and so on and so forth.
I also think that the player should be static in place for programming simplicity but still be able to rotate 360 degrees in order to find more pieces to the puzzle. While 360 degree rotation my be slightly out of reach for my current programming ability, implementing some level player rotation should still be enjoyable.
My initial plan is to have approximately 20 clickable objects with about 10 providing insight into the escape and the other 10 having story. presence to them to expand the game world. The end goal for my current draft will be to have a door which requires a key, which is only unlocked when a puzzle box or safe is given a punched in code. Each number will be scattered around the room and needed in a specific order. For example, clicking on an old book may bring up this text; 'The book reads on its cover 'The first step' and inside is sketched a faded number 4" , this number will then need to be entered into the safe. Overall around nine numbers will need to be found and entered in order to secure the key which is in the safe.Since my game is not high speed, eg a car racing game, It is important that I thoroughly design each game element step by step and ensure all clues match up. I do not want to over complicate the game in anyway but I still want to have the player guessing and have to put some thought into what action they are going to do next.
After all numbers have been input into the safe and they key has been retrieved, the player will unlock the door and 'escape the mansion' which is the games ending. I have researched briefly Unity tutorials that may help me make this game to which I found many. For turning the game player I found this 15 minute long YouTube video on 'How to make a unity 360 video player in under 15 minutes!' this is a video I am going to reference when making my own game.
For the game objects there is a wide range of tutorials and manuals available online, this unity manual gives a detailed overview in making game objects. The last thing that is extremely important in the making of my game is making clickable objects that are interactive. Upon researching tutorials regarding this I found a person who is making a trivia game and needed to make the box clickable. Here is a link to this thread which I found helpful.
Overall I am excited to get started on making this game as I already have a vision as to how the game is going to play. I am hoping that I can teach myself the skills I need in order to make it happen. This is going to be a huge challenge for me to overcome but the results will hopefully be worth the hard work.
Thank you for reading - Leslie
Hi Leslie
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed hearing more about your idea of doing a escape room like game using puzzles to figure out the way out of the room or mansion! I to are doing a puzzle like game but mine focuses on a more horror approach, think of the classic slender-man game and you got the right idea, I can see you love puzzle games just as much as i do and i cant wait to see or play yours. One thing i was thinking was instead of ending the level or going to a menu you could just do a continuation of the story-line with every new room in the mansion, it be cool if the player was solving a murder or tracking down a demonic ghost and had to go room by room to find clues or keys locked in each room. Overall though its a great idea and i cant wait to see it finished.
Hi Lesli
ReplyDeleteI just read your blog on game idea research which I personally found very interesting.I really like your game idea and I really think it would be a very interesting game to work on and create all the small details which would help your player to Escape the Mansion.I personally very like logical games that have similar concept to your game.I think as you said you gonna have to put a lot of details in to your game to make it as interesting as possible for the player to solve the game puzzle that your going to create in order to escape.When I was working on my game idea I had lots of differnt ideas that I could of potentially use but I never thought about something that would involve logic and secrets.I am really excited to see what your game is going to like like when you create it and I would also love to test it but you overall idea sounds pretty good.I think it will be also cool if every room in the mansion was getting harder as the player moves throughout the game.But overall great idea I am looking forward to see your game.
Hey Leslie, It's Ellen. I just read your blog for your game idea and I think this is an amazing idea. Iv done escape rooms before and they are so fun and I think your game will embody the escape room experience. I also like puzzle game s a lot better then high speed games and shooting games so I'm really glad you went with this option . I understand that to complete the level you must find all the numbers and clues but will the player be under any time constraints? or will they just get to keep playing until they can escape. Also will the rooms get harder as the player continues? will the clues be harder to find? I think that instead of having the game be over when the player makes it out of the room they should just enter another room or the next "level" and the rooms could get harder as the player continues. Over all its a great idea and I can't wait to see how it turns out!
ReplyDeleteHi Leslie, I really enjoyed reading your game concept of a point and click horror game where you must escape a mansion. From reading your description it is obvious you are passionate about this concept and it shows this in your blog. The research that you have completed for this concept is nicely done and has a lot of interesting elements that will help you progress your game. One thing I would recommend having in your game is some kind of punishment or reward system for the character. This could be used as a way of emphasizing a sense of danger and urgency to the protagonist when trying to escape the mansion. One game I would recommend you having a look at for inspiration is a game called “The Guest”. The story of the game is that character wakes up in a locked hotel room with no idea of how they arrive their and must try to figure out the hidden clues to escape. It has similar elements that you were thinking of implementing but it uses first person perspective to achieve its goals.
ReplyDeleteHi Leslie! I have just finished reading your blog post on your game idea there and I have to say your game idea concept is quite unique and interesting. Your game idea is so fascinating to me I would of never of thought to create a game quite like yours. I haven't seen another 'Creative Digital Media' student think of this idea yet so yours will definitely stand out! I was wondering would you consider instead of ending the level perhaps you could have the player continue the game on as if it was like a story and each time they completed the level they were finding out more pieces to the story that they didn't know. Feel free to check out my blog post about my game idea and give me feedback too. Hope you find this process of creating the game fun and best of luck with it all.
ReplyDeleteI like how you are plaining on making a game that involves a lot of focus and at the same time it will be tense because of the horror. I think your game will be one of those that will keep us at the edge of our seats which is a good feature as it definitely won’t be a boring game. The 360 degrees rotation sounds like a little challenge, perhaps we might cover that in Unity before you make a start on your game. Are you going to make every step harder for the player along the way so the game will be more challenging? It would make the game more interesting and fun to play if you could add some background music if we will learn how to do that in Unity. I think it add some more atmosphere to the game. Overall I like your idea, I am not a fan of horror games but I’m sure that those who are will really enjoy it.
ReplyDeleteHi Leslie, this is the first that I read about your game project and I really find it interesting as I don't know if there are other student are doing an escape room. I also find your explanation about your game very detailed and well written! I also think that designing the room by adding more items making it more challenging for the player to find hints/riddles. It will also be more entertaining if your game will have a suspense type of background music to really give that horror feels. Is there going to be some hints during the game in case the player couldn't get the right code/answer?
ReplyDeleteI hope I will be able to play your game in the future as I really think that it's a really cool game.