This week we start with new teams, new clients and new games. I also bought new pants. Actually, I didn't. I just take really good care of the ones I have.
Our two clients this time around are actually pretty interesting. The first is a group on campus that work with people - young and old with autism. They presented on their studies, gave us some great background information on people with the autism and also a bit of an idea of what they were looking for. It turns out a great deal of people with autism are massive gamers because of the inherent controlled/rule based environments that they are based around. This shook some ideas around in the ol' noodle as I was leaning on this client over the other.
The second client is also a group on campus in native american studies. They are looking for a video game that will do for the Shoshone tribe what anime and JRPGs do for the Japanese culture. The Shoshone people need to explore this avenue because their language is dying. There are only about 3,000 speakers of their tribes dialect and it will fade rapidly due to the corrosive nature of dominant languages such as English, Spanish, and others. They are not so much looking for a game that will teach the language but rather one that every 15 year old kid around the world would play so they can be exposed to it and their culture. As soon as they said this, my eyes lit up. A client just said that they wanted a game that the hardcore gaming audience would get behind. I could not passed this chance up.
My team this time consists of Chris, Tristan, and Yang. All of us could not shake this chance to work on a game that our core gaming audience would love. Our minds started spitting out ideas rapid-fire and we agreed on concept that we could build in 4 weeks. Basically we are combining the isometric gameplay style of recent games such as Bastion with an older, "open world" type environment that is akin to Metroid. A Shoshone action and adventure game was the main idea at the forefront of our minds, and we are to build it within HTML5.
Now if you'll excuse me, I must prepare for my concept pitch for tomorrow.
-Andrew
Client #3 Round-Up...Is That Right?
