Plants On Mars

The task for the past week was to generate a few game ideas and get something down on paper. I toyed with a few simple ideas but nothing really grabbed me instantly. The idea that I've progressed with came to me in a very odd way, by knocking a plant off my windowsill...stick with me.

I'd been thinking about which sort of games relax me and for some reason I always come back to Sim City, now, the plant thing may seem unrelated to this but it actually isn't. For Christmas someone bought my a Grow Your Own Chilli Seeds kit which I really got into, tending to my plant every day relaxed me (see, told you it related!). So, the idea was to create a game which mixed the two things, Sim City but with plants.

I developed the idea as I always thought gardening was a tad dull, shall we say. I began thinking about the setting and came up with something that would tip the game on it's head a bit...gardening in outer space! The idea was to have each planet have a different set of plants and growing conditions and therefore, level difficulty. Further levels would be unlocked when you have harvested the required amount from your crops. I'd also introduce infrequent Alien Bug attacks where the player has to swat the bugs away on the screen to stop them from feeding off their plants.

So, I've drawn up some paper tests to show Jim & Josh tomorrow and will hopefully get some feedback and direction with where to go next.

The second idea is nowhere near as fully developed however I also have a paper test for this too. I've looked at creating a more fast paced game which will hopefully grant a sense of achievement to the player upon completion, this isn't particularly evident in the first game I thought of. It may be interesting to compare the affects of both games and find a measurement to gauge which is most successful in terms of reducing anxious feelings.

I've slightly strayed off the path there...ok, so, the second idea came to me as I was stuck in traffic on my daily commute which is something that makes my blood boil daily. The idea for the game is to have a central island and varying methods of transport (car/bus/train/plane/boat) which all travel at different speeds and have different end points. Boats and planes appear from the side of the screen and need to be guided to their harbors and airports without crashing either into each other or into the land. That is about as far as I've got with that one!

More tomorrow...