1 A possible character to make 2 Someone's character creation

Workshop 1 – Game Design

What is the magic circle of 3 games you know.

Dark Souls 3 In Dark Souls 3 you can create your own character that you play the game with. The character customization is very in depth and you can make almost any face you can think of. This character can increase their stats by leveling up and with their new increased stats they can wear new armor or weapons.

There are many different weapons and armors to choose from and you can mix and match all of them together. The player character has a health bar, focus bar and stamina bar. Together with the stats these resources define the player’s playstyle. If they spend a lot of points on upgrading their health and strength they can play with bulky armor and huge weapons while someone who upgrades their focus and intelligence can use magic to slay their enemies.

3 Character creation screen

Apart from normal enemies there are also bosses, these are usually much bigger and tougher enemies that really challenge the player’s skill. A boss has to be defeated before the player can continue further in the story.

4 One of the many bosses in Dark Souls 3

Warhammer: Vermintide 2 In Warhammer: Vermintide 2 you choose between 5 characters, each of these characters have 3 different careers that define a playstyle. Each character that you can choose has full voice acting and all behave uniquely. The game really pulls you in as every single enemy and NPC has received high quality voice acting. Even all the different enemy characters have voice acting and each have at least 10 minutes of voice lines to make the game world feel alive and real.

Stormvermin voicelines: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1kMVBjMeQow

Chaos Warrior voicelines: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j33K2yWf6Fg

When a player has chosen a character they have to choose which weapon they like to use, there’s 2

weapon slots: a melee weapon and a ranged weapon. Each weapon has its own strengths and

weaknesses. Some weapons are better in dealing with groups of enemies while some weapons may be

better at dealing with highly armored enemies. When you play you have to really work together to fight

through the hordes of enemies thrown at you by the AI. If you split up the AI will send special enemies

to punish you for splitting up, these special enemies are difficult to deal with alone.

5 The character selection screen in Warhammer: Vermintide 2

6 A small horde of enemies

Sea of Thieves The character creation in Sea of Thieves gives you an infinite supply of randomly generated characters that you can choose between. When you’ve made your choice you have to choose which ship you want to sail with. Players can customize the ship’s sails, hull livery, flag, cannons, capstan and wheel. They can also customize their pirate with many different clothes and pirate accessories like hooks.

8 Character creation

7 The 3 different ships

All players get to independently walk around the world and their ship. To sail the ship the players have to lower the sails and raise the anchor. If the sails are angled correctly in the wind the ship will go faster and all the info is physically on each ship, maps and directions (compass) are all built in the ship so players have to actually walk over to the map to see where they are. Of course there are also other player crews in the world that you can interact with, you can choose to work together, backstab or simply shoot each other. Because of the local voice chat you can respond in any way you want to other players.

9 Two galleons fighting

What is the storytelling in 3 games

Dark Souls 3 Uses story to enhance its gameplay, the story is told mainly through items that you can find. The story is told through the description of the items and the items can be related to bosses or important figures. All the NPCs also have small storylines that you can follow or ignore. This way of storytelling allows the player to collect all pieces of the story and figure the story out by themselves should they want to.

Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice uses the game to tell a story. This story is told through cutscenes, NPC interactions and sometimes items you find in the world. If you don’t got out of your way to find all the items or finish all the NPC questlines you can still enjoy the story and understand it. All the NPC questlines and items just make the story richer and forebode events or explain character motivations. The cutscenes, NPC interactions and items all explain why certain mechanics work like that in the world.

Sekiro tutorial and opening cutscenes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7S7cpigmsWk

10 Item description with a piece of story

Guild Wars 2 Guild Wars 2 uses a game to tell the story. The story in Guild Wars 2 is a living one that evolves over time, constantly changing and moving forward. The story in Guild Wars 2 is told in cutscenes, NPC interactions and through a story system. The story system is divided in parts so the player can play them over time and so he doesn’t have to play it all in one run. Each part includes multiple NPC interactions, cutscenes and game sequences where the player has to fight enemies, help NPCs or defeat bosses.

Guild Wars 2 Charr opening cinematic: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=spFqlWp06GQ

Boundaries & Settings of games

Dark Souls 3 The boundaries in Dark Souls 3 are obvious, the player character cannot walk through solid walls and can not jump across big gaps. There are pathways that the player can follow and explore. If the player falls of an edge he dies and respawns at the last checkpoint. The setting of Dark Souls 3 is rather gloomy and grim medieval high fantasy, everything has a dark color and the world is sad. The sad look of the world compliments the story which is also about strong characters failing their duties and letting their morals slip.

