The Idea
The world is threatened by global warming. Your task is to get the seed for a new kind of tree that will help change this (“save the world”)” to a secret greenhouse where it can grow and spread. The quest will take place in the expanses of Canada where it is your knowledge of what lives and grows there and how they are connected that will move you towards your goal. You must do this in 6 steps or less by using the principles of “6 degrees of separation“. The winner is the one who gets the strongest seed to the destination first. Danger lurks everywhere. Your lack of knowledge may be your own worst enemy.
I have put my thoughts in a pdf as I thought that would make it easier. I am sure there are many gaping holes, crossed wires, complicated idea and room for improvement in general. All critique will be embraced!
You’ve got the basics of the game fleshed out here and this is a good point to be at. The central idea of using knowledge and exploration as an overarching mechanism of play is a solid one, with obvious links to serious games (educational games). Placing the game online gives it a potentially huge playing space, but you need to be careful that this is not too large and the game ends up poorly defined and sprawling.
How does the seed grow and how does this affect the game? It might be nice to see the seed growing as increasing the urgency in the game or even giving the player a bonus?
Around the greenhouse site at the end of the game you mention booby traps and also if the seed loses 4 points of damage it is lost. This is a very specific detail where the rest of the game description is a bit more of an overview. I would avoid such specifics unless they were quantified by links to other aspects of the game or were crucial to understanding.
The examples of game play begin to give the game some form but it is hard to read in the 6 steps link except that is provided by drawing cards. Personally I’m not sure if I am missing something from this description or if this core activity is not being used enough?
I’m concerned that the ideas behind the game are still a little large and are not being focused into a game idea enough. Whilst a Pitch Document does not have to realise the game fully I am still a little concerned that if I had not been speaking to you as the designer that I would fully understand this proposal. I would definitely give more thought to the description of the sample play and use that as a design tool to test your idea a little more.
The idea is there, just remaining a little elusive at the moment, push a little harder for some more detail!
Right we have a much clearer view of the flow of game play in this description, and coupled with the examples in the earlier document we can see how this game will play. I think the struggle to define the game has worked and as an ‘outsider’ I can see how the game might play and how it will present challenges to the players i.e. give them a good game experience. The underlying theme of degrees of separation it tied in nicely as it is through the understanding and exploration of these links that we can successfully play the game. This post essentially lists the contents of the pitch document for this game and in my opinion you could do worse than use it for a guide.
The last piece of hard work is to bring this together into a scintillating document! You’ve got the initial sell and you have the conclusions indicating how this game might be developed in the future. The last elusive piece is to illustrate/describe the game play so that somebody reading this for the first time will get a sense of the scope of the game. Returning to the earlier document you have already outlined game play for this game, I would suggest returning to this and using something similar to present the game in your final pitch.
Undoubtedly this game is a ‘serious game’ in that it is meant to educate and in a lot of respects they can be very difficult to design as opposed to a fun and frivolous game. In closing I suppose if I was reading this as a member of the Canadian Educational establishment looking to sponsor development I would like to know how this activity would enable learning. Doesn’t have to be overly serious, after all it is a game, but some little detail about the knowledge developed might help.
It has been a bit of a struggle to define this idea, but I think the hard work has paid off and I can see where you have answered my awkward questions!