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Mike Yang

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A member registered Sep 12, 2021 · View creator page →

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This game simulates the life of a garbage truck driver. I feel that the repetition part of the game simulates the daily repetition of life very well. 

Pull up to the curb

Park the truck

Hop out

Walk to the garbage can

Pick up the garbage can

Dump it in the back of the truck

Put the garbage can back

Drive away. 

The player must click again and again to show that an action has been completed. I think that although the action of clicking the mouse is simple for real work, the player clicking a series of buttons in a condense game environment is like spending a lot of time in real life. From another point of view, these actions are indeed completed by clicking buttons on the garbage truck. This interactive operation increases the player's sense of substitution for the character. Players almost have to face the exact same click 4 times in the game, reflecting the repeated work. But at the same time, emergencies also occur during work. For example, a user’s driver’s license is found.

I think the music in the game is very helpful to the overall experience of the game. In the morning, the sound of frying eggs and brushing teeth is matched with the text and pictures, and the player quickly enters the state and time of the game. After choosing the radio channel, I thought of many similar game settings, like This is the Police, which I played before. Players can choose the music they want to listen to every day. I think this setting increases the player's control over the character and is also a good way to enhance the sense of substitution. This can also add some changes to a monotonous life. Although many clicks are not an important choice but the player's personal preference, these clicks are not meaningless, but enhance the feeling of playing. The player is more like living his own life rather than reading other people's diaries. The author used a font when expressing what the player said and did, and when showing the decision made by the player's character that is the only thing in the game, the author used another font. This new font is used to express unclear handwritten text, while also emphasizing the content. I think this is a very clever way of emphasizing. It reflects the change of the player’s observation perspective in a text game.

At the beginning of the story, the ancient and mysterious side of the cat is first told. As a player, I felt that this would be a horror story about cats. But the story quickly returned to the real world. Players are invited to participate in the investigation of a case. I began to wonder what the cat had to do with this case. Subsequently, players began to encounter the first more important option. I tried here twice and found an option that can give players some hints about cats and pave the way for the future plot. Later, when investigating the crime scene, the previous cat's information also made me naturally want to choose to investigate the scratches on the table. The difference between some options is to skip part of the content or go through a different path to the same ending, but there are some options that cause the player to fail to investigate the truth of the matter, that is, the game fails. The options of the game encourage the curiosity of the player, and the player needs to have the spirit of exploration to discover the ultimate secret place. When the plot further develops into a secret place, I feel that the game has changed from realism to a sense of science fiction. The final part of the game is Cthulhu. The plot makes me feel that the plot is fuller. It's like the beginning of a bigger worldview. I think the format and content of the entire game are very suitable. The game puts a large number of dialogues on one page, and a paragraph appears every time you click, so that players can better understand the content of the entire dialogue. When the player needs to make a choice, most of the time, the game has designed a separate page to emphasize this content. Dialogues in different scenarios will appear on different pages, and the pictures on the pages are also very suitable. Just like the pictures in the room and the pictures of the physical evidence make the players feel more immersed in the game. The game establishes a feeling centered on cats and fear, and every click of the player is like exploring. The game also simulates the cost of exploring the unknown. Once the player fails, it will return to the beginning. After entering the mysterious scene, players need to choose more carefully. I think it is very interesting to not add pictures to the final scene, which allows players to imagine the scene in their minds. After all, the horror imagined by the mind is even more terrifying. This way the game brings a better sense of horror than pictures.

This game "Whoes World?" has great interaction between the rules and players' goals. It combined the Sokoban style with puzzle and adventure stories. It begins with a simple move to make a word at the beginning. The first scene was like a tutorial to teach players how to push the letter to form a word. The difficulty of each level was increasing smoothly. I do not feel overwhelmed when facing a new level. The adventure element was started at the third level. After the player successfully makes the correct word, it will become an item. At that time, the player's goal changed from making the letters in a straight line to pushing an item to the correct place on the map. Players are facing a different kind of puzzle at the same level. However, the rules of the overall game are still the same as before. Players push blocks to certain places to solve the puzzle. It creates continuity throughout the gameplay.

