Assignment 9A ( I should have something interesting, but...)

So, this one is the last critique/reflection/blog, whatever you like to call it, about the last project: Video Game Design!!!!

Honestly, I kind of forget what we have talked about in class. I will try my best to recall of the details from last week.

Anyway, First of all, I think the one of the weak parts of the presentation is we did not well prepare for the presentation, because we just got together did the powerpoint. In our meeting on Thursday, we had a lot of good ideas but we didn't prepare to present to the class, like the story. I think audience did not get the story very well. When we did the powerpoint, we mainly focused on the criteria on the grading sheet other than do a real pitch presentation.  So, basically the game we came up with is a horror survival game. This player wakes up in a jungle and he can only sees things right in front of his face. The player has to find a way out from his current place and escape from all the monsters. He does not have any weapon. Only things that save him from dying is keep the lantern light (which scares the monster away) and find food, water and a place to sleep.

I think we focused more about on mechanics and rules other than the story itself. I mean we did not talk about what will happen if he finds way out of jungle. My idea was when he is out he is in another setting. Eric's idea was after all the surviving and escaping, there will be a huge glass ball, which when the player try to find the end, he discovers it just a circle. Eric also thinks in the beginning of the game, he wakes up in a lab that he is treated for a scientific experimentation. In addition, we have the pick up object and use the object control, but we did not talk about the objects that the player may pick up, except food and drink. I don't know if we talked about the weapon we may give to player at certain point or not, but we discussed in the meeting. However, all of these great idea we did not come across in the presentation.

Another weakness I think is we didn't get each point as clear as we could. For example, in the presentation, the rules we talked about are very basic, which makes the game seems easy. I think we should have more rules, more powerful rules for the game. For the sound and the guide, we just gave 3 examples and briefly presented. Because the vision of the game will be very dark, the players has to react most depending on the sound. This I think is the most important part of the game, but we did not get much detail on this.

The hardest thing of the designing the game is come up with rules, because along the game, we have to think of thousands of possibilities, and along these possibilities, there will be thousands of different rules. The basic ones are easy, like in our game, the rule of keep the sanity and health level. However, if we really going to develop this game, the rules are still the hardest. For example, if we have the player to pick up a object, there will be the rules of the object: how many times he can use and where he use; if there are different types of monsters, how fast the player has to run away from the monster or how much oil he should have to keep the lantern light and the monsters away, etc. I think the game design is much harder than make a movie and a television show.

Overall I think this presentation could be much better if we put a lot effort in it. We also should be more enthusiastic so that the game will be more attractive!!