Comments on: Garden of Light https://github.blairmacintyre.me/site-archive/cs4455f12/2012/10/05/garden-of-light/ Video Game Design and Architecture Sun, 07 Oct 2012 19:54:32 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=5.2.2 By: David Garcia https://github.blairmacintyre.me/site-archive/cs4455f12/2012/10/05/garden-of-light/#comment-77 Sun, 07 Oct 2012 19:54:32 +0000 https://github.blairmacintyre.me/site-archive/cs4455f12/?p=1161#comment-77 Okay, better idea.

Game Description:

You play as a farmer who’s trying to grow as many flowers as he can before the day ends. You grow the flowers by giving them a certain required amount of water. However, your garden has a bug infestation! Bugs will come and try to eat your plants before they reach (bur-resistant) maturity. To stop them you can either spray pesticide on your flowers which will temporarily kill all bugs that step within the radius of the spray or you can squash the bugs by jumping on them. The game ends after a time limit.

As the game progresses, there could be more flowers that require different amounts of water and are eaten by bugs at different rates. Each level will have an increasing level of difficulty requiring an increasing number of flowers be grown.
Goals:

Grow as many flowers as possible within a time limit.
Prevent bugs from eating as many flowers as possible.

Skills:

The player must strategize and decide when to water flowers and when to stop the ever increasing threat of bugs.

Pesticide sprays are limited so the player must decide when to use them or when to just stomp on the bugs.

Controls:

WASD to move the farmer around.

Spacebar for jumping.

J for spraying water.
K for spraying pesticide.

Prototype:

The prototype will be based on one 3 minute level. At the end of the Level it will be displayed how many flowers grew.

There will be a few random bugs that will eat try to eat the flowers and the player must be able to stomp them out.

The pesticide functionality will be tested in the prototype.

]]> By: Blair MacIntyre https://github.blairmacintyre.me/site-archive/cs4455f12/2012/10/05/garden-of-light/#comment-76 Sun, 07 Oct 2012 14:42:15 +0000 https://github.blairmacintyre.me/site-archive/cs4455f12/?p=1161#comment-76 Whatever you do, whether a modification or something different, please post the idea here as a comment, ASAP!

]]> By: Blair MacIntyre https://github.blairmacintyre.me/site-archive/cs4455f12/2012/10/05/garden-of-light/#comment-75 Sun, 07 Oct 2012 14:41:22 +0000 https://github.blairmacintyre.me/site-archive/cs4455f12/?p=1161#comment-75 You could modify it, or do something different: one could imagine running around a large garden, leaving lights, which make the plants happy, but perhaps attract bugs which then obscure (and destroy) the lights? Perhaps bigger bugs need more interaction.

]]> By: David Garcia https://github.blairmacintyre.me/site-archive/cs4455f12/2012/10/05/garden-of-light/#comment-61 Sat, 06 Oct 2012 17:43:12 +0000 https://github.blairmacintyre.me/site-archive/cs4455f12/?p=1161#comment-61 I was going to make the movement controlled with WASD or the arrow keys and adjust the speed of the how the light moves until I reached a good balance. But you’re right, it doesn’t satisfy the game-feel criteria. Do you suggest I try to modify it or come up with a different game idea? I’m not really sure how to have an avatar interacting with the world.

]]> By: Blair MacIntyre https://github.blairmacintyre.me/site-archive/cs4455f12/2012/10/05/garden-of-light/#comment-55 Sat, 06 Oct 2012 12:33:41 +0000 https://github.blairmacintyre.me/site-archive/cs4455f12/?p=1161#comment-55 I could see this idea forming the basis of a fun, simple casual game. Everything would hinge of the specifics, of course: how you interact (click to target light? drag? WASD movement? is the light on or off during movement? Speed?) and how the levels are structured.

However, it does not really satisfy the 3 criteria of game-feel that your P3 proposal should have. There is no avatar that is interacting with a simulated world, such that you get the sense of the world through its reaction to you.

Also, what is your prototyping plan? What are you testing? How?

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