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The Final Story Element Of Our Game

The last and final story element of our game will occur after the final puzzle with the hoe. Once this puzzle is completed, the player will experience their final story sequence. The final story sequence will begin with the screen going dark, and when it becomes bright again, there will be many happy figures around them. The player will be able to approach one, and a young farmer's form will be given to them. In the end, the farmer you play as will seek the help they truly need, and the farmer will, ultimately, receive that help and reach out so they no longer feel lonely. I want the game to end on a positive note so that the player knows they can get help, just like the farmer in the game they just played. I hope the player takes away the message that they don’t have to be alone, and that they don't have to feel lonely or isolated. By ending the game on a positive note, I hope the player will understand this message and be able to take it with them in a helpful and positive way for the future. The game shows the player that they can get the help they need, and by the end, they should not feel as isolated or alone. Through the use of the light figures, the player will come to understand that they truly need help. I think the figures follow by the right audio will create a game that the player can connect with and understand on a deeper level.

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The Second Story Element Of Our Game

Now I would like the second story element of our game to take place after the player completes the second puzzle. The second story element will unfold after the player finishes the puzzle. The second puzzle is the one where the player must go upstairs in the barn to find a water bucket and wash the farmer's tractor. Once the player has washed the tractor, upon turning around, they will see happy figures sitting around tables, talking and having a good time. You will hear the sounds of talking and people being happy. Then, once this moment is over, the player will be thrown back into the harsh reality of their loneliness. The player will realize just how alone the farmer truly is, and I hope that the player will understand that the farmer is completely isolated and feels utterly alone. This second story element will differ from the first, as there will be people talking around the player, though they will be further away. The audio may also be adjusted, and this section will last slightly longer than the first story element of the game.

[puzzlegames1234]

The First Story Element Of Our Game

Now, thought out for our game, there are going to be many different story elements. I want it to be clear that this game is about a lonely farmer. Sound will be one key element of the game. The game is going to be very quiet. It will use sound in what I hope will be an effective way. As of now, I don't plan on there being any music. I think what would work best for our game is if there were just ambient noises like the wind, and maybe some birds or crickets in the distance on the farm. I'm hoping this will create quite a lonely atmosphere. Then, after you complete the first task/puzzle, a sound cue will play with people talking and chatting. This sound will be very abrupt and loud. Now, I could simply leave it at that, but instead, I’m thinking about talking to the team about adding light outlines of people who are all talking together and having fun. I want this to show the player what the farmer is missing out on. I then want all of this to simply cut out and return to the game being nearly completely silent. I want this to really push the feeling of loneliness on the player and help them understand that the farmer truly feels isolated and alone. I think through the game having little to no background noise, and then the abrupt, loud noise of people talking, followed by bright, happy-looking figures of people talking, would make the player realize how lonely the game feels.

[puzzlegames1234]

The Story Plan For Our Game

Now, I want to briefly go over the story of the game that we are making just to make sure I know what I want to do. I know that I want the player to play as a random person who is a farmer. It doesn't matter if it’s a man or a woman, but if we have to model anything around the character, then I think the character, if we have to, should be a man for the fact that men have higher rates of extreme mental health issues than women.

The player character you play as is a farmer suffering from mental health issues. Farmers work long hours in hard conditions, so I think it would make sense that the farmer is suffering from isolation and loneliness. I chose this because not only do many farmers call their work a lonely profession, but it’s also well known that loneliness is the first stage/sign of depression.

I knew I wanted the ending to this game to be happy, reflecting that no matter who you are, there is always help for someone out there if you need it—even, and especially, farmers. I have just one problem as of now. I want the game to represent farmers’ loneliness, but I was not sure how to achieve this. Now, I am more sure, but still, I need to go over how to show this in our game’s story sections.

[puzzlegames1234]

Research Into Games With Isolation And Loneliness (Subnautica) #3

Subnautica came out in 2018. It was at first just a PC game but soon would come to be released on all consoles because of how well it was received on PC. Many YouTubers would play the game, and the game would sell incredibly well. One thing the game handles very well is the feelings of isolation and loneliness. The game (well, at least if you're on your own in single-player) feels very lonely. You have crashed on a planet covered in nothing but endless sea, and you must now try to survive on your own. The game has an element of horror to it, as you are surrounded by nothing but sea and all around you are deadly creatures ready to eat you.

The location of Subnautica is what, at least in my opinion, makes the game feel so isolating. The game’s ocean is deep and is the only real place you can travel to. The ocean seems endless and deep. Going under the water, you may feel alone, but it’s above the water where the player feels the most isolated. Above the water, there are no creatures, no sight of land, and hardly any noise—it’s just you left on your own with your own thoughts, with no one around to save or help you. This is the sort of isolation I’m looking to portray in our game that we are working on as a team.