Warhammer: Vermintide 2 The boundaries in Warhammer: Vermintide 2 are also quite obvious, there are solid walls that the players can’t move through. And if the player falls off a ledge the character will hang on waiting for a teammate to help them back up. There is a clear path and there is a waypoint in the direction the player should go to progress through a level. There is room for exploration in most levels and the exploration can be rewarded with items that will help the players during hardships. If a player runs out of health they are downed and need to be saved by other players. The setting is grim-dark medieval low fantasy, it uses a lot of darker colors but there are also more vibrant places like a forest to explore. The setting makes the player feel as if the end of times are coming, all the settlements are in ruins and burning, the forests are infested with monsters and so on.

Sea of Thieves The players can use multiple ways of transportation in Sea of Thieves. A ship is the fastest way to pass through, beside that players can use a rowboat or swim through the sea. By swimming they will attract sharks however and they can be seen as a blocker for swimming through the sea. Players only have a certain amount of ammunition for their guns that they can only refill on certain locations on islands or on their ship. You can only shoot other ships with the cannons on your ship or sometimes with cannons that are placed on some islands. The player inventory is limited so players will need to regularly restock on islands and on their ship. If a player ship leaves the map area the sea will turn red and it will periodically damage the ship until it sinks, the player can sail as far of the map as they want, but the damage will increase and there is nothing outside of the map that is worth anything. The setting of the game is very colorful with many vibrant colors. The color of the sea and sky depends on the area and can range from a lighter shade of blue to a darker shade. The look of the world gives more power to the less serious feel of the game.

My Game

What is the theme of your game? The themes of my game are cooperation and hardship. The players will have to cooperate to succeed and overcome hardship in my game. The emphasis should be on working together as a team that operates as one well oiled machine. Of course the teamwork of the players doesn’t have to be perfect in order to play the game since perfecting teamwork in a game can be difficult, especially if there’s a lot of stuff going on that you have to pay attention to.

Why did you choose this theme? I love getting people to work together in a game to achieve a goal. The game could be used to strengthen a friendship or improve the productivity and happiness of a team. I like playing cooperation games with friends, I find that they make me feel more connected to my friends in comparison to playing competitive games against each other. I also like being challenged by a game. Games that challenge me to improve my skills and also learn new skills are interesting to me. They can sometimes pull me out of my comfort zone and skillset which can be a good feeling.

How does that relate to the goal of your user-experience design? I want all the users of my game to feel challenged, yet also feel connected with their friends/teammates. It should feel like they’re operating a spaceship together as a crew.

Boundaries The player characters will not be able to move outside of the spaceship itself. They can only climb vertically on ladders and can move horizontally freely. To move in the world one player has to use the thruster station (orange) to control the thruster and in turn make the spaceship move through the levels. The thruster will be able to turn in 360 degrees around the spaceship. The only way to avoid damage is by dodging the projectiles enemies shoot or by blocking them with the shield station (blue). The shield station will move a large blue shield that can also rotate in 360 degrees around the spaceship. The shield has to be stationary to block, if it is being rotated the shield is off and will not block anything. The enemies can only be destroyed by shooting them with the gun stations (pink) these guns can only rotate 180 degrees so the players will have to move through the ship to aim with the correct gun. The spaceship can not leave the map boundaries, they will be invisible walls that the players can pass through but they will be blown back by an unknown force. This unknown force will show the players that they are near the edge of the map.

How do you define the setting? The game is set in space and it will be 2D so that the players can focus on their characters and the world

without getting confused where the other players they are playing with currently are. The world will use

the opposite colors of Lovers in a Dangerous Spacetime. So while the Spaceship and players will be

deeper and use more red colors the outside world will be colored pink, green, yellow and blue.

11 The player spaceship prototype

Characters The player characters are all similar and are supposed to be “haters” so they will look mad or angry in a way. They are the heroes of this story. The enemies will be lovely space ship enemies that try to remove the haters from their lovely timespace. So they will look colorful and happy. The enemies will most likely shoot hearts or something else related to love. All the characters need to follow the setting’s color scheme, so enemies need to use the happy colors: pink, green, yellow and blue while the player characters need to have the darker orange and red colors for example.