Home Work #6

1. Four each of the four elements of the Tetrad, explain how it is addressed by your game. If one of the four elements is not used, please state this.
2.  Do the four (or less) elements work towards a current theme? 
3. In your own words, describe the meaning of a "theme", and how does it differ from an "experience" (see book for examples in Chapters 2 and 5. 
4. What is your game's theme? 
5. What are the elements in your game that are meant to reinforce this theme? 
6. What is it about your game that you feel makes it special and powerful?

1.  Artistically our game is in an interesting area.  It is not necessarily artistic or realistic, but it still stands out because it is unique and doesn't take itself too seriously.  There is a certain type of humor and obscurity that happens when "3d" stick figures get shot at, gush blood, and fall down like a rag doll when they are killed that helps to establish the art style.  The mechanics will be solid and important part of the game, especially on the typing challenges which are essentially half the game.  The mouse will function as a fluid way to control gunfire.  Story is not the most developed, however, the story doesn't have to be too deep in a game like this where you "infiltrate corrupt organizations and steal all their money and valuable information, and shoot anyone who stands in you way".  That is the story.  It could use a little more, but it doesn't need all that much I feel.  And finally technology will play an important part in the physics of the game.  Nothing in our game is all that outlandish or technologically difficult I feel, so realistic motion and movements within the game should be a theme.

2.  I believe the game's theme is still in development but is basically there.  The driving factors being the art style and mechanics, supported by an untold story of "spy and hacker" person sneaking into buildings, and supported by the physics.

3.  I believe the theme is a concrete concept that contains defining elements revolving around the triad.  This theme that is conveyed is subjective, and that marks the experience, how the player plays and feels about the game as a whole.  If any elements of the theme are too weak it will interfere with the experience on some level.  An example of this might be a game from the Halo series with solid mechanics, story, art, and technology to support game play.  But if you were to significantly reduce the graphical quality of the game it would change the experience of the game and depending on how much quality was reduced you may simply not want to play the game again.

4.  Our games theme revolves around a semi futuristic society in which many corrupt organizations have most of the money and power.  To combat this, our anti-hero protagonist, hacker, social engineer and gunman breaks into buildings by sneaking and blasting his way through in order to use money to benefit mankind.

5.  Elements that reinforce the theme have to do with hacking and the prominence of computer terminals in the game.  Aside from that, security, rebellion and successfully compromising the organizations security systems are main themes.

6.  Our game is special because it is relatively original.  With a non-realistic art style and typing mechanics operating from the first person shooter point of view, I know of no games that have come close to the style of our teams game.  There are not many quality and/or fun typing games that can be played to pass time.  At the very least, the game will be unique enough and have solid enough mechanics to hold up with any other game produced by a 3-4 man indie game design team.