Experimental Game Design

Tyler Kaminsky

Cop Training Simulator 2K15

by | Apr 21, 2015 |

Jeff Feinberg

Tyler Kaminsky

Cop Training Simulator 2K15 is a parody target gallery game in which the player must shoot at targets that spring up from behind a wall.  When the player shoots a target with a white character on it, they lose points.  If the player shoots a target with a black character on it, points are rewarded to the player.  We chose to do this to essentially make a game commentary on the actions of many police officers in the country’s recent history.

Originally, we had an ammo limit in the game, but we took that out in an attempt to mirror situations in which people are shot multiple times by police.

The game has two end states.  The player wins when all black targets are shot and loses if all white targets are shot.  Upon shooting a black target, the player is praised, but shooting white targets is met with a stern finger wag.

CTS2K15

 

 

Cop Training Sim 2K15

by | Apr 7, 2015 |

Jeff Feinberg

Tyler Kaminsky

 

Cop Training Simulator is a simple target shooting game in which the player must click on targets that appear on screen to shoot them.  The player is either awarded or decremented points based on the targets they hit.

 

Any time the player shoots a minority target, they gain points.  Any time a non-minority target is shot, points are taken from the player.

Below is a draft of potential art for the different in-game targets.  Also discussed was the use of photos of real people that we could find online.

Cop Sim 2015

Flower Power

by | Mar 20, 2015 |

Flower Power is an experiment I chose to run in Animal Crossing New Leaf.

I had a friend play in my town and get used to the locations of several different buildings and landmarks.  Once my friend was used to the layout of my city, I had them run to different areas as I called them out to see how they moved around the town.

As I anticipated, my friend chose to run to the areas that I called out.

After they had completed one circuit around my town, I then planted flowers all over.  In Animal Crossing, if a player runs over flowers, they can be destroyed.  Players typically try not to run over flowers because of how fragile they are.  I wanted to see whether or not my friend would slow down and/or choose new paths to avoid flowers so they could run.

 

When watching my friend’s second circuit, in which they were ordered to go to the same locations in the same order, it became clear that if they could get around the flowers, they would do so an run, but if not, they would simply walk to where they were going.

 

http://youtu.be/uPCxdX1DQ2E

 

 

I was really happy that my friend hadn’t run through many of the flowers.  I hadn’t given them any rules to follow aside from, “go where I tell you to.”  The rules about running were self-given and demonstrated a rule that players give themselves in games despite not needing to.

Animal Crossing also has a bad luck mechanic.  Everyday, the player has a chance of being unlucky, which means that when the player runs, they will trip.  It was highly coincidental that the day I opted to test, my town had bad luck.  The game, perhaps sensing the nature of the assignment, helped intervene the player in my intervention, which I really enjoyed.

Flower Power

by | Mar 3, 2015 |

I want to place flowers all over my town in Animal Crossing.  There’s an unspoken rule that players of Animal Crossing don’t destroy other players’ flowers.  By placing flowers in busy locations or areas that players want to run through, it restricts the movement ability/speed in those areas.

 

I want to see how players move in my town with flowers all over the place.

Invisible, Inc.

by | Mar 3, 2015 |

Invisible, Inc is a strategy stealth game designed by Klei Entertainment. The Player chooses two squad members with different abilities to take on different missions for a spy agency. The objective of each mission is to begin and end a level while attaining as much intelligence from the level as possible. Levels are room-based and a player must move into a room before being able to see what is inside. The player’s turn consists of actions like moving, attacking, hacking, etc. The player must use stealth to avoid guards and set traps or distractions to get them to move from areas that they are patrolling. Guards that are knocked out must be hidden to avoid detection by other guards.

As the levels progress, the Alarm level increases with each turn. As the Alarm level increases, the guards become more difficult to deal with. Any loud actions like gunshots or other fighting will increase the alarm levels faster.

The whole game takes place over the span of 72 hours. The player must complete missions to gain weapons and other items, but must factor in travel time to each mission and how long they spend in each mission.

The game is fun to play. Action ramps up fairly and the overall theme is pretty cool. The only real complaint I had came from the camera controls. At times they felt wonky and prevented the best view, but that problem wasn’t too horrible to deal with. Picking different strategies is also a lot of fun. I spent a lot of time trying to decide whether or not I wanted to keep my agents together or divide them so that I could cover more area.

Basket Case

by | Feb 23, 2015 |

Original:

My game utilizes rope, a mirror frame, a plastic bag, and snow.  Rope is tied to the corners of the mirror so that two people can hold two one piece of rope per hand.  A plastic bag is attached to the frame so that objects that pass through the frame are caught in the bag.  The players must catch snowballs thrown by another player, by pulling on the ropes and moving the frame around.

 

Final:

My game now utilizes similar objects, but the plastic bag is now light canvas and the snow has been replaced with socks.  I wanted to test the game outside, but three factors limited me to not being able to do that.

