MA Multiplayer Games Design: Brainstorming & Deciding the Game
'ello 'ello, welcome back!
So this week, I got a chance to go through my idea with my developer and they seem to like it, but their only hesitation is whether or not we would be able to properly create a horror atmosphere. This was mostly in terms of the audio side to it, since audio is a big part of horror games for creating tension and suspense, so I could definitely see where he was coming from with that concern. Since I want us both to be happy with what we're going to be working on, I started brainstorming some potential ideas!
Brainstorming Core Mechanic(s)
I began by trying to think what the core of the game might be. I started by looking at various multiplayer games that I have either played or know of to get some inspiration, as well as to do research on (things like how the levels were designed, colour schemes, etc.) This then led me down the line of thinking that it would be fun to have some kind of goofy or silly mechanic as part of our core design.
Deciding on the Game
Out of these ideas, the one that stuck out to me the most was British Bulldog. Its a nostalgic playground game that was played when I was a kid, and it was fun, so why not try turning it into a video game? Plus, this hasn't been turned into a video game yet, so that gives us an extra edge for our unique selling points! (Not that we're selling anything).
Since this idea was getting me excited and enthusiastic, I started jotting down some thoughts and ideas to go with this game:
When we next met up during class, I went through this idea with my developer to see what they thought. Luckily, they seemed to like this idea as well, and we could come up with a fun, easy-going atmosphere much easier than the horror one, so we agreed to present this to our professor. After drafting up a summary to collect these thoughts together, we pitched it, and we got the green light to go ahead with working with this idea. Soooo hooray, we have our chosen game idea! 🎉
Closing Thoughts
Its going to be a couple of weeks before we have our next class. In that time, I need to finish working on my Game Design project, so will have to focus on that and put my current classes on the backburner for a little bit. I'll slowly start looking into more multiplayer level designs to help me prepare for designing levels for our game, along with thinking about what kind of environment we might like. I think we could potentially have a few different designs, but it depends on if we want to keep the playing field the same or change it entirely between rounds.
Anyway, that about wraps things up, so thanks for reading and see you next time! Buh byyyeee :)