Game Log 3 - Imagine

Game log 3

We changed quite a few things about the game since yesterday. See description in the pitch for expert council.

Pitch for expert council

Our game is inspired by the artwork ‘Your Rainbow Panorama’, which affects the way we view the city depending on what part of the rainbow we are in. 

The game starts out with the player being a small kid where you get a random color filter... The player's worldview in this game is affected by a color filter. The amount of the different colors in the filter is based on Pierre Bourdieu’s three capitals - red represents the player’s social capital, green represents the player’s economical capital and blue represents the player’s cultural capital. The filter starts out being chosen at random. 

Throughout the game the player goes through different life stages from childhood to old age. The player has the opportunity to adjust the rgb-scale in the filter when presented with choices such as “go to kindergarten or the playground”. In this instance going to kindergarten could enhance the social and cultural capital which would affect the filter to become more red and blue.

However, the filter also affects what kind of choices are actually visible to the player. Let's say that the player has zero green in their filter; in the kindergarten/playground-instance they won’t be capable of visually seeing the kindergarten and therefore do not have the opportunity to enhance their capital at this point in the game.

Sometimes “glitches” in the filter (like the cracks in the rainbow) can reveal the opportunities that the player does not have, creating a “that’s not fair”-feeling.

Our game focuses on equality and freedom through a roleplay game, since the player’s opportunities in the game are affected by both their choices and their luck in the beginning just like in real life. 

Feedback from the expert council and how we intend to implement this:

• Feedback: Make it easy for yourselves to actually make a prototype. It seems like a very complex game you’ve made.
  • Our reaction: Yes. Indeed. We’re going to make a simple 2D-kind of game, where the player moves forward in the world seeing potential interactive elements. You might imagine a fully developed game as more of an immersive gameworld.
• Feedback: Be attentive to how much the player is able to affect the different capitals. Can they max out the capitals early on in the game? And how much does the initial filter decide your opportunities in the game?
  • Our reaction: We acknowledge this as a factor we would have to consider when developing the different opportunities and how much the choices affect each color. We will also take it into consideration in our prototype.
• Feedback: Instead of starting out with a random filter let the player choose their filter or let them start out with a grey filter to let the starting point be the same every time.
  • Our reaction: This would actually eliminate the “That’s not fair”-feeling we are trying to provoke. It also does not represent real life. For these reasons we won’t do that.
• Feedback: Start out with just two filters and make the starting point and ending clear.
  • Our reaction: We agree on making the starting point and ending clear. We had an idea for a clear start and end point with the “life”-idea, but if we choose just one phase of the life we need to think more about another kind of ending. 
• Feedback: “Great use of cultural heritage. Just make sure you don’t make it look like the Rainbow Panorama because of copyright issues.”
  • Our reaction: The way we view this we are not at risk of copyright violation but we will of course pay attention to this if the risk arises.
• Feedback: “Good that’s not fair-concept you’re bringing. It is interesting that you are using Bourdieu’s capitals since it’s a very complicated theory - some of the capitals might be changed throughout life and some can’t. Additionally, there is a lot of critique of the theory that you should probably look into.” 
  • Our reaction: It is true that it is very complicated to talk about capitals. However, we don’t need the game to be 100% correct in the representation of capitals or even how life works. We just need the game to start conversations and to provoke a new look at life. We can accomplish this even if there might be some ways the game misrepresents people’s opportunities in life.
• Feedback: Take a look at The Game of Life. Growing old might not be necessary, so maybe just focus on a slice of life.
  • Our reaction: We will use The Game of Life as inspiration for the different dilemmas, opportunities and choices our player might have.

The pictures below are visualizations of the conceptual idea of how the choices are visible or invisible depending on your filter.

We used the Citizen Experience Mapping and had this result: