DGMD-E70 Principles of Game Design LESSON #6: Niche Games and the Unity 2D Pipeline

TODAY: 1.Design Method #6: Niche Games Examples and methodology 2. Introduction to Unity 2D Pipeline Concepts and an Example Project

PART 1: Game Design Method #6: Niche Games

QUESTION: Why Make a Game for a specific community?

1.Built-in audience. 2.Parameters of cause and audience inform design. 3.Transform Society: inform or change views about a way of life or a population, creating opportunities for healing and empathy. 4.Games for health: Hope/ happiness/ positivity leads to healing. QUESTION: Why Make a Game for a specific community?

Niche/Health Games: Immune Attack

1.AUDIENCE: Children with immunology disorders. 2.SYMPTOMS: Hopelessness, isolation. 3.SOLUTIONS: Give the player agency: feel like they can reach inside and heal their bodies/ reactivate their immune system. Educate on relevant systems. 4.“You must navigate a nanobot through a 3D environment of blood vessels and connective tissue in an attempt to save an ailing patient by retraining her non-functional immune cells. Along the way, you will learn about the biological processes that enable macrophages and neutrophils – white blood cells – to detect and fight infections.” Niche/Health Games: Immune Attack

Niche/Health Games: Elude

1.AUDIENCE: Family of people with bipolar disorder. 2.SYMPTOMS: Cannot comprehend lows or highs, of being out of control of emotional states. 3.SOLUTIONS: Experience the cycle: frequent crushing difficulty and rare moments of elation, to get a glimpse of the experience. 4.“Life is a never-ending struggle, full of rising and falling moods. Elude mirrors this struggle against the rising tide of depression, and the search for a path to happiness. Yet happiness remains elusive. Again and again, losing passion for anything in life, you plunge into depression. Only by continually calling out to the world can you find experiences that resonate, allowing you to ascend into happiness.” Niche/Health Games: Elude

Please note there are many more possible choices for niche game audiences beyond games for health: Games to educate specific audiences, like literacy games for young children, science games for medical students, etc. How do you make an onerous learning task, one that typically pains the learner, into one that is engaging? Games to offer parents alternatives when dealing with difficult developmental stages. For this assignment, please avoid job-specific niches, and consider wider populations. Niche Games Alternatives

1.AUDIENCE: Brainstorm multiple causes and specific audiences. Consider games for health: child, adult, or elderly patients suffering from specific physical or mental illnesses. Consider military suffering from PTSD, women with Body Dysmorphia, or young adults with Social Anxiety Disorder. 2.SYMPTOMS: Do research: what are the emotional symptoms of the suffering? 3.SOLUTIONS: Like in our ARGs, consider specific solutions for each symptom. What do those with a specific disorder or illness, or their families, need to feel better?: To feel in control, to relinquish control, to better understand/empathize, to gain strength to fight, to relax? 4.What playable mechanics could offer these solutions, and lend themselves to interesting choices? Niche/Health Games: Create! Choose a new team to design a tabletop or digital game for a specific audience and purpose, and produce a paper prototype

PART 2: Unity Day #2: Intro to 2D Game Dev

Unity Day #2: Intro to 2D Game Dev Basics of 2D: Hit 2D button above Scene for flat view. Set PNG art to “Sprites” and set “Order in Layer.” Higher numbers = closer to camera. Use only 2D Physics (Rigidbody 2D, Box Collider 2D) NOTE: Unity is inherently a 3D space, so you can include 3D objects in your 2d game (get “Isometric” visuals), but if they are meant to collide with 2d elements, the 3d objects also need 2d colliders/rigidbodies.

Unity Day #2: Intro to 2D Game Dev Painting Backgrounds: PNGs, quality 24, power-of-2 (2048x2048) Standard Display: 1280x720, 72ppi. Paint 2x for HD/retina. Set PNG art to “Sprites” and set “Order in Layer.” Higher numbers = closer to camera. Export layers: FG, MG, BG, with empty areas.

Unity Day #2: Intro to 2D Game Dev Platforms: Add new image sprites with colliders, or simply add empty Game Objects with 2D colliders and shape/position around existing elements, like the rooftops in this image. Create one and duplicate. It is possible to set colliders to be one- directional, so they block downward movement but not upward movement.

Unity Day #2: Intro to 2D Game Dev Character Sprites: PNGs, Draw/Paint/Compose Photos of all animation poses on a single PNG with transparency: quality 24, power-of-2 (64x64, 128x128). Set PNG to “Sprite,” with Sprite Mode = “Multiple.” Use Sprite Editor to slice into individual frames. In Animation Editor set clips for Idle, Walk, Jump. Create an Animator to set up your State Machine for hooks to activate in code. Player needs a RigidBody 2D and a Collider 2D

Due Next Week: HOMEWORK #6: With your new team, meet outside of class to revise/discuss the Niche Game designs from class and discuss more possibilities for tabletop or digital games. Try playing a paper prototype of the game! EACH TEAM WILL TYPE AND SUBMIT 1 NICHE GAME PAPER PROTOTYPE: Description of workplace routines, gameplay rules, board image, photos of initial setup and key moments, and notes related to the reading. Unity2D: try either the third or fourth training modules ALSO Read 50 pages more of EITHER Schell or McGonigal’s books, your choice. Note “Lenses” or “Fixes” you find & apply them in your design write-up.

Have a Spectacular Week! And don’t forget to with questions: Instructor: JASON WISER Available daily.