The text descriptions are clear between each level. They offer a great amount of information and connections between levels which makes the puzzle script game richer. Those texts are also great feedback to the players after they go through the level before. It is a part of the attraction to the players. It changes my feelings about the puzzle. The first 3 levels are more like a tutorial to teach players the basic operations and goals of the game. In level 4, a monster appeared. It moves when the player moves. The player's goal was to beat it. But the player must go through 3 locked rooms before meeting the monster. The enemy’s move was uncertain. It created some kinds of uncertainty. At each level, players do not feel like they are repeatedly doing the same thing. Instead, It provides new goals at every level but keeps the original rule. 

It implemented the engine feature amazingly. First of all, some of the levels are large and complicated. The UNDO method is really important since if the letter or object was pushed next to the wall by mistake, players are not able to move it away from it. Players will not want to restart the whole level so that the undo key is a necessary method in this game. Secondly, it used complicated rules to create different interactions between different objects. These rules made use of most of the functions of the game engine. There are at least four different factions in the “push” interaction. When a player pushes an item, it could disappear, move, not move or trigger actions. Thirdly, the sound effect of the game is carefully chosen. It gives me a brisk feeling when moving an object. Several different sound effects are very fit for those different actions.

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Prompt2:

The game wants the player to lose because it is easy to restart. There is almost no “silent cost” which might make the player disappointed and get up to play this game. Therefore, the player will keep playing it and trying to get a higher score. The game uses random rain drops to make players lose. They will not react or track players' actions. They do not have a goal or target the same as rain in the real world. The player needs to keep the kid from getting wet. Since there is no safe area, the player has to move. Also, there is no solid path, every time rain drops appear different. It is both concrete and abstract. The rain drops are the “enemies” in this game. The game has simulated the gravity force on the water drops. They appear at the low speed and get faster as they are dropping. This is the concrete part. The low speed at the beginning is a help provided by the game for the player to start to change their position. However, the high speed when drops pass the character thwarts the player to move a large distance anymore. It forces players to find a position right after the rain drops appear at the top of the screen. Besides, high speed makes it hard to pass a narrow space between drops. Players need to move very precisely if they want to take risks. The help and thwart of the game is combined in the action of rain drops.

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prompt3:

The core verb of this game is moving in the map. Players need to move in the map to clear as much as possible to get a higher score in the limit time. When the player moves to a dirty place, they will slow down. When the player gets to the mop bucket they will get more time. After playing, clean up one area in the map, there will be other areas that pop up randomly on the screen. Although the blue puddles seem to pop up randomly, players still could improve the efficiency by finding a shortest route to them. However, the shortest route could instantly change after a new blue puddle pops up which can not be foreseen and predicted by the player. Their effort to find a better route might be useless. Besides, the mop bucket will disappear after a few seconds if players do not get them. It forces the player to change their route. The mop bucket has a higher priority than cleaning the blue area. So the player has to keep track of mop buckets after they appear on the screen. The game does not have other multiple layers of interplay except this. The simple interplay makes me as a player feel it emphasizes the daily repetitive work of cleaners.

Prompt5:

In trash this game, I think one thing that the game designer can not determine is the direction of the player to move forward at the beginning, because the map of the game is relatively open, there is no obvious road, the bottom of the game interface at the beginning is relatively empty, so I started to go down first, into the second interface as well as that old house and the well. So my understanding of the plot was a little off at first, and I thought my goal was to find food. Later, more after I encountered that deer, I gained a new understanding of the plot. Players have a lot of decisions to make throughout the course of the game. Some of these decisions are important and impressed me. For example, in the house to decide whether to take the things given by the mouse and in the well to use coins or not. Some of the options seem to have an obvious better answer, but this triggers thought instead. Why would the author want to set up a choice here? Does it seem like the bad option would have a better outcome instead? I was impressed by the variety of possibilities these options presented.

