For my final project, I decided to make a prototype of a game using simple geometry.
I was in the metro, and I thought about all the events we’ve been through, and I found that the metro was something that linked all of them together. Not only classes and studio visits but also sightseeing and many other things. So I decided to use the metro as the scene and make an escape-room-ish game. The train has 6 sections, one for each lateral thinking technique, and the last one for a conclusion. Once the player enters these sections, the player will see a room. There are various pieces of artwork on the walls of the room (from visiting artists) and some of my own makings as well, and the player will see prompts in the escape room. The player will need to find the clues in the room and solve a puzzle related to the section’s corresponding lateral thinking technique. When the puzzle is solved, the player will see that they are in a metro section and they can advance to the next section. Once at the last section, the player will be in a special section where it showes my understanding of lateral thinking, and the game ends. While in the game, the background music is one of Merche’s tracks recorded during her performances, because I like her music the most of the three artists.
First section: Alternatives
There are five paintings in the room and a password door. The number of digits of the password was unknown. Near the door was my making to the alternative project, and thevpassword should be 1234 because the faces of the drawing was unspecified so it is open to interpretation and alternatives. The paintings are from The DAM Projects, by Robert.
Second section: Why
For the second section, the player will see a table with many things on it(I only put what mattered on there for simplicity of a demo), including a cellphone. There will be a back ground noice of a woodpecker. The player can only leave the room when the noice is stopped. The player will have to find the phone and shut it off because the woodpecker works off of electromagnetic waves. But when the player can see the phone they can also scroll though it, just for distraction.
Third section: Reversal
The room is empty. There is no way out except a cliff behind the player. Whenever the player looks at the cliff the screen will show a line telling the player if they jump they will die. But the player will need to jump to exit the section because in the line it also gives the hint that the house wants the player to get out.
Fourth section: Analogy
Once the player enters this section, a line will appear on the screen saying that cooperation is key. Then there will be 3 blocks with different names written on them. The player will need to use the blocks to reach second floor to get out of the section. I chose cooperation because it was my topic for the analogy exercise, and also cooperation is the process of building up off of different people’s ideas.
Fourth section: Random stimulation
For this part I generated random words and I got chopsticks and cards. Then I thought about how I can use these elements to create something related to ramdomness. I then thought about using chips because they are commonly used with cards. A random amount of chips will be on the table, and the player will draw five cards and try to use chopsticks to make mathematical symbols to make the five cards calculate to be the number of chips. Then if the player finishes he will get a flower and then will need to go up to a dummy saying “dance with me”. The player will dance and the scene evolves.
Last section:
In the last section, the player will be in a small room. If the player goes directly to the front, he can push the wall and walk until the wall cannot be pushed anymore. That is to say if only use vertical thinking, it might get you nowhere. If go left and push the wall, the player will also get nowhere because it is not guaranteed ghat lateral thinking will work if only going in one other direction or only use one technique. Only when the player goes right and pushes it to the top AND also pushes frontward to the top that the player will find the exit. That is to say a combination of lateral thinking and vertical thinking will most likely get you where you want.