The Circle: SJSU Productions

Tonight I had the privilege to attend the dress rehearsal of The Circle, the SJSU drama production of the winter season. This production is truly unique and a first of its kind; an interactive drama performance. Each attendee is immersed into the atmosphere of The Circle and lead through various events through the performance. While I am not a studio major, I have a unique perspective of being a game designer in order to observe the play.
The entire performance is, in a sense, a game. The "players", which are the attendees, have various options and choices they can make which lead them through the production and to different narratives. Then there are collective sessions where everyone gathers at the same time to hear the same narrative. This provides people with different paths to take, and a different perspective for each event.
That being said, I felt each attendee had little to no control over the events of The Circle. The performers drove most of the narrative and the meetings felt very scripted. This lead to a perspective of minimal contribution. However, there was plenty of interaction between attendee and performer, being it an interview or a company survey.
This production was designed to be different and it really was. During the show it felt like a game, where I was a secondary character who was stumbling onto a conspiracy and I had to discover the truth without being caught. It caused a very interesting atmosphere which is different then any other drama production I had ever seen.

Go-Go Granny Final Prototype

Go Go Granny, the lovable infinite sidescroller, is reaching its final stages of development. Since the last posted prototype, the game has had to go through some necessary changes.We started off our edits with the aesthetics. First off, we added two scrolling backgrounds to give the game some depth perception. Next, we changed the color and size of cookies to make them more visible to the players. We also changed the design of the platforms, to differ their style from the ground. We also gave the chaser an animation for eating to add to game clarity We also added a high-score so that the player could feel a sense of progression during the game. For the last aesthetic update, we added visuals to the main and end screens so that the entire game felt more complete.

For gameplay updates, we decided to add a reward for climbing platforms. A cookie now spawns above the platforms, only reachable by jumping off of it. However, this created a scenario where you could collect too many cookies too easily. To compensate, we added the Baker's Dozen bonus, where if you collect 13 cookies, they are all consumed to give you a 500 point bonus! This added a really fun element to the game which was not in the original design. Lastly, for gameplay updates, we adjusted the speed of the chaser, so that the game ran smoother and didn't feel too difficult to play.

After these final edits, our game's prototype finally feels complete! If you feel inclined to play, you may do so by downloading a copy here. This version is only playable on a windows machine, or on a MAC by using Wine Bottler. In the future, we hope to export this game to mobile devices (iOS and Android), so you can play Go Go Granny on the go-go!