Game Creation pt.2

I’ve always liked a refining approach to things to make sure everything works in general, going from abstract to picture perfect, taking the various step-by-steps and renditions to make something cohesive, as such I did already mention that two of the game didn’t make the cut and now I’ve shortlisted it to 6 mini-games. Additionally and also thankfully I’ve made them go into Rooms with their various themes. It’s always good to have that type of structure. So let’s start from Room 1 and go from there.

Room 1 - The Omnibus and Trams

Game 1 - Race of the Buses

This would be based on the omnibuses inception in Victoria London, it wasn’t cheap and they only traveled to one place, at least for now, street sweepers were sometimes blocking the roads and bumping into crowd (being considered the lowest of the low) promoting the bus business was probably done for touristic purpose as well as general travel. There was a lot of competition in those times so having a rival companies that were selling the same service made sense to which this is the general backdrop for this Mini-game.

Set in Victorian London at near a coach station, the player would have to scramble to grab the right customers and get those right points, all the player will have to do is using the VR Headset to move into a game area. When in the game area the player will have to grab the hand of an NPC and once grabbed guide them to the Omnibus carriage. Yes you are forcing them there but once the player has collected one potential passenger, another NPC will spawn being a Street Sweeper. If that NPC will collide with you or the Passenger, that Grab will be disabled and then you have to find the same one, or the another one. This Street Sweeper will only be active when you have grabbed a potential Passenger NPC, but this would only be in the game area, there should be a game area, a safe area and then collection point so the game isn’t too hard. Additionally because this is in Victorian time, social class was still a big thing, so that would be a good way to implement a type of scoring system, those NPC would be a perceived with hues, but not to make it too easy for players to get the highest one, there will be obstacles in the game area with the speed and the amount of NPC’s determined by the level of the Social class (1st class being scarcer and faster, 3rd class being common and having regular speed). Again for now it is a point goal, but I feel as though it might also need that 22 passenger count on top of that as well.

Room 2 - The Inception of the Underground

Game 2 - Steam Startling

In comparison to people being scared from steam, rather make steam the main problem that needs to be managed, as being the person who pilots a steam train is something a bit different in comparison to modern day, so out of all the game this is the biggest change. The player will only have to go to the next train station, which there will be a distance meter as well as a pressure gauge. Steam was a big problem back then the type of fuel presented different attributes for the steam and the pressure it produced. Learning this can be a simple management. Not to make it too simple, the player would have to use two different types of fuels and all they would have to do is make sure that they don’t go over and destroy the pressure, one fuel makes the train you pilot slower to get to the objective but it would allow you to decrease the pressure gauge more than easy to manage, whilst the other fuel type makes the train faster and because of that makes it harder to manage the pressure gauge.

Again these fuels need to burn and will continuously burn until the player chooses to change the fuel type but picking up the fuel and throwing it into the furnace, which can also be a little challenge in itself, but relatively easy. Additionally, for the player to reduce the pressure gauge, I didn’t want to make it a simple button press and it will remove the percentage depending on the fuel type, they would have to micro-manage that as there should be a wheel which decreases the pressure, but the player should have to turn it 3 times to make sure it decreases, not just once. It seems somewhat realistic in that case, but also it doesn’t keep the pressure down but it will do being something that is easy to manage. In terms of the time limit in this point, it would be a race, that they have to get the best time rather being limited to getting to the station on time (which is a bit too close to real-life) would seem to add bit difficulty, which could be considered for a challenge mode.

Game 3 - Wave The Flag

Really at this point the game is fairly simple to understand so I envisioned something similar to Earl’s Court Station as there are places that are above the platform, I imagine this is something which had to be done as officials used to have flags to tell the Tube drivers when they needed to go with Flags. So this would be more towards Level Design as all the player will have to do is put the flags and whistle into the correct colliders to make sure it all works in general, as the game manager will realise which part has been used. Putting the objects in the correct place is how the player will interact with the game. Pretty simple right? A Game of Simon, but in engine with a timer.

