Treading veeeeeery carefully not to be sexist here, but just a thought about girls, perhaps they could be an aspect in the game, I'm hesitant to call them an item but something similar. Rep in real life goes up if you have a hot girl on your arm, she could be a requirement for interviews etc, earns you some Rep etc. Doing this may alienate a female demographic so we could have a way of you selecting male or female character at the beginning (could be related to my post about character customization) and then in turn pick a female or male partner, so you can have a hot girl or hot boy friend to show off.
Again maybe not a game changing drastic aspect of the game but it might make it a bit more personal to you and as I mentioned earlier a little less of a numbers game, I think I heard J tell us something about been interested in mini game aspect to get the game away from a mafia wars rip?
Friday, 13 November 2009
Thursday, 12 November 2009
Poor pennyless musicians!
Quick note, before it goes out my head....oh it's gone
not
About the musicians, they're practically NPC's, so maybe it would be a good idea to give them a bigger role in the game then we had originally envisioned? They can have a salery, have personal interests, problems, traits (eg Your drummer has been caught drink driving, permanent -5 something) You have these from start to end, so by the end it could be a pretty big list unless you had a time or size limit of the list. I think this'll be the first game that uses the Mafia War mechanics that didn't just focus on the player and only his/her feelings.
Thoughts?
not
About the musicians, they're practically NPC's, so maybe it would be a good idea to give them a bigger role in the game then we had originally envisioned? They can have a salery, have personal interests, problems, traits (eg Your drummer has been caught drink driving, permanent -5 something) You have these from start to end, so by the end it could be a pretty big list unless you had a time or size limit of the list. I think this'll be the first game that uses the Mafia War mechanics that didn't just focus on the player and only his/her feelings.
Thoughts?
Tweaked AGAIN...AGAIN!
I've changed the graphics a bit to make them more musical, there are instruments now!
Tweaked Mockups AGAIN!
I've tweaked them some more. I've tried changing the stats to a blue colour, felt maybe the red was a little out of place. I've got an example from each screen (jobs and inventory) and theres an example using white font and black font.
I'M A COP YOU IDIOT!!
I was having a think over the property system we were going to implement in our game. The idea behind property is to attain money, but we also want a property system which reflects our level. So I was thinking, we could have our level property, which say, goes up every 5 levels and would be something like:
1-5 - Bedroom
6-10 - Bedsit
11-15 - Shared Flat
16-20 - Flat
21-25 - House
Etc.
This doesn't have to do anything except give the player some type of other level system, but we could also have things that will only work if you're in a house and above, for example.
The other property system we could have in the game would be similar to the one in Mafia Wars and would be the players main source of income. The player buys things like recording studios, music sets etc, and money comes in every hour from these.
1-5 - Bedroom
6-10 - Bedsit
11-15 - Shared Flat
16-20 - Flat
21-25 - House
Etc.
This doesn't have to do anything except give the player some type of other level system, but we could also have things that will only work if you're in a house and above, for example.
The other property system we could have in the game would be similar to the one in Mafia Wars and would be the players main source of income. The player buys things like recording studios, music sets etc, and money comes in every hour from these.
Character Customization
Just a thought about customising your character ( not sure how much customising of characters we are going to include). I was thinking could either have a picture that the player uploads which I'm not that keen on or have the character creation type route. Could have a south park type representation, and you can drag a top, a hat or trainers etc on to a blank body and create your unique character, make him look like you or just a random person, or use pre-created Dizzee character that looks like Dizzee in cartoon. Also if you unlock items such as branded trainers or shirts or caps which we are thinking of doing that helps you advance through the game they could become actually available for you to wear. So for instance you need a pair of "Joe Bloggs" branded trainers as a requirement for doing a TV interview, you get that item then it's available to actually put on your character, you simply go to character creation and drag them on.
If people are able to look at your profile and your pic, then you are instantly bragging by what your wearing like the real world, you can look and think oh look he has "joe bloggs" trainers and he's done the local TV station interview. The same could go for other items and clothes. Again it makes it a bit more personal than just having a game of stats and numbers. It might make it a bit more accessible to the younger players, for one having a character customization process and two having a simple one like I describe above.
If people are able to look at your profile and your pic, then you are instantly bragging by what your wearing like the real world, you can look and think oh look he has "joe bloggs" trainers and he's done the local TV station interview. The same could go for other items and clothes. Again it makes it a bit more personal than just having a game of stats and numbers. It might make it a bit more accessible to the younger players, for one having a character customization process and two having a simple one like I describe above.
Design Description
I thought I'd write just a little bit about each part of my design GUI for the game. I've numbered them and each number is on a screen shot of my design.
1. This is the header; I felt this should stay at the top of the game throughout because the game has a lot of marketing potential. Dizzee would be most interested in having a game to promote him as a name rather than having the critical acclaim of having your own game. I felt it important to have his name at the top. It’s in big letters and reflects the poster I made, which I have uploaded. I wanted it so you can’t forget what game your playing and it could be exchanged for advertisements for his latest albums and tours etc. I’ve included help button here but there would be more options there, such as signing out etc.