Now, I have talked about the isolation of the game, but what about the loneliness of the game? Well, for me, that happens when the player is under the water. You can see so many great big fishes and colorful fish life surrounding you, but yet you are the only human around. You are the only person who seems to be left on this planet. When you build a base and try to live in it, you, the player, are completely alone. You, the player, have no one around you. You are simply on your own.

And that, in my opinion, embodies loneliness so well and helps to make the player feel alone. I mean, the player probably feels a bit alone altogether due to the fact that you are out of your element under the water anyway, but I think overall Subnautica does a great job at portraying loneliness and isolation.

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Research Into Games With Isolation And Loneliness (What Remains of Edith Finch) #2

Now, I wanted to research games that really focused on isolation and one of the ones I could remember was "What Remains Of Edith Finch." This game has the player going around an old abandoned large family house of a woman called Edith Finch. You go around this house looking at your whole family tree and finding out/remembering what happened to each one of them. The large house seems to be completely abandoned, but in the most strange way, the house seems like it’s almost frozen in time, with all the furniture being left in the house and things being left in the car as if at once everyone who lived in the house just disappeared. This makes the game feel very isolated in terms of the location because the only thing around the actual house itself is a forest, leaving the player completely on their own, making the game feel very isolating. This also can give off a kind of creepy vibe and, just like Firewatch, can make you feel quite unsettled as you're so far from any real people who are close to you. This really creates an isolating feeling. This is something we wanted to create for our game. We will try to achieve this by, just like Edith Finch, by placing the player on their own in a large area.

The game portrays loneliness really well. The game is sad, and I mean really sad. The game has you walk around looking at your literal past family members and how they came to die. The game feels lonely. You play as the last remaining family member in, well, your whole family, walking around this big house on your own, only seeing your family through flashbacks and memories. This makes the player feel truly alone as they know that their family is gone. In the end of the game, the player’s narrator dies, and all that is left is their child on their own. This is a hard-hitting ending, but it really drives home that feeling of loneliness.

I think that What Remains of Edith Finch is a fantastic game that deals with some really heavy-hitting subjects. The game tackles loneliness really well. Having the player be on their own for the whole game and also ending the game with the player’s son being the last one in the family really drives home loneliness. The isolation from the house is driven home so well and makes the player feel like they are so far from not only other civilization but also help to survive through the end of the game. I myself hope me and my team can make our game feel nearly as isolating to deliver our message of loneliness forward.

[puzzlegames1234]

Research Into Games With Isolation And Loneliness (Fire Watch) #1

Firewatch came out in 2016 and was a huge hit in the gaming community. The game is quite self-explanatory: you play as a fire watcher whose sole job is to watch and report fires in the area and, of course, take care of the woods. You spend most of the game on your own, and the lead-up to the endgame has the player solving a murder mystery Now, for some of the game, you are on your radio talking to a woman about yourself and everything that’s happening at the watch, but you will often find yourself completely alone, isolated, and without anyone to talk to.

Now, like I said, you do have contact with a woman from the outside world a couple of times, but you never see her, and she is the only person the player speaks to in the whole game. There are many points when the player has to leave their outpost and enter the woods. In my opinion, these are the scariest moments of the game's gameplay, as the player is almost always on their own in these moments. Your character doesn’t seem to be lonely, but we, as players, can feel this loneliness and isolation.

It’s weird because there’s this almost uncomfortable element that lingers—the fact that you, the player, are completely alone in the middle of the woods. Now, the game itself is very bright and very pretty, but it’s also very quiet, and this creates a strange and rather off-putting atmosphere of complete isolation from society. You really get the feeling that you are completely on your own, and at least in my case, this drove me to paranoia—always wondering if someone was watching or if there was some animal waiting to creep up on me. It was a weird, uncomfortable feeling that slowly grinds on the player and gradually gets to them. I also love the lake of sound as this is something I think we can use for our game.

[puzzlegames1234]

What The Team Is Doing Today!

I didn't think a team meeting would be needed today however I want to make sure that I document what the team is doing. Mario is going to try and get as many small intractable objects done as possible. Me and Haydn are going to do blog work in the morning and then Hayden will code in the afternoon and late morning while I help Mario with art and do research. I'm going to also try to figure out how we can truly represent farmers loneliness very well. I will do this by researching into loneliness and isolation and also thinking though the story element of my game.

[puzzlegames1234]

Our Team Meeting

Yesterday, we had a team meeting, and I just want to cover what was said during that meeting. We had found that there were clear issues with our art, and we knew that we needed to start development.

