Your first impression when you look at Rosie Red is that of a
winsome children’s book. It’s innocent, full of colour and meant to make
everything seem bright, happy and cheerful. I wanted to choose subversion to
juxtapose this, and I wanted to explore games as art.
Most media texts tend to focus on a colourful innocent theme,
I wanted to go in the opposite direction. I wanted to focus on the world from
the kid’s eyes (Rosie Red) but from a darker perspective. That’s why my theme
has a macabre atmosphere as it supposed to explore Rosie Red’s fears or
nightmares. Kids may have anxiety, may be scared of the dark, fear monsters
under the bed and so on and so forth. But the game still needs to promote the
IP, so the main focus is on the character herself, trying to overcome her
fears, anxiety and to become courageous. Many of the characters in the book
will be present.
The game style will be sketched, similar to a child’s
drawings, the world will be black and white with important items being
highlighted in colour. Aesthetics are an important part of the experience, new
data is communicated to the player through this sketched style and any relevant
information (tutorials and hints) are shown to the player via sketched text.
The mechanics involves using WASD to move Rosie Red and the
mouse to control the flashlight. The art style of the game is a core component,
the game is dark, void of colour and it’s difficult to make out dangers. By
using the flashlight Rosie Red is able to light up an area which will reveal a
danger such as an enemy, this will fade out the enemy (defeating them). She can
also interact with objects; some good objects give her courage points which are
the main points system in the game. If she interacts with a bad object i.e. a
bed with a monster under it, it will increase her anxiety meter. If the anxiety
meter maxes out the game is over.
The main goal of the game is to make it to the exit (door),
along the way the player should interact with objects to gain courage points
and attempt to avoid or defeat enemies by shining a light on them for a
duration. With the courage points gained you can upgrade your teddy with
costumes such as an astronaut or a dinosaur suit, these change the aesthetics
of the teddy logo on screen and also affects Rosie Reds stats e.g. max anxiety
meter, walk speed.
The conflict are the enemies (ghosts) and environmental
dangers (floor is lava etc.), to overcome these you must use the games rules:
use the flashlight. These enemies will contain a degree of randomness as their
quantity and spawn location will change on each play through and possibly
slight differences in the level design.
The core actions performed in the game are walking and
jumping, exploration is rewarded and a reason to keep the player coming back:
to be further rewarded and go through the story. I believe the Game should
follow the EGA framework, with the experience, theme and narrative hoping to
create an emotional response with the player (fear, empathy and hopefully at
the end, happiness). Through whether they choose to be aggressive and try to
defeat the enemies or flee from them (survival and aggression), the player will
either way be rewarded. The gameplay next should be simple in keeping with the
ironic childlike style, with the overall goal being to survive through fight or
light to get to the exit (door). Finally the actions are simply enough running,
interacting and confrontation (fighting). The game should try to motivate the
player through rewarding the player with points, story and costumes but should
also try to change their minds about certain aspects.
A lot of the games elements were influenced by some of the
theorists we have learned this year such as Le Blanc who influenced my decision
to create a fantasy world with a strong emotive narrative and is further
explored through discovery and exploration. Caillios and llinx (the feeling of
vertigo) as the game tries to get an emotive response from the user, whether
this is through making the player feel fear or happiness through the theme or
narrative.
As previously stated the game the game hopefully should use
subversion to deliver an unusual experience but at the same time hope to
educate or explore a theme not often correlating to the medium of a children’s
novel. This should hopefully make the game more unique and interesting. This
game through the narrative should both create an engaging experience and
promote the IP possibly having a target demographic of an older audience.
Thanks, any questions?
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