Game Design: “Shadows on Deck” - The Game Maker's Companion: Game Development - page 165

C H A P T E R 7
Game Design:
“Shadows on Deck”
Lots of people think they have a great idea for a game, a film, or a novel. What they actually have
is the first spark of an idea that sets the imagination going, but a lot more is needed before you
can say you have a complete game concept. Take for instance our Fishpod game in the earlier
section. The first catch was—what if you played a fish that had to move to land and learn to live
there? Our game description was as follows:
You play the role of Fishpod: a sea creature whose life is threatened by the eruption of a
volcano. He is forced to flee the sulfurous, boiling waters that he once called home, for
the relative safety of nearby caves. Unused to surviving on land, he must navigate his
way through a series of perilous underground tunnels in order to find his way to a new
home. To survive, he must learn how to make the most of his primitive limbs in order to
avoid lava flows, sulfur gas, and poisonous pansies.
The left and right arrow keys will move Fishpod horizontally to the right or left, and the
spacebar will make him leap diagonally upward in the direction he is currently facing.
Fishpod can stand, walk, and jump on horizontal rock platforms, but will
automatically fall down the screen when he is not supported by one. The level restarts if
Fishpod comes into contact with any of the hazards.
It sounds like a great idea, but the description actually raises more questions than it answers.
• What does it mean to play a character that starts living on earth instead of water?
• What would be a successful outcome in the game? When he found a nice new lake to
live in far from any volcano or when he had managed to grow legs and could live in a
tree?
• How would he go about finding a lake or a tree?
• If he is the first creature to come out of the water, does that mean we can't throw any
monsters in his way?
• Will it even be fun to control a lumbering “fish out of water” in the long-term?
For the small, fun games we have been making up until now, a short description is sufficient,
but if you want to build bigger games, it requires a design with a lot more detail. To show you