A dog's life

I remember someone mentioned that in the future we might be able to use our sense of smell in games. Even though this feature is technically not available now, I was thinking of how we can make a game that focuses on the sense of smell.

Game idea:

We control and navigate the dog around the environment and using it's sense of smell, we try to accomplish certain objectives like searching for things, detecting danger etc. I figure we need a sort of unique indicator to indicate what the dog is smelling(I was thinking of a combination of the dog's expression and a meter that shows maybe the type of smell). I read somewhere that the dog can "smell" fear in human beings and danger as well so maybe we can make use of this information also.

The concept is abit sketchy now but i will post this up anyway in case someone strike on a better idea after seeing this.

Second Voyage

Another game idea I came up with during lecture yesterday, after thinking about what Ling Xiang said about the Valkyrie Profile world map flying thingy. So posting it here as part of SSS21.... hah. Anyway, as usual, take a read through, and see if you guys like the idea.

Game Idea #4: Rain Cloud

Concept:
Players control a rain cloud, indirectly though. Players actually control the wind speed and wind direction to move the rain cloud. Move the rain cloud over water bodies to gain mass. Rain cloud changes to different types of clouds as the mass increase, and hence unleash different kinds of rain to fulfill the different objectives. Probably played from a top-down view or isometric view. Can be played either mission based or something like GTA where we have one large overworld and we guide the cloud to a certain spot to take a mission or something.

Objectives:
The objectives can really vary, some mild and mundane for beginners and some destruction based. Some that i thought of so far are things like:

- Rain a gentle summer rain over a pair of lovers.
- Rain to make crops grow.
- Produce a certain number of rainbows.
- Unleash a heavy rain to flood a river, or put out a forest fire.
- Unleash a storm / hurricane to destroy a town or buildings.
- Unleash a lighting storm to power a generator.
- Rain the heaviest storm to flood the world during the time of Noah's ark.

ok.. maybe the last one is a little far-fetched.. but everyone of these games need some sorta extreme rite? anyway.. think you guys get the idea.

Gameplay:

- Players control wind speed with keyboard or something.
- Control wind direction by holding the keys down or something.
- Cloud gains mass as they move over water bodies, e.g. Seas or oceans, or at higher altitudes, or merging with other clouds, or moving over forest or somethings like that.
- Cloud loses mass when it goes into sunny or dry areas, like deserts.
- Realistic lighting can be considered to play a factor for the sunny areas.
- Real time can play a part in changing the time of day, affecting gaining or losing water mass, e.g. gain more mass in the night.
- Whether of environment can also be used as some sorta random factor.
- Clouds can change shape based on real-life cloud formations to produce different types of whether or storms, e.g. nimbostratus, cirrus.
- One button to activate rain, and maybe lighting, and maybe typhoon or what-not.

Yup... that's it.. again. This is a rough concept of it so far. Gameplay objectives and all can be further expanded, the important thing is deciding on a concept that we all like and think there is potential for it to be creatively expanded upon and probably easily implemented. This one is quite feasible i think. Give it some thought. And will someone go think of a way to expand the "vision" game thing and expand on it and propose it officially?

Ideas A-hoy!

Since I am the only free one at this point of time, and have probably nothing better to do with my time at this point of time. I will try be the first to post my ideas, some of which we discussed on Friday, some I came up with over the weekend. The 3 most outstanding ideas from Friday till now are as follows.

Game Idea #1 : Bats in the Cave

Concept:
Player plays as a bat, in an environment that is pitch black, or minimally lighted. Have to use sound waves in the form of echos projected to map walls and obstacles or basically navigate through the level. Probably played from a top down or isometric view.

Objective:
Maybe navigate around to feed by sucking blood from animals or humans. (?)

