Player feedback

If the cursor is over a "active" game-element (in this example the TV), it displays the name of the element right next to the cursor. Using the right mouse button, the player is able to open a menu containing all actions the character can perform with the object (in this case "investigate", "turn on" and "use with...")
In the status bar at the bottom of the screen he can access his inventory by clicking on the "Inventory" button, on the right side the name of the actual location is displayed, the middle shows captions like when he clicks on "investigate", the character describes the object (and maybe gives hints what can be done with it).
This screen shows the "Inventory" window, that opens on a click on the "Inventory"-Button. The items can be drag-and-dropped inside the window, in order to combine elements (if possible). If the player clicks on an element, it is "loaded" onto the cursor and can be applied on an "active" element in the current location.

characters

Here are the four characters the player can choose before he/she starts the game!

level one - outdoor

Practical Work - session 9

Game Flow Criteria for Player Enjoyment in Games:

Clear Goals:
You can choose if you want to fight or response a question...

Gratification and Punsihment:
We are still thinking about these points.


To do list:

*Optimisation of characters -> Achillus, Miss Murple, Colambo, Azumi (japanese Katanafighter);
*Testing
*Packaging Design
*Name of the Game!!!

Characters of the game

ACHILLUS
Son of the human Peleus and the divine sea nymph Thetis.
He is a known hero –the glory of war- in the greek mythology and is considered as invulnerable – except his heel > read more in the game.
His strength is Immortality (except his heel)

SUPERWOMAN
She is a fictional but famous heroine. Characteristic is her capacity to fly through the universe.
Superwoman is described as "faster than a speeding bullet".
Her arsenal of powers has included flight, super-speed, vision powers (including x-ray, heat, telescopic, infra-red, and microscopic vision).

COCO COLAMBO:
Colambo is crime fiction character.
He seems as an scatterbrained person, but he is really clever and able to solve nearly every case because of his ability to put himself in the murderer´s position.

AZUMI:
Azumi is a japanese swordswoman. Azumi stands for freedom, strength and fast capacity of reaction. She really knows what she wants and she is quite positive about herself. Her manual skills are well fully developed.

Game controls, player feedback (in development)

The controls of the Game are quite similar to a standard Point-and-click adventure (e.g. Indiana Jones 4). This means: almost everything is controlled by mouse, except action sequences, which probably will be controlled by the direction keys on the keyboard.

The player points with cursor on a item of his choice, then (if it is of relevance for the game) on the right handside of the cursor the name of the item will appear. If the player now clicks the right mouse button, a menu will show up from which he can choose what to do with the object (unlike in other adventures, only the options that truly can be used with the object will show up).


These options generally are:
look -> lets the detective describe the object (may provide useful details)
take -> the detective takes the object into his inventory
use -> he uses the object in whatsoever way
use with ... -> he uses the object combined with an object chosen from the inventory list
talk -> talk to the person
open -> opens doors, boxes, etc.
close -> closes doors, boxes, etc.
give ... -> gives an inventory-item to the person
turn on -> turns machines etc. on
turn off -> turns machines etc. off
travel -> the detective uses the local transport system to get to another place in the actual level

this could be achilles..if he wants to look like that

first storyboards of the first level

>>learning outcomes>>

welcome to our patchwork world

scribble phase

detective gets instructions on video
locomotion by underground or bus (if the underground sign or a bus is visible, the player can use it to go to a certain station/next scene)
the detective goes to the natural history museum and finds the dead body of the man, he wantet to talk to
...


another possibility:
when he passes a phone box the phone starts to ring.
by answering it he gets some further hints...

MOST ENDANGERED ANIMALS:

AFRICAN TRUSKER ( Loxodonta Africana )
It is classified as an endangered species due to a reduction of at least 50% of the AFRICAn elephant population over the last three generations based on an index of abundance. Hunting of the african elephant is now banned in several countries, but poaching for ivory still exists.



SILVER SHARK (BALANTIOCHEIOS MELANOPTERUS)
The silver shark is classified as a member of the order Cypriniformes and is a member of the family Cyprinidae. The silver shark is classified as an endangered species due to a reduction of at least e0% of the silver shark population over the last ten years based on direct observation and a decline in area of occupancy.

