Jan 31 – Feb 6

Week 4 marked a transition from a state of pure research to slowly beginning to define a potential experience. One of the challenges we discovered in this process was keeping the design true to our established parameters of audience, problem and change. While our research provided a solid platform to build on, we discovered that as the specifics of the designs begin to materialize, they tended to be guided more by our instincts than the established parameters. The result of this being we now need to refine our designs, asking ourselves whether the message our potential experience is sending out really tackles a noteworthy problem and whether it accurately reflects the issue itself.

This week, we focused on 4 potential experiences and further developed them, each of which could leave a lasting impression on a guest :

1. What’s True? – 2 players (or groups of players) must co-operate to guide a character to safely through a level while avoiding obstacles.

The game proceeds in 3 stages :

• Stage 1 – Players do not know another person exists
• Stage 2 – It is revealed that another person is also controlling the character. Players are given the option of overruling the commands of the other player
• Stage 3 – Players are allowed to communicate

2. Run the State – Play as the head of an activist agency trying to bring about gun control in your state. This is a resource balancing strategy game where you must maintain metrics above a threshold using certain resources, similar to Civilization.

3. Fragile Kingdom – Here, everything in the world is fragile.  Players act as a guardian (like a giant or god, or own a powerful weapon) of the kingdom.  Players must ensure they use their powers to protect the world while trying not to break anything in the game.

4. STOP – STOP is a multiple player online mobile live game. Each round there will be a bullet traveling through a players monitor, and eventually reach a projection to kill a man. Players can decrease the speed of the bullet a little bit by yelling “STOP!” towards their phone when the bullet passes by. The more yelling the bullet receive the weaker the bullet will be. When there are enough “STOP!” to stop the bullet, the bullet will dissapear before it reach the victim.

We pitched these ideas to our faculty advisors and client, and got some valuable feedback on them. Ultimately, it seemed like everybody was leaning towards ideas 1 and 4, so we decided to start iterating on those and see how they turn out.