1.  The snow would not pack into decent snowballs, which made testing with them impossible.

2.  The snow was about a foot deeper than I had imagined it would be and would not allow for the movement that I wanted players to have.

3.  My testers were massive pansies and didn’t want to be cold.

After playtesting in class, I have also decided to include blindfolding the thrower.  This mechanic adds a lot of fun to the game because it makes the players holding the basket work together better.  Since throws can go anywhere, the two basket players need to be able to think quickly and help each other out in order to make any catches.

Overall, I am happy with my end result.  Watching my friends play was really enjoyable.  I could tell that toward the end, once they got the hang of moving the basket, they really liked playing.  In the last included test session, the final catch was met with a happy celebration and I loved seeing that.  There was a lot of blame when a throw was missed, but nobody took credit when a catch was made and I found that very interesting.  Failure was somebody’s fault, but success was achieved together.  I wanted to build my game on a deep meaning, but could not come up with one, but studying the test sessions helped me see that I may have accidentally stumbled upon something with some depth.

 

 

Artist Statement:
I came up with this idea by tying rope around the frame in a spider web like style with the intent of using the “web” to catch or block thrown object.  I then got the idea of having two people having to work well together to win the game and thought to tie the ropes so that it was like both players were controlling one very simple puppet

I started trying to come up with a concept that helped convey a message.  I liked the idea of Ono’s white chess board and wanted my game to make a statement.  I’m still slightly upset that I don’t feel like I achieved that task.  I did; however, also want to implement our discussions of Dada from class and what we learned about the movement.  I’m proud of my method for finding my game mechanic because it stemmed from a naive, playful testing session.  I grabbed three items in my room and let myself play with them in odd ways.  I eventually discovered the form of my game from this session and I enjoyed the process I used.

 

 

Link to playtest session

Indiecade Lethal League

by | Feb 10, 2015 |

I chose Lethal League.

It’s a game:
http://lethalleague.reptile-games.com/prototype/

 

Lethal League is a 2D fighting game  that utilizes very few moves and makes combat very simple.  I generally dislike fighting games, but Lethal League was a pleasant surprise.  The game is played essentially like tennis.  Each player is able to hit a ball that is in the stage with a held item.  Once a player hits the ball, it travels in a straight line and bounces off of the walls of the arena.  Each hit on the ball makes it move faster.  The round ends when the ball collides with a player.

 

I enjoyed playing Lethal League because it is very different from most fighting games.  There are no complicated button combinations or health gauges to worry about.  The player simply has to worry about hitting and avoiding being hit by the ball.  The game is very reminiscent of some boss battles in the Legend Of Zelda series and the mechanic of both players needing to react quickly works very well in the scenario of the game.  The game gets more challenging when the players aim the ball in different directions.  The quick play times of each round make the game enjoyable for long periods of time.

Catch

by | Feb 9, 2015 |

My game utilizes rope, a mirror frame, a plastic bag, and snow.  Rope is tied to the corners of the mirror so that two people can hold two one piece of rope per hand.  A plastic bag is attached to the frame so that objects that pass through the frame are caught in the bag.  The players must catch snowballs thrown by another player, by pulling on the ropes and moving the frame around.

 

Artist Statement:
I came up with this idea by tying rope around the frame in a spider web like style with the intent of using the “web” to catch or block thrown object.  I then got the idea of having two people having to work well together to win the game and thought to tie the ropes so that it was like both players were controlling one very simple puppet

I started trying to come up with a concept that helped convey a message.  I liked the idea of Ono’s white chess board and wanted my game to make a statement.  I’m still slightly upset that I don’t feel like I achieved that task.  I did; however, also want to implement our discussions of Dada from class and what we learned about the movement.  I’m proud of my method for finding my game mechanic because it stemmed from a naive, playful testing session.  I grabbed three items in my room and let myself play with them in odd ways.  I eventually discovered the form of my game from this session and I enjoyed the process I used.

Daze Final

by | Feb 6, 2015 |

Take one large mirror.

Smash it into small pieces.

Set the vase in interesting positions

Admire from every angle.

 

Documentation of Final Test:

Artist Statement:

I first got the idea for using a broken mirror after learning about Duchamp’s smashed glasswork pieces.  I loved the idea of the randomness of the breaks in the glass and wanted to emulate it.  I used the mirror because I like the reflective qualities and felt like I’d be making a highly simplistic disco ball.

 

Score Testing


I tested the original draft of my score with a friend.  I had her read the score and follow its instructions.  The test went as planned until she proceeded to take the vase containing the mirror shards and move it around the room to see how its surroundings changed the reflections.  She also walked around the vase once it was set down.  Her actions caused me to change the score slightly to make it a little more explicitly worded, but ultimately, in my opinion, far more satisfying to perform.

 

Daze — Crunch

by | Jan 27, 2015 |

Daze:

Take one large mirror.

Smash it into small pieces.

Place those pieces in a clear vase.

Admire.

 

 

Crunch:

Dive head first into the snow.

Dig deeper until you can’t be found.

Hide from your classes until the snow melts.