The First Day is a survival horror game about the start of a zombie apocalypse. Rather than place the player into the post-cataclysm world typically taken by zombie survival games, instead the player must learn to navigate the initial realizations and ensuing panic of the population at large within the ground zero of such an event. With a realistic modelling of a patient zero and spread of infection, the player will have approximately the course of a day to manage to gather supplies, allies, and make their escape from a city rapidly being consumed by the infected. In this situation however, panic and mass hysteria will spread as fast, if not faster than the infection, potentially turning other survivors into deadlier enemies than the plague itself, meaning that the player will also have to figure out how to avoid as many people as possible while also recruiting help, as no-one can expect to survive a zombie apocalypse alone.

Themes:
Survival Horror
Realistic Basis and spread, Game will end on escape from the city or on player death.

Platforms:
Pc would be the best platform, with technological restrictions being less pervasive allowing for a more open world and larger scale city to navigate. This would also facilitate multiplayer well.

Target Audience:
With a Third/First Person perspective, and an action/horror/survival theme, The First Day will cater to an audience of people who like to immerse themselves within similar environments. It would be aimed at players of similar games such as DayZ and Unturned.

Reference:


http://blogs-images.forbes.com/erikkain/files/2016/02/Amazon-Zombies-1200x801.jpg

More submissions by NathanClark for MDS GDV110 - 'One Game a Day' Assignment

In Senkan, a player will b given command of a Kongou Class Fast Battleship to captain and manage in various wartime and battle scenarios. However, unlike most games which traditionally place all roles in vehicles crewed by multiple people under the sole command of the player, within Senkan, the player will not have direct control over any aspect of the ship. Instead, the player must direct orders to the rest of the crew based on their own and their crew's spotting and ideas, essentially managing the ship and all of its functions from the bridge through interpersonal communication and orders in order to succeed at the given scenario or battle. The core idea of Senkan is to create a feeling of actually captaining a ship where the player is both completely in control of the situation as the captain, but at the same time completely not in control. If you wish to turn, you must give the helmsman the order when and where you want to go. If you wish to change targets you must communicate this to the spotting and gunnery crews, etc, etc.

Senkan, while envisaged as a PC game that would be playable with mouse and keyboard, the possibility for application of VR technologies and vocal recognition software could create an incredibly immersive experience as a captain of a greater warship. Senkan will focus on a target audience with a large interest in naval military history, specifically Japanese and American being the major nations featured within this game, as Kongou and the Kongou Class served all the way from 1911 to 1945, serving through both World Wars.

Inspiration:


https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/98/f9/ba/98f9bab2161edc5a65b574f9e57f03b0.jpg

A multiplayer Fighting game based around arena combat, Spirit Tournament is a supernatural take on typical fighting games. The characters, as well as just martial techniques, will be armed with many special abilities, skills and powers utilizing the idea of a life force and spirit and such a an entity's energy within combat with one another. While it would be viewed from the typical side on, the arena would be fully traverseable in 3D space, not just a 2d backdrop to the combat, and will feature destruction mechanics as well as a disqualification based on a ring out timer. In essence, the arena will be able to be destroyed and will force players to be constantly mobile as they will not be able to stay within a damaged or destroyed section, or out of the arena at all for a long period of time, creating a fast pace of play. This would work very well for consoles, and possibly somewhat well for most PCs, and would focus on and attract a target audience who would be interested in fast paced fighting and supernatural elements.

Inspiration:


http://vignette4.wikia.nocookie.net/yuyuhakusho/images/9/98/Chu_knife_match.JPG

A board game based around trivial and historical knowledge of ancient Greece and the ancient Greek Pantheon, Journey to Olympus would be played by 2-4 people. The game would consist of a winding staircase, twisting and spiraling towards the centre of a circular board, and the players would be gated along the way by their capacity to answer questions and riddles, along with running into potential obstacles and setbacks that would move the player back or drop them down. Movement would be based on dice rolls, so chance will play a role, however there will be incremental and common gateways and barriers that can only be crossed by answering the questions correctly as they are presented. Journey to Olympus will focus on a target audience of those with anything between a passing or intimate knowledge of the ancient Greek Mythos and nation states therein, and being a board game would be played and distributed physically.

