Since we want to create a cyberpunk industry scene in the game, and we think delivery man appears frequently in cyberpunk novels or games. In addition, we have a successful driving control system, we want let the player act as a deliveryman and engage in a small narrative scene. And the player should be able to explore the whole scene and get familiar with all the available operations and skills in the game during he/she experiences the story.

The core operation of the game is the typical driving system with delivery quests (go to the aim point). And the player can choose to sneak around the city with careful observation of the enemy or drive fast with excellent skill and use the special abilities at the right time to shake off the enemy, They can also combine two ways together, be discovered first and then find a good place to hide to return to sneak status. 

For the special abilities, we want them to be very cool and give the player a feeling of hi-tech futurism. The first ability is the invisibility, and the when as we all knows, the enemy can’t detect the player when the spaceship is invisible.

The second ability is called quantization, when the spaceship is at quantization status, it can pass through any rigid body. For example, the player can drive the spaceship through the buildings to make enemy can’t see himself/herself anymore.

The third ability is called space transition, the player can save spaceship’s current position, and he/she can do it for multiple times, bu only the latest one will be saved. And then the player can choose to go back to that position. 

The first two ability should consume a certain energy when they are activated. We will make an energy bar and a HP bar. And the third ability should have a long cool down. 

And until now, we have designed two kinds of enemy, the normal one is like a policer which will chase after the player once they detect him/her , and it can shoot bullets to hurt you. But it can’t see the player when they are invisible or behind the buildings. 

The second one is like a surveillance camera, it can’t move or attack, but it can see the players when they are invisible or behind the buildings. And once it discovers the players, it will report their positions to other enemies. 

Personally, I think that 2D gaming still has a bright future. From my perspective 2D gaming has its own advantages and it attracts me a lot. I especially agree that 2D gaming is a better way to create a world with strong artistic style. First, I think hand drawing and 2D is a comes first when we try to do something conceptual and creative. And 3D games tend to be kind of dull when it comes to modeling thus it can’t emphasize a world with many features. Instead, in 2D games (like some dungeon games), the combination of different culture and transition between two different scenes can be really natural and attractive. 

Also, 2D games is really easy to be familiar with, and because of this, it usually demands the user to be really skilled with the basic ability of the characters to pass the game. This gives player a very exiting challenge which I love a lot. And because of the limit of 2 dimensions, the moving of characters become limited. Game designers need to create many interesting interactions or ways to play to enrich the game. And it leads to some fantastic gameplay mode. Like the image based interaction in Rusty Lake series and the hardcore platform puzzle solving in Celeste or Hollow Knight.

My game idea: the player can experience several very different worlds and then solve the puzzle in the world to help the dreamer get pease in their hearts, each world has a specific artistic style and the player will interact with the world with a new way (like how they view the world or move in the world).

After reading this article, my view of game and game design has changed a lot. And the reading really has inspired me a lot. Before, I always observe games from a player’s view, focusing on the stories, the game worlds and models, the way of interaction and the art styles. But I seldom view a game from designers’ view, for example, how to design an interaction or combine two classic interactions together, or how to design the difficulty and new elements of each level to not make players feel bored. 

And it also teaches a lot about game history. I don’t pay a lot attention to game in last centuries like the 8 bit games or the arcade games and the composite games mentioned in the article. Since I don’t like the pixel art style very much and it is really tiring to look at those pictures. But I do respect those games and see them as the symbol of the early game industry. This article tells me my unfamiliar part of the game industry history.

Also, it shows me how people cooperate to make a game in a game company. And I can see clearer boundaries between designers and the programers than the industry before. There are many real big companies which keep making high quality 3A games. But I feel in this system, most of the staff are not creating bringing their own idea to the work, instead, they are making a big project but it is designed by few of them. And a big company can’t change their style easily. So that’s why I like indie games a lot and the games from some small teams.

Why people love to play video game? A general answer for this question given by many researchers can be game can make us experience a life or world different from our normal life. Hence, comparing to the novels, film and television works, games make people much more immersed in another world. Playing the game is the only way we interact with an imaginary world even until today.

I asked my roommates why they love to play video game, both of them mentioned the general reason mentioned above. And one of them, Tony, gave two other reasons. First one is that he feels playing games is the best way to kill time when he feels lonely when he is alone. Next one is that he thinks when he plays card game for example HearthStone at its early stage, he can get sense of accomplishment by thinking hard for best solutions. Another roommate Leon gave me a considerable answer, he says that by playing games of different ages, he can feel the advance of computer techniques. 

As for my own experience, I think video game is a fantastic art form,  for it blend visual, sounds and touching all together. Thus it is the most complete way to create or to experience the storytelling. And it also makes the game designers have a broader space to create their works than writers or musicians and directors. That is why I think video games have left us so many touching and exciting stories with strong impression. That is also why I think there are so many successful worlds with different artistic styles and so many creative and amusing ways of interaction in video games. A game design idea I want to fulfill in the following weeks can be to choose a cool artistic style and then use it to build a world which gives players a strange feeling while the place is not inharmony.