Game Concept

Game Concept Document

Overview: The working title for my game is Escape the Coloured Squares. In Escape the Coloured Squares, the player must make their way through dangerous enemy bases before the enemy squares catch them.

Concept creation and genre: Game idea was influenced by Pac Man as in Escape the Coloured Squares the player will also need to evade the enemies in a similar way to Pac Man. Also Pac Man has different coloured enemies. I thought this would be a nice easy way to distinguish different types of enemies.

Image of Pac Man

 Pac Man screenshot by Peter Ogland, 2017 https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Detail-from-a-Pac-Man-screenshot_fig1_326319846

The game idea was also influenced by Unfair Mario.

Image of Unfair Mario

 Unfair mario screenshot  by freegameaccess, 2005 - 2020