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Prompt 1: In this game, randomness will make the player uncertain of victory. The randomness is derived from where the enemies - which are squids -  will spawn from. They will almost always spawn from the edges of the map, making it ideal for the player to remain at the center of the play area so to avoid an enemy spawning right on top of them. However, this strategy also makes the game more difficult in the long run because the enemies will spawn at a higher frequency as time passes. Due to the higher spawn rate as time goes on, the player will find themselves perpetually surrounded by the squids, which then requires the player to have a quick reaction time in both avoiding them, as well as aiming/reorienting themselves so that they may shoot and eliminate the enemies as quickly as possible - for if the player does not try to take out the squids then they will soon find themselves entirely overrun because they will track the player and move to their position. On top of the gradually increasing spawn rate, the movement speed of all the enemies also gradually increases, which further enforces the need for quick reaction times from the player. If the player practices this skill, then, regardless of the uncertainty, they will still achieve a high score. As time passes and the player’s score increases, a feeling of tension arises; more and more enemies appear which also move faster and faster, requiring the player to continually scale their speed to match. As a result, late-game play is an intense and thrilling experience.

Prompt 2: This game wants you to lose because the goal of the player is to survive for as long as possible, which is apparent by the “time survived” clock. The game tries to make the player lose by having numerous enemies which are red squares, or lasers, be thrown around in random directions within a closed space where they bounce off of walls and move faster, on average, than the players own avatar. If one of these lasers comes in contact with the player’s avatar, then the game is over and the survival clock is frozen - denoting the player’s ‘score.’ The enemies do not seemingly care about the player; that is, they do not actively seek the player, rather they move quickly in their own random orientations - which leaves it up to the player to avoid them by predicting the paths of the lasers. There are also larger blue/green squares that act as allies. These larger squares do not harm the player - that is, they do not end the game when contact is made, but rather they just displace the player based on movement directions - and any lasers they come in contact with are deflected. Because of this, using these squares as a sort of shield becomes a viable strategy. Having so many enemies makes the game difficult and assuredly the player will not survive long when on their first playthrough. However, with practice, the player can keep getting a better and better survival time through predicting the laser movements and utilizing the blue/green squares as shields.

The kind of space this game takes place in can be described as dark and almost shadowy because of the dominantly dark background tiles that have a slew of singular pixels with brighter colors. The ground looks like fragments of stone, with cracks filled in with the same tone of darkness as the general background. While most of the rooms leave the player with ample room to walk, jump, and maneuver, the colors still create the feeling of a confined space. The player’s model also consists of a dark outline with only a fraction of the pixels being brighter colored to differentiate and denote the face and hands - this also goes for the first encountered sprite that the player can interact with. The player’s association with this space is that they want to get out: the player starts the game by ‘plummeting’ down into a sewer, to which there is no immediate way out, and the interaction with the sprite at the beginning yields an overarching goal which is to escape. This sprite also tells the player about other sprites that are in the sewer, and to avoid them, which leads you to assume that you will need to dodge these characters while also trying to get through each scene. You can also assume right at the start of this game that, because it is obviously a platformer with the effects of gravity, that you will need to be jumping from platform to platform and perhaps avoid plummeting further down in the sewer.

In this game, the space is initially organized as one relatively large ‘room’ with two different passageways for the player to go into. I say ‘room’ because the play space, so to speak, is outdoors, but confined to Tom’s village. Within Tom’s village, there are plenty of plants, rocks, trees, bushes, etc that the player will collide with; which makes it so that the player will have to maneuver around each of the objects while exploring the village. In addition to the various plants/rocks, there are also three sprites placed within view of the player right when they begin the game, which immediately gives the player options for things to do. The sprite placed closest to the player is a sign with a question mark emoticon over it, immediately luring the player to interact with it. One of the other sprites, which is a dog, has an anger emoticon over it, while the third sprite (a person) does not have anything - which further invokes the player to move toward the dog rather than the person. The dog then prompts the player to enter the house that is next to it. Upon entering the house, the player is in a small room with some interactable objects and the player is able to exit and return to the village as well. Although all key points of interest are in relatively close proximity to one another, the player can still venture outward and explore the rest of the area before going to interact with the sprites. The last sprite person prompts the player to enter the cave, where the game shifts from a top-down to a platformer, which evidently changes the intended experience as the cave space introduces new mechanics such as the ladders and invisible teleporter.