Hayden started and successfully made a pickup that you can drop, and he also made the player able to go up and down a ladder.

Now, I, myself, said I would work with our artist Mario, so I made a level plan as we discussed how this would help Mario to know exactly what he would need to make for our game. Then I went through my level plan with Mario. Once this was done, I helped Mario with some art and then I did some more research.

I think everything about starting development and doing a level plan for the art was a great time of discussion and helped us get much done yesterday, which has pushed the team forward in development.

[puzzlegames1234]

I Made Some Art #3

The last piece of art I made was combining both the fork and the poo art I created. I did this so that it would be easier for the game developer to write code for this section of the game. This would help because when it comes to coding, the developer can just swap the assets out for this one. Since I only made one poo art piece, they will be able to do this. If I had made multiple pieces, it would have been much harder. I created this piece of art by opening up the poo art piece and then also opening up my fork art, and then combining the fork under the poo piece so that it would look like the poo was on the fork. I think I achieved this very well.

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I Did Some Art #2

The player has to, for the first puzzle, pick a barn, so I, of course, had to make poo for the barn. Now, while this was a funny task, it was one that I also had to think quite hard about, as I knew the player would have to pick up multiple pieces of this said poo. So, I had a choice to model different pieces or keep them all as the one that I made. In the end, the game developer and I made a decision, and I was informed that there would be a lot more unnecessary code involved if we wanted there to be different kinds of poo for our game. Because we want the poo to end up on our player character's fork, I came to the conclusion that for now, I could just make one model, and if we have time later, I could add more different-looking pieces into the game. But for now, I'm very happy with the compromise.

[puzzlegames1234]

I Made Some Art #1

We began to code today; however, our coder needed certain pieces of art done, so I decided to help our team's artist by doing some of the simpler art for the game. While he worked on the more detailed art, I could focus on creating some of our game's art that would also be used as pickups, which our game developer said he needed.

I made my art in Magic Voxel, as this was the art style we would be using to make our game. I created a frock for the first puzzle in the game. I think this turned out quite well and works as the player's frock for the first puzzle in the game.

[puzzlegames1234]

My Level Plan For My Teams Game

Yesterday, I was doing some work with my team’s artist, and he wanted a level plan so he would know exactly what he needed to do for his art. My first draft of my art, I decided to do on the computer’s plate mode. I realize that while my art is not the best in the world, I think my level plan makes sense and also shows the artist everything he needs to produce this level’s art.

The level includes the barn the player starts in, the upstairs of the barn, and the backyard of the farm. It’s a small level, yes, but one that I think works for the three puzzles the player will have to do. Speaking of which, they are not included in this level plan, as this is more a level plan for the outline of the map—where interactive objects will be located and what the base level layout will look like.

This helped me to understand exactly how big I wanted the level to be and what I really wanted to include in the level.

Now, as you can probably tell, I’m not great at art, so I made my artist a key for everything I placed into my level. I’m hoping that this will greatly help him understand what he will need to create when it comes to art. This also helped me truly understand what I wanted all the objects the player could pick up to be and what the other non-interactable objects would be for the level.

Overall, I think this greatly improved our team’s workflow and allowed the team to look at the level on paper for once instead of having to think about it in their heads based on what I had told them.

[puzzlegames1234]

Researching Setting (UK Farms)

I wanted to conduct research into UK farms as I think when the vast majority of us think of farms, we think of those big red farm barns from the USA. Now, me and my team’s game is, yes, set in a farm barn, but this farm is set in the UK, not the US. So, I wanted to make sure to research real-life UK farms and barns so I knew how the artist could work on our game. As you can see from the images I have on screen, UK farms and barns are nothing like American ones, as UK barns are often very old buildings that were made between the 1200s and the 1500s, whereas American barns are often newer, being made in the 1800s and even sometimes later. It's very important I get the setting of my game clear to the player so that they know this is a farmer from the United Kingdom, not the US. Then, in the distance or far away, you may see an old UK farmhouse, whereas in the US, the farmhouse will usually be very modern and in most cases directly next to their farm barn.

I also learned what to expect on a UK farm compared to an American one. American farms are often far bigger and more spaced out, whereas UK farms are mostly tightly based together and often will have some form of yard where they keep all their farming equipment outside their farm’s barn. This helped me to understand what should be around my farm’s yard—things such as tractors, bales of hay, and random scrap rubbish bits will make the farm look more like one from the UK.

For the background, I made sure to look into British countryside and found that America can often look a lot more bright and cheerful, whereas the UK looks more hilly and has more rainy and dark weather. I'm glad I researched this as it has helped me to understand what objects and assets are needed for the game. It also helped me think about what sort of barn I would like in my game. My research also helped me understand what my background should look like for my game. This research was very productive and helped me greatly.

