Game Design Ideas

[Max H]

I had this idea of a crazy people scavenger hunt and I wanted to get some discussion going about the first part of the game and get some feedback on the idea.   In this crazy people scavenger hunt the players have to divide up into teams to sweep the entire campus for any signs of craziness. The only information given to them by the doll house is the number of crazy people they have to find and how long they have to find them. The puzzles will be made up by a trail made of clues and leads.  Clues are the essential components to the puzzle.  Leads would be planted information that indicates where a clue might be found or where a better lead might be found (the helpfulness of the leads could vary).
 Each trail of clues will be centered around its own unique puzzle which must be solved after all the clues have been found. We will have leads planted all over campus and on social media which will be the starting points of each trail (trails may have multiple starting points).  
We would plant clues and leads in physical location and internet locations.  Leads can be anything from a staged conversation to a twitter post to an actual call to one of the players.  The idea would to make this first puzzle kind of hectic since the players will be trying to solve multiple puzzles while running around campus looking for signs of craziness while surfing the web looking for more signs of craziness.  It would just be for one day, and then there would be no more hunting crazy people.

Basic concept of crazy people scavenger hunt:

There will be several mini puzzles that must be found and solved
    Leads will be planted to help players find the puzzle pieces (clues)
    With enough of the puzzle pieces the players can solve the puzzles
    Solving the puzzle leads to the location of a crazy person

 If anybody has any more ideas for the game design post them here!

[Robert Harrison (Admin)]

I think that this is a decent idea, but I have a few concerns.
1. I feel like it's asking too much of the players in a day. As Dean said, we can only really count on MAYBE 1-2 people actually being invested and solving our ARG. Therefore, asking them to find a bunch of people over the course of a day while solving puzzles seems like it would be too much. Maybe finding one person could be better?
2. Also, as for the "crazy people" we would have the players hunt, WE would have to be the people being hunted. Furthermore, does any of us really wants to stand around for an hour or longer in a single area acting "crazy"? Furthermore, acting crazy could get us (or Dean) in trouble, which would be a hassle to deal with. Maybe then we could replace the "crazy people" with usb stick with audio recordings on them or chalk symbols made by the crazy people that we have people post on the forums / facebook / instagram?
Let me know what you think.

[Max H]

That was one of the issues I noticed in class as well, but we do have a good hook so I think we might be able to get more people involved. I definitely intended for the game to be mostly made of clues like social media posts, posters, chalk drawings, ect. If we really wanted to have the players meet a crazy person, we could design it so that we would be able to monitor the players progress online on the puzzle (maybe the solution requires posting something no social media). Then if we see that the puzzle has been finished, we just run over to the location and wait like 10-15 min. As for the story, since we are really insane the whole time I was thinking that the "crazy" people we end up finding are really sane in the end, and our own insanity makes us see them as insane. It was just the first idea anyway, so we can keep working with it. I think that the actual game should flow seamlessly with the story, which will make for a more immersive experience so if the writers had a general idea of what is happening in Act I, II, and III that would be helpful for designing the game.

[Max H]

Feb 15, 2016 15:24:12 GMT Max H said:

I'm assuming nobody was that into the crazy person scavenger hunt, which is completely fine.  I really just wanted to get some collaborative brainstorming started, so post some ideas!

[Robert Harrison (Admin)]

I think that the scavenger hunt idea is pretty good. I just had an idea about having the players go around campus looking for chalk drawings or hidden messages and having them send us a picture over snapchat. Snapchat fits with our story because the images are deleted after being viewed, so "the voices" minions won't be able to see the images. Periscope also works with this idea since it will be hard for 'the voices" to monitor. Another idea (that we discussed in the after class meeting somewhat) is to hide secret messages within audio files that the players have to decrypt. Anyway, these are some of the ideas I have right now, I'll see if I can't think of anything else.

[Max H]

I like the idea of using snapchat to communicate with the players. We could design a puzzle where the player is prompted with a snapchat from somebody (not important to the game) and they would have to reply with a picture of a specific thing. This is more of a memory challenge but, we could have different chalk symbols all over campus, and we send the players a picture of a specific symbol and the players would have to remember what the symbol looked like in the snapchat so they could find a chalk drawing on campus. Or something like we send them very simplistic drawings that represent places on campus and the players would have to figure out what place it was referring to and respond with a picture of the correct place.

[Robert Harrison (Admin)]

It doesn't have to be a memory challenge, it could be a "find the matching symbol challenge" if you just put the drawing on mystory in snapchat (which stays up all day and the player can view it multiple times). When a picture is taken, it prompts the person to send a snap back to whoever set up the initial mystory, and that in turn will send them a message with information.

[Max H]

I came up with an idea that would add additional levels of interaction for the players and make the gameplay more challenging and dynamic. Essentially the players would acquire a "tool belt" over the course of the week that they would have to use in order to complete the game. This tool belt would have to be built around the members of the anti-voice club, or resources the club has access to. We would create characters that would exist in the story only to act as tools that would be necessary to play the game. So for example the club historian would know all about the club's history and their history with the voices, the tool in the game would be his phone number which would enable you to call him if you encounter something club relevant that the players don't understand. So potentially a part of the game would require the players to ask the historian the write question in order to proceed. We could introduce a new "tool" each day, which don't necessarily have to be characters. The tools could be a physical object, a phone number, a website or an app. The use of characters as tools, even if the characters only communicate with the players via phone or text, would create a powerful effect in blending the story and the gameplay. I think having to send the club's symbol expert a picture of a chalk symbol you found so that he can explain how it is used in the context of the puzzle would be pretty cool. Club members usually have a variety of roles so these different character/tools would fit into the plot nicely. Since the tool belt will grow throughout the week, the gameplay will also become more complex as the week goes on. I'll try to come up with a list of tools that we can use in the game.

[awhan]

A few puzzle ideas I've been considering:

A possibility for a puzzle that stretches up until the reveal at the end: the players over the course of the week find code words while solving the puzzles. At the end, these code words are combined in some way to suggest that the house should be destroyed. A simplified example where the final puzzle is a fill in the blanks: code words are destruction and freedom, on the last day players are presented with _____________ is ___________. Destruction is freedom, implying they need to break the dollhouse. If we were to go with this idea, we'd want to build on this idea with more code words, possibly a more interesting puzzle, and thinking up novel ways to distribute the words.

Hidden message within an audio clip: The base audio is unhelpful; just pleas for help, creepy voices, or some boring thematic monologue. The audio clip is littered with intermittent bursts of static, which turns out to be morse code. If players are paying attention, they should notice that some bursts of static are longer than others, and there are occasionally long pauses (in between the letters). As an alternative to listening to it, if someone were to open up the audio file in editing software, it would be easier to see the morse code pattern.

Map overlay: Give the players a digital image of what appears to be a map but is really ambiguous: looks like a bunch of lines and symbols, but at first glance you have no idea what it's referring to. If you put the image on top of a campus map of WPI, suddenly it all makes sense and the lines and symbols point to exact locations on campus to find clues. The map overlay will need to have at least 2 symbols referring to actual locations on campus (for example, the fountain and the library) to ensure that when it's laid on top, the orientation and scale are correct.

[Max H]

I really like that idea, it allows the players to solve the puzzle while still being challenging. So these would be randomly acquired throughout the game, but they wouldn't be used at all on the day that they were acquired? Or are they part of the puzzle for that day in addition to the final puzzle?

[awhan]

I originally thought of them as answers to puzzles but honestly it doesn't matter a whole lot, as long as we're ensuring that they're found by the players.