Process

Stefano Pagani and 2 OthersNuradin Bhatti
Yoni Segal

We had an interesting brainstorming process this studio. We first went out to a grassy area at MIT to plan out what makes a game good. We were assigned the topic of what makes a video game good to us. Naturally, our entire group being comprised of Minecrafters, we started listing most of the qualities of Minecraft that made it good. Then, upon getting back, we were told to freeform design a game, and storyboard it. We designed a game where you had to find various components, and put them together in a certain pattern to win. We were then told to give our storyboard to another other group, without telling them what the point was. We received theirs as well. Their drawing was of a game where you ran around between train stations, where something told you where to go from each place, to an eventual goal. We didn’t like the idea, because it didn’t have enough complexity or tech. Our idea was that you had a pattern given to you by a box, with a second box nearby. Then, if you knocked that pattern on the second box, it would open, telling you the next location. This we didn’t like, because you could simply begin anywhere. So we redesigned. The first box would be the only one that gave you a pattern for free. It would have the next location… but you would need to knock out the correct pattern before you got the next box’s pattern. We still wanted more, so we designed something for the last box – a servo arm that would explode it when you knocked the correct pattern. Then, the prize for the lucky winner could be inside.