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Blog 1: The Door and Button

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  Payton Grady GAM-3352-01 Professor Heagney 27 August 2021 Blog 1: The Door and Button The Idea For my door/button idea, I have a visual I would like to pull off, but I am undecided as to which direction I want it to go.  My idea is to create a large hatch with four sliding doors going in different directions. This functions as a door, but feels  a bit more complex than just an ordinary door.  The Sketch The Mechanics My plan for this is to create a lever, and if that doesn’t work, a button on a control console to press in order to move the four doors.  It might even be interesting to make the doors scissor out instead of just opening horizontally or vertically. This design could go in various directions depending on the size and structure of the level. For example, if it’s a normally placed door I could use the  different opened doors to function as walls later on in the level, but if I put this door on the floor of the level it will act more as a  jumpscare than an opening door woul
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One-Sheet 02- Communication

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  Payton Grady Junkyard Platforming Background                  Having revisited the Door Puzzle, I made a few changes. I added a junkyard-esque theme to the map to color code different objects. While some crates in the junkyard are a darker color and a rectangular shape, other crates are a brighter color and more of a cube shape. This color code is used to symbolize what can and cannot be used. I also used a mix of text renders and lights to reinforce what can and cannot be grabbed.  The Constructivist Method The constructivist method, based on behaviorist and and montessori principles, was also incorporated into this project. This involves operant conditioning, which according to the text “involves changing voluntary actions of subjects via positive and negative reinforcements, as well as punishments.” (Totten 214) As an example of positive reinforcement, I have made the player able to enter different districts, which each become a checkpoint when they show they have learned the grab
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One-Sheet 01: The Maze

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 Payton Grady   Alley Maze Background:                  This labyrinth was inspired by several real-world photographs of alleys and adjusted to fit the  scope,scale, and gameplay style of a maze. To portray the scenery of an alley, I started off by adding a platform that the player stands on before walking down a staircase. This was important because alleys typically involve a tightly-confined space between two walls, occasionally with stairs. These stairs would be the arrival to the maze, and also the arrival out of the maze. The goal here was to present what the world would look like before descending into an alley that is lower to the ground, using the form of the surface and the void within the alleys. Without being an underground section of a larger world, this would not be an alley; rather, it would simply be a maze. While stylizing the experience of being inside an alley, I tried to keep the walls within a reasonable alley height. I tried to make these long enough to feel more l
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Blog 3: Physical Puzzle

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Blog 3: Physical Puzzle By Payton Grady The Puzzle      In my puzzle, I created an unusual take on a maze. Rather than simply searching for the correct way out, the player is looking at an entirely enclosed box. In this situation, the player is supposed to think outside the box by folding corners to find a proper start point and end point, and finally draw a path between the two. This combines several different puzzle types into one model: unusual use of an object, sequence, and preparing the way. Avoiding Poor Design        According to Bates, bad puzzle design involves restore puzzles, arbitrary puzzles, binary puzzles, and designer puzzles. Restore puzzles are bad designs because they immediately punish the player before giving them a chance to study their puzzle environment. I avoided this problem by excluding any sort of punishment for players who don't make the right guess the first time. I feel as if my puzzle got close to being an arbitrary puzzle. I intentionally includ
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Blog 1: The Door Problem

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Blog 1: The Door Problem  By Payton Grady The Reading After reading the Gamasutra article, "'The Door Problem' of Game Design", I learned some interesting perspectives about game design. There are many factors to consider such as utility vs aesthetic, locking and unlocking, and differentiating types of player and non-player interaction. Despite being such a common item, there are several complex decisions made. There needs to be a way to tell whether a door is locked, unlocked, open, openable, or permanently closed. As an example, colors might be used for this. But there are other practical factors that need to be accounted for such as how many players can enter a door, when certain players can enter, whether or not enemies can spawn, what allows the door to close, and when the door can close. In general, doors can have several distinguishing features. The Sketches While brainstorming door ideas, I considered how different games handle doors. Skyrim, for example, has
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