Inspiration:


http://www.carlascovers.com/covers-images/download/age_of_mythology_330842.jpg

Yon Maru Ichi is an asymmetrical game pitting one player against four in a survival match based on tactics, stealth, teamwork, and cunning. Unlike many other games in this asymmetrical genre however, Yon Maru Ichi does not pit the lone player as the aggressor, hunting the group, instead, the group must hunt the single player, and this is what creates the tactical situation. As assassins, the four players grouped together must manage to take down their target, their previous master. Alone, it is unlikely that any player in the group can hunt down and take out the lone player, but as a team they can work together to entrap or outsmart the master and take them out, as the master is given many attributes in greater proportions than the assassin players. While the master can not kill the assassin players, he can use rudimentary self defense, but his ultimately challenging property is the master players use of stealth and mobility, and each player as a single unique trap or countermeasure that will allow them to weaken or disable the master player.

While there would be various settings for each potential level, the game would overall be set within feudal japan, and utilize a large amount of parkour style maneuverability.

This is a teamplay focused game, which will most of the time require a controlled team effort in order to win, as such it is likely to attract a target audience of players who enjoy tactical and strategic, first person gameplay, with a focus on a fast paced hunting of a stealthed/y player. Yon Maru Ichi would work well on both console and PC, as the movement and ability controls would be very easy to map to both control schemes.

Reference:


http://jpninfo.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/ninja-1.jpg

Sloop is a heavily narrative driven game with a large focus on command and control of a Sloop of War in the age of sail. The player takes on the role of a Captain of a large Sloop in the service of the Imperial Wosynathi Navy, which of the island chain based trading nation, Wosyn. The player will be sent to escort trading ships amongst the islands of Wosyn and eventually internationally as well as featuring quest chains about combating piracy on the high seas in the Age of Sail on Novis Vanidium. Along with this the players distinguished service may also see them called in to escort or carry out missions of diplomatic importance, as the story will be driven by the Politics and international relations of the world of Novis Vanidium, by and large. The Player will of course captain a sloop of war as their main vessel, but this will not be the only vessel under their command. The player will also have the opportunity to hire and recruit other ships, as well as work in tandem with other ships within the IWN fleet, and will feature port cities and interaction on a personal level with other captains and crews heavily.

While possible to do on console, this game may lend itself more naturally to PC gaming due to the necessities of controlling a full warship by themselves. Target audiences would be players who have an interest in alternate histories and historical universes, and naval warfare.

Inspiration:


http://www.electricscotland.com/images/imgB22.jpg

After Cataclysm is a retro style, turn based strategy game in which your nation must vie for resources, technology and territory on a Grand scale. Set on the world of Novis Vanidium, a great war erupted and has caused the destruction of almost all land, people and technology, leaving the world in a barren state, though also prime for domination. Because of the nature of the Cataclysm however, and how far the world has regressed technologically, your most valuable asset now is your military navy, which is having to start redevelopment almost from scratch in the new age of steam, and you must push forward technologically with the time.

As a retro style, world scale Strategy game, After Cataclysm will use a pixel art styling and an isometric game board. Intended for PC, After Cataclysm will appeal to an older, nostalgia ideal audience who enjoy strategy games.

It will feature overarching scale combat, in turns, much more Akin to RISK, than games such as Age of Empires, and will ultimately be balanced around clever use of natural resources and expansionism, which will incentive-ize combat with other players/nations, and keep a relatively fast paced game for turn based strategy.