GIANT PANDA (Ailuropoda melanoleuca)
Within a few short years, Giant Pandas could be facing extinction. Fewer than 1,000 remain in their native habitat of CHINA. The main reason for their decline is due to loss of natural habitat and poaching.



POLAR BEAR (Ursus maritimus)
Polar Bears are endangered due to the man's excessive hunting for their priceless hide, tendons, meat, fat and flesh. Their numbers dwindled from several hundred thousands to a few hundred in a few years time.



Tiger (PANTHERA TIGRIS)
These magnificent cats are native to tropical zones in SOUTHEAST ASIA and temperate regions like the RUSSIAN FAR EAST. Less than 6,000 tigers remain in the wild. The most urgent threat to the species is poaching for body parts and bones used in traditional Asian medicines.

Practical Session 7 - changes and news

platform: PC

story line - first level

After recieving the instructions on video, the detectives task is to find out which the 5 most endangered animals are and in which countries they live. Thats necessary for him, to know where he has to continue his investigations. He goes to the Natural History Museum to talk to a specialist, to find out which the animals are, he has to rescue. When he enters the office, he find the dead body of the man and a hint which helps him, to go on in his searching. At the end of every level he is at the airport and can decide where he wants to go next.


learning outcomes: information about the endangered animals, the countries they live in, and the character he plays, which is some kind of hero (antique hero - Achilles...)


coming soon
player control, user feedback, tutorial...

Level setup: Hierarchy

Practical session 6

Plot:
The detective (player) receives a videomessage from the head of the global BRUNO organisation, who asks for his help in a recent kidnapping case.
The villian, head of a freaked out sect, calles himself Goa (the antichrist). He kidnapped the last existing animals from 5 breeds from all over the world. Due to the believe of his sect, that amageddon is near, he plans to take the animals to a far away planet in his spaceship called "Goa's Ark".
The detective's task is to free the animals by travelling the different countries the animals are from and searching there for hints where Goa could have hidden them.

Personas:

Goa (the antichrist) and the "Last Hope"
In his early years Goa was a hippie activist and concerning hippie-principles like love, peace and pacifism he was an absolute hardliner. But bad vibrations in his hippie commune and heavy drug abuse got him more and more off the right track. A strange "spiritual experience" where he said he met the devil personally changed his mind forever.
He started a sect, called the "Last Hope", where he considered himself as the "maximum leader". In his acting as the leader of the sect, he drew more and more parallels to the well known Bible-character "Noah". As many other sects, also the "hopies" think that armageddon is near. They calculated the day the earth will go down on to a day in the very near future. To escape the terrible fate of every life on the planet, a few years ago the sect started to construct a spaceship called "Goa's Ark". Like Noah, thousands of years ago, they want to "rescue" some animals, which are becoming extinct. Their plan is to start a new civilization on a planet, far far away, while the earth is going down the pan. They want to cross-breed the unique animals they've stolen to a new super-race of animals.
Apart from this information there is very little known about Goa - it is assumed that he has a strange sort of humour and often surprises people with his absolutely crazy behaviour.

Everyone outside the "Last Hope" universe knows that these people are just a bunch of crazy weirdos. Also, the "spaceship" is constructed by amateur do-it-yourself enthusiasts, and will not even make it to the moon - everybody knows that. Therefore it is of special importance to our detectives to rescue this very last animals on the earth to prevent them going down in "Goa's Ark".

Is this Goa? Goa often changes styles, in order to stay inkognito. However, through the years there may have been some witnesses, which have drawn an identikit picture at the police-station.

little bit late, but now its here- the final logo.

Practical Session 4

More detailed genre-specification:
It is a mixture of a classical adventure-game with brainteasing excercises and occasional action-sequences (ie. of a fight) which can be solved with different abilities, depending on the character.

It's appealing to both genders because the player can choose from male and female characters and it combines problem-solving with thrilling action-parts. The game is not based on competiveness, although it offers some kind of high-score. There is a low standard of violence in the game, and ocassional brutality is shown in an abstract way.

