Week 5

How the virtual world has affected the real world.

http://www.foxnews.com/health/2010/03/04/couples-baby-dies-raise-virtual-daughter-online/

This disturbing article highlights the dangers of neglect due to online games. A korean couple were so preocupied with raising a virtual child, they actually neglected their own baby until it died. Admittedly the mother was admitted to hospital with mental instability.
I believe this is down to two game mechanics. firstly the realism of games are ever improving. An online child can have so many realistic interactions coupled with the fact that feeding, cleaning and general care of an online baby takes seconds, with no mess or physical exhurtion, I believe someone who is obviously not ready or mature enough to handle raising a child would gravitate towards the "easy option" totally engrossing themselves untill they believe the online baby is their actual child.
Secondly I believe this game lures people into the same trap that most MMOs do. Progression is a very addictive mechanic for gameplay. Humans can strive years vying for promotion at work, getting rich, or even public recognition. Most people will rarely achieve any of these criteria, whereas online these are all common occurances. It is little wonder why we as a race, we crave this form of progression in (a virtual) life.

Designer Notes

There are two items I need to address/ research for my game.
 Firstly, after submitting my Design Document stating that the characters internal voice appear as text I am beginning my research into recording and importing this as a sound file to play alongside the text to add for depth to the character. The voice will be very dark, sinister with an echo effect to portray the internal monologue.
Secondly I wish to address the third puzzle. This is the floor with text tiles that must me walked in order to avoid falling down. I must look into creating a lettered texture in GIMP then convert this into a material in UDK.

Designer Notes

Today I wasconsidering and developing an easter egg for my game. Hidden in a wall will be an enchanted flame that will not only light up the halls and rooms, it will dispel the claustrophobic effect.
After creating a moving flame and light source, I noticed when the player looks down, there are two floating objects I couldnt remove. After altering the set up I still couldnt remove it. Thinking it was because I set the flame physics to NavMeshWalking (thinking this meant the mesh for the flame would then follow the players walk) and considering I later realised it is a particle effect, not a mesh, I figured it could be that. Even after changing this, the objects remained. Convinced it was due to my particle/mesh mix up, I remade the level.
After remaking the level and setting the physics to fly, this did infact remove them.
From this I have noted that if i am to implememt this, I must NOT click NavMesh, otherwise it will mess up my level. If I want an object to move, I must add a physics effect,

Week 4

Colossal Cave Adventure- RPG
Turn Based- Moving one square at a time similar to board games is turn based. However, once on a new square, you are not limited to the amount of actions performed.
Single player exploration
Player vs Environment
Symmetric gameplay- Player starts in same location.

NetHack- RPG
Real Time- Regardless of player movement, when in a room, a monster will still move towards you.
Single player exploration
Player vs Environment
Positive Feed back loop- stat increase with levels gained. Level cap prevents player becoming too powerful, some items such a potions can negate stats reducing feed back loop effect.
Asymmetric gameplay- Random dungeon generation.

Week 3

As priviously stated, I plan to use level loaded event to toggle godmode and the HUD. A vast majority of my puzzles will involve trigger volume initiated matinees.
When walking down a corridoor, a trigger volume will initiate a matinee to move the walls in around the player. I want the player to be guided towards braziers that will can be switched to activate a toggle hidden action to create fire and light (these wont be able to be turned of after). If I attach a boolean value to the matinee action, I hope to have the walls snap back to their origional position to give the illusion that light dispells the feeling of clautrophobia.
This of course will be coupled with a sequence using the player and a directional moveable spot light. Using the actions Get actor location and Set axis and roatation with a delay of 0.001 I can make a moveable torch effect in game.
Inside a moving Matinee enabled maze I will play a key that will be destroyed upon the player touching it. This, coupled with a boolean variable on the next matinee enabled door will force the player to fully explore the maze.
I will be placing various log actions with long delays to introduce the game (where the character is) as well as hints or commands set through the level at appropriate positions.
I will of course have appropriate play sound actions across the game. It is my intention to have a quiet eerie background tune to be activated upon level loading.
After play testing I may decide to add a console command to slow the character down to add to the tension.

Week 2

There is a wide variation in game design documents as there is no "correct" way of presenting a game. Every single game differes in mechanics, presentation, software and games platforms, that each game must be looked at as a single entity, publishing the details that are relevent to the concept.
The amount of Technical information differs in the 3 example documents. They can all be considered foundations for the game development, where by a programmer can take a look through the information and start to develop the concepts/ideas needed to excecute the game.  However I believe programmers will still need to sit down with the development team to discuss what the goals are and how they can be achieved. Developers will have a basic concept of programming, and therefore, discussing the avenues available with a skilled programmer will help evolve a game. A programmeer would be able to create a form of game from these documents, but how close they will be to the desired game is another matter.
I feel adding information about the lighting  to the design documents is a good idea, as well as the feel of the game, architecture and the decor (such as barrels). It shows the developer has really build an intriguing image in his mind and is converying that on paper, allowing others to share his vision. I also like how some documents have put the actors lines into the document. If the concept is green lighted, it allows the voice acting to go into development sooner, allowing the characters expressions and mouth movements to then be animated. Where presentation is concerned, some documents had nicely spaced, numbered text, allowing for a much easier read.
On the other hand, I found all the documents to be long winded, some had clumped up text. As with CVs, if a company is shifting through plenty of documents, I feel a more concise list would be more appropriate. One document I reviewed had many spaces for jokes, philosophy and humourous one-liners. This would only be ok, I feel, if you already work inside a company. My document will get straight to the point, clearly labeled and spaced appropriately, detailing all the information needed to create my game, be it myself, or someone else.

Claustrophorias feel

The character will be making his way through an unfamiliar, unusual environment. Feeling alone and on edge, the lack of light will only add to the mood. The player should be constantly on their toes, not knowing whats around the corner, whilst scouting for beacons of light to gravitate to. Whilst away from the light, the music will become louder and more tense, and the player will become more and more aware the passage ways are becoming smaller and smaller.....

Claustrophorias look

The game will have a very dark, techno-archaic feel to it, fusing technology with well used gothic backdrops As the name suggests, the locales will be in tight rooms and halls such as dungeons with little light available.

Design Notes

Working title for my game will be "Claustrophoria". At the moment I intend it to be a puzzle thriller, using a Torch and various Braziers to illuminate areas to stop the character from losing his grip on reality. Using Kismet and Matinee I intend to add movement events where the walls will start to shrink around the player in the dark corridoors (not to a point where he will die) but add extra dimension to the atmosphere. Only by lighting Braziers will this sense return to normal.
Whilest researching I discovered that the World Information tab can be selected to have no inventory for the player. This coupled with Toggle HUD off and Toggle GodMode on achived upon player spawn in kismet will fulfil the no gun or death criteria set out for the game.