“Escape From Posidio Labs!" - A Game Brief
- Alejandro L. Ruata
- Apr 30, 2018
- 8 min read
Updated: Aug 17, 2020
Date: 04/30/18
Our last project "Escape From Posidio Labs!" is a children's game aimed to educate on the dangers of substance abuse/misuse. This game takes the time to accomplish that by equating substance misuse with power-up abuse. My team and I had a blast thinking this one through, we feel it a worthy culmination of our work this semester.
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Entity for Project 7
(Exclusive for Becker Students)
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Game Title
“Escape From Posidio Labs!” - A Game Brief
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Member Blog Links
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General and Specific Information
Genre: Educational, Maze Chase
Audience: The game will be expressly targeted to Massachusetts students in the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th grade (this is, first and foremost, a children’s game). The game will be designed to act as supplemental material to reinforce topics in existing (and, if successful, developing) Massachusetts grade schoolers substance misuse programs.
Entity Objective: To make 2nd, 3rd, and 4th graders aware of the dangers and negative effects of opioids, on an appropriate grade level.
Primary Objective: The primary goal of the game is to reinforce the dangers of substance abuse - we plan on accomplishing this by equating substance misuse to the use and (easy) overuse/abuse of in-game power-ups. The power-up, Posidio, is a medicine pill that allows the player to move faster, and clear away enemy characters in the game temporarily (as in, they will no longer be on screen and a threat to you as you navigate the game world). However, once it wears off, negative effects start to take effect on the player, stacking up after each use.
The player character will grow more tired, they’ll slow down drastically, the screen will eventually start warbling & losing color, and the music will become more and more washed out. This will continue with every use of Posidio (one use will set off a countdown timer of approx. 20 minutes before you hit peak misuse, with every subsequent use speeding up the timer) until the effects are so detrimental it literally becomes impossible to continue playing, leading to the player losing the game.
Not only that, the Posidio medicine will wear off quicker and quicker (as we said, it is a power-up and carries with it effects you’d want to take advantage of) until using it carries no effect on the player any longer. In fact, multiple uses of Posidio will eventually start to drain player health and the only way to slow that down… is through continued usage of Posidio (which speeds up the timer).
In this way, we reinforce the dangers of substance misuse by presenting a little pill in game, that for all intents and purposes provides positive power-ups, that can be misused and abused to the point where you are forcibly addicted and taking more and more just to prolong your end (while ironically speeding towards it regardless).
Introduction to Game: The story of this game is that the main character, a kidnapped “volunteer” (guinea pig) is trying to escape from the evil corporation’s - “PosidiCO” - lab facility (a gigantic building laid out like a maze). The player will seek escape while the PosidiCO security force are patrolling the facility trying to catch you. Throughout your adventure, you’ll come across PosidiCO’s newest product, Posidio Pills - touted as medicine to improve your everything! Players might be skeptical… but they also won’t know better. Taking the pills will only result in positive effects at first, not realizing the toll required to enjoy your brief (yet initially helpful) benefit. You’ll begin to realize how damaging the product is for your character as you learn that Posidio Pills were designed for people with specific illnesses (that PosidiCO tried to put in you to test the pill) and those who don’t suffer from those illnesses… they become addicted, sick, and eventually die.
Game Control
PC:
- ‘WASD’: the player uses the basic ‘WASD’ keys to move forward, backward, left, and right.
- Space: the space key allows the player to jump.
Mobile Device:
- Joystick and button layout: there will be a 2D joystick and button on the screen like console mobile apps. This layout is for the character movement including jumping.
Console Controller:
- Joysticks: the player uses the joystick for the character movement.
- ‘A’ button: the player uses the ‘A’ button to jump.
Score/Objective/Winning/Losing/Competition
● Objective - The player must escape & bypass the enemy forces hunting them (no combat - Posidio helps get enemies out of your way… it doesn’t kill them).
● Winning - The player needs to find the endpoint (facility exit) to escape and win.
● Losing - Enemies damage the player, losing all health ends the game. Having the Posidio Timer run out ends the game. Overuse of Posidio leads to health drain - if it’s all drained… you lose as well.
Interface/Information
PC/Console:
● Player health: On the top of the screen
● Posidio Effect: If player uses Posidio, effect will display at the bottom of the screen (blue indicates positive effect, red will indicate negative effects)
Mobile:
● In the mobile device, there will be a 2D joystick and button on the screen. The Joystick will be on the bottom left, and the button will be on the bottom right.
Main User Mechanics/Actions: The main mechanic of the game is the Posidio Pill collectible - which the player uses as a power-up; it’s a hazard to the player if not used sparingly and carefully. The Posidio will slow the player down and cause visual issues with the environment, making the game harder and harder to complete. Overuse results in slow draining of health (can only be slowed down by taking more Posidio).
Levels/Environment: The main setting (and frankly, one of the main characters of this game) is ‘Posidio Labs’. A new facility by “PosidiCO”, ‘Posidio Labs’ is the world's largest new headquarters for the leading Think Tanks to develop and experiment with cutting edge medicines and technology… it’s also where you’ve been taken to, following your kidnapping earlier in the day. The goal of this game is to escape from Posidio labs, and as such, you get to take an impromptu tour of a multi leveled corporate conglomerate headquarters (think of the mundane setting of “The Stanley Parable” and the indoor settings of “Metal Gear” games). Players will go on a wild ride running through and taking in the multiple laboratories, presentation floors, loading bays, test chambers, etc.)
