Once Upon a Fire A game proposal by Adam Forster, Bonnie Simpson, James Kitcher, Zoe Rice and Adrian Knibbs.

Comic Book Styled Graphics Cartoons are a fantastic way to gain a child’s attention. Not only are they extremely stylised and attractive to the human eye, but intentionally gifts you the freedom of viewing rather than reading a piece of text. It's quite common for a person to learn whilst touching and communicating with familiar objects in the world. If we were to show a child exactly what they hold in their hands through the visual cartoon style, then they would know specifically what to look for if the time for that object ever arose. For example; a child looks around for a fire blanket which is needed to tackle a fire. The game shows and emulates the production of the fire blanket, which can then be imitated in real life.

Comic Book Styled Graphics Comic Book Styled Graphics The intentional idea was to focus more on a very simple style, not too complicated but enough to ensure features are easily recognised. Simple as “Bitstrips”? Currently the trend on Facebook is a comic-styled creator called Bitstrips. Bitstrips enables you to customise and create comic panels which you can then share and post on others Facebook feeds for them to see. The images are barely detailed, but you are still able to see what the simple shapes resemble. It could be possible to use this idea to imitate the simpleness and establish our own form of simple styled game play.

As Action Packed as Manga/Comics? Comic Book Styled Graphics Another idea was the flexibility of the comic panels and how they will be portrayed in-game. As Action Packed as Manga/Comics? Manga/Comics have a way of showing motion, or ways to move along the panels by catching your eye on a certain point and teasing your eyesight to move to the next panel. Luckily animation should be able to help us, as a team, to portray movement and eye catching content. But to have this idea as a back up project wouldn't be a bad move.

Game Idea – Character The player plays as a child (Male or Female gender), roughly the same age as the age group that will use this game for educational purposes. This child protagonist is unfortunately faced with something which they have never experienced before: a fire. To keep the idea consistent, but somewhat carefree and desensitised, the comical style and the way the characters react in situations will be mature but bubbly when needed to ensure players that “everything will be okay”.

Game Idea – Character Character customisation – It is always nice to see your own creation run around as you feel like you have placed your own input into the game. This doesn't play such a big part into the gameplay, which is why you can see the simplicity of the customisation screen, but it gives players something to attach themselves to.

Game Idea – Cutscenes [1] The player will be advised to dial “999” through a quick mini game (see next slide) and as the two characters slide in – Fire Man and Child – there will be actual dialogue of an emergency call to the department. [2] Backdrop of a series of images. Current scenarios which are happening to give a sense of danger to the player. [3] Speech bubbles will hang loosely over the animated illustrations. Hopefully audio (voice acting) will be used along with these text bubbles, to help players understand the situation more.

Game Idea – Gameplay Notes for the Group: - No, the game doesn't have to be called “Once Upon a Fire”, that was just a filler. If any one can think of something better or they would prefer a change, be my guest and change it. :) - Images of how the cut scenes will progress would be fantastic. Or a great description below the image which I have already created. - We need to think of minigames. Perfectly ones which are quick and snappy but extremely enjoyable and makes you want to come back and play more. - I'm sorry that the images aren't 100%, I've tried my best to portray what we wanted our game to be like. - Feel free to change or alter any text which I have created for all your grammar needs~! - Bonnie