Post-Meeting Motivations (Week V)

Post-Meeting Post
   Motivations

 A rather short post, but after the meeting - we needed to shape up our player motivations (evidenced by our poorly defined Target Audience). The team agreed that we'll come in to play Dungeon Defenders II to gain motivations for our Tower Defense Game.

These Motivations were summarized as....

1. Customization (Immersive Gameplay)
   Making a Character feel more individual allows a person to have a “Connection” to the Character (Immersion), make the Character feel more “them”, to roleplay. Even upgrading weapons and utility makes their Character resemble the player more -- supports their “playstyle”
   Related Player Motivations: Creativity; Immersion; Mastery
   
2. Dominance
   The ability to defeat large amount of enemies quickly; grants the feeling of dominance and superiority. Increases moral of the player, making them feel good. Despite being able to easily mow down enemies; due to the sheer volume of the enemies; some make it through and the turrets alone are not enough. As such, this allows the player to feel dominant but not to the point where the game is too easy. Thus the player likes this aspect as it allows them to feel accomplished and powerful yet not feeling like it’s simple.
   Related Player Motivations: Action; Achievement; Mastery
   
3. Achievement (Strategy-Based)
   Surviving a wave, thus enabling a break signifies that a player has held out successfully. This is enforced by certain levels displaying a splash screen of a new enemy reinforcing that the player is “too good” for the previous level and is promoted. Thus Players feel like they got “promoted” and they progressed further in the game. This shows that their playstyle (no matter how dumb it may have been; or they think have been) to have worked for that level and being rewarded for it.
   Related Player Motivation: Achievement; Creativity; Mastery
   
4. Achievement II (Character-Based)
   Levelling a Character/making them stronger is rewarding for most players. The heroes used in combat gains EXP making the player feel rewarded and have incentive to “master” a character. This links to the immersion of the Character (above) as they are more invested in the character. For Achievement players, they enjoy the stronger characters as it will enable them to accomplish their goal to achieving X.
   Related Player Motivation: Immersion; Mastery; Achievement
   
5. Social Aspect
   Working with people to achieve things in the game such as finishing a difficult level or working together to lag people with fun troll spinning training Dummies. Teamwork allows people to work together to achieve a common goal which is enjoyable as people join in to see a “project” come to a fruition. (Completionist/Achievement)
   Related Player motivation: Social; Achievement
   
6. Different Styles of Gameplay Some Characters are considered “Builder” Characters as such are only there to build and abuse their unique towers before switching to “Combat” Characters. This allows a player to utilize the “best of both worlds” and enjoy both/different playstyles Related Player Motivation: Creativity; Mastery

Working on Feedback (Week IV)

Working on the Feedback Given
  Week IV

 After the Presentation where Ace Gaming sought the Green Light, a lot of feedback has been received to help the game's overall design.

 To help solidify the game's identity and the game as a whole, the team decided to build a Game Design Document. This will enable us to clearly identify the different portions of the game in detail - Character, Turrets, Map Design etc.

 Numerous Skype Discussions were done which concluded in the Prototype to really show the diversity in environments and Character pools. As such, an Egyptian-themed Pharoah in a Jungle Themed Level seemed as the most efficient method of proceeding.

 Following this, we decided to focus and concentrate on the Player Experience including the various Motivations, Emotions and Rewards that the players will have receive.

 These Player Motivations will be a big part of what makes the game enjoyable or not - and it was heavily discussed overall. 

 The Emotions were fairly agreed upon to be very in-line with the Powerful and Emotional Quadrants of Gamasutra's Emotional Circle

 Following this - we have a pretty solid idea of what we want the game to achieve, and its a matter of tying all the ideas and concepts together in the Game Design Document. The team will discuss the Character Skills and the Towers decided upon tomorrow as well as general Level Design which will finish up the Game Design Document before the Desk Critique

Week with the Voyagers (Week III)

Voyagers

 Decided to join Ace Gaming - Voyagers (Formerly Depth; Depth of Insanity)

 A 3rd-Person Tower Defense with a Hero added (similar to League of Legends). It's been a rather busy week after the feedback obtained from Week 2 from the Tutors and Colleagues-alike.

 The general consensus on the game was that:

• We weren't clear on our set path/goal - i.e It could be this... or that
• We didn't apply Theory to our Designs

 This was proven correct as the team later discussed everybody not being on the same page in term of the game's design. As such; multiple Skype and in-person meetings was planned upon (almost a meeting every day of the week).

Things that were the focus of these few meetings were to really nail down what the designs were and how/why we came to those conclusions. In particular, I took a look at the various Game Theories to bring up to the meetings to help solidify our ideas and the eventual presentations.

The Game Theory we looked at included: 

• Player Experience - This was the main factor in choosing between First and Third Person Perspective;
• Gameplay & Core Mechanics - Mainly Challenges (Types of Challenges); Rewards, Balancing Effects, Decision-making etc.
• Player Types
• Narrative 

 With the Game Theory, the team solidified the Design soundly and created a Proposal (with aid from the Notes on Blackbeard) that should be very well received on Friday!