[puzzlegames1234]

The Importance Of Level Planning

We had some slight confusion in our team about what we were going to do with our art for our game. The artiest was un sure what he thought the games level and world would look like so I decided I would make him a level plan for our game. But first I wanted to do some research just so I truly could understand the importance of why people plan levels and what the benefits of planning a level really is.

I looked into how important planning levels really is, and I came to be very surprised. I always knew that it was important to plan for levels and to make them on paper or even just in your head first, but I also came to discover that there are many different elements to planning your game, such as your base idea and then, of course, placing it down on paper for the first time to then develop it further in your second draft.

When I thought of level design, I always thought that you would just make one big level and that would be it, but by looking into planning levels, I have realized there is much more to it than simply that. For example, open-world games are broken down into little sections and then placed together in the end to form the larger open-world experience. This helped me to understand that, going forward, I can not only have multiple drafts of my plan in different phases of development, but I can also make one overarching level plan for the game as a whole.

I also learned that before you plan your level, it is incredibly important to research many different things about your level. For example, if you are doing a level set in the Wild West, you, as a game designer, should make sure to research this Wild West setting—or space settings, or maybe even farm settings—as much as you can to truly make sure your level both works from a gameplay and player enjoyment point of view, but also from a story, setting, and narrative point of view. Because often, games set themselves in different places but are not accurate to how that place would really look in a more real-life-like setting.

We had some slight confusion in our team about what we were going to do with our art for our game. The artist was unsure what he thought the game's level and world would look like, so I decided I would make him a level plan for our game. But first, I wanted to do some research just so I truly could understand the importance of why people plan levels and what the benefits of planning a level really are.

[puzzlegames1234]

Research Farming Games (Minecraft) #3

Now, I needed to research a farming game that was more on the simple side but really fun, as I wanted the gameplay in my game to feel fun while also being connected to farming. The answer that hit me in the face was to look at the critically acclaimed and awarded Minecraft. Now, no, the main focus of Minecraft is in fact not to farm, but farming is a massive part of the game. Whether it's an animal farm or an actual food farm, at some point in your Minecraft playthrough, you will need to find a way to get a sustainable source of food. The way you do this is by setting up a farm.

Now, Minecraft, in my opinion, is such a successful game because there is a player for every element of the game, and this includes farming. There will always be players who love farming and think that it's the best feature of the game. Now, I myself find farming in Minecraft very fun, and I think that is because of how simple but yet satisfying the people who made the game made it. Simple things like hoeing, placing seeds down, and placing water down are all very simple things that in other games may sound boring, but in Minecraft, they are not just satisfying but also fun features of the game. This gave me some ideas about the actual gameplay side of my game, and I knew that once you solved a puzzle and had a tool to use, when using that tool, the gameplay needed to be fun and satisfying to keep the player feeling not only engaged but also well rewarded.

I knew that for the middle puzzle, I wanted the player to actually have to hoe a small field of crops to feel the physical work that farmers have to go through. I knew that if I did gameplay like this, it would have to be a little more fast-paced, however, to keep the players engaged. So I'm going to try to have faster-paced gameplay for the game's hoe section. I want the hoe section to also look satisfying, so every time you interact with the ground, it will make a satisfying sound, and the game will respond to the player's input in a clear way so the player can see.

[puzzlegames1234]

Research Farming Games (Read Dead Redemption 2) #2

Red Dead Redemption 2 came out in 2018 and was a huge success. People loved it for its fantastic story and inventive gameplay set in the Wild West. The game has you play as a gun-blazing cowboy in the 1800s who robs and kills to escape the law and order. However, in the end, you play as an ex-gunslinger named "John Marston," a man committed to escaping his past cowboy life and trying to settle down with his family. He tries to settle down with his family on a farm.

However, in these end epilogue chapters of the game, at one point, his family—his son and wife—leave him for a while, leaving John pretty much on his own to build his farm up from nothing. This gave me a very clear understanding of how hard it was for farmers back in the day to get started with farming. I also could understand how lonely John both was and felt being on his own, surrounded by nothing but large farmland.

The other main thing I took inspiration from when it comes to Red Dead Redemption 2 is the farming tasks/mini-games that the player can do on their farm. These tasks can be anything from milking a cow to shoveling cow manure to even just feeding animals like chickens. This helped me to see how a fun farming game could be created, as when you do these tasks in the game, they feel very satisfying and fun to do. I took direct inspiration from one of the tasks in the game—that task being the one where you have to clean up cow manure. I added this as one of the puzzles to my game, with the puzzle element being that you need to look around your barn to find the fork to shovel the cow manure before you place it into your wheelbarrow.