Players are tasked to run through and evade guards as they make their grand escape. Posidio Labs in the only level, but it’s large, imposing, and filled with different things to see and take in (a bright, cartoony, kid friendly art style where all models and visuals are exaggerated and colorful).
Obstacles, interactive elements, enemies, collectibles, NPC’s, etc
● Enemies AI: the player will be running from these AI. These AI will try to catch the player by following them throughout the map.
● Posidio: Posidio is the collectible that will help the player with gameplay. However, this power up will also cause harm to the player. The more the player uses it, it will increase the difficulty of the player performance such as make the screen shake, splash of vomit, etc.
● Timer: The player must complete the level in certain amount of time.
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WHY OUR IDEA WORKS
To educate the middle school students about the negative effects opioid, we want to implement the negative side effects into an in-game power-up. Like ‘Mario Kart’, when you touch the item box, you will receive the option to use your item or not. Using it will give you initial positive effects that will help in gameplay. That said, in our game, continued use will introduce negative consequences (like the actual effects of Opioids) including drowsiness (screen blur), slowed breathing (slow movement), nausea (stunned), etc. These effects will be randomized every time when the player uses Posidio. We want to reinforce the teaching of the substance misuse programs. Players will be made to understand the consequences of using something that they know nothing about - that something seemingly harmless and inconsequential and even a little helpful can be misused and abused to the point where you are forcibly addicted and taking more and more just to prolong your end (while ironically speeding towards it regardless) and prevent further pain.
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Example of Play
Once you enter the game, you must start running. Behind the character, there will be a main enemy who will chase you throughout the level. There will also be security agents scattered throughout the building. As you continue to run, there will be many paths that the player can take (stairs, office sections, automatic elevators, etc.). There will also be hazards/power-ups in the form of Posidio pills. Player can pick these pills up, and use them for a boost (can clear enemies, make you run faster, etc.) The more pills you pick up the more often you can use them. Overusing in a short amount of time causes the negative effects to take hold sooner (screen starts getting blurry and you slow down, for example), eventually resulting in health draining. You can only slow it down by taking more Posidio, but doing so speeds up the timer that began counting down when you took Posidio the first time, causing colors to distort, the screen to black out, etc. You are vulnerable to guards, a health drain death, or the faster Posidio timer hitting 0 and causing death anyway. The pills do help… but at a terrible price.
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Reference
Link to videos of similar gameplay
[3D on rails, maze running gameplay]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NWUXhPgZI30 [Mario Kart]
Link to video/image of similar look/style
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Assessment Values
Our first measure for assessment is the number of times that people pick up the power-ups. The reason why this is important is to make sure that people are experiencing the intended effects of the Posidio (opioids) in-game. This will be done easily through in-game tracking.
Second measurement for assessment is how much trouble the players had surviving/death count. This is important to determine how detrimental the pills end up being to playability and how well the drug parallel comes off in terms of in-game functioning. This will be done tracking when and where the player dies. What we are looking for is for a certain amount of time to pass before they end up dying and re-spawning so that way we can infer as to how effective the power-ups are at making the player die.
Third measurement for assessment is how often the players use the power-ups. This is important due to the players, we expect, will have one of two reactions once they realize that using them starts to give negative effects. One possibility is that players will stop using them altogether, and another is that the players will start to experiment and test out the frequency with which they can use the power-ups. This will be done through an in-game power-up tracking (analytics) system to determine how effective the game is at relaying the message that these drugs/power-ups are bad when used.
Fourth measurement for assessment is how players do in comparison from one player to the next in terms of whether they have used a power-up recently enough or not. This is to determine how well the player does regarding getting through the level with and without the use of the power-ups. With this, we will be looking for the player to have a faster completion time without the power-ups due to their inevitable negatives no matter the frequency. This will be implemented with a progress/completion tracker in-game in conjunction with the power-up-usage tracker to determine how well they do.
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Production
Estimated number of Developers/Designers - Shifting numbers throughout the Phases of production
Phase 0
● [6] content experts - Education | Medical | Outreach | Opioid Specific | Game
● [2] game designers - Will be held responsible for creating visual mockups.
Phase 1 & 2
● [2] content experts - Education | Medical
● [10 - 14] game developers
○ Producer [1], Artists [4], Programmers [5], Designers [3], Audio [1]
● [1] Test Team Coordinator
Estimated length of time for development in 3 phases - 2 Becker College Semesters
Phase 0 [Becker Semester 1]
● 1 Month - Design/Mockup (Concept)
Phase 1 [Becker Semester 1]
● 3 Months - Proof of Concept Implementation (Pre-Production)
Phase 2 [Becker Semester 2]
● 4 Months [will be launched at the end] - Production
Estimated cost for production - Approx. > 100k (not counting donations, volunteer work, & provided Becker College academic resources.
Phase 0
● $0 Given + donations/volunteer work/academic resources
Phase 1
● $50k Given + academic resources
Phase 2
● $50k Given + academic resources
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