ESSENTIAL EXPERIENCE

Overview

First Design

To start the design process, I considered what experience I would like my player to have. I asked myself questions like:

What experience do I want the player to have?
What is essential to this experience?
How can my game capture that essence?

And built my game around the answers and ideas that came up in response to these questions. This would give me a better understanding about what I want my game to be and how to go about achieving the desired experience for the game.

I began by making a mindmap of ideas for an experience that I would like the player to have. This included strong emotional experiences, such as a feeling of relaxation and peace, mixed with pleasant surprise and curiosity.

I made note of what would be important to this experience, such as a lack of anything which could stress the player out. I then identified how my game could capture the essence of this experience, such as not including anything too challenging, like difficult enemies.

However, I wasn't so sure of my idea as it felt like I was already starting to formulate a game, so I decided to discuss with James and outline a new experience for a game.

Second Design

For this experience, I decided to draw upon my love for nature to create an experiential experience which would see players following the lives of different animals, seeing and experiencing the world as they would, to the best of what's capable with technology currently. The aim would be to create a deep sense of wonder and curiosity in the player that leaves them wanting more knowledge of what these animals are like.

Essential to this experience would be that the player is truly captivated by the chosen animals lives. That would mean either choosing animals that are popular amongst players that we don't truly know a lot about, or making the experience as interesting as possible by using the affordances of games, such as immersion.

As mentioned before, games would be an ideal way to capture the experience of these animals. The art direction could be hyper-realistic to truly capture the essence of our world, and an ethereal soundtrack could capture the interest of players and make them feel as if they're in a different world. I could also make use of peripherals to create added sensation in players for a truly immersive experience.

However, I wasn't as passionate with this idea, and passion would be the necessary driving force for designing a new experience, and so I decided to revisit my previous idea, but with the help of Jesse Schell's A Book of Lenses.

Third Design

For this iteration, I'm keeping the relaxing experience, aiming to make a cosy experience that lets you unwind after a long day. I will aim to invoke the same sense of wonder and curiosity in the player, but rather than focus on real-life creatures, I will give players the elements for them to experiment with themselves, essentially allowing players to create their own worlds in an attempt to invoke a feeling of transcendence in players.

Upon mindmapping these ideas, I decided to revisit my terrarium theme. I dropped using fantasy creatures based off of real-life creatures as a means to inspire research into Earth's biology, and instead am focusing on a purely fantasy simulation style game, with Earth biology inspiring the design, rather than inspiring research. I'm going to create a cosy and relaxed atmosphere, lacking any anxiety or worry, and so I should focus less on challenge and skill-based elements. I will also need to build a sense of "warmth" in the player, that is make elements in the game that will be pleasant for them. I can capture this essence through the designs of the creatures and environments I make in the game, and giving the player the opportunity to grow whatever they want within the limits I will set out for my game.

As I mentioned before, I used A Book of Lenses to review my ideas. I used Lens #70 Inherent Interest (reference page 307), to focus on what would make my game interesting to play and an experience separate to anything else on offer. I asked questions such as:

Is there something that players have never seen or done before?
What aspects capture the interest of the players?
Does the game appeal to player's base and higher instincts?
Are there any dynamic changes in the game?

My game will allow players to build, nurture and modify they're own fantasy ecosystems, with life that they will have never seen before. I will aim to make the character and world designs as captivating as possible, with the mechanics being well thought out to add depth and character to the game. I'm hoping to create dynamic interactions between the life the player can grow and the environments they grow up in. The game will appeal to base instincts like joy and intrigue, through seeing and learning how the life the player grows reacts to their environment, and higher instincts, such as those who are interested in relationships and interactions in nature, and gardening and upkeep.

I also looked through Lens #71 Beauty, as I want to put a lot of effort into the look and atmosphere of the game, to play off of Lens #70 Inherent Interest, and make a game that looks unique. Questions I thought about included:

What is beauty in the context of my game?
How can each element be beautiful?
What elements can be combined to be beautiful?

As I see it right now, beauty in the context of my game can be as simple as the art direction or music, but I see it coming through a lot more in the design. This involves both the designs of the environment and the various life forms you can nurture in the game, and also how these different creatures interact with another. To make sure each element in the game is beautiful, I think it's important that the form follows the function, that is, make things with a purpose, particularly the designs of the creatures. This should help make them seem more real to the player as well. Elements of the game like art direction and music can work together so that they're harmonious and easy on the player's senses. Models for the different objects in the game should also work well with any materials and shaders used.

Feedback

People enjoyed the concept and think it will make for a relaxing experience
Should lean into the escapism side for definite
- Escapism will allow appeal to a larger demographic of people
Could approach the game with a lego-like structure, making procedurally generated creatures
- This idea is interesting but something I'd have to consider in-depth, as each creature would need to be made of individual components to be randomised, and that could be difficult to keep track of without a database or something to hold all that information
On the topic of procedural generation, I could make an exploration aspect in which the player is able to venture into procedurally generated environments to collect new forms of life
- Again another interesting idea, I hadn't considered giving the player an actual character to control, I thought of the game like most nature simulations in which the player takes the form of an invisible god-like entity.
Research card games with stack mechanics to figure out how each addition of a lifeform will influence another's behaviour
- Potential major foci of Mechanics
Could have difficulty selection, but that doesn't really fit with the essential experience
The game could be social, and you could share your terrariums with other players, or it could be single player and more personal to the player
There could be mini goals to achieve like AC:NH, which don't have much of a bearing on the progress of the game, or it could be entirely open ended, like Minecraft
Also look to zen gardens as a means for composition, and also the reasons for creating and maintaining them
Other games to look at:
- Slimerancher
- Viva Pinata
- Monster Legends
- Pocket Gods

I've got a lot of feedback from my peer review session. For now I think I'll look into some of the games that were suggested to me, so that I might be able to flesh out my game a bit more. I've also taken a liking to the idea of procedural generation, particularly levels that players can explore at their leisure, which will help to solidify my essential experience.