Inspiration:


https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/images/15/dec/ageofempiresheader.jpg

As an average student within a nondescript high school, the player has been secretly contracted to secretly kill a teacher, specifically, the teacher of your own form class. Depending on the level of difficulty, the player will have less and less time to complete this contract, and they must do it undetected. Within a semi open world and real time environment, the player must observe the teacher, their patterns, those they are around and the common routes they take, all without arousing suspicion of course, in order to find the perfect time and perfect place to carry out the perfect hit so as to not be caught, and fulfill the contract. Timetables will be randomized each game, meaning that while the target will always be the homeroom teacher, this teacher may or may not appear in other classes each day, and with random events thrown into the mix such a situation could become difficult to read, challenging the player to learn and adapt.

Inspired by Assassination Classroom, Homeroom Assassin will focus on single player, but the potential for multiplayer is also rife, especially with the potential for clauses including the other assassins as hit targets, meaning in a multiplayer setting the player would not only have to attempt to appear ordinary to the AI, but also to other hidden players.

Homeroom Assassin would be played 3rd Person on console or PC, (but more likely suited to PC) and feature a semi happy go lucky theme with morbid undertones, aimed at a mature audience, and would feature stealth in the wide open environment of a school campus, blending into crowds and hiding in plain sight as much as sneakily hiding, following and observing with no-one noticing.

Inspiration:


https://sqwabb.files.wordpress.com/2015/03/assassination-class-1st-day-anime.jpg

Ubermensch is a Parody, Beat-em-up game inspired by Frederick Nietzsche's philosophical thinking. As a Parody Game, Ubermensch will be based around heavy use of tropes and stereotypes within its design in both gameplay and design of levels and enemies. Played from a third person perspective, the player will be tasked with defeating a number of enemies in each level before having to combat a boss character designed around Nietzsche's major philosophical ideas, the Ubermensch, Nihilism, etc. Very cartoony in nature and heavily stylized, the last level will be comprised of mini versions of all other bosses before coming to the final boss: God. The player then discovers that the "God" boss is already dead, killed by their previous fights, and the game ends. (Referencing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God_is_dead)

Features:

Very silly, over the top gameplay, with philosophical undertones

Humour based around heavy subjects

Platforms:

PC, Potentially Console (Xbox, Play Station)

Target Audience:

Teen to Young adult primarily, but with an emphasis on those who enjoy silly gameplay with a more serious undertone.

Reference:

https://media1.britannica.com/eb-media/10/130310-004-BEB71887.jpg

Within Arbritration you are placed as an Arbiter of the souls of humans who have died, and now await a passing judgement on their existence. The player will be given a small modicum of character traits or notable events from their history, and it will then be up to the player to put them through a high pressure trial and judge them based on their performance as to whether they are worthy of reincarnation, or to be abandoned to the void for all eternity. However, the player will not be given jut one person to judge, but two, who have died at the same time, and the trial will be a game between the two souls of the dead.

Arbritration will play as a heavily story based visual novel RPG, where the player will be faced with moral and ethical decisions that will prove difficult for many to make, meaning it will have quite a more mature target audience. As a Visual novel it will be much more suited to a PC platform, or perhaps console, but mobile and Tablets would struggle with such a game.

Inspired by Death Billiards and Death Parade:



http://goodereader.s3.amazonaws.com/blog/uploads/images/Death-parade.jpg

Within Starman, you take the role of an alien who has to try and discreetly influence humanity to salvation from their failings in the world. The player would be limited to directly non-aggressive options (meaning providing weapons technology is off the cards, etc) and would try and use a more pacifistic methods. However, this is where the game becomes interesting, as while the benefits the player may choose to bestow upon humanity may be non violent and pacifistic in nature, there is nothing to stop the player from using a pacifistic influence to move people towards conflict, as long as in the long run the player can guarantee a large portion of people to be saved from total destruction at their own hands. For instance, the player may find certain states to be gearing up for war and may choose to put slightly more peaceful thoughts into their minds and avoid potential catastrophe, or may choose to do precisely nothing about that and instead plant some ideas within their scientists minds on how to make more efficient power, and and allow wars and conflict to run their course instead. The ultimate goal is after all, not to save all, just enough to get the job done and save the species and planet.

