Research/Inspiration

We started the project by discussing the general feel and theme of the game that we wanted to create. Through our discussions we came to an agreement that we wanted to create a game that was similar to Super Mario in terms of it being a 2d side scroller game. The main idea of the game came from a game with a very similar game concept called Cat mario. The game starts the character (cat) in the very first map of super mario. Assuming that the player has played that map previously, they will try to traverse through it as normal, but every part of the game has some kind of hidden traps designed to kill the player in very annoying ways.

Themes

The game follows a farmer that wakes up after being kidnapped by his sheep. He finds himself in an unfamiliar section of his farm where he is forced to find his way back home. What he doesn't know is that his sheep have plotting revenge against him, which will force him to face a series of traps and obstacles designed to kill him. So far, I think our project has been meeting the absurd part of the game pretty well since it has hidden traps and other mechanics that may seem intuitive for any other game, but where in ours it will punish you.

Purpose

The overall purpose of our game is creating a game interface that has the perfect balance between challenging yet, addicting. This is so that the player is faced with a difficult game that will take time and enough. We want to make this game difficult, but not enough so that the players get frustrated enough to give up and no longer want to play the game. The design of our game follows a basic formula in which following logic and doing things the way they should will end up punishing the player by either triggering traps, or other mechanics that will attempt to kill the player.

Project Goals

Game Mechanics

  1. Sheep Attack: Sheep suddenly appears and instantly kills the farmer.
  2. Falling floor
  3. Rolling hay bale
  4. Pitch fork trap
  5. Jumping Cow
  6. Falling Bird
  7. Invisible Objects
  8. Setting checkpoints

Stage

  1. Farm

Game Rules

  1. If a players die before a checkpoint, they start from the begining
  2. If a player dies after a checkpoint, they start from the checkpoint
  3. If a player hits an enemy, they die
  4. If the player falls from the map, they die
  5. Background doesn't scroll to the left (Prevents the player from going back)
  6. If the player finds the hidden end goal, the game will end.

Reflection

Some of the obstacles we've faced are that we all barely know how program using unity's most common language C# so it takes quite a while for the objects to act in a way we would want to because we would have to watch multiple tutorials and combine what we picked up on it since most video does not give us a perfect code for our absurd trap behavior. We dealt with it by splitting roles on which traps we will make so that one people will not have to do all the coding. I think our team has been working pretty well together, and we've been able to meet a lot of the goals and mechanics that we wanted to add to our game. In terms of our time management we've done very and we are ahead of our planned schedule which will hopefully give us more time to refine the graphics and make the overall game feel more smooth.

Feedback

What was your first impression?

Difficult

Frustrating/Fun

Similar to Trap 2

Other

Describe the objective of the game

Make it to the end

Other

How was this game absurdist?

Traps/Obstacles

Other

What elements do you think could be improved?

Storyline

Length of game

Make it different from other games

Other

Describe this game’s appeal

Fun/Appealing

Difficult

Frustrating

Other

Target Audience

People who like challenges

Anyone

Others

If you were to give this game as a gift who would you give it to?

Anyone

Family

Friends

Myself

Else

Summary

Currently, the impression we got for this game is that it is a 2D platformer that is difficult. People who would play it would easily become frustrated by the traps that the player would not expect. Our plan is to not be exactly like existing games like Cat mario and Trap Adventure. We will design the stage that is unique from those games, and possibly add a story to the game so that it would be more interesting.

Final Game Design Document

Game Goals

The Goal of our game is to make people VERY FRUSTRATED, this game is guaranteed that it is too difficult to complete, because the game designer himself cannot reach the end yet. The absurdness of this game is that there are numerous obstacles that will block the player from progressing, and the player will have to start everything from the beginning every time he/she fails. What makes this game difficult is that the level design repeats which give the player familiarity of the stage, however the player will still fail because of the absurd trap placement, and sometime the player will still fail even when he/she knows that there is a trap waiting for you, which makes it even more frustrating. This was our main goal, to have the player understand that no matter how much you try or put effort to it, there will be an endless unreasonable obstacle that will instantly knock away all your progress and have to start all over again. Another goal that we subconsciously had was to have people watch other people play and enjoy viewing their failure over and over and become more frustrated.

Game Summary

Our team name naturally led us to create the game farm themed. The game instantly starts off with the farmer peacefully strolling through the farm, however eventually the farmer notices that he’s been going through the same place multiple times and that he is also being being killed!? However, there’s no "game over"that pops up, and the farmer instantly returns to the beginning, only to repeat his death, over and over again. No matter how long or short he survives, he cannot escape from this torturous place. And even after the "player" gives up and leaves the game, the farmer is stuck in this endless loop…

Trap Mechanics

Falling Ground/Platform: The ground instantly falls as the player goes on top
Rolling Hay: A round hay will start rolling down the hill as it enters the player’s screen. Kills the player if touched
Hidden Blocks: The player will hit an invisible block that become visible when hit from bottom. Blocks the player and usually will lead them straight down the pit.
Sheeps: After looping the stage for more than 5 times, the sheep will become hostile, instantly killing the farmer if touched. Sheeps moves back & forth or up & down.

Design

Our intended design goal was to make a game similar to mario, our sprites used for the prototype was mostly from mario. As we decided to have our game to farm themed, we made sprites that appears on farm. The design is fairly simple to make it seem peaceful which makes a contrast to the absurdity.

Discussion

After we got feedback which said that our game is pretty similar to the cat Mario, we spent a lot of time to differentiate our game from existing games and how we make it more absurd. We had several ideas like adding new mechanics or adding a secret stage. And finally, we came up with the idea of the endless loop stage design.

What could have been added