No Longer Using This Idea
**I changed my game idea to Playing with Bombs**
Overview: In this game the player bowls a ball down a lane at a target. The player decides how hard and at what angle to release the ball . Bowling Bonanza will play like a puzzle game.
The game will be split into levels. Each level will present the player with a different challenge. Obstacles will block part of the lane, The lane may have hills and valleys, the target will move horizontally and vertically, etc. There will also be ‘enemies’ that will roam the lane and try to block the ball. The player will be able to bounce the ball off some objects and will have to avoid others.
Goals:
The goal of this game is get the ball to hit a target at the other end of the the lane. The target will be in different locations and have different sizes for each level. You will only have a set number of balls to use and once you run out you will have to start over.
Skills:
The player will need to learn how much force to apply to their shot and will need to be able to time it to avoid several dynamic obstacles.
Game Prototype Goals:
For the prototype I will make it so that the player can choose where to shoot the ball from and allow them to apply a force to it depending on how long a button is held. I will also make some static obstacles for them to avoid.
Shooting, bowling, tossing games can be a lot of fun; I think this could be a fun game. But, I’m not sure it fits the full definition of game feel; especially if you are focused on it being a puzzle game. The interaction is largely indirect, where a single indirect action (applying a single force to a ball to roll it). However, I could be convinced that this is splitting hairs.
That said, you have only described the structure of the game, but not talked at all about what the bowling interaction feels like. If you want to convince us that this game satisfies the definition of game feel, then the player would have to get a real sense of the physical characteristics of the simulated space simply by the manner in which they throw the ball, and the way that (as a result) it interacts with the space. This is no simply physics: how will you convey the materials, the physical (or synthetic) characteristics of the objects, by virtue of the throw. A “simple realistic physics model” probably won’t convey anything compelling, especially since it will be almost impossible to make it feel real.
The prototyping plan doesn’t address this: what is the feel you are trying to achieve? How will you know if you get it or, more importantly, haven’t gotten it? Any game designer that uses a physics engine must have a really clear picture in their mind of what they are trying to achieve with the simulation. Otherwise, you don’t know what to do when it “doesn’t feel right” … and, when you are learning to use physics engines, it’s pretty much guaranteed it won’t. So, please tell us what you are trying to achieve.
Beyond the needs of P3, I recommend against puzzle games for the final project. Good puzzles are hard, and take a long time to balance once you come up with them. For a project that must be done in such a short time, you don’t want the success of the game to hinge on something you are unlikely to have the time to achieve. That’s one of the big reasons I’m requiring folks to focus on games that have the 3 characteristics of game feel: they tend to be real-time, direction control interactive games, rather than puzzle or strategy games (although they can have those components).