Fun on Set - Week 2 Of 2
- Alejandro L. Ruata
- Feb 20, 2018
- 5 min read
Updated: Aug 17, 2020
Date: 02/19/18
I now introduce you to "The Theater Annex" - a fun and engaging game whose purpose is to entice players to the Theater to take in current productions. The game is a possible solution to the lack of interest among the current generation to go out and take in an alternate form of media that isn't readily accessible on a digital format. In presenting relevant and interesting stories that tie into current productions and providing real world incentives to players looking for a good excuse to take in some theater, this fun, fast paced puzzle game looks to give players a taste of the type of tales they may come across on the stage. This was the decided upon idea from last weeks post.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Game Title
“The Theater Annex” - A Game Brief
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Member Blog Links
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
General and Specific Information
Genre: Puzzle with Visual Novel Elements
Audience: This game targets individuals with pre-existing interest in the visual arts and/or gaming in general. It is intended to target people between the ages of 16-25. The game will expressly target audiences who are both interested in the arts yet do not take the time to actually take in performances at their local theaters.
Primary Objective
To promote aspects of the theater that reward creative and critical thinking.
To award players who adapt to the mindset promoted with real world incentives to visit and take in live theater performances.
To entice and draw players to the theater with original in-universe prequels and side stories connected with current theater productions.
Theater is all about decisions. This game gives the power of decision making back to the player in the form of ordering events and scenarios in the attempt of getting it as close to original intent as possible. In this way, players will understand the responsibilities and snap decision making (albeit in a fun and goofy way) that goes into theater every time it is presented in front of an audience. In telling original, in-universe stories - connected to big and current productions, this game has the ability to leave players wanting more and will provide incentive the viewing of full theater productions. The real world incentive prizes for completing achievements will include free tickets, snacks, backstage passes, etc. that will further provide incentive players to go to the theater.
Introduction to Game: The game plays like the Danganronpa Climax event where you have to put together the scene to retell the events that happened during the murder; however, we are reworking that gameplay mechanic for our game to put together events of a play correctly to see the scenes play out. Players have access to the scripts of the play and must put the events and scenarios together so the drama can play correctly. The play scenario can be viewed before starting and after the play is made. When the player is playing the game, they must use context clues and informational hints that the empty slots give to put the scenario events in the right order.
Game Control
PC Control Scheme:
Left mouse Click - The player uses their mouse/relevant equivalent to drag puzzle pieces/scenario blocks .
Space or Enter Key - Once the player puts all the scene together, he or she must click the Space or Enter key to confirm their answer.
Mobile Device(s) Control Scheme:
Touch screen Controls - The player uses their finger/relevant devices to interact with the screen.
Score/Objective/Winning/Losing/Competition:
The player must put all the pieces of the scene together correctly to complete the level.
If the player fails to meet the time limit, he or she must start the level again.
Interface/Information: The player will have pieces of the scene displayed on the left side of the screen with a minimized order of the scenes displayed along the top of the screen. The time remaining to arrange pieces of the scenes where they belong will be at the bottom right corner of the screen, and a larger display of the scenes the player is currently looking at will be in the center of the screen.
Main User Mechanics/Actions: The game consists of 3 main building blocks for the games mechanics. These three are; Avoid for avoiding putting in the wrong parts of scenes where they shouldn’t be, Match for putting the scenes where they should be, and Select for selecting parts of scenes to put them where they belong. In relation to the objective of engaging the player in the world of theatre and the arts, these three blocks being the main parts to the gameplay make the player examine and consider the options and what is in front of them in order to arrange the parts of scenes correctly based on visual clues. Through avoiding putting parts in the wrong spots as a penalty to their time, the player will observe the carefully-crafted stories portrayed in the scene previews, seeing the life and color to them while figuring out how to correctly arrange the pieces. This will lead into the engagement of the player in hooking them for actual theatrical plays and dramas.
Levels/Environment: Most of the game’s setting will be taking place in a theatre hall, with the puzzle scenes being shown on stage. Once the puzzle is complete, the lights will dim, and an animation of a projector starting to play, which would animate the paper characters on stage as a play.
Obstacles, interactive elements, enemies, collectibles, NPC’s, etc:
Timer: A countdown timer where the player must completes the level before it reaches to 0.
Puzzle pieces: There are some misleading pieces of the puzzle that will throw the player off.
Each time the level reset, it takes a random pieces from the play instead of using the same pieces.
Sixty seconds of play: The player has the scenes of the play set up in front of them. Pieces of the play are missing and the player has certain actions and parts of scenes that they can move into place. From confrontations between characters in the play, loud cannons being fired off, swords clashing, and other pieces of scenes that can be filled in, it’s up to the player to examine what is there of the scene and what order events transpired in the play.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
WHY OUR IDEA WORKS
The game that we will create deals with stage plays and acting. Through the recreation of scenes that the player will help with arranging correctly, it will give the player a good feel of how vibrant, colorful, and engaging theatre drama is to get them invested. Along with the general theme of the game itself matching the desired objective of the theatre, the plays that we will create for the gameplay will be prequels to plays that are out/in-production for theaters, providing a strong hook for the player to want to see the plays that follow up from the ones they help to arrange in-game.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Reference
Link to video of similar gameplay:
https://youtu.be/mkuaGnwcubs?t=1h4m39s [Relevant from 01:04:36 -01:12:12]
[ Danganronpa V3]
Link to video/Uploaded images of similar look/style
[Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door]
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Production
Number of Developers/Designers
Undergraduate developers: Rotating members:
Producer - 1 Artists - 2
Artists - 2 Designers - 1
Designers - 1 Programmers - 2
Programmers - 1 Audio - 1
Audio - 1
Any special licensing, expertise, or permissions needed
GameMaker (Creator License)
Estimated length of time for development in 3 phases
Concept - 2 Months (MAX)
Pre-Production - 5 to 7 Months
Production - 15 Months (MAX)
Estimated cost for software/hardware
Total: $ 250
Estimated cost for phase 1 (Concept) production
Total: $ 7500
Estimated cost for phase 2 (Pre-Production) production
Total: $ 15000
Estimated cost for release and maintenance
Total: $ 7000
Plan for post release: For the post release plan, we include an additional patch to fix the remaining bugs or crashes of the game. Once the gameplay is running stable, we will focus on improvement of the gameplay. Once the community might starts to support the game, we might add payable DLC.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Yorumlar