Integrating Creative Skills — Mapping Your Worlds! & Game Design Documents— Week 3
Integrating Creative Skills
In todays lesson, we took a look at the Importance of Maps.
Maps act a sense of guidelines in order to direct a person throughout their journey. They can often spot out dangers, where places should be avoided. This is especially present in modern day, for example if you are a traveller by car you would be able to see if there were accidents on motorways or possible road works happening. A maps job is to direct a person safely though their journey.
We also took at a look at how maps in historical times were influencers of current beliefs and how they show world culture. A clear example of this can be seen in Tudor Shoreditch.
We were instructed to draw a map ourselves for a daily journey that we make. Here I chose to create a map based on the journey to university:
It starts from leaving the house (which is 10 points of success) to then going through a dark dangerous alley where beggars and robbers hide out, I make my way to the underground station which passes under the river (2 points have been lost because of travel fees), on my way out of the underground I’m then faced with everyone’s most common enemy which is time. TimesWorth (the great enemy of time) knocks me backwards from being on time with a “Lateness spell” because of this I lose 20 points and arrive to the university 20 minutes late.
Using what I learnt above about maps, I created a map based on the famous story called The Wind In The Willows.
Key Pivotal Moments
If this map was to be in a game, the key areas that would be highlighted would be the Wild Woods which is seen as dangerous territory in the story. There are ‘X’ symbols on the map to direct a person on where to not go. To add to this, I would definitely include safe spots for anyone who uses the map in that world. The safe spots would be Moles house, Ratty House, Badgers house, and Mr. Toads Mansion. To properly identify each character I’ve drawn in they’re most iconic features, for example Moles notable iconic feature would be his glasses.
Game Design Document of favourite game
Integrating Creative Skills
Title: Donkey Kong (1981)
Story: In the city of New York City, a raging ape captures an innocent woman named Pauline and takes her to great heights on a construction site. The player takes the role of Mario, who is a carpenter on a mission to rescue Pauline from the evil hands of Donkey Kong.
Mechanics: After the cutscene of Donkey Kong Climbing up the construction site, the player must skilfully reach the to the top without being ambushed by rolling barrels. They are able to jump as well as climbing ladders to get onto certain platforms. Each time they jump over a barrel they are rewarded with 100 points. At the start of the level the player is given a hammer in order to help defeat the first pair of barrels (further given them 300 points). If players fail to jump over the barrel it will result in a death screen. Once the player successfully reaches the top of the level, Mario will then be reunited with Pauline only for her to be snatched away by Donkey Kong. As the game progresses it becomes increasingly more challenging.
In addition to barrels, the player must also avoid later on in the gameplay: Fireballs, Cement Tubs, Jacks (Spring Obstacles) and Fire.
Unique Selling Point: Fast Paced, Easy to Play, Increasing Level Difficulty
Target Audience: 12+
Platform: Arcade