Target audience:
The moral dilemmas offered by Starman are potentially too severe to be aimed at a teenage audience, so a Young adult-Adult audience would likely be a better target.

Platforms:
Windows PC, Macintosh OSX (Potentially Linux?)

Inspiration:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tRcPA7Fzebw (Starman: David Bowie)

Panzer Drift is a racing game with a "collossal" difference. Namely, Tanks! Take command of a tank in a race like no other! Will you try and swiftly manoeuver in a light Italian tank, or rely on incredible Russian firepower to beat back the competition, or anything in-between? With a variety of Urban, desert, Forested and Mountain races, your objective is simple; "Get from A to B in the fastest possible time, by any means necessary!" Panzer Drift is set in much more modern times than the tanks you would be commandeering however, and they have been modernized to take full advantage of this technological progress. Speeds are going to be much greater than they were of old, and in turn cornering is more than pushing one side harder than the other, Oh no, these blistering speeds mean that drifting is more than possible, it's well and truly the norm!

"PANZER, VOR!"

Themes/Features:
- Historical (Potentially Pseudo)
- Racing
- A Liberal take on tank driving and Physics, to allow for maximum insanity!

Platforms:
- Windows PC
- Consoles (Would lean very heavily towards the XBox Live and PlayStation Network)

Target Audience:
- Teens to Young Adults
- Or anyone with a Passing interest in tanks, history, and doesn't mind some crazy shennannigans

Inspiration:
- Girls Und Panzer (Specifically the rather loose use of physics when it comes to actually manouvering tanks, as shown in the Gif below)


Admiralty! is a Naval Warfare based Real Time Tactical game based around the command and control of historical warships to win engaging campaigns. Unlike other Historical games where a player takes command over a single ship or merely stat-checks battles, Admiralty! would feature Real Time Combat between warships in a variety of different situations, with a player having to understand their ships and how to use them effectively in battle against their foe, creating an immersive atmosphere. Would you take a Battleship to fight a Battlegrouping of Cruisers, or have Destroyers attempt to pick away at the enemy from stealth? Due to the basis on Real Life historical Warships and Locations, players could not only pursue fantasy battles in which they could pit famous ships such as the Imperial Japanese Yamato SuperBattleship againts the British Vanguard, but they could also seek to recreate historical battles in a cinematographic fashion. Admiralty! would be based heavily on massive fleet action and management of ships within battles, and on proper tactical use of available resources in battle.


Genre:
- Real Time Tactical Game

Themes/Features:
- Historical Basis, Real Warships
- Realistic Statistics and Calculations
- Proper Battle Commands
- A mix of Autonomy and Micromanagement for intuitive play

Platform(s):
- Windows PC
- Mac OSX
- Perhaps Consoles (Control intuition would have to be investigated)

Reference Image:
(Image Credit to the US Navy, of Naval Battlegroup Echo, 1987)

Of Kings and Queens is a card based puzzle/memory game based around matching cards based on a specific set of cards based around the typical 52 card poker deck. More than likely, Jokers would be excluded from the deck, at least early on, and in later stages the Jokers could be added to create either instant win or instant loss conditions, or other possibilities. There would be varying matching criteria with each game, for instance, having to match two cards of the same suit, number, picture cards, opposite suits with the same number, etc. The amount of cards to match would increase as the games go on, and the requirements more stringent, with less capacity for mistakes creating an interesting combination of luck, probability and skill. Of Kings and Queens would likely function very well as a mobile game and on most touch platforms, though it would also be easily made as a web game.

Features:
- Puzzle / Memory Gameplay
- Scaling Difficulty

Target Audience:
- Potentially Children, though more than likely just Mobile/Tablet Gamers.

Platform(s):
- Mobile/Tablets, potential Webgame for PC.

Sketch Credit: Nathan Clark

MDS GDV110 - 'One Game a Day' Assignment

Media Design School's GDV110 students come up with a game idea a day.

daily from 2016-07-19 to 2016-09-09