Reflection #2 “Obey”
For this game prototype I self generated a prompt “Obey”, and I decided to try a digital game for this one. While I ran into some trouble and ended up only finishing a documentation of the game I still came up with ideas for how it would have turned out.
The idea for the game was going to be a side scrolling platformer with puzzle like elements, set in a “1984” style society with harsh rules the citizens are forced to follow. The gameplay would have been mostly traditional platforming though linear environments, although the levels would have multiple paths to reach the end. The twist would be that as the players progress the game would add rules they need to follow. The rules could work in many different ways, from introducing level win goals or requirements, creating obstacles, placing limits or restrictions on players, or adding new elements of gameplay. The prototype was set in one level the player must beat multiple times, each time adding a new rule that changed how they would go about finishing it, and would often force them into taking a different path. While I couldn’t test the game as it was not made playable I was able to talk to a couple of friends about the ideas I had for this and get their opinions.
The response to the idea was overall positive, they had though it an interesting idea to base a game around increasingly complicating number of rules and the idea to make levels larger with different ways through it was seen as a good idea. The one concern that was brought up about this was that some players might not like the idea of a game being based around seemingly arbitrary limits or restrictions to how they play, which does make sense as if the game tells the player they can’t go left and doesn’t give any reasonable excuse they could get annoyed at that. Although in some ways that fits the setting more as in those dystopian types of societies, the laws the citizens are forced to follow become increasingly unreasonable and only serve to limit the people their lives, so it would work for the game.
The game was very easy to explain, it was a standard 23 platformer except with added rules that they must listen to and do what they say, so there wasn’t much issue on that end.
What stood out to some players was the added possibility of a second type of campaign. Although this wasn’t going to be in the prototype, I was thinking of adding more story and world elements to the game if this ever became a real thing. One thing I thought of, an idea that stemmed from a separate self generated prompt “Breaking the Rules”, was to add the ability of, once a certain story point is reached, that breaking a rule, as opposed to triggering a fail state, would lead to a separate side of the story where the player becomes a revolutionary going against the side of the society. That game would have been more open ended exploration based with added stealth sections. The idea of having the game go on two different paths with their own style of gameplay intrigued the people I talked to.
An idea I had thought of from player feedback was to either limit the amount of times player ability gets restricted or still create ways for the game to reward player skill and ingenuity even with those limits as having players be forced to play with limits can make the game feel less fun to certain types of players.
Although I wouldn’t change too much about the games central ideas, if I were to go forward with this I would try to create both an interesting world or story to discover and also try to focus on making the rules work with the gameplay in ways that keep it fun even with the resurrections. However that might be an one or the other choice, as if the story is good the restrictive gameplay could improve the feel and tone of the story and fit better, but if the gameplay’s good then I could focus more on just making it a fun and interesting game without having to get players interesting in the world. Both ways are interesting to me so I would need to consider both ways if I were to continue any further with this idea.
