Birdfeeder
Game Description
In Birdfeeder, you play a squirrel who is extremely hungry for some bird seed before hibernation season begins.
Prototype: http://www.prism.gatech.edu/~jcoombs3/p3.html
The squirrel goes between each house (level by level), climbing a more difficult birdfeeder to get seeds (Suburban homes have really obscure birdfeeders against squirrels; believe me, my parents have one). Upon reaching the seeds, the squirrel must also balance how much birdseed can he hold in his mouth as he successfully climbs back down.
The ultimate goal of the player is to collect as much bird seed as possible and successfully get down from the birdfeeder. Each level can be replayed to achieve a higher score. I see the scoring system based off of days (inspiration comes from Pikmin). Every time a level is played, a day passes in the calendar. As winter comes along, when the squirrel reaches hibernation, the most bird seed wins on the high score board. There is a maximum limit to how much the squirrel can hold in his mouth, and the more he holds in his mouth, the harder it is to stabilize going down the birdfeeder.
Two game modes:
Hibernation Scout : play with the calendar to be placed on the high score board
Free-play Scout : play the levels as much as you want, scale in difficulty as you unlock them.
The controls of the game would include:
- A – move left
- D – move right
- W – climb up
- S – climb down
- Space bar – small jump
- F – grab birdseed
Game Prototype Goals:
Upon the scaling of the levels to level in difficult based on the obstacles as the squirrel climbs up the post, I feel the prototype’s main goal is to create the aspect of squirrel movement and the shift in weight and difficult function causes as the player absorbs too much birdseed. I see this game as a 2-dimensional scrolling-platform North to South, and the polish will be rather child-like.
I also see the artistic styles for each birdfeeder to have a specific look and feel to accommodate the diversity of the levels and the need to change the squirrel’s (user’s) movement, input, and decision-making choices. It is a small asset to the user’s re-playable if he thinks “I wonder what the next birdfeeder will look like”.
The general game idea is cute, and could be fun.
The thing I’m not seeing, which is going to be the crux of the thing, is how the movement works. Given the whole setup, it seems clear to me you could have some pretty fun movement mechanics based on this. I’ve watched squirrels attach our relatives feeders (and ours, back when we tried to have one) and they are amazing at jumping, hanging on, swinging, etc. It seems like you can almost do a super-hero style game (able to wall-jump, swing, etc in amazing ways) but couched in the context of the evil seed-stealing squirrel.
So, I would have liked to see that touched on in the game description.
I also don’t have any sense of what it would mean for the squirrel movement to be more difficult when it’s got too much seed. But, as you flesh out the super-moves (assuming you do), that should become clear.
For the prototype, I agree than the squirrel movement is key. So, focusing on that, with a single complex feeder to scale, would be the right thing to focus on!