Prompt 1: Upon starting “Papa John’s Scandal #4” we are met with a title screen. This title screen repeats the name of the game, and also further expands on it - to which it becomes “Papa John’s Pizza Scandal #4: A story of drama, passion, and Shaq-a-ronis.” Immediately, we are left intrigued by the fun and outlandish title, and what this story could possibly be - and about what exactly a “Shaq-a-roni” might be. We are then left with the option of clicking the title to progress to the next passage. Within the next passage, the text starts with “Ahh yes…” assumedly as an indication that this story is a recollection, perhaps being told from first-hand experience. Further, the text describes to us that the thought of a Papa John’s pizza is “enough to make the best of us salivate…”, especially after a long night - which also gives us a clue about the time in which this story is taking place. The quoted line above seems to have a couple of importances. One importance being that the word “us” is being used, which further reinforces that this story is being recollected and told from a first-person type of perspective; the use of “us” also aids in relating the story/setting to the readers own experiences because it is talking in the context that the reader will understand the narrator’s implications about the general desire by the average person for a pizza late at night. The second importance is that the word “salivate” is the last word and is highlighted - which denotes it as the link to the next passage - invoking the reader to begin to understand the motivations within the story and what it may be about.

Prompt 3: In this story, italics and the boldening of words are commonly used. Most, if not all, links are words of the same color as the rest of the text but bolded. Furthermore, these bolded words bring up what can be described as the biggest question the player may have of the passage - and is subsequently the topic of the next passage. The bolded words define the progression of the story, from key point to key point - passage to passage. Italics, on the other hand, are not used as links between passages throughout the story. Instead, they are used to, in a sense, highlight important details. For example, the first passage italicizes Nevada and 1867, which both describe to the player right away the overarching setting. Furthermore, along with giving important details, the italics also lean into a bit of foreshadowing. This is first evident in the second passage, where this pivotal point is written. The word “pivotal” being brought to the attention of the player infers that there may be decisions to make - which is exactly the case later in the story. Another text formatting that is used is color changing. In some passages, words are changed to a solid red. This red text will, more often than not, denote something bad. The first instance of this happening is in the seventh passage when the phrase ‘red bandanas’ is turned red - a color change that rightfully stakes itself as a bad omen. The idea of the red text being an omen for misfortune is later reinforced when the narrator details losing their parents to the bandits in red-colored text.

Prompt 2: When first playing this game, I enjoy that there are other ‘automated’ bees flying around the borders of the canvas. While continuing to play and explore the options for drawing, such as the different sizes and shapes of the yellow honeycomb, I was quick to make the canvas messy. Thankfully, there is a clear canvas button, however, clearing the canvas also gets rid of the other bees, with no way of getting them back. Thus, something I would really want to do is have some way to add them back, or even further, add more than the original two. This way I could have an incomprehensible swarm of little bees all over the place, in which, I think, being able to create chaos would be fun. It is arguable that just being able to spawn endless bees would be destructive, offering no real addition to the actual drawing on the canvas, and perhaps even leading to the overall crashing of the program (though that is sometimes fun too), but, if things were to get too out of hand, the player could always use the clear button; but as a constructive thought, I would also want for the other bees to be able to place their own honeycomb as well, perhaps in unison with my own input, or even randomly, then it could feel that the player is part of a whole hive of bees that is working together to reconstruct their home. However, understandably, the implementation of these things is easier said than done.

Prompt 3: The way in which I played this game was first by exploration. Starting off, I toyed with each of the toggleable settings and sliders to understand what exactly they each did. While doing so, I did attempt to “break the game,” where I essentially put all the settings to max and began painting - which showed me that I can very quickly recolor the entire canvas. I had to be creative in regards to the RGB sliders because it was there that I was able to derive almost any color of my choosing with just a bit of tweaking and patience. After my attempts to break it, I then set myself my own goal - which was to essentially “fix” the settings after I had messed with them so drastically - and create a brush that looked unique. Eventually, I wound up using a variation of the “abstract shape brush,” where I made the size of it small, to where it was close to the size of a regular line, but had the added complexities of the abstract shapes within it. With this brush, I then experimented with colors and creating and then ultimately creating an image. Overall, I feel that the array of brush options is what truly made this feel like play, rather than just using a piece of software, because having so many options leaves room for creativity; and it is my belief that having an opportunity for creativity is a key component to the concept of “play.”

