GMYG Game Design

GIVE ME YOUR GUN
ROLE : GAME DESIGNER | GAMES FOR CHANGE, JANUARY 2016 - JUNE 2016 | TEAM SIZE = 6
IN THE MEDIA BLOG REVIEW

OVERVIEW

Give Me Your Gun is an experiment bringing game design to live theatre. The scene unfolding is a conversation between two characters; one of whom the players are controlling. Audience members key in questions and vote for other audience member's questions using a web portal. Questions with highest number of votes are voiced by one of the actress on stage. The player's goal is to figure out the right questions to ask that will get the character to reveal her secrets. As game designer, I had to design systems that solved the following challenges :

1) Ensure players felt like they were driving the narrative forward through informed decision making.
2) Ensure players were aware of the game state and how they were affecting it.
3) Writing a script that fit the design and character sheets for character backstory. This included directing actresses for performance.
4) Designing a tool to manage the flow of the experience.

ACHIEVEMENT SYSTEM

A system is required for players to make meaningful decisions that furthers the game state in a trackable manner. This translates into creating a system that provides a basis for players to ask questions. At any stage in the game, a projection screen behind the actresses contains a list of 'key facts' that the audience has unlocked in sequence. Each key fact contains information that players can use to create questions.

For example, one such key fact is "Linda is concerned about her daughter's safety when she is at Mary's house". A question that progresses game state is a variation of "Why is Linda concerned?" or "Why is Abby unsafe?" When such a question is asked, a 'live cut scene' is unlocked between the two characters. The cut scene reveals an additional piece of information, that forms the basis of the next achievement.

ACHEIVEMENT SYSTEM ITERATIONS

Given the number of unknowns in the project, it was critical to develop iteratively. Our first playtest featured a rudimentary version of the UI with a 20 minute session divided into four achievements.

Through playtesting we discovered that we needed a higher number of achievements with tighter connections to provide for a 'denser' session with more engaging progression. We also captured the player name who unlocked the achievement to enhance the sense of indivudual achievement.

PLAYER INTERACTION

The player interaction portal went through several iterations. Questions could be ordered by time or vote. Ordering by time meant seeing most recent and therefore relevant questions first. An ideal design would be a combination of the two but a phone lacks the required real estate.

Ultimately we ordered the questions by vote so that 'better' votes would rise to the top of the pile. We also used more intuitive icons as well as provided information, such as number of votes, that assisted players to decide what questions to vote for.

SPLITTING PLAYER ATTENTION

Another insight that playtests yielded was that, between the stage, projection screen and cell phone, there were too many sources competing for player attention. Hence, we needed a system to direct player attention between them. When an achievement was unlocked, the web portal was blocked with a popup asking the player to direct their attention to the stage. This was also accompanied by a change in stage lighting and audio cue to provide a shift in tone. The popup was removed when the relevant dialog was delivered on stage and the projection screen was populated with the achievement information.