Project Sell it :

Love Plastic

Proof of concept

[In case you don't see the controls beneath the movie, double click on the movie. Click again to pause the movie.]

Project

This project was mainly a concept project. We had to come up with an iPhone platformer for an existing game company. Also, we had to consider the unique features of the iPhone and try to have a game that would only be possible on an iPhone. Our target group were people over thirty. The game also had to be pick-up-and-play.

We decided to focus solely on the concept. We wouldn't spend time on programming. At the end of the project, this appeared to be a fatal mistake. We were supposed to have a moving proof of concept …

Team

Our team consisted of three members:

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Brainstorming

When we started to brainstorm, we found out the term ‘platformer’ wasn't very restricting. You can have a lot of game genres which can be labeled as platformer.

So we all came up with different ideas. At a certain point, we rolled into a toy world. You would have to navigate through the game by using different toys. Then these toys became wind-up toys. You would have to wind them up by using an onscreen turning key. The amount of turns would affect the force of how a toy would perform his specific task.

After some more brainstorming, we had two opposing forces against each other. You would have battery toys against wind-up toys. You would play with a battery toy and would have to watch and manage your power supply and use wind-up toys to progress.

Based on the idea mentioned above, I created a mature colonization story for the otherwise childish environment to meet the requirements of our target group. To summarize the story : the battery toys capture the planet of the wind-up toys and enslave the locals. You would play the role of a high placed military commander who doesn't get what he wants, so he decides to fight against his own people to get it. In the process, he would mislead the locals to help him achieve his goal.
The atmosphere of the game would be much darker than the graphics would suggest.

Eventually, the story was completely replaced with a lighter funnier one:
You are a toy. You have a girlfriend. She's as ugly as hell. You need to collect resources to be able to perform cosmetic surgery when you finish the level.

The game eventually ended up being a puzzle platformer.

Concepts & sketches 1 - click to enlarge

Concepts & sketches 2 - click to enlarge

Concepts & sketches 3 - click to enlarge

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Core gameplay

We wanted the game to focus on the core concept that the character had his own desires. You would have to use him to get items you want, but fulfilling his desires along the way. Forcing him too much to do your biddings would result in the character not wanting to perform the tasks you give him. You would have to make compromises between the things he wants and the stuff you want.

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Further Design

To the core gameplay we added:

blocks the character wants, increase the characters trust by picking up
blocks that you would need a certain amount of to be able to proceed to the next level
a trust meter, if it would be low, the character would only want to perform tasks that are beneficial for him
a sight system, the character would only know what he had seen
a main path the character knew from the beginning, which would increase his trust if he travels on it towards the end of a level
a certain level structure

By putting these things here, I realize the game actually is WAY too complex to be pick-up-and-play.

Level structure - click to enlarge

Look mechanic - click to enlarge

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Controls

We decided to only use the touch screen as controls for the game.
We thought the game would be played while travelling, so we wanted a simple control system. We didn't wanted the game to be irritating for the people in your vicinity by using the movement sensors or the microphone.

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Paper prototyping

We tested and tweaked the game with a paper prototype. We experienced the game to be very stable, but we noticed that a lot of people had some trouble understanding the game rules.
Because we did a paper prototype, it took some time for most people to understand the fact that you were playing from a side view, not from a top down view.

We thought the game would become a lot easier when it would be digital, because a lot of stuff you now would have to keep track of, would be handled by the computer. For the paper prototype it was even necessary for us to help the player to keep track of everything.

We should have seen the signs and make the game less complex, but we made the rookie mistake to think we were right …

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Presentation

We were given a specific format for the presentation, namely the Pecha Kucha style. This meant a total of 20 slides, each slide could be visible only for 20 seconds.

I was left in charge of the presentation while the other team members were finishing the game design and art. Eventually, I had to finish the presentation the day before the actual presentation. This was not a good idea …
I finished the presentation at 2.00 a.m. and then tried to practice it. It all went reasonably well and I thought I could nail every slide in 20 seconds. But, I was tired and didn't practice out loud.
When the presentation started, the 20 seconds felt comfortable for about 2 slides. When I reached the third slide, Einstein's relativity theory kicked in. All of the sudden, the slides seemed to go a lot faster than 20 seconds. I couldn't finish my text of every slide, so the result was that no-one understood how the game worked.

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Result

Because we also didn't have a moving proof of concept and no-one understood how the game worked, we eventually had to do an extra assignment and make a moving proof of concept.
The result can be seen at the top of this page. Below is a screenshot of a complete level.

Render of how our game would look like - click to enlarge

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