Presy Preview

Before my presentation tomorrow I figured I'd show what I've been working on over the past couple of days.

As my blog covers my broader research I want to focus on just the mechanic of 'death' and how it affects player's behaviour. My presentation will be primarily image-based with simple bullet points to summarise the ideas I'm talking about. Images such as the following will make up the backgrounds of these slides;

For each of my selected games there is a separate slide to visually break my presentation down and hopefully provide a bit of humour :)

The three features that rework death in a game to carry a message of sustainability that Iv'e been thinking of are a mix of what deems a player to be "dead" and what the consequences of death are.
My first is the one I mentioned in some of my early posts where the player's character is a mobile life force which can animate particular objects to make a body. To put things into specifics the character could be sentient electricity that animated mechanical objects. Around the map various items could be collected to make body parts to keep the player mobile. The player would be deemed dead when they run out of things to inhabit. This could make for some interesting game sequences where players have to use improvised items to accomplish tasks such as using a lawnmower engine or a fire extinguisher to act as makeshift jump booster to get to higher ledges while it has fuel. It also slaps players in the face with RECYCLE!
The second feature, also mentioned earlier could come from the same game. There could be segments were the player uses small portions of their personal power to make otherwise broken objects functional, such as navigating a circuit-board maze to find the switch to unlock an electronic door or illuminate a dark hazardous room for long enough to escape it. If their personal power depletes then the character dies and a restart is required (different difficulties could vary between restarting from a checkpoint/level or from the start of the game). This would inspire players to be conservative of what resources they have at their disposal and look out for tools/methods that are reusable.
The final feature could be that when a player dies there is a permanent mark left on the game world. What could be once glorious cities and beautiful landscapes could become corrupt or destroyed by players' repeated failure. As an example the player's character could be an immortal with infinitely re-spawning bodies so death only puts them back at the last checkpoint. If the player has to collect a dragon's eye for a witch they end up provoking a dragon which destroys the closest town in rage if the player dies fighting it. The player will of course re-spawn not far off but by the time they kill the dragon and take its eye, the city is ashes and they can no longer shop/rest/hide there. By the end of the game the player's success would be mapped by how much of their world is still functioning. This should make players more weary about how they approach certain challenges or their future game will become more and more difficult/inconvenient. On a less subtle tone the very world around them dies every time they muck up.
Now it's just a matter of getting some visual representations of these features looking all pretty and ready to present :)