Prompt 3 - An interesting interaction occurs when the player touches a button. Upon using a button, which will have a color, all blocks with said color will be erased as the player continues to give movement input - or if the player holds a movement button. Each input of movement correlates to one of the corresponding color blocks being deleted; while doing so, the player is also locked into position until all colored blocks are gone. This interaction between connecting with the button and removing blocks from the room makes the game feel satisfying because when you are able to make it to a button, you know that more of the room will open up to you and you can watch as the blocks that once prohibited you from reaching the goal simply disappear. Furthermore, in a way, it makes the puzzles feel like they have multiple layers. In some of the levels, there are multiple buttons and typically one of which that you will want to go to first. Sometimes there are obstacles in your way, like the rocks, but when you reach a button and clear away part of the room it leaves you with another task, which is getting to the next button. Thus, this makes each level feel like it has sublevels and leaves a lot of room for creativity in room complexity, especially when involving the rules of the rocks. The rocks are able to be pushed by the player in whichever direction. While simple, they still add a necessary interaction in making the level and discussed ‘sublevels’ more complex.

Prompt 4 - In level 4, my first go involved me just pushing the boxes to the coins, which, of course, led me to a dead-end because then the boxes were in positions that I could not get them out of, since, obviously, the rules of the game are that you can only pull a box if you are also pushing one. This rule made me have to try things many different ways, and it was rarely apparent when I was leading myself to a dead-end because you think that there are ways to recover, but the clever level design prevents you from maneuvering boxes the way you want. The only solace that I had on multiple occasions was the use of hitting ‘z,’ which let you undo your last move. If this option was not included I would have had to fully restart the level multiple times. When it came down to it, my solving the level came down to a series of trial and errors, where over time I discovered the best routes to take, which boxes to move first and where, and what things to avoid. The main thing to avoid, for me, was keeping the boxes off of the outside walls, because if you did not have another spare box that could move freely then you would have no way to recover the original box from the wall. The design of the level initially led me to believe that there would be many options or paths to take to beat it, however, over the course of my different iterations for a solution, I now believe that there are very few, if not only one, paths to completion.

Prompt 5: This game revolves around the verbs of interaction, walking, picking up, and examining. The setting of the game is that you are trying to escape a castle, which it made it easy to infer what different objects and symbols were meant to be/do. For example, in the starting room, there were tiles that appeared to depict skulls and crossbones, which are commonly associated with danger. Sure enough, if the player were to move and attempt to interact with them, the player would die and the game would restart. These kinds of traps make it important for the player to move carefully. Furthermore, movement is very necessary to progression because it is vital for the player to go to and interact with the sprites and items, which yield hints or the means to get to another room, respectively. Many of the important things to interact with were either animated, such as sprites that looked like people waving their arms around, or a familiar shape, such as a sign, which would attract the player to move and examine them. However, in the case that a player was to skip by these things and go to exits prematurely - which players will commonly do - they would be met with dialogue detailing what they need to do first, further pushing the importance of verbs such as picking up, examining, and movement. The creator enforcing these mechanics does not leave the player much control over their surroundings. However, the game still makes exploring exciting in some cases, particularly in one room where there are different paths to take.

Prompt 3: The rooms are primarily organized to be a top-down floor-plan type view of a house and its front yard. Having the setting be a house made it easy to distinguish exits, as well as what paths could be taken. Furthermore, the clear and different paths made exploring a point of the game, where the player can venture from room to room and interact with various household objects/items. This also made the transitions fluid and in real-time. The only exception is the one exit/transition where you get in the car and it takes you to the store, which would of course include some sort of skip in relative time, as well as traversing some more distance than the other exits that just take you from room to room within the house. The room for the store is laid out with a long horizontal counter-top spanning from wall to wall that has an array of items for the player to interact with, behind the counter is what appears to be a worker saying “Hello,” which helps to distinguish to the player where exactly they are. Once you find the object you need along the counter, you can transition back to outside the house by leaving the store. While there is room for the player to explore the front yard of the house, the store, and each room of the house, there is still an overall linear plot, where the game has you search for specific objects in the room, making it so that your exploration is not aimless.