Greetings all,
I just wanted to post this up here to maybe get a little bit
of constructive criticism going. Light,
the game I am about to show you, is one I have created (but not finished) for
my Games Design course at Qantm College Melbourne. It was created for a subject
called Authorship, where in the students are expected to create a game which
exemplifies an ideology or belief they hold close to themselves.
Mine was, based on personal experiences way-back-when, Light, a game to model suicide causing
depression and to dissuade from suicide being an acceptable course of action.
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| Click here to download. |
I would say more, but it sort of defeats the purpose. Have a
go, and tell me what you think.
First impression: Awesome music, and awesome use of sound.
ReplyDeleteI think the only suggestions I have are to tell the player that it is WASD to move, still letting them figure out what that actually means in game, and to maybe add a fade out effect to the text.
In the beginning the speed at which the stream of texts replaced each other made it hard to associate them with their triggers (which give each other meaning). I only realised that the red things were actually pushing you back on the second or third play through, because until you have a solid point of reference in the game space (the maze) they only give the impression of negativity through the text pieces (which are replaced so rapidly they only give a broad sense of what's going on).
Once you realise they are physically moving you backwards they gain a lot more character, and short of adding more land marks to the black background, the only solution I can think of is to strengthen the association between them, the negative texts and moving backwards. Ergo, some way to make their effect more obvious without taking too much away from the black background would be ideal - fading text would emphasise the messages within those texts, and also innocuously add temporary points of reference within the virtual space.
It would be kind of interesting if you excluded the control scheme intentionally, because the whole experience being a little confusing and making you have to want to discover the controls as well as the objective was not necessarily a bad thing. I just don't think that the potential for players to give up before really playing the game outweighs those benefits. And, more importantly, it forces the player to make a proactive decision before they they really engage with the game, and that detracts from the negative choice you've mechanically built into it. Also, how late you discover the fullness of the enemy mechanic within the game takes lessens the impact they have.
That said, as it is now it does explore what you meant it to pretty damn effectively, and I liked it.