Up Stage

Hello Reader

Last week I had come up with some ideas for the game my team would be making that would have to do with the theater and production. The best idea chosen was the third on the upstage performance builder. Below there is the game brief.

Game Design Document

Darius Watts

Genre: Party game

Audience: This games will cater to students in the performing arts major. People who enjoy party games and enjoy the theater would also love this game. This game will mainly target the middle and upper classes and millennials who enjoy the performing arts.

Primary Objective: The primary objective of this game is to get a new generation of people into the theater and teach them about the process of theater production through making a fun party game that people will enjoy playing with friends.

Introduction: The game will have a basic story where you are an actor at your local community college. In the first level you will be trying to auditions for Hamlet. You get to decide whether you want to play as one of the characters such as Hamlet, Horatio or Ophelia. Picking the right character changes the difficulty of the level. Complete the first scene of the play in front of a panel of judges and that will be the end of the level. This level will act as a tutorial for when you decide to play the arcade mode later.

Game play and mechanics:The player will have two modes of play. The story mode which will include some short plays the player can complete and the arcade mode where players can act out which ever play they want to with a group of friends. The player will have a controller that will allow them to select any of the four options presented to them on screen or they can say it out using a microphone.

Game Comparison: The game is like rock band and some of the tell tale games. The player will select different options on four options in a panel and the player will have to quickly press some buttons when to comes to quick time actions. You can enhance the game play by adding a microphone and voicing out the lines instead. This will allow players to go through the lines of the play and remember how the performance goes. By engaging the players directly and making them feel as if they are part of the performance the players may gain a new appreciation for theater.

Game Controls: The controls will be simple enough for anyone to use. The game will be on console mainly the PlayStation. The controls will be to use the dpad or analog stick to pick any of the basic UI options along with picking which option they want to go with during actual game play along with pressing the shape buttons

Win/Lose conditions: Dependent on what they decide to pick they will get a response from the audience whether there performance will be met with applause or disapproval. If the player is applauded, or get the proper reaction(such as crying audience during a sad scene) the player will gain a point and the crowd in the background will begin to swell up with more people. If the player gets booed, the crowd will look upset bored or even leave the theater the player will lose points. The points are tallied up and the player can see how well they did in the play. If their score is meets or exceeds the criteria the player will have completed the level and will be given stars based of the amount of points they earned. Stars are used in game to get a new level in the single player and arcade modes. If the player gets less than the required amount of points the player will have failed the level and will have to try again.

User Interface: In the interface the player will be able to see a summary of the dialogue with the character and suggestions on what to do next. The GUI will also have a place for all the points you gained and the stars you’ve earned on this level.

Main Mechanics: The main mechanics will just have the player scrolling through different lines of text and choosing which one to say along with some quick time events for action scenes.

Level Design: Each level will have you the player on a stage with people in the foreground watching the show and will be a character standing on a stage. Dependent on which studio you decide to perform in the level could look like a high school performance and have low budget equipment in the background or if you have made it to the later levels you can get a better stage to perform on with better equipment. Artistry the game will similar to something like paper Mario theater where the player is acting out on stage and the audience is in the foreground.

How this has to do with the theme: The game will allow the player the experience of being part of a play and may become more interested in going to plays because they enjoyed playing in it.

Sixty seconds of play: In sixty second of the game you can be performing as Titus in Titus Andronicus and you must decide which of the four lines to say when Titus, along with many other people set down a black coffin and Titus begins to speak of roman victory. When you chose a line you will no be given the entirety of what your player will say but instead a small sentence or phrase that will summarize the exposition.

Game Comparison Footage: