War On Terrorism!
The
Making of:
Battle for the Body
BATTLE FOR THE BODY
….An
Overview
The Making of
….Part I
….Part II
….Part III
….Part IV
Picture
Gallery
Game Design Document
PART IV (Maximizing
gameplay)
November, 2004
A concept that really stood out to me in my course readings was the ability of videogames to allow us to fulfill our dreams. To me this is a very powerful concept because we all have dreams, and dreams are what often keep us alive and filled with hope. In light of our task to create a videogame, the possibilities began to open as I imagined an experience that could allow people to do the things that perhaps before they could only dream of. This is the beauty of media as it can take you to foreign lands filled with mystery and wonder, far away from your current reality. Above and beyond this, the advantage of videogames as a form of interactive entertainment is that once you get to the magical land you can not only see something amazing, but actually do something amazing. My vision for our videogame therefore became that in some way it would allow the player to imagine what it would be like to explore a place they’ve never seen before, the inside of the human body, and do something that people have only imagined themselves doing, literally battle it out with deadly infections.
For me, knowledge of various approaches to game design has certainly aided in conceptualizing our game. It has allowed me to consider concepts such as gameplay, victory condition, the player’s role, perspective, mode, audience and interaction model in creating our videogame. For an outline of how ‘Battle for the Body’ considers these game concepts please see Battle for the Body – An Overview.
Key Concept I Learned: Videogames can allow us to live our wildest dreams.
Application to
Battle for the Body: The concept
of videogames allowing us to live our dreams really inspired me. In the
context of our game design group I felt we were already on this path in
terms of the type of game we chose. We had decided that empowering players
to ‘beat down’ the viruses and diseases that often affect
them would be desirable to many. This concept of ‘videogames allowing
us to live our dreams’ helped me to refocus in my mind the purpose
of our game and to place it in the context of ‘environmental storytelling’.
