Game Design Concept

For game design, we were asked to do a serious game in groups of 4 and our group decided to tackle the environment issue. After playing several environmental awareness games, I noticed that the majority of them were boring and put you in a governmental management role where you get to convert things from fossil fuel to solar panels, and so on.

After several brain storming we set our minds on what we want the player to experience while playing the game. These are: respect for nature, feeling sorry for its destruction, relate from the game to then real world, realisation that we are destroying our home, we are part of this complex system and depend on it and that humans are greedy.

After having two ideas of games we decided to focus on the platformer, were you as the player, will play through a serious of events that will make the player realise that we are destroying the natural environment. At the end of the level everything will be built and life can no longer be sustained or grow. The player will starve to death. After a very long discussion with our lecturer and further brain storming, we all agreed that it would be better for the game to end on a positive note, but how would we reach our goals? If the player doesn’t die, we are conveying a message that although the destruction we still get to survive. Another problem was, how do we get the player to act against or contributing to the destruction by decisions they take? If you make the player realise and relate that even they are contributing to the destruction and that team work is essential in order to save our home, we would be able to instigate the player to take an action, and that would be a great achievement for us.

After more brain storming, research and speaking with friends and family, an idea struck me on how to end on a positive note. First of all, we make the natural environment hostile but it will also restore your health by for example feeding on a fruit. Why hostile? Because in reality nature is hostile and you don’t want to convey a message that it is heaven or it would not be credible. The clue is that although it is dangerous the system is working and life is sustained which is also suitable for us.

After shifting to the construction environment, things will be thrown to the player’s path which they must dodge and or avoid. The land will start rapidly being build and exploited. This is to represent that greedy persons that have enormous power conquer and exploited the land just to get richer and richer. Humans are greedy by nature.

After the construction environment, there will be one last shift, where everything will be plain and empty. A scene like a concrete aqueduct found in USA, where there is no life, no sounds, and nowhere from were new life can sprout. The player would eventually die out of hunger, but to wake up again at the beginning of the level. This would serve as premonition for the coming future if we, as humans, keep on destroying the system.

The player will again play through the level but this time with an ability to create balance between man-made objects and nature so that at the end of the level, nature will be still in equilibrium to sustain itself and us.