Saturday, December 8, 2012

An Engineer's Perspective #5

This semester I am in a class called Computer Game Design. For the last 5-6 weeks we have been split into groups to work on our final project - creating a video game of our choice. Next Friday (12/14), from 7:00 - 9:00 p.m. all of our games will be presented and available to play at an exhibition in 1670 BBB (on North Campus). This event is open to anyone to attend. Come check out some games made by students and cast your vote for your favorite! (whichever group in our class gets the most votes automatically gets an A)

The game my group has created is called "Into the Darkness". Here is a little more about our game:

An evil monster has just stole your eyesight! He has hidden it away in the depths of his enchanted castle. Each room of the castle is protected by puzzles the monster has created in order to protect against intruders. On your quest to get back your eyesight, you must make your way through the castle by solving the puzzles and avoiding the numerous traps and obstacles. You have limited time before the monster realizes you have broken in and begins to chase you. If you get caught by the monster before you can complete your task, you must start over or be left without your eyesight forever.

Since the object of the game, is to retrieve your eyesight (stolen by the evil monster), the player must rely on other methods to “see” the world around them. The player will be able to perform actions, such as jumping and throwing pebbles, that will cause vibrations. These vibrations will spread, outlining the shape of any objects in their path.

2 comments:

  1. That sounds like an awesome game. I think the idea is very creative and different to what we see in games now because most of them depend on simple eyesight and hand-eye coordination and reflexes.
    Is this game to be of any significance to social referendums, or is it a typical puzzle game that is meant to challenge thinking within the player? What I mean by that is that are you trying to show players what it is like to be blind, and thus giving them a new perspective?
    Also, what was the hardest part in making a game like this? I'd imagine the mechanics of the actual game design is difficult, but what about creating puzzles challenging and interesting enough for the player to be engaged?
    Great job engineer.

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  2. Thanks - the initial idea was actually my one of my group mates! I don't think we were trying to incorporate any social references - it was more of just an interesting twist on a puzzle game.

    The hardest part (after coming up with an idea), is definitely the game play mechanics. Once all of the mechanics are programmed, it is fairly easy to design / create levels. It does take some creativity, and a lot of hours of testing / adjusting though. We constantly have to have others test our game too to see how difficult it is. Since we are very familiar with the game from programming it, it has become second nature to us and is much more difficult for people new to the game. This is how we ensure the puzzles are the correct difficulty that we were shooting for.

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