The 4 month plan

The plan is set. Four months of gamemaking every Wednesday and also with updates here on Sundays.

I decided to try the planning system from the Game Dev Tycoon which I mentioned in the last post. When making a game there you choose how to distribute your workload on three subjects. For example: First stage is to distribute the worload on Engine, Gameplay and Story/Quests...

I checked the difference between level design and world design and here is a good post from "Jamie P" where he talks a little about some games and the focus on world design.

I have been thinking allot about gameplay and will let that influcene what kind of development medium i will choose. I am mostly familiar with python so I will probably use that but we'll see if there is some gamemaker out there which is up to the task.

I am not a programmer as much as I am a cognitive designer/scientist. So I will probably try to make a simple engine and let my skills progress mostly in gameplay and story/quests. I know how to record sound and make graphics in GIMP. Also A friend volunteered to make graphics in blender so maybe that will save some time and give an extra flavour to the game. Friends feel free to express your feeling about joining on my quest or just give feedback. If I get the time I will conduct a user study on the game early in december.

Currently I'm taking A.I at umeå university (It's a part of the cognitive program) and maybe it will help me with something in the game. I'm also taking Human-computer interaction which will hopefully help me recall some important design principles that I should use.

The game will be in 2D unless some miracle happens.

It will probably be about a network of neurons and every level will be about one of the neurons. So the gameplay could be about how to help a neuron to gather proteins or making energy (ATP).

I want the levels to congregate and perhaps the network as a whole will have some kind of overall score such as IQ (in a fictional way). This would tie together concepts to increase creativity in the player and a sense that the game is not isolated from reality.

My main focus will be to make a finished product where you learn at least something and this something is repeated according to Ebbinghaus repetition curve or some other analysis of when to strengthen memories.

I hope that the use of fiction in the game will make the game more fun and not cause to many problems when the player takes this knowledge to reality.

-I didn't know neurons had eyes and teeth?!?

*Neurons doesn't have eyes and teeth