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Prompt1:

From the title page players will be able to know this is a 2D side view  game.  After entering the game, the player is initially in a relatively narrow tunnel from left to right. In this tunnel players have to pass through a series of  signs from the left to the right. Therefore, this design can ensure that players see the information. Then, the player will enter through the door into a more open space, which also heralds the official start of the game. The entire interface of the game is a large continuous space. The player starts out in the bottom left corner of the space. The player does not know the conditions for success or the location of the exit, but the map is clearly laid out to allow the player to walk to the right. Later on, there are many vertical steps or floors. Players will then want to jump upwards. Soon the player will not be able to see the ground. This design of not being able to see the bottom limit creates a feeling that the player is in a very high position, so that the player must be very careful at every step to prevent falling from a high place. And the result of falling is generally direct death. Players need to start from the beginning, which also enhance the feeling of danger. When the player collides with the spikes they will die. This setting is in line with common sense and also very common in video games. Even if there is no description, players know to avoid collisions when they see these shapes.

Prompt 4:

When I start the game, In the first two pages, the text is always flashing, which simulates the state of the eyes when a person has just been awakened, half asleep and half awake. This consistency with real life allowed me to quickly enter the atmosphere of the game. Soon I know the house is during a power cut for hours. Just like the people who awakened us said, me as a player naturally think about to find something that can illuminate now. At the same time, the player didn’t know who was waking them at the beginning, and the player would be curious why he/she would wake them up, and what’s different about this power outage. Why he/she wake player up at night. Later I learned that the character were not sensitive to the weather and that "I" was living in a windowless room. I began to wonder who I was. Is the character controlled by the player a human? The story seems to begin to develop to some strange point, but the subsequent plot seems to negate this, and it seems to be a daily exchange between two friends or between father and son. The game overturned the blackout created at the beginning, and the dark and somewhat strange atmosphere turned into a discussion of life and discover. At the end it looks like there are three choices, but the only choice which is the same as I chose at the beginning is to go out and see the outside world. The open end leaves room for players to think more about the topic.

Prompt 2: In this game, the player acts as a pet cat and lives a day from morning to night. I have a 1-year-old orange cat. I often smile when playing games because the author knows cats well. The author really knows what cats do every day. Players can control the cat to do different things every hour, and choose to interact with different things. They will add some points but it doesn't seem to be of practical significance. Because most of the options are specific things, I, as a player, know where these options will lead. And time is always passing, every time one thing is completed, time will pass by an hour. Because the game has a clear timeline, and it seems there aren't options that can be called wrong. Therefore, I don't want to go step back or go back further to change my choices.

The point system does not affect the player's choice (at least to me). I think this random structure is the key feature of the game. It is very close to the theme of the real world and is very close to the daily life of cats. It restores the behavior characteristics of cats very well, and what cat does every time seems to be random and unpredictable. I will call this structure a linear timeline plus a subway map (there is a free passage between several locations).

Thank you for loving my rough game! Tips:You may need some happines at begining and insist your dream.

prompt3: The graphics and purpose of the game make me feel that this is a game rather than a tool. First of all, the player controls a big bee. This bee has a detailed image so that I can immediately know that it is a bee and he is building a nest. There are also little bees flying over the corners of the screen, which creates a sense of atmosphere. The player will naturally feel that he is operating a bee in the colony and build the nest together. Every time player clicks the mouse, the wings of the big bee will move, which improves the interactive experience of the game. At the same time, there is a text description at the top of the screen, telling me that the player's goal is to help this bee rebuild his nest. Here comes the goal of the game. So I naturally started trying to complete the goal of the game. The author added the ability to change the size of each honeycomb, so players can choose to build nests with hexagons of different sizes. This seems to be a difficulty option, which also distinguishes it as a game from a tool. But after trying different sizes, I found that it is difficult to build a nice nest on every difficulty(size) because I can only estimate the position of each hexagon before clicking. At first, this distance is very difficult to master, after playing a few times, you will gradually become familiar with it and build a slightly better-looking nest. So I start telling myself a story that I am a new bee who is learning how to build a nest.

prompt2: This game is different from others. It is all about snowmen. I can feel a strict limitation that I can only make different snowmen and black lines. At first, I thought it was a bit monotonous and think it would be better if I can draw some other things. The author could easily add more brushes such as colorful lines, but he/she did not do that. I think the author did this deliberately. Through this design, the snowman will become the only colored object in the game. At the same time, the color of the snowman is still random, and players cannot choose by themselves. This design pushed players to use snowmen as the only focal point of their work. Then, I found out that under this restriction, players still have enough freedom. Compared to other works which include many different tools, in this game players do not need to consider many other things, they only need to think about how to create a picture made of snowmen. It also makes this more like a game but not a tool. I want to add the function of color selection, but having this function will destroy the minimalist nature of the game. If you can choose the color of each snowman, the player can copy the same work multiple times, but if the color can only be generated randomly, the same picture is almost impossible to reappear. This makes the picture created each time unique. Uniqueness, as an important feature of artistic works, adds some romanticism to each work.

