Week 6 Bonus Content
Research and Learning
I have been working through Unity tutorials. I have a good understanding of the general interface and the basics of planning a game. The tutorials that I started with are based on 3D games. I think this game should start as a 2D game. It is feasible for a hybrid where the game is inside a 3D sphere with illustrations placed on the inner surface of the sphere. This can be done using skyboxes in Unity. For now, I am working on a fully 2D plan.
I have also downloaded some games that are not my favorite type of game but also not my least favorite types of games. I wanted to expand my view of game mechanics. The first game that I’ve tried is called Automatoys. It is a mechanical puzzle game without a narrative. Each level shows a new coin-operated machine. The player drops the coin into the machine to release a ball. The objective is to navigate the ball through physical puzzles to a target. I found the interface to be interesting. It works on binary touch/no touch input. You can touch anywhere on the screen to activate the mechanics and hold the activation as long as you like. Each successive puzzle element has a touch state and a no-touch state. Moving between the two states uses real-world simulated physics and timing. Moving the ball is all about timing the elements to move between the states in a way that moves the ball along the maze. I love the simple graphics of the game. The elements are illustrated in 3D in bright Easter-Egg colors with subtle shading and no outlines. I’ve played similar games with a heavy steampunk visual design. The graphics make this feel light, fun, and inviting.
The other game that I am playing is called Moncage. The core mechanics of this game are set on a cube. You can rotate the cube to see four sides and the top. Each of these planes displays a different scene. The player must revolve the cube to line up elements across two or three planes to activate physical puzzle elements. There are no people in the scenes but the player collects photos that come together to tell a story about a person who experienced the different settings. There is no text or dialogue in the game outside of the hint shell screen. This game is quite tricky—maybe a little too tricky in portions. I have made heavy use of the hints to discover my next objective. Using the cube is an interesting mechanic. The interface is very simple—it is a cube and you rotate it—but the puzzles are challenging. Some puzzles require multiple steps timed to work with an action that rolls across multiple planes. The mechanics are more central to the game than the story, but you definitely get a sense of a mood as you play.
Inspirations
The following Instagram account posts videos of physical processes like cooking, cleaning, and grooming rendered in 2D in paper (other than hands and tweezers). I love the graphic style. It is cheerful and inviting. I really like the illustrative, two dimensional style for the purpose of my game. I want players to concentrate on the shape of each component and its purpose without getting lost in the details. Photographs of components don’t allow me to manipulate what elements take focus. And, this game is going to be an introductory stage of training. The realism will come later.
Graphics in Process
The graphics style is purposefully illustrative and soft. The game should be inviting and encouraging. The player does not need gritty realism at this stage of learning. Ideally, connecting the schema of these skills to a soft, inviting visual style will partially reduce anxiety later when the player is the real-world performance setting.
These images depict several expressions of Bailey and the nursery environment. The final image shows Bailey with hypoxia due to insufficient oxygen. This is a critical aspect for nurses to assess and take action. The worst possible outcome that will be built into the game is that the paramedics will come. Failure will result in inability to proceed rather than a devastating outcome in the game world narrative.
