ANTI-PINBALL VORTEXGroup effort
Narrative
All is going well on your trip to the Kuiper Belt to deliver supplies to the new colony of humans stationed on Pluto. Suddenly, your spherical spaceship has stopped. A black hole is sucking you in and you must use a limited amount of utilities in your cargo hold to survive. A timer is ticking down before you can use your escape pod and continue to Pluto. How you use these utilities will determine if you live or die.
Premise
When the game starts, a player is presented with a tool bar that contains utilities to be placed in the play area. The play area is a circular black hole with a grid placed over it. The player clicks "Launch!" when they have placed their utilities. The player then attempts to survive until the timer runs out my manipulating various utilities such as flippers and kickers . If the spaceship is sucked into the black hole then the player has lost and must restart the level. Otherwise, they have won and an escape pod has been launched to the next level.
Rules
- With each level the player is given a number of utilities to place in the black hole. At the beginning of the level, the spaceship is spinning around the edge of the black hole waiting for the player to place utilities.
- The player then places the utilities in the play area on a grid within a limited amount of time. If he is done placing the utilities early, then he can press "Launch!".
- When the setup timer runs out or "Launch!" is pressed, the spaceship is released into the black hole wherever the spaceship stops spinning.
- Each level has a timer. If the player's spaceship has not been sucked into the hole before the timer runs out, then he has beaten the level.
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ESCAPE THE BOAT
Solo effort
Narrative
You're out boating one night when suddenly you run out of gas. There was no way of knowing, since you haven't realized that the fuel gauge has been broken until it was too late. It also doesn't help that all forms of electronics that you have on hand and on the boat don't work. However, if you play it right, you can call for help, and tell them to bring some gas.
Premise
Similar to the "escape the room" kind of games, the player will nowhere but the boat to look around for items that can be of use, and perhaps even combine them to make them finally useful. The final task that will have to be done is using the cellphone that you have to call for a friend's help.
Rules:
- The area of constraint is the entire boat
- The player is free to walk around the boat with the arrows displayed on the screen. Using the mouse, they can interact with and possibly pick up objects of interest.
- Hidden areas can also be accessed on the boat by clicking in the right spot (e.g. a blue bag will open up a screen that shows what's in the bag and can be picked up).
- The game ends when the player has a working cellphone that can be used to call for help, and the rescuer is able to locate them in the dark.
Initial conceptual flow-chart that helped me pan out how the game should be successfully played.
Edits
Items:
- Cellphone
- Flashlight
- Battery
- Electrical tape
- Out-of-house phone charger
- Wiring manual
- Beacon
Projected successful playthrough
- Locate flashlight & batteries
- Combine the two items to get a working flashlight
- Find cellphone, phone charger, and wiring manual in blue bag
- Shine light on the manual to read where wires are and how to fix them
- Find electrical tape
- Light wiring area, tape together snapped wires
- Plug charger into dashboard
- Plug phone into charger
- Drag beacon onto the back of the boat to set up
- Use working phone to call for help
Production drawbacks
- Working inventory system
- Text display for scenery or objects that can be interacted with, but cannot be used, possibly at the time
- Working timer to show how long it took a player to finish
Initial layout of the back of the boat. The dashboard can be clicked on to access a new area, the bag can be examined, and the quick-fix booklet can be picked up to learn about how to fix some of the electrical components of the boat.
