Character project - further ideas

We had our first lesson with Justin on Tuesday and we were able to talk through our initial ideas for our individual character projects. As a reminder, the cards I randomly picked to work from were Height, Fabric and Worlds.

I could envisage a couple of different options. The first being a game similar to Pilotwings where you are using a parachute to guide your character through different worlds, falling from a height. Although I could easily see this working, it didn't seem like there was much excitement or incentive to playing the game. I could see it as an App but I don't think it would have the addictive feeling that games like Angry Birds and World of Goo bring for example.

The second idea I had was to create characters made from different fabrics living in worlds where they behaved and reacted differently in their world depending on the fabric they were made from. Justin and I talked about the idea of maybe setting the world inside a book, like a pop-up book or children's scrap book and the idea was to work your way up the page until you reached the top when the page would turn and you could be in the next world. I really like this idea and feel like it opens up lots of different world opportunities, some of which could be:-

- fuzzy felt
- underwater world, but using cellophane as water as if a child has made it
- snakes and ladders (maybe using zips?)
- Lego (maybe using bricks to build a way to the top)
- Velcro (making the controls feel 'sticky' and the character harder to control)
- glitter and glue
- Sticker book (maybe the spaces waiting for stickers are portals to teleport the character to the top of the page)
- Bubble Wrap

I've started to research different fabrics as I'm imagining at the beginning of the game, the player gets to choose which fabric their character will be made from. There will perhaps be a selection of a few different character shapes and each will react differently in different worlds. So a character made from silk may be quite slippery and one made from wool may have trouble in the Velcro world. I'm also thinking of 'power-ups' too, so after you have completed the Velcro world, you can have 'stickability' as a one-off power-up to use throughout the game, or 'waterproofing' to use in the Underwater world maybe.

I've also looked for examples to show the kind of look and style I'd like to use in the game. I initially saw this as an App, but I'll see how I can develop the idea into maybe making a full-on video game. Below are some examples of the style and ideas I'm going for. More to come later!