Change of plans!

We had started working on the spelling bee game for the past week. However we were told a company approached the TAFE and was interested in having an educational game developed for their schools program and since our game was the closest to an educational level, the client was offered to us. So we stopped working on the spelling bee game and went back to the drawing board to come up with a game that fit with the brief that was assigned to us.

The brief we had gotten from the client was rather clear about what wasn't to be allowed however it left a broad design scope. What they were looking for was something that would help teach children about how to care for animals. A big factor that wasn't allowed was harming of animals and this proved to be a difficult issue to work around as punishment to the player is usually a key mechanic in games, so we had to think of ways to avoid this creatively while keeping it ‘fun’.

We started to look at other games, mostly educational games, games with animals, and games aimed at children, which included the clients existing games they were offering to kids to play. The few games they already had made it clear as to why they wanted a new and improved game. One game they had for example was made up of 5 mini-games and as a whole worked perfectly to the brief however it lacked in the ‘fun’ department. On the other end of the scale there was a skateboarding gecko that was fun but had very suspicious assets and interactions. It looked as if the player had to collect alcohol and drugs.

Next week we’re going to have a group meeting and work out what our next move is and what game idea we’re going to go with.