Bellevue Evening Event
2017
ORIGIN
Originally I joined the team in the hopes of seeking an experimental opportunity to expand my design experience. I spoke with our producer (Douglas Buzzell) about a potential Alt+Ctrl+GDC project. He told me that he wanted to design a project to get students hired for internships and full time positions as well; some kind of upcoming use of technology and design that would get us recognition from larger companies such as Amazon. After a couple weeks on the team, we had come up with some pillars that the team desired from the projects and began developing some abstract games that a large group of players could play at a convention. With Alt+Ctrl+GDC in mind, I stumbled upon an idea that really sparked my imagination. I wanted to use Amazon Web Services in tandem with Alexa as an automated dungeon master.
After throwing the idea around, we decided to move forward with it despite the inherent issues we predicted. Using Alexa in a large convention full of background noise could dramatically effect her input capabilities. Our ability to control what players could input and how they interact with the game was limited to 'free' merchandise that we could hand out and allow players to keep. We also ran into the issue of visual feedback that Alexa alone cannot provide. With these and many more issues in mind, we set out to design a simplistic pick-up game that would involve the socializing of industry professionals and upcoming students of the craft.
While we had a couple of iterations that seemed feasible, we ran into a dilemma that ended up placing the idea on ice. Project FUN of DigiPen contacted us after hearing about our project. They offered us a chance to work with the city of Bellevue to accomplish a 'similar' goal of crafting an evening event to liven up Bellevue. And as ambition as we were, we accepted the offer.
DESIGN
Now that we had been contracted out to work with Bellevue and Bit Toys to plan out the evening, we knew that things were going to change for the project. After a month of awaiting status updates and creeping through the uncertainties of our requirements we finally had clarity. Bellevue wanted a series of physical activities that translate into an overarching meta game that filters out players for a life size Simon game.
While this was far from what we set out to do initially, we had tech up and running and a plan to make it happen. A month of meetings and playtesting thanks to Project FUN's BBQs goes by and now were here. We've constructed our meta game based on a 3 star tier system. These starts allow you to enter a drawing that determines who gets to play the Simon game. The activities involved are hardly worth mentioning as a designer but they do make for a fun event for families.
My personal contribution has so far involved the planning of tier systems and the implementation of Cups N' Guns. This activity started off as a competitive game where two players stacked up some solo cups then ran to a line and shot the cups down with a nerf gun. To simplify the game even more, we made it single player where you must make each shot count to maximize your points. To go even simpler beyond, we took cup stacking out of the game entirely and made it a gallery shooter.
WHAT'S NEXT?
The city of Bellevue has postponed the event until a later date. While there is no confirmed date for the event, our team will be working to improve the project until a new schedule is in place. In the meantime, we will be focusing on our in-house tech and original goal of developing an alternate control social networking game.