Below is a list of the third design teams for your radical games. You will be presenting on 21st May. You will also have an audience from the IGDA Melbourne chapter to present to later that night.
Here are all the games that were showcased as part of the second radical games exhibit.
Tween Twist - Shaun S, Amanda B, Adam W
Easing initial social awkwardness kids between the ages of 10-12, (colloquially called tweenagers) can have when meeting and interacting for the first time is an untouched area. This is where Tween Twist comes in. At that age kids are only just becoming self-conscious; getting over that initial hurdle can be tough but once the process has been ironed out, great new friendships can be explored. Tween Twist has been designed as an easy-to-access iOS and Android game that encourage young people to physically interact with one another in a safe, fun environment, thus smoothing out the initial difficulty meeting new people. Play-testing has shown that kids greatly preferred getting to know each other through the medium of a game rather than conventional first introductions. Using a game space to blur the line between stranger and friend creates a much easier social environment for young people, and that coupling the elements of a game to real world interaction improves this result.
The aim is to decrease anxiety or/and fear of small invertebrates such as spiders or small insects. The problem we face to solve is that sometimes people overreact towards small insects and arachnids. Our approach goes along the lines of exposure therapy where the repeated exposure to certain fear will help over come it. The elements of exposure therapy is coupled with sense of competition/herd mentality to make subjects more willing to participate. What we have learnt is that fun, or the perceived idea of it, will allow a person to overcome personal distaste. Exposure through the medium of a game is a useful tool to overcome psychological obstacles.
Look At Me is a game designed to help those uncomfortable with having attention drawn to them develop the courage and the confidence to overcome their discomfort. Lacking situations that push people to overcome this discomfort; many never get the opportunity to develop this life skill. Look At Me utilises an overseer to guide the actions of competing players to win the most attention from a non player group within a short time frame. With the use of an overseer, players find themselves less inhibited when attention is drawn towards them. By providing situations in which social inhibitions are challenged, Look At Me provides players with relevant experiences to tap into when they are next presented with a scenario that puts them in the spotlight of attention.
The game is a search for emotion and excitement. We attempt to provoke reactions out of the player. Each player has a different challenge as he switches roles. The person showing the video is recording the reaction and wins if the reaction provoked is stronger than the one he went through. So the challenge is to find the appropriate video, the one that surprises. The player watching the video needs to try and not react so that he wins the game. The player recording the reaction needs to find the videos that will shock/scare/amuse the other player the most. The player observing the video needs to try his best to hold his emotions in, making the game more exciting. Our experience of designing this game has enabled us to make video sharing websites more interesting to use. We incorporated the use of sound as a medium to measure the score. The game will have succeeded in making the player feel some emotions in anyway rather it is frustrations for not succeeding on making the player react or the opposite if he succeeded. The loser will come out with the most emotions because to lose you have to burst out laughing or screaming. In conclusion, our game has succeeded in bringing a little excitement in times of boredom. People these days enjoy video sharing websites, and thus this game will appeal to them. This game can also be used as a drinking game for more excitement, as one is more emotionally reactive while intoxicated. The novelty is the use of sound and video sharing websites. The contribution is bringing excitement while using every day habits.
This game teaches players a different means of communications while making it fun in game form, but goes further than that, it try’s to make one player and extension of the other as if trying to share the same mind. The major problem we encountered with our game was simply coming up with a way to communicate in a non conventional way. Speech, writing and sign language are the most common forms and people do them on an every day basis so it was difficult redesigning something so common in a game form that would be of use. After addressing our problem the steps soon after were simple however not easy. Our games silences one player and blinds the other. The blind player must be directed through a maze using their finger by the player who is speechless this is done by a form of touch. The silent player drags their finger along the blind players back. This gives the blind player a rough idea what shape the maze is. After the first trace is made along the blind players back a second one is done slower in order for the blind player to slowly navigate through the maze while the speech impaired player navigates and corrects them. The over all idea of this game is to create a game where ones communicate with out speech. While such an idea may not be practical in day to day life it made for a fun and different game concept. A lot of games today are pushing interactivity with other online players via voice chat or video call. While it may not redefine how to interact with other players it would be nice to see a first person shooter where players avatars interact with each other through animations or hand gestures as such is done in military operations where soldiers need to remain quiet in some situations.
The fundamental ideas we wanted to express & demonstrate in this game was memory skills, quick wit & punishment for failing to exert these skills. And we wanted to have these elements come out & utilized in a socially focused game. So we settle upon making a game involving short term memorizing & logic puzzle that can be played with a group people. The players gather round in a group & each draw a card from the deck of the chosen mode (there are 4) & each player must read out the content of their card, while memorize on the content of the next player’s card & so on & so on & so on, building up the skills of memorizing things, until the player screws up & forgets, they must suck on a lemon as punishment. This will negatively reinforce the player to try harder at memorizing the cards & the other player’s cards. http://jamgaming.blogspot.com.au/
