Context: "Family Home Evening", or "FHE" groups, are units of six to twenty undergraduate students assigned to a “family” to serve as a support network away from home. These groups are supposed to meet weekly for a religious message and social event. They typically suffer from lack luster attendance and generally apathy.
I wrote the proposal below for an assigned group project in my CS 256 class (Designing the User Experience). The project did not necessarily require a video game, but I leapt at the chance to steer my group in that direction. My group voted to use my proposal, and we completed a limited prototype based on it.
50 Word SummaryWe will develop a simple augmented reality group survival game, where FHE members collaborate over the course of several weeks to defend themselves against monsters. Rather than an icebreaker that looks for commonalities, this icebreaker will create commonalities through the shared experience.
Idea 1: The Long Day and the Short Night A new day dawns. You and your family have washed ashore in a strange land. The voice of your ancestors’ God whispers on the wind, piercing your heart: “Serve one another, and you will prosper.”
Core Game Requirements:
Gameplay Overview The game is divided into two periods, the ‘long day’ and the ‘short night’. Both happen in real time over the course of a week.
The Long Day Occurs after FHE ends and lasts until the next meeting begins. During this period individuals (ideally towards the beginning) plan a schedule their character will automatically follow during the Long Day. This will typically include hunter/gatherer activities, shelter construction, etc. This schedule represents the low threshold, minimum effort that non-gamers who aren’t interested in the game can take without overly negative consequences. Players who are more interested in participating can engage more actively during the Day by taking advantage of random opportunities and exploring. Teaming with other family members provides bonuses for players doing these more active activities
The Short Night Night falls at the predetermined time FHE starts (Parents can change this as scheduling requires). At night, vicious predators emerge (we’ll call them raptors for the sake of conversation). People who show up late or not at all are those who don’t make it inside the safety of the group encampment before the danger starts. The more time a player spends at night outside the encampment the more likely they will get eaten.
Players inside the encampment are not necessarily safe. The encampment must be defended, with more players inside giving a greater chance of success, as well as shelter/fortification improvements. Failure indicates players inside the encampment getting injured or eaten depending on the degree of failure.
If the Short Night ends with no players left alive, the game is over.
At the end of the Short Night (end of FHE?) players consume food etc, with eating enough giving bonuses to the next Day’s activities or penalties if there is a shortage. Injuries sustained also negatively affect the Day’s labors. New family members wash up on shore to replace the dead, and provide new characters for the players who just died.
Severity of raptor attacks increases over time.
-Show up as much as 10-15 min early to get bonuses
Karmic System Aside from the long day and the short night, the family must contend with events that generate based on a numerical representation of how nice the family is being to each other. For example, giving gifts to others gives positive karma, family members left to die at night generate negative karma.
This karma number influences random event generation. Bad karma might increase likelihood of a flood that wipes out food supplies, while exceptionally good karma might result in a flock of quail falling dead in the encampment and providing food.
Character Overview Player characters will be defined by the following attributes.. Characters that survive for an extended period of time accumulate more attribute points, incentivising staying alive rather than just dying if wounded.
Players will also have a defined state of health, from Healthy to Dead.
Players acquire varying tastes in food, driving specialization and motivating working together.
Anyway, I could keep writing and describing features, but this probably more than enough for a start point.
Possible re-skins of the survival idea:
I wrote the proposal below for an assigned group project in my CS 256 class (Designing the User Experience). The project did not necessarily require a video game, but I leapt at the chance to steer my group in that direction. My group voted to use my proposal, and we completed a limited prototype based on it.
50 Word SummaryWe will develop a simple augmented reality group survival game, where FHE members collaborate over the course of several weeks to defend themselves against monsters. Rather than an icebreaker that looks for commonalities, this icebreaker will create commonalities through the shared experience.
Idea 1: The Long Day and the Short Night A new day dawns. You and your family have washed ashore in a strange land. The voice of your ancestors’ God whispers on the wind, piercing your heart: “Serve one another, and you will prosper.”
Core Game Requirements:
- Low threshold, high ceiling—easy to survive (or at least continue), difficult to thrive
- Balance for late starts vs early power gamers
- Simplicity—needs to appeal to non-gamers
- Points towards augmented reality
- Depth—needs to appeal to gamers
- Gamers are less likely to attend in the first place, this is to attract them
- Encourages social interaction between members during the week
- Emphasizes attending FHE as a focal point of gameplay
- Procedurally driven for maximum replayability
- No linear story
- Random asynchronous events (every game is different)
- Mobile first design
- Difficulty adjusts dynamically to the FHE group size
- Interface is a thematically designed GUI, even if the majority of information is communicated with text and still pictures
Gameplay Overview The game is divided into two periods, the ‘long day’ and the ‘short night’. Both happen in real time over the course of a week.
The Long Day Occurs after FHE ends and lasts until the next meeting begins. During this period individuals (ideally towards the beginning) plan a schedule their character will automatically follow during the Long Day. This will typically include hunter/gatherer activities, shelter construction, etc. This schedule represents the low threshold, minimum effort that non-gamers who aren’t interested in the game can take without overly negative consequences. Players who are more interested in participating can engage more actively during the Day by taking advantage of random opportunities and exploring. Teaming with other family members provides bonuses for players doing these more active activities
The Short Night Night falls at the predetermined time FHE starts (Parents can change this as scheduling requires). At night, vicious predators emerge (we’ll call them raptors for the sake of conversation). People who show up late or not at all are those who don’t make it inside the safety of the group encampment before the danger starts. The more time a player spends at night outside the encampment the more likely they will get eaten.
Players inside the encampment are not necessarily safe. The encampment must be defended, with more players inside giving a greater chance of success, as well as shelter/fortification improvements. Failure indicates players inside the encampment getting injured or eaten depending on the degree of failure.
If the Short Night ends with no players left alive, the game is over.
At the end of the Short Night (end of FHE?) players consume food etc, with eating enough giving bonuses to the next Day’s activities or penalties if there is a shortage. Injuries sustained also negatively affect the Day’s labors. New family members wash up on shore to replace the dead, and provide new characters for the players who just died.
Severity of raptor attacks increases over time.
-Show up as much as 10-15 min early to get bonuses
Karmic System Aside from the long day and the short night, the family must contend with events that generate based on a numerical representation of how nice the family is being to each other. For example, giving gifts to others gives positive karma, family members left to die at night generate negative karma.
This karma number influences random event generation. Bad karma might increase likelihood of a flood that wipes out food supplies, while exceptionally good karma might result in a flock of quail falling dead in the encampment and providing food.
Character Overview Player characters will be defined by the following attributes.. Characters that survive for an extended period of time accumulate more attribute points, incentivising staying alive rather than just dying if wounded.
- Athleticism: Influences ability to hunt and fight off raptors
- Constitution: Influences ability to withstand illness, gathering efficiency, and wound resistance
- Craft: Influences ability to build things
Players will also have a defined state of health, from Healthy to Dead.
Players acquire varying tastes in food, driving specialization and motivating working together.
Anyway, I could keep writing and describing features, but this probably more than enough for a start point.
Possible re-skins of the survival idea:
- Transylvanian town. Vampire replaces raptors, most players are farmers instead of hunters/gatherers
- Zombie skin. Fairly self explanatory if cliche.