Brainstorming and how to find inspiration - 28/2/15

So for the most recent game we've been tasked with creating, we are supposed to guide a player through an emotional journey, from one emotion to another. I've finally settled on an idea and I feel like it's the best one I've had in a while largely because of the inspiration behind it. Originally I was thinking far too literal in regards to the emotions rather than thinking of something I could use my own experiences and feelings to create.

The original idea was to create a game where the player would jog along a field in a race. The player would be very slow whilst the NPC characters also in the race would pass him. This would cause the player to feel frustrated, which was the idea for the first emotion. Towards the end of the game as the player warmed up their character, they would eventually gain up enough speed to sprint back past all of the people who had earlier caused frustration, which would hopefully have the player feeling satisfied.

After the realisation that this idea is probably the worst idea ever proposed in the history of games design, (literally ever,) I decided to throw it off the table and think of something new. After around 30 minutes of painful brainstorming, I started to get frustrated that I couldn't think of an idea. Ironically, being frustrated was the thing that inspired the new idea for my game. I'm proud of this fact because I used my own feelings as inspiration for something creative. It's a nice feeling.

Emotional Rollercoaster. 

Retrieved from:

http://journeyofadreamer.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/emotionalrollercoaster.jpg

Essentially, in the ideal final version of my game I hope to have a small emotional experience that guides a player through the feelings of happiness, motivation and serenity all the way through to sadness, depression and morbidity. The overall gameplay involved is a character walking along a white passageway through his or her life. As the character walks, they are asked questions about their character and are given options about what the character should do in certain situations. Somewhat like that of Fallout's early game, where you are given a quiz that will help define what kind of player you are. The difference being that this is largely the core mechanic in this game.

Fallout 3 Gameplay

Retrieved from: Unknown

The goal is the player feeling an emotional attachment to their character and that they are leading their character down the right path in their life. It should feel like they are building up to something greater. Unfortunately, there is a catch, once you get to the end of the game, the character dies and the screen abruptly turns black. That is not to say the game ends, it just enters what I'm going to refer to as a state of limbo; an everlasting black screen and the player must exit the whole window to exit the game. I can't think of any examples of this happening in games so I am hopeful that this will have some sort of effect on the player. Time will tell.

This "state of limbo" is being implemented to be compliment the idea that every decision they have made during the game is completely irrelevant, and in turn, so is life. Not to say this is what I personally believe, but it is what I wish to represent in my game. Maybe I'm not the nicest developer for attempting to inflict depression on my participants, but I think I'll get over it, besides, the idea is more for them to feel the way their character would, rather than think about their own eminent death.

Anyway, that's all I have to say this week. Cheers cobba.