Video Gaaaaames

Our entire gaming presentation was a little last-minute (go figure), and so there were definitely things that could have been improved upon. My group's gaming idea, the "Escape the Room" puzzle game with a twist, could have been better communicated and explained to the class, no doubt.

One thing we really should have stressed more was the mental challenge the game presents. The entire reason behind choosing this format of game was to stray away from the typical FPS style video games that are on the market today. By placing an emphasis on logic puzzles and not giving the player an alternate means to find a way out of the room (by way of guns or anything like that), the game actually becomes far more difficult than if the player were under attack by a million enemies. There are no enemies in this game. It is simply the player against themselves as they are left to their own devices to solve the puzzle. I think that stressing that concept, and comparing it to things on the market today, would have led to a more effective presentation.

Another concept that should have been expounded upon was the actual mechanics of the game. Saying "point and click" is easy enough, but it doesn't really explain the immersive nature of the mechanics. This game, in many ways, is similar to the adventure games of the late 80s and early 90s, where every single item you find could potentially help you later on down the road. This knowledge that some arbitrary item could save your life makes finding things and hunting for objects that much more exciting. The escape the room games are never as easy as finding a key and opening a door. The player has to be far more resourceful than that.

I believe the most difficult thing to explain were the objectives. This is simply because we hadn't fleshed them out enough. The overall puzzle of escaping the room is the main objective, obviously, but it's the completion of a number of other, smaller objectives that will ultimately lead the player to be able to do that. Since our group did not come up with each of these individual objectives and were not able to properly express this intent, it became muddled within the presentation and no doubt could have come across much better.