Week 1: March 3 - 9, 2014
Gymnopedie
a piece about learning about yourself and others while attempting to overcome a fear of water.
![[Image: 1ozMICx.png]](http://i.imgur.com/1ozMICx.png)
As part of a Gym class, you must go to a pool, despite your fear of water. Further, you must actually go into the water and manage to float, or you'll be given a bad grade.
Before you'll really be able to float, you'll need to build up some self-confidence. You can do this by talking to the other students milling around the pool; they'll tell you about a pair of things that they like, and if the player character agrees, their confidence level will rise a bit. If the player character disagrees, their confidence will go down a little.
Also, using either the pink or blue changing lockers will have the player character change into swim gear (and will receive a confidence gain or loss, depending on whether the swimgear matches the player character's internal gender); while wearing swim gear, other people might fling their opinions about you or your weight at you without your asking when you walk by (having either positive or negative effects on the player's confidence).
Further, if the player visits the concession stand they'll buy a random food (and will recieve a confidence gain or loss depending on whether the player character likes that kind of food or not). Talking to people after buying food will similarly prompt them to mention their own tastes in food.
The player character's traits are randomized for each playthrough, so the player will need to find out about themselves through their interactions with others.
The player character can also talk only 10 times with other people before they simply stop feeling like talking any more (that won't stop people from talking as the player passes by while wearing swimgear, though).
The only gauge by which the player can measure their character's confidence level is the character's expression.
When the player feels that their confidence is high enough to successfully float in the water, they may try using the diving board; if their confidence really is high enough, they'll manage to float and the player will win! If their confidence wasn't high enough, they'll sink and be rescued by the lifeguard, and suffer a large confidence penalty.
If the player is still unsure and would rather just go home and try again the next time, they can use the exit and suffer a small confidence penalty.
From home, the player can then go back to the pool and try again, this time with different npcs.
The interactions in this game are really simplified and not entirely reflective of actual people. The project wavered about halfway through the week as neither of us were particularly sure of the concept, and so development slowed down and not all intended features were completed.
But hey, it's the first week of the Game a Week! Less than ideal games and circumstances should be pretty much expected.
What went right:
+ Well we got started making a game!
What went wrong:
- Though we didn't finish nearly as much as we wanted, despite actually having a seemingly pretty small scope.
- I think part of the problem here is that, as a pretty different game from what we were used to, we weren't entirely sure on how we should do
things with the game, that it was rather unsolid.
- The final game also suffers from being hard to understand, partially because I wasn't really sure exactly what I was trying to do nor what information should be shown to the player and how.
- Communication-wise, I think Zac and I were a little off in what we were expecting to make, and ended up going in almost completed different directions lol
What to change in the future:
~ Next week, maybe we can try something that we're a little more used to?
~ Improve communication and make it more frequent. We could probably also use more mockup doodles before starting work on the project so we're sure to be on the same page!
~ For me, it's really important that I know everything that I'm implementing before I actually implement it (especially with non-action games) or I'll suffer huge motivation penalties, so having a somewhat more detailed design before implementation of specific features might be more important.
If you feel like testing the waters in this little thing, you can do so at the following link:
http://bit.ly/1gjWB4d
The game was made in HTML5 and controls entirely with the mouse (and should work on an iPad at least; dunno about other mobile devices).
![[+]](images/collapse_collapsed.png "[+]")
Links to posts with Games!!!
![[Image: Lm4ltqD.png]](http://i.imgur.com/Lm4ltqD.png)
![[Image: deT1vCJ.png]](http://i.imgur.com/deT1vCJ.png)
![[Image: wVO9kJo.png]](http://i.imgur.com/wVO9kJo.png)
![[Image: iJQWo9G.png]](http://i.imgur.com/iJQWo9G.png)