Gameplay:
This one is a little ambiguous at the moment. But basically its about
- Flying around, probably different depth layers to add a bit of complexity to control scheme.
- Using sound waves as a mapping function.
- Maybe Stealth gameplay, i.e. avoid producing sound waves if predators are nearby, to avoid
detection.
- "Realistically" lighted environments to force players to switch between using sound and sight
for effective navigation, actually, we can ACTUALLY force players to use to depth of sound
echoes "physically" to indicate walls or something, an interesting aspect to explore if we can
acheive it techincally.
- Presence of other creatures, some prey, some predator and natural hazards to add to the
gameplay.


Game Idea #2 : Writer's Block

Concept:
Player plays as a character in a story book or a writer's pen or some creative juice or the like. Traverse through levels which are pages of a story book, literally. Each page holds some objective or items in which player can collect and achieve a bigger objective of completing a particular story, according to the player's fancy.

Objective:
Probably to build a cohesive story with the things collected through the levels. Probably offer players multiple ways in completing the story.. as in very VAST multiples.

Gamplay:
Another one with gameplay in the air, but basically its something as follows.

- Probably played from a side-scroller perspective or top-down, or combination of both for more interesting gameplay or to serve different gameplay functions. Anything that looks convincingly like inside a book.
- Depth technology can be applied for page flips or to transverse from page to page.
- Interesting mechanic that can be used is to alter events in first few pages, which causes events in later pages to be affected.
- OR we can make it like a game-book approach, choices in earlier pages causes you to flip to different pages, or different sub-levels. But this has to be done with much finesse to make it look more than just your branching level platformer.
- Gameplay mechanics can be inspired by actual book writing, like bookmarking, page flipping, folding, possibly page tearing, and what i think is the most potentially interesting, erasing.
- Can possibly be a create-the-level-as-you-platform-game.


Game Idea #3 : Big Bang!

Concept:
Sorta inspired by Katamari Damacy, but with a more destructive twist and more specific goals probably. Players control a gravity well in space, and go around using gravitational force to attract smaller particles in space at first, such as nebular dust or what-ya-might-call-those-space-dust-stuff. As the mass within the gravity well get bigger, the gravitational force gets larger as well, allowing attraction of greater objects. But the twist comes with the supernova mechanic. If some planets are too big to be absorbed immediately, can use your current mass to activate a supernova, and blow the big planets into smithereens, allowing you to be able to draw them in.

Objective:

This one is a lot more specific than the previous two. The objectives can be varied, from Meteos inspired objectives, like building planets of certain composition, for example the different planets in the solar system. And for each planet can have specific req as well, Earth for example would first require players to collect molten star dust to form the liquid core, followed by rocks for the crust and the in-between, and finally water, to add to the top layer.

Or we can have objectives like Katamari, to build masses of certain sizes, or take it a step further, to create supernovas of certain sizes.. for example the Big Bang.

Gameplay:
- Players control a gravity well or blackhole in space and navigate it around from a top-down or
isometric view.
- One button activates gravity attraction, attracting particles based on current gravity mass.
- One button activates supernova explosion, allowing players to blow up bigger planets or other
things in space.
- Players have to collect materials in a certain composition to fulfill some specific planet building
building reqs, such as the Earth example above.
- Supernova mechanic can be used in conjunction to this, as like you might need to collect water.
But the only water bodies are big planets, which you do not have enough gravity force to
attract. So you activate a supernova to blow the water body up and then proceed to collect the
water nebula or dust after which.
- Possible blackhole effect after a supernova.
- Could be played entirely with a mouse.
- Possible to factor in asteroids and comets for different types of way to blow things up as well.

So there. My current best ideas laid out bare. Hopefully not too bare for plagiarism of the creativity. But comprehensive enough for my fellow shipmates to understand. Think about it and let me know what you guys think, the ideas are open for comment from the public. Do put up whatever ideas you guys (my shipmates) have too here. We'll discuss in greater detail soon.

Setting the Course

Aye mateys.. 'ere we are at a brand new juncture of a brand new sem with a brand new blog. I know all the rest of you seadogs by face and by name. And hopefully... we will enjoy our little voyage together this sem. And seriously... let's try to strive for the irony behind our studio's name ya?