Target audience:
12-14 - boys and girls. Due to some sarcastic (subliminal) humour it will also be interesting for gamers of older age (-17). The game targets players that are oversaturated of the whole bad 3D-games, and the style is a reference to popular MTV-series like "South Park" or "Drawn Together".

Gender specific things:

• possibility to choose a male or female character and it's proper abilites
• Action sequences -> boy gamers
• Problem solving -> girl gamers

How to make it gender neutral?

It is already gender neutral, as there's a good balance between action + adventure.

Feedback of an external person

Liisa likes the concept of the game (as it reminds her of "Monkey Island"), she assumes that it is gender neutral. There is still a lack of detailed information, also some sort of failure-treatment is missing (punishment, ...)

Practical Session 3

LOGLINE:
By solving brainstorming and action-packed quests you are on Mr Nobodys heels and try to catch him in various outstandingly unique levels.

PACKAGING:
With the motion-controlled Wii-technology "Catching Mr Nobody" takes the adventure game genre to a new dimension.
Slip into the role of your favourite detektiv and enter a innovatively designed world.

What does the player control? He controls a character!!:D
In comparison to many other learning games, our game looks much more exiting concerning graphics. The player has the possibility to become a famous snuffler and to move in a lovely created patchwork world in which he experiences exciting situations. The fun factor is given throughout the alternation of varoious situations in which he has to show knowledge but in the same moment be ready for some action when dealing with bad guys.
The Unique Selling Proposition (USP) is the combination of exiting adventure, action and puzzle game.

Roles at Breakfast Studios:

• Game Producer/Manager: Julian Rojas
• Game Artist/Modeler: Isabella Thaller
• Game Programmer/Designer: Lisa Fleck
• Game Analyst/Tester: Anna Hazod

Results of our brainstorming

Working/Game title: Catch Mister Nobody
Type of the game: Brainteaser/Adventure/Character Roleplay
Expected Platform: Nintendo Wii
Target audience: Children between 12-14 (Interviews will be made)
Story line/General idea: At the beginning the player can choose a character (a famous detective for e.g. Sherlok Holmes, Miss Marple,..) as who he has to follow a trace and interprete the hints he finds. On his journey on which he also has to deal with several villants. The way he solves problems depends on the capabilities of the chosen character (for exapmple: Miss Marple can´t run very fast, but beat the villants with her heavy handbag.)
Learning outcomes: It combines a lot of capabilities, such as capacity of remembering, basics in general knowledge, orientation, ability of fast respond,...

brainstorming on a sunday afternoon @tribeka: about the type of the game, working title and target group

some logo attempts by lisa

logos by anna

first logo drafts by isabella

Creating the group name

We started the process of finding a name with some brainstorming: we searched for terms that fit in the area of game developing (we also considered abstract words in the periphery of the subject area).

game, play, fun, fantasy, land of milk and honey, fresh, giocco, ... (bitte ergänzen!)

There were also attempts to create new words out of existing ones, like fun + fantasy = "funtasy", but we thought it sounded weird so we rejected that one.

Thoughts came up to use phrases like 1,2,3 or Abc in different variations to imply the process of learning (learn to count or write) - as for a company who creates educational games it was an interesting approach, but wasn't followed.

We decided, that the term "Studios" would sound good, and has some sort of "artistic touch". The next step was to find a word that would fit with "... Studios".
At some point we concentrated too hard on what kind of games we will develop, and then we even started speaking about the game name, which wasn't leading us anywhere.
We started trying out all combinations which came to our mind, like "Pineapple Studios" (which was already used by another company), ... (bitter ergänzen!). "Breakfast Studios" just came out of the sudden, but was right away liked by the team members.
The company name should imply that our products are as convenient that you could already enjoy them for breakfast. Our company is as good as a hearty breakfast, and everybody knows that a good breakfast can make your day...

Launch of Breakfast Studios

On October 3, four Members of the University of Applied Science Joanneum, Graz founded a virtual game developing company.

The company name
"Breakfast Studios" was chosen as a name for the company

The team members
The four company brains are all studying "Information design" in 3rd semester. They are

• Hazod Anna
• Thaller Isabella
• Fleck Lisa
• Rojas Julian