2. Here is where your stats as a player would be displayed, like the header of the game this will appear over every screen you’re on, so you can always see what your stats are. It will have your name and your picture which is number 3. There will be a few more stats I haven’t included and a progress bar till your next level.
3. Here will be a display picture of your character; this will be unique to you especially if we have character customisation with clothes etc. It will stay attached in this position over the different screens; it is also sitting at the top of the chat. In the chat is a speech bubble coming from your character's picture. I think this gives you a personal touch to the chat and is well positioned to serve two purposes at once. It feels more like you are talking in the online community. I designed the picture to be like a badge, so it’s like a badge/image of yourself, maybe something that a more fun less serious rapper would wear like Dizzee.
4. This is the chat box; this too would stay on each screen so you always have access to it. I made it blue to tie in with the scheme and also slightly see through so the colours of each page will come through too, the text has different colours, anything said is in black and names are deep blue etc. Anything written by dizzee would be a special colour (an idea suggested by Chris and used on his design). I’ve made it so it kind of latches on to the picture above so you feel connected.
5. This is the nav bar like on a website, you press these buttons to navigate from screen to screen, I’m still experimenting with the look of the buttons, stroke etc, I have two main different ones. One is transparent and so lets the colours of the screen your on through and the other is each button reflects the colours that screen, colour is important on my designs and reflects in my decision making.
6. This is the background of each screen. Each screen reflects the colours of one of Dizzee’s albums again promoting his image. Another good reason for this is the, colour is a big part of his look so by choosing colours you know he likes it makes the game a bit more personal to him, so you feel more a part of Dizzee rather just playing a game with Dizzee’s name on it. I have yellow for inventory and purple for jobs etc.
7. On each screen will be content, I’m unsure on how to show the content with such bright colours over whelming whatever might be here, and is something I’m still looking at. On this example it shows the items in this case a microphone. I just made one symbol to represent here but there will of course be many items to display. I like Chris’ idea of having an info box pop up with a description about the item when you hover over it. The symbols for the items and jobs throughout the game I thought maybe could be like the badge look I used for the character picture, or that type of cartoon style.
1. This is the header; I felt this should stay at the top of the game throughout because the game has a lot of marketing potential. Dizzee would be most interested in having a game to promote him as a name rather than having the critical acclaim of having your own game. I felt it important to have his name at the top. It’s in big letters and reflects the poster I made, which I have uploaded. I wanted it so you can’t forget what game your playing and it could be exchanged for advertisements for his latest albums and tours etc. I’ve included help button here but there would be more options there, such as signing out etc.
2. Here is where your stats as a player would be displayed, like the header of the game this will appear over every screen you’re on, so you can always see what your stats are. It will have your name and your picture which is number 3. There will be a few more stats I haven’t included and a progress bar till your next level.
3. Here will be a display picture of your character; this will be unique to you especially if we have character customisation with clothes etc. It will stay attached in this position over the different screens; it is also sitting at the top of the chat. In the chat is a speech bubble coming from your character's picture. I think this gives you a personal touch to the chat and is well positioned to serve two purposes at once. It feels more like you are talking in the online community. I designed the picture to be like a badge, so it’s like a badge/image of yourself, maybe something that a more fun less serious rapper would wear like Dizzee.
4. This is the chat box; this too would stay on each screen so you always have access to it. I made it blue to tie in with the scheme and also slightly see through so the colours of each page will come through too, the text has different colours, anything said is in black and names are deep blue etc. Anything written by dizzee would be a special colour (an idea suggested by Chris and used on his design). I’ve made it so it kind of latches on to the picture above so you feel connected.
5. This is the nav bar like on a website, you press these buttons to navigate from screen to screen, I’m still experimenting with the look of the buttons, stroke etc, I have two main different ones. One is transparent and so lets the colours of the screen your on through and the other is each button reflects the colours that screen, colour is important on my designs and reflects in my decision making.
6. This is the background of each screen. Each screen reflects the colours of one of Dizzee’s albums again promoting his image. Another good reason for this is the, colour is a big part of his look so by choosing colours you know he likes it makes the game a bit more personal to him, so you feel more a part of Dizzee rather just playing a game with Dizzee’s name on it. I have yellow for inventory and purple for jobs etc.
7. On each screen will be content, I’m unsure on how to show the content with such bright colours over whelming whatever might be here, and is something I’m still looking at. On this example it shows the items in this case a microphone. I just made one symbol to represent here but there will of course be many items to display. I like Chris’ idea of having an info box pop up with a description about the item when you hover over it. The symbols for the items and jobs throughout the game I thought maybe could be like the badge look I used for the character picture, or that type of cartoon style.
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