During the planning process, I have discarded many of the ideas that I had previously began to develop. The game idea that I have decided to discard is the ‘road rush’ game.
This game was similar to crossy road or frogger in the sense that you must cross an infinite line of roads but it would also have educational elements about road safety within it. Instead of simply avoiding cars, you will have to use the correct and safest method of crossing and do it quickly in order to avoid a scrolling screen that will end the game if it catches up with you. This helps to not only make the game more educational and interactive but it will also make it much more dynamic and addictive due to the use of high scores and leader boards that will also be implemented. The game will function by WASD controls so it will be easy for all people regardless of gaming ability level to control the main character. For every road that you manage to cross safely, you will get a point. You must cross at the safest place on the road in order to avoid death and losing the game, however, you must not cross on parts on the road that are deemed unsafe due to hazards such as ice, potholes or cracks in the road or else you will die and not get a high score.
Overall, I felt that the overall idea was flat due to it being very unoriginal. There are already many games similar to frogger and crossy road and therefore feel like the game would feel too much alike other games on the market. I as though if I make my game similar to these games in essence but unique in other ways such as its aesthetics, I would be straying too far from the brief. As well as this, I do not feel comfortable with creating a game which is just ‘one of many like it’. I feel as though my game would be much more successful if the game was totally original and unlike any other road safety-based game on the market. Other problems with the design of this game is the graphics and aesthetics. It would be quite difficult to draw and animate 3d sprites and I don’t think that when it comes to the time of making the game, it will quite time consuming making the graphics and making all of the obstacles in the game unique while working with 3d graphics. As well as this, I do not feel as though the game is educational enough and that it doesn’t fit the brief as being an educational road safety game. There are no quizzes or questions in the game to test the player’s knowledge and since the gameplay is mostly reflex based, I don’t think that the educational information (avoiding the road hazards) is being processed by the player enough and the player, therefore is not realising the real life dangers of the road.
Overall, the idea of this game is quite problematic and I feel as though the other game that I developed fits the original brief very well while also being an original, educational idea that the player will find fun to play.