BA4: Game Design Document

This page covers the game me and Sophie have chosen to re-invent and a draft copy of our initial design document. Sophie is in charge of the artwork and I am in charge of the written work. All areas of our work are found on our blogs.

Our Chosen Game

Me and my team mate Sophie have decided to reinvent The Portopia Serial Murder Case. We thought it would be a game that a number of groups weren't going to choose, because it wasn't relate table with a modern audience, because of how old it is. We really like the concept of the game and feel that and investigation, crime genre hasn't been touched up on as mush a war game like Medal of Honor, Call of Duty and Battlefield. We have been discussing the limits we can push the genre to make something that stands out from everything else, to attract a wider audience to the crime genre. To kick start our idea development we are looking at the following points:

• It is a game developed by Yuji Horir, what other games has he done?
• First person perspective/narrative
• Investigation adventure
• The visual/art style?
• Story? Change the story, murder case?
• The retro representation?
• Look at different art styles?
• Films, murder cases, what makes them interesting?
• Unique elements
• Murders committed using modern technology - the internet?
• Look at fictional and non- fictional murders
• Is the game exciting and appealing?

We had a look at some game play of the original game for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES) from 1985.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P6UQWvjC12I
https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijTwPd93yN1vYO77GYJGhUAFLPFoUOVBELtTcqC2a0jFS8cfVwYAmqs7J5p-L__yuVe3GD_hvXdOQpliYiCiBSbcyrvsVU2mEQhc54xkNj_UcKr4PYlqfAdjTWLeYstR6ls7dNDGDWYQ/s1600/DSC01599.JPG
http://my.stratos.net/~hewston95/RTM29/RTM29.html
http://www.hardcoregaming101.net/JPNcomputers/Japanesecomputers3.htm
http://uk.gamespot.com/features/6120427/p-2.html


We learnt from this video that it is a 2D text based game, it uses low resolution graphics and the colours are very bold. As well as a sum of the games style I conducted some thorough research covering its art style, gameplay and narrative.  

The PSMC (Portopia Serial Murder Case) was an investigation adventure game designed by Yuji Horii, who works for Enix, a Japanese game design studio. It was released in 1985 on the SNES.
PSMC was very sophisticated for its time. The aim of the game was for the player to solve a murder mystery, by searching for clues. To find them the player must search an array of scenes/settings and interact with characters. 
The game follows a first person, perspective narrative. The game has a number of various events, which are followed through still pictures and text appearing on screen. The player is able to interact with the images and text by using the keyboard provided in the game. The keyboard isn't an actual keyboard; on screen the player gets a list of set commands, which must be examined and selected using the consoles controller. The aim of solving riddles in the game is finding the exact words to type. PSMC has an element of non-linear game play, giving the player a sense of freedom being able to travel between different areas in the 'open world', allowing the player to achieve objectives their own way. The dialogue is very important. The decisions the player makes redefines the outcome of certain events in the game. Depending on how you play the game the outcome can be frequently different. As a bonus, you have a phone, which you can use to call non playable character's and an inventory system that can be used to collect evidence. The game also features a point and click aspect. It allows the player to use a magnifying glass to search for clues, and when found, click to interact with them. There are also branching menu selections. The magnifying glass being one of them and the other is your character using his fists or a hammer to be used when carrying out an interrogation or beating suspects.

Although the game is fiction, it is set in real Japanese cities such as Kobe, Kyoto and Sumoto.
The detective in charge of the investigation is never seen. His assistant, Yasuhiko Mano is the character who initially speaks to you, giving you commands.

The game sold over 700,000 copies, making it very popular in Japan. The USP was the flexibility with how the player could solve the mysteries, its well told story line and the surprising twist ending. It was Square Enix's first real detective adventure game. Along with Super Mario Brothers it was inspired by Hideo Kojima, who was the creator of Metal Gear Solid. Hideo praised the game for its mystery, drama, humor and its proper background explanation behind murder's motives and expanded the potential of the game.

BA4: Game Design Document Self Evaluation

For our project, me and my team mate, had to reinvent a video game from a variety of different genres, released across different consoles. We were to select a game and reinvent it in the format we see fit of a design document, sticking to the games key themes and genre. I was in charge of the written work for my group.

To gain an understanding of the production process I conducted in depth research into the game of choice; ‘The Portopia Serial Murder Case’. It is a text based crime game released for the SNES set in a fictional settlement called Portopia. Me and Sophie picked this game over all the others, because we believed it to be unique and had a lot more personality compared to a horror or shooter game genre. To see what other crime games were available we looked at LA Noire and Heavy Rain. Both games were strongly focussed on providing an in depth, immersive story with great characters and personal player interactivity. I also had a look at a couple of design documents for games such as ‘Bioshock’ and ‘Fallout’, to gain an understanding on how a design document should look.

With reference to the written structure of the design documents I flicked through, I began putting together a rough layout of the document, by creating the contents page, listing all the areas that the document needed to cover in the form of categories, each including its own sub headings underneath. In the overview I talked about the games USP, marketing strategy, the art style and the player’s impact. In the narrative I wrote up a brief overview of the narrative and the in game episodes, which were structured around the overall narrative. To support the narrative, I included a set of key character biographies, which gives the player a detailed back story about each character they play as or meet. In gameplay, I talked about the variety of different features in the game the player is exposed to, and the level of immersive options the player has. I included a detailed overview of the controls, how the player can access different features, such as their characters inventory, side story multiplayer and have control over the games ending. Settings were the final key feature to include in the document. I described the different environments the player experiences and how they affected the narrative.

For this project, we were tasked to select a game of a specific genre and reinvent it in the form of a design document. I was very happy with my final written product. I feel that some parts of it had to be rushed, leading to a number of key points being missed out such as the narrative and added in depth information about characters. If I was given more time for this project I would include more detail in those highlighted points. For a personal project, I am continuing work on the games narrative, to give the audience a realistic, more immersive experience into the games universe.