Prompt 5:  

The image of this game is very outstanding to me. The detailed texture makes the puzzle more colorful.  I spend some time to find out which block is the "wall" in the beginning. I guess the author implements more than 5 different brown color to show the texture of land. From the words right after I enter the game, I found the character might has amnesia. The textures clearly shows that the protagonist is now in a  farm.  After pass the first level, I found the story was not what I thought to be. Each level as a map of puzzle, also a map and landscape of the whole story. Each level is a new scene. At the same time, at the beginning or end of each level, there are texts to explain more about the whole story, which pushed me want to continue playing and solve the puzzle. I really want to see where this kid is going and what he or she would do next. I think the graphic and texts works very well with the puzzle itself. The delicate graphic makes me feel I am in the country farm. The small flags that need to be placed on the cooked meat also indicate the direction the player needs to move forward. I feel that while solving the puzzles in traditional Sokoban, I am also doing visual puzzles at the same time. The continuity of the story makes me want to keep play it. Also, the little duck added in the level 3 is interest and makes me think if there are more animals I will meet in following levels.

The black and white color theme of this game makes the goal of the game very clear even without any instruction. The goal is to make each box in the map only contains one color - black or white. The rule of the game is that players are supposed to push or pull each box to achieve this goal. The rule of how to move boxes is constant through each level. This rule corporate well with the goal of success. Players instantly get find back when they place the box at the correct location. The pattern of the tiles is negative of the pattern of the player. In this way, the interaction of rule and goal can be expanded. For example, if the author wants to add more levels to the game, he/she could add different kinds of boxes with different patterns on them.  Each individual box should fit in each location. The rule and goals of the puzzle do not change at all, however, the game will have more possibilities.  Besides, if the rule of operation slightly changed a little. For instance, players can only push the boxes but not pull them. The overall structure of the game could still do not change. We can do a little adjustment to the map to fit this new rule. The interaction between the rule and goals keep the same as before which makes the game unique and minimalist. 

The text use of this game is very attractive. Only the title of the game shows the word "moon", besides that in every dialogue, moon is replaced by a symbol. At first, I think the game is about get the moon. However, after finishing it many times ,I found the symbol of the moon can represent anything. The scene, the color, and the title all trying to tell player the goal is to get the moon. The white title in black background is very powerful to give player a first impression. But the dialogue is leading me to think more than that. After I reach the white pages, the color change works with the arrow keep telling the user where to go and repeat that you should never stop. It is enlightening. The result is not the only thing we want, the process is also important. Or I should say, keep fighting, we will finally get what you want. The text gives this game a deeper meaning, and at the same time a certain degree of white space also gives players a lot of room for thinking and imagination. The last scene has a very interesting branch. We can only choose one side to talk. After watching a dialogue, the game is over. The player will not able to know what the other one is about. This design gives me more felling that it indicate our life journey, sometimes you have to choose one way, you will never know what will happen if you chose the other one.  

Prompt 3: The game is start with a side-view to show a indoor environment. In this way, the player is naturally limited by the floor, the roof, and the wall. Therefore. the player knows what they could do is talking to the only highlighted character in this page -- the person. Then, go out though the door to the outside world. The other pages are top view, while the road represent as a connection to another scene. Although, it is only one page, the transaction between is page and other place is natural. As we might experience in other games, this page is like a  interaction which player can choose of which road to go.  This process is like leave a little blank, allowing players to make up the process to go on this road, and then slowly get out of the city, went to the forest, the sea, etc. This processing reduces the abruptness of scene transitions. Besides, almost all the page has a frame made by lines to show the area players could go.  Due to Bitsy limit of transition door size, the dotted line in the middle of the road is used as a hint for it. In the road page, there are three open ways without boundary which leads the player. After easily notice that, players will not want to miss either one of them. Players are free to go to more than two directions in this game, so I think it can be considered to be a open format construction.