Ernest Adams Game seminar
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This last Thursday we had a seminar with the writer Ernest Adams and he was there to talk about gamedesign and how to do that properly. After the seminar we was divided into groups of five and put on an assignment to make up a game and show some concept art for that game until the next day. Each group was given a certain subject and my group got the dream: I want to drive bulldozers and steamshovels. And the game should be directed to children.
Our solution was to make a puzzle/adventure game with cartoonstyle characters that was supposed to help people in the villages in the area from the naughty trolls. The gameplay would consist of driving these machines from a thirdperson perspective and solving challenges along the way of the game. For example a challenge could be clearing some fallen trees from the road or make a new ditch to lead water away from a flooded village.
Because it was supposed to be a kids game we felt like we should make the machines alive so that the machine you don’t drive still could help the player and to ease the switch between the machines. In order to accomplish that we made the steamshovel old and grumpy and the bulldozer young and somewhat overactive. The reasons for making the steamshovel grumpy was that steamshovels are somewhat rare today, they was used from the later part of 1800 and in to the early 1900s. And after that decision we had to make the bulldozer happy and almost overactive to balance the steamshovel and to make it more fun.
I think this was a very fun and informative task that really put us to the test, and if you ask me we succeeded. I am still very new at this whole idea of thinking about games and make up ideas about what works with what and that whole thinking process. But this kind of task really forces you to think outside the box and when you look at it when it is done, it actually also is very instructive.
By: Håkan Pettersson
Tagged: bulldozer, Ernest Adams, steamshovel  |
