I completed my mind-map right before my first project meeting for P3. It served as a good reminder to keep our concept simple and focus on the core gameplay loop above all else… at least for now. Ultimately, we decided to base our game on the cancel culture of Youtube. Specifically, players will act as content creators who are trying to gain followers by posting controversial videos. Players make videos then go head to head with each other to cancel their competitors. The main gameplay loop we will be testing in class is as follows:
1) The player with the lower follower count draws a Theme card. This dictates the topic of the videos.
2) The player with the higher follower count in the matchup decides whether they are for or against the topic. The other player is left with the remaining option.
3) Each player is given the opportunity to “act out” their video and make their case to the rest of the Youtube community (the players not involved in the matchup). At this point, they can play “rumor” cards to slander their opponent.
4) The “Community” aligns themself with the player whose video they support more by voting. This determines the probability of each “Youtuber” getting cancelled (more creators in alignment increases the chance of a DMCA Strike…)
5) After the proportions are calculated, the cutoff for d20 is calcuated and the die is cast. This determines which players gets a Strike on their video.
6) Followers are awarded to the player who did not get a Strike.
We want this to be our main loop because we feel it roughly simulates the experience of being a Youtuber fighting for views on an increasingly controversy-happy platform. As far as arcs go, videos that aren’t struck remain in the player’s channel later in the game, and become talking point for Step 3 outline above.
