Very few times are we given the opportunity or luxury to brainstorm. It’s one of the few times where a certain buzz consumes everyone involved, spirits are lifted, and it seems like you could conquer the world! Recently I had to complete a design exercise – very much like this very design exercise – that inspired me, lifted my spirits, and made me think. So to keep things fresh, spirits lifted, and creativity sharp I’ve decided every month to hold a game design exercise. These exercises will be short, thought provoking, and hopefully fun! I invite everyone to reach out to me and suggest new ideas for the following exercises and I hope that as many of you as possible participate! With that said, I present the first game design exercise to all of you.
The goal of this exercise is to in 1,000 words or less describe how you would recreate the following ‘experience’ through conventional game design mechanics:
You rule your world and have ultimate power, yet you do not have total control. Every day there is conflict and every action has it’s consequences, cannot make everyone happy, and affects the amount of control you have.
Examples of some game design mechanics means include macro objectives, general success conditions, general failure conditions, time and space continuity, level objectives, level rewards, difficulty curve, player abilities, micro objectives, challenges, AI pattern, NPC behavior, and HUD. Keep in mind these are NOT all the game design mechanics, these are just a couple to give an example. Also, keep in mind that you don’t have to use every single game design mechanic! Just use the ones which you think will best depict how a game would go about recreating this experience. Additionally, you are not limited to any genres. FPS, RTS, RPG, or any other three-letter acronym genre that you think up can be used (non three-letter acronyms included).
While there is no deadline for this exercise I would ask that all those who wish to participate and share with others submit their answers by July 17th to keep the conversation active and fresh. Another note is that there are no limits to the number of submissions you can send in! So if you’d like to share more than one idea you have please feel free to do so, the more the better! I ask you to share your results in this exercise using the comment system below. I will be posting my own ‘answer’ to this exercise soon enough and I very much look forward to discussing and reading everyone else’s exercises!
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