Potential Directions
During last class, we practiced the “diverge-converge” method of brainstorming, where we each did our own brainstorming for a few minutes to ideate, then we came together as a group to discuss and decide on a consensus. First, we did this for our setting and agreed on the setting of a container ship for our game. We decided on this because we wanted to promote the Discovery and, in a way, Fantasy types of fun. Even though a container ship is a setting taken from the real world, they seem grand and imposing, as well as a place where people don’t generally get to explore, so we thought it’d be a compelling setting for these types of fun. Additionally, we plan to leverage the Narrative type of fun by making the story emerge from the tasks we have the player do on board the ship, as they enact the character we create for the premise we choose.
During my solo brainstorming session, I came up with three different premises that focused on how the player might interact with the setting during different stages of their life:
- As a child, a large container ship would seem like a perfect place to run amok and sate one’s curiosity, especially if one is familiar with being aboard the ship. As such, the player would act as the captain’s child, exploring every nook and cranny of the ship, helping out where they can, and potentially sticking their nose into business they shouldn’t! In this premise, the player will help crewmembers accomplish various tasks on board, as the story emerges from things that seem just slightly off.
- I associate teenage years and adolescence with a sense of daring, wanting to blur the lines between what’s allowed and what’s not. Following this, the premise for this stage in life was to have a group of friends dare each other to explore an abandoned container ship in the dead of night, but one by one, people wander off, leaving the player(s) alone. The objective would be to regroup and find the exit to the ship, after sating their thirst for adventure! To do so, the player will explore various parts of the ship, uncovering the story behind how the ship became abandoned, as well as growing more familiar with the layout of the ship and unlocking (perhaps literally!) new locations to find their friends.
- As people grow older into adults, some of these places that used to have a sheen of novelty that would spark one’s sense of adventure simply don’t anymore, as the responsibilities of real life call. I wanted to explore this feeling, juxtaposed with the sense of uneasy excitement one feels when thrust into an unfamiliar situation with the opportunity to discover something new. For this situation, the player will be employed at a shipyard, and for some reason, certain items are missing from what was supposed to be on board this particular container ship, and the player needs to go on board to find out what’s wrong and why there was this discrepancy with the items delivered. After they board, they find out something has gone wrong and they need to figure out what exactly that is.
Moodboard and Spotify Playlist
Here’s the Spotify playlist I curated.
