Finals Brainstorm
The first idea I had for the final was a game based around environmentalism. The story would be about a farmer who moved away from the city because he hated the constant busyness and stress, but soon after his move to the countryside a factory was built nearby that began poisoning the area. The game would be a kind of mystery-solving game, as you explore to find the source of the poison. The value I’d communicate with this idea is about protecting the environment, but I wouldn’t want to go too hard on the idea of “factory bad”. Specifically, I’d want to show that factories/industrial progress isn’t necessarily bad as long as they take precautions to not cause too much pollution.
Another idea I had is related to the future of space travel, specifically about the colonization of Mars. What kind of government or ruling system would work best, and what would be the moral/ethical implications of colonizing a whole new planet? I thought it’d be neat to make it a kind of resource-management game, where you get presented with choices that affect the Mars colony, and has several endings depending on what path you choose.
My third idea is a bit more of a rough plan, but I liked the idea of making a game about anxiety/anxiety disorders. It’d be difficult to execute, but I’d love to be able to talk about anxiety and create an interesting way of explaining what anxiety disorders are like to someone who doesn’t experience them. I vaguely remember a game similar to this idea, where it visualized anxiety as a Hermaeus Mora-esque ball of darkness that appeared around certain situations that the player would have to navigate through. Games like that and Depression Quest are great ways of talking about difficult mental issues, and I would be happy to create something like that.
I’ve decided to use Twine as my game creator, so the mechanics of the game I make would be text-based, clicking on highlighted words to progress the story and choose your path. I’d include some custom art as well, to help the player visualize the story’s setting.
