30/09/2014 - Communication set up

Earlier tonight callum set us up a facebook group to maintain contact although we already communicate on a daily basis.

We still don't have the game idea set in stone but a 2d fighter like Street Fighter is likely.

The only problem I see with designing a fighting game is it's hard to notice the subtle differences between different games unless you are a hardcore fan of the genre, both me and Chris find it hard never mind a marker.
We'll have to make sure we explain the unique areas of our design in our documentation so we can be noticed when innovate.

28/09//2014 - "Online Game Jam" further thoughts

I had some further plans for the online game jams I was thinking in my first post, they are mainly to make the game as user friendly and as easy as possible to find participants.

Firstly I would introduce a client that automatically updates the software to the latest version. A "Play Now" button would be included that connects people over the web that are also looking for online game jam participants.
Optional chat rooms would be something I would test out, they would be especially useful for feedback at the end of the development time.
Even if players don't finish on time I think all participants should have access to everyones unfinished game, It means players can't be embarrassed and choose to hide their hours work gaining no feedback.

The whole point of "Online Game Jams" is so people online can get as much experience as possible in creating games while ignoring the burden of organising events.
***
Here is a picture of someone playing draw something, a game that inspired this idea:

I met up with my fellow group members yesterday which was Saturday and we were playing some fighting games, I think we may decide on designing a fighting game by the start of Thursday.

First Day Thoughts

10 minutes before class started I started jotting down some quirky throw away ideas based on other games I liked while scrolling down the wikipedia article for list of game genres. None of these ideas have much depth or replay-ability but they eventually led to an idea I consider good.

I liked how the game "Half Minute Hero" turned the whole genre of "Role Playing Games" on its head by removing some of its key stereotype. RPG's can be very long, it's not uncommon to have them take between 30 and 80 hours to complete, during this time the player usually becomes very attatched to the story of the world and the characters they are progressing. However each level half minute hero cleverly compresses a whole RPG into 30 seconds.

I began by reversing the genre of "fighting games" into "stop people fighting games"  where you perhaps play a bouncer at a gig or club and the other player maybe picks a boxing referee and you see who is better at splitting up fights.

Then I fought of the terms "shoot em up" and "beat em up" both of those terms are very violent, how about "heal em up" or "help em up" what is you play some sort of healing magic character helping fallen knights or soldiers.
"Rail Shooters" are linear first person shooters in which the player only controls the aim of the main character but not the movement, how about a game with all different types of trains that you can load out with weapons and battle other deadly trains on the railway.

My mind was thinking "card games" and "board games" when the table top games society was mentioned, then I thought "cardboard game" a game where you use cardboard in the most productive way you can.

I then thought of "online" games, how about a game where you are on a line perhaps a tightrope walking game.

How about the genre of "party games" instead of games that are designed to pick up and play with friends visiting a simulation game in which you organise parties.
Or "handheld games" a game in which you hold hands.

For a character I thought of fish tanks and then I thought of a fish who is also a industrial war tank.

This actually reminded me of a tank game that has been in my head for years that was grid based and players could create their own maps, I really thought and still do that this game existed but I have never been able to find it, I'm starting to convince myself that I thought of it in my head which I may have while thinking it exists.

***

I was thinking how about make a game that I could use all of these throw away ideas that I thought of on the spot and many more in at once.

Something I have noticed that a lot of people enjoy that is in high demand that doesn't happen too often is Game Jams, events in which game designers meet up and create something in a short space of time. Game Jams are quite difficult to set up and organise however. Developing games is relatively hard to get into and making a game is a job even though it might be fun, however Game Maker is software that is very easy to use to start making games but very hard to master.

I was thinking of an online game where you get matched up with other players (lets say 4) where you perhaps use a tool like game maker to make a game withing a time limit (lets say an hour) after this every player in the group plays and rates everyone elses game. the incentive is to get high ratings on your games or come up with game ideas you like and could develop further.

The game "Draw Something" for iphone inspired this idea:

Two players take turns drawing a picture to convey the guessword for his/her partner to guess. The person drawing is provided three random words, arbitrarily ranked by difficulty (a star is easier to draw than a lion), earning one to three coins if their partner guesses correctly.

After the player has finished drawing, the guesser will view a stroke by stroke replay of the drawing, without the pauses in between. The guesser is given a number of blank spaces representing the number of letters in the word, and a selection of scrambled letters.

Some people can play Draw Something and get by drawing stick figures, but some people can go nuts and create beautiful pieces of art with the tool set of the game this is what I wanted my idea to be like.

References:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Draw_Something
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_game_genres