Finding My Next Game
It’s been a week since handing in our final projects for year 1 of Game Dev at Yoobee. The situation here in New Zealand is looking positive. There are only 2 new cases of Covid-19 today and the government has suggested they could be scaling down the National Alert Level system to Level 2 next week. Soon, we might be able to return to campus for daily classes.
This week, I’ve been taking some time to reflect on our last project (I’ll be doing a deep-dive into that in a future post), and I’m started to think about our next game.
Our first assignment of Year 2 is to make a game that is highly targeted towards a specific audience. 18-25-year-old males are out and ‘horse people’ are in.
Some of the most successful studios manage to identify passionate groups of people and make games specifically about the things those people love. A great example that springs to mind is 'Rival Stars Horse Racing', a game by local Wellington studio, PikPok. They discovered that there weren't really any horse riding games out there for a mobile audience - they identified a gap in the market and filled it. It's a sure-fire approach to making games that people want to play.
While it’s a smart move to make a game that focuses on a niche hobby or subcultural group, I also want to make a game that I’m personally interested in making and playing. So this week has also been about looking at my own hobbies and interests and considering how they could be turned into games.
When brainstorming ideas for my last project, FreeFall, I compiled a list of my favourite game mechanics and used those as starting points for my game pitches. I wanted to make a game that really focused on a core mechanic or system. FreeFall was originally pitched as a wingsuit flying game, inspired by the gliding mechanics in the Batman, Arkham series. I found this approach super helpful in generating ideas and sketching out a rough prototype.
This time around, rather than starting with the mechanic, I’m starting with the audience.
I love rock climbing (it’s the one thing I’m really missing during lockdown), but I feel like climbing in games is usually just a vertical form of walking: it just gets the player from ‘down here’, to ‘up there’. I’m interested in exploring climbing in a way that appeals to real rock climbers.
In climbing, there is a discipline called Lead Climbing (stay with me). Lead Climbing involves two climbers working together to scale a pitch (a section of a cliff face or wall) using a rope that they carry with them. One climber ‘leads’ the climbing, attaching the rope to anchor points in the wall, while the climber standing below (the belayer), feeds them the rope. Once the first climber reaches a safe spot, they will anchor themselves to the rock, and then reel in the rope as the second climber scales the face after them.
Lead climbing has me thinking about some fun mechanics for a co-operative game where two players navigate their way up a series of cliff faces filled with obstacles and traps. Personally, I’m not interested in simulators - I have no intention of making a game recreating the technical aspects of Lead Climbing. I’m treating the activity as more of a starting point for my thought process. The idea is still in its early stages, but I think a physics-based game where players can swing one another to ledges using their rope as a lever, all the while dodging fallen boulders, and avoiding pesky nesting birds sounds like fun.
It's been really fun brainstorming game ideas based around an audience and seeing where it takes me. I've got a couple more ideas that need fleshing-out before next week, so I’m off to string this all together into a cohesive presentation, ready to deliver on Monday.
This week, I’ve been taking some time to reflect on our last project (I’ll be doing a deep-dive into that in a future post), and I’m started to think about our next game.
Our first assignment of Year 2 is to make a game that is highly targeted towards a specific audience. 18-25-year-old males are out and ‘horse people’ are in.
Some of the most successful studios manage to identify passionate groups of people and make games specifically about the things those people love. A great example that springs to mind is 'Rival Stars Horse Racing', a game by local Wellington studio, PikPok. They discovered that there weren't really any horse riding games out there for a mobile audience - they identified a gap in the market and filled it. It's a sure-fire approach to making games that people want to play.
While it’s a smart move to make a game that focuses on a niche hobby or subcultural group, I also want to make a game that I’m personally interested in making and playing. So this week has also been about looking at my own hobbies and interests and considering how they could be turned into games.
When brainstorming ideas for my last project, FreeFall, I compiled a list of my favourite game mechanics and used those as starting points for my game pitches. I wanted to make a game that really focused on a core mechanic or system. FreeFall was originally pitched as a wingsuit flying game, inspired by the gliding mechanics in the Batman, Arkham series. I found this approach super helpful in generating ideas and sketching out a rough prototype.
This time around, rather than starting with the mechanic, I’m starting with the audience.
I love rock climbing (it’s the one thing I’m really missing during lockdown), but I feel like climbing in games is usually just a vertical form of walking: it just gets the player from ‘down here’, to ‘up there’. I’m interested in exploring climbing in a way that appeals to real rock climbers.
In climbing, there is a discipline called Lead Climbing (stay with me). Lead Climbing involves two climbers working together to scale a pitch (a section of a cliff face or wall) using a rope that they carry with them. One climber ‘leads’ the climbing, attaching the rope to anchor points in the wall, while the climber standing below (the belayer), feeds them the rope. Once the first climber reaches a safe spot, they will anchor themselves to the rock, and then reel in the rope as the second climber scales the face after them.
Lead climbing has me thinking about some fun mechanics for a co-operative game where two players navigate their way up a series of cliff faces filled with obstacles and traps. Personally, I’m not interested in simulators - I have no intention of making a game recreating the technical aspects of Lead Climbing. I’m treating the activity as more of a starting point for my thought process. The idea is still in its early stages, but I think a physics-based game where players can swing one another to ledges using their rope as a lever, all the while dodging fallen boulders, and avoiding pesky nesting birds sounds like fun.
It's been really fun brainstorming game ideas based around an audience and seeing where it takes me. I've got a couple more ideas that need fleshing-out before next week, so I’m off to string this all together into a cohesive presentation, ready to deliver on Monday.