BAFTA/Anthony Moran/Joseph Sweeney Warped Reality (Python) – Anthony Moran (17) & Joseph Sweeney (17) Luton
“Day to day activities can become rather boring for the regular individual, however for 5-year-old Noah, everything has the potential to be fun when he lets his imagination run wild such as using his bathtub as a pirate ship, sailing the seas and protecting his precious gold when he should be getting ready for school!”
At the beginning of the game, the scene is set. You play as a young boy named "Noah" (his character is reflective of the target audience) who is told to get ready for school by his mother. Upon reaching his bathroom you are prompted to interact with the bathtub, which sparks his imagination and the bathtub is no longer a bathtub but a pirate ship instead! When you sail to the shore you stumble upon a map, which is where the game truly starts.
The map lays out markers for various tasks that need to be completed whether this be collecting lost treasure, taking out enemy bases or challengers who set you a task or puzzle to complete or solve. The user can decide what order they wish to tackle these tasks. I made sure the tasks were unique to avoid repetition and to keep the player engaged.
The target audience for this game is primary school children. This is reflected in the cartoony art style and simple controls. For example, I decided to use arrow keys for movement as I know many people are not comfortable or aware of the WASD movement keys. Additionally, the spacebar covers actions such as attacking and interacting with objects; such objects are indicated as being interactable by a circle that hovers over it. They are the only primary controls used in the game which keeps it easy to learn and understand.
When making this project I had strayed very far from my comfort zone to make something new and refreshing from my usual theme of games (narrative rpg). Instead, I had opted for a shorter but more thrill-seeking game that has more interesting game mechanics than I could ever imagine putting into an rpg.
I also began to realise the importance of rapid building and how beneficial it is to have a prototype that I can share and get feedback from. This was extremely helpful for this game as there were many things that I changed or took out completely (which was not easy to do as some parts took a long time to make!).
I would like to expand on different areas of the protagonist's interests, like wizardry for example. The levels would all follow through with similar tasks but would have a core mechanic tied to the level such as sailing for the already made pirate level or transforming objects in a wizard-themed level.