Game 4 - Cruise Control

Again, this is another way to show the progression of the trains, with this however it will have a different objective in comparison to the previous game. So to make this a simple game to understand all the player will have to do is manage two separate controls. one for the strength of acceleration and the one for the strength of the brakes but to keep it simple again the player has to make sure they stop the train (or at least in this case make sure the player who is stapled to the train) in the selected boundary. They will have 3 attempts get it right meaning they will only be going through three stations and that’s it. All the player has to do is correctly enter the boundary 2 out 3 times to complete the game. Obviously is the player is outside the boundary then they haven’t completed it and get a “x” on the station, but they do have to come to a complete stop in order for confirmation to happen, if they go past the station well, clearly they don’t really care about the objective that much.

I didn’t want to make it so the Tube train would have to turn as it would add another layer of skills that the player might already lack, so keeping it simple with just the boundary was the optimal way to go

Room 3 - The Little Things

Game 5 - Class Connections

From where we are now where we can update the price on a Oyster card, back in the day train systems was al manual labour, being that people had to confirm you had the correct ticket to your destination and there was a place where you had to buy these tickets. Additionally the social class system was also incorporated into this, whilst now everything is a set price. For this game, I wanted to add the realism to being inside a ticket office so the player would have to be the one to manage the whole operation, making sure they are giving the correct ticket to the customer, the correct amount and making sure they paid the correct amount in correlation to their destination.

This is something the player will have to manage and they will have a queue of customer they would have to get rid of, essentially making sure they have done the job of the person at the ticket booth. The queue itself won’t be long maybe only having 5 customers the player would have to go through, and the player will have lives to manage as if they don’t get the correct money from the transaction they will lose a life. Each NPC will come to the booth requesting three things, being the destination, how many tickets and what social class. There will be a two step process to this. The first step the player will have to account the amount of tickets and the social class, so giving the player the understand that tickets are the first part and they have to get them correct, though they won’t get penalised if they get this part wrong, tickets will be colour coded to tell the player which class is which and then the player would place these tickets near the front of the booth and then confirm their choice.

Moving on to the second step, the NPC will then provide the money and the player will have to double check if it is the correct amount of money, so there will be number values on the coin and a reference sheet to the Shillings and Pennies so the player can figure out if it is the correct amount of money and they will then have two options to confirm the amount, the player will just have to open the cash register, and put the money, if they believe it to be wrong the player would have to ask for a second opinion from the customer.

During this second step, it can get a little confusing so let me break it down further. If the player put the money in the cash register and the game manager states it’s the wrong amount, player will lose a life, if the player ask the customer a minimum of three times and on the fourth attempt the customer will go away deeming it as “bad customer service” and will proceed to the next customer, the player will lose a life. If the player put the correct money in the register well, that’s it, nothing bad will happen basically. I didn’t want to make it too easy for the player where they can keep asking if it’s wrong, realistically people wouldn’t bee that easy to deal with anyways so there is that sense that you are doing a bad job, but you are learning from that experience.

Finally the idea of a challenge mode would be to incorporate a timer for people who ideally want that additional challenge to their gameplay.

Game 6 - No Bridge, No Problem

Again taking the idea forward from the dangerous waters of the River Thames the idea would be simple to get to the other side obstacles would be in your way and all the player would have to do is avoid them. Players will be railroaded to the other side on a boat that is moving, but would have three separate lanes in terms of Levels design, starting from the middle lane. There’s the Left Lane, Middle Lane and Right Lane. Big Boats would obstruct either 1 or 2 of the lanes from either side but keep the game a little interesting, these actions won’t be predetermined and locked into place, this needs to happen dynamically so the player doesn’t plan ahead, rather has to think about the moment-to-moment gameplay.

Importantly again, these boats can only cover 1 to 2 lanes from either side to so there won’t be a obvious block to force the player to lose, I mean why would the boat cover all three lanes, it would mean there is no way for the player to progress but how can the player switch to the other lanes? Put the corresponding hand to move to that land, for example, if the player lifts their left hand they move one lane to left so if the player was in the Right Lane, doing this action would move them to the Middle Lane. This also shouldn’t be an immediate response, it should take some time for the game realise that this action has taken place and incrementally move the boat to that side. I think the game is fairly easy to understand, it’s just a place to set the distance in general within the Level and that’s all from there.

Next Steps

From here on out, it’s about time to have a meeting with my supervisor see if I can receive some insight in how to move forward from here, whether I’m going in the correct direction with some of these games, personally I feel the ones that need to most attention is the Game 1 and Game 4, there still some tweaks I think could be necessary to make them easier but we shall see from there. After this point LEVEL DESIGNS are a must for everything.