MA Game Design: The Two Pitches
*hits F5* Is this post up?
Hope everyone had a good Chrimbo and are enjoying the winter break! Its uh, been a few weeks since I posted something - but I am now back to posting!
I'll keep the written stuff short since there will be 2 videos on this post. These will cover 2 ideas I pitched for this class - one of which already has had some designs...designed. The other came towards the end of the teaching sessions and so was pitched online to only the module team. I'll add some spiel below each video to summarise a couple of the main takeaways from each pitch, but as the videos are the main content, I'll keep text snappy.
Pitch #1 - Allan & Ace: Detective Duo
Key Takeaways
Double double check the sound
In visual novels, there's always some sort of music or ambient sound playing in each scene or for a certain character that is on-screen. I wanted to replicate this by having music change every couple of slides when a new topic was presented. The sound seemed alright on my desktop when I tried it out, but didn't carry over as well when doing the live pitch, so I'll need to really check that it sounds fine before the final pitch
2. Think less like a developer
In the previous 4 odd years of studying games, I've had to be conscious that I wasn't developing something too ambitious. This extends to the platform I am developing a prototype for, which I no longer need to worry about as the designer. Unfortunately, some of that mindset slipped in, hence why the target platforms did not seem to align with what the module staff thought I would make my target platforms. So I just need to get comfortable with not needing to be concerned about the development aspect!
Pitch #2 - Primal Instincts: Echoes of Evolution
Key Takeaways
Less story, more gameplay mechanics
Fairly straightforward one to fix. I wanted to give a very brief explanation for how and why things were taking place in this idea, but it perhaps took more time than was perhaps necessary since the gameplay is the key thing here. An even more summarised story could be provided to allow for more time to talk about the gameplay in more depth
2. Reorder some details to be first
There were some details that appeared in the presentation which could be better to present in the early slides as part of a summary of the idea. This would help convey the idea quickly and effectively before going into more details, whether that is the narrative or gameplay elements.
It would also appear that this idea would be better utilised in the 2022 class that asks us to create a multiplayer game with the masters level programmers, although this is less of a takeaway and more just general advice.
Closing Thoughts
With all the cards on the table, I'll go ahead and continue with the original idea and save the multiplayer one for the next semester. Assuming the class and assignment is going to be tied to making a multiplayer game still, then the idea should hopefully not go to waste.
I've had some more ideas noted down for the original idea, like how to help tackle the issue of controlling the pacing between both players and what types of cases will come up. I'll save these for the next post though, since not much has happened the past week or so! With Christmas now behind us, time has become even more strange and weird in the lead up to the new year. Hopefully I'll be back on track shortly or I might be in a bit of a bind!
That wraps things up for this year, so thanks for reading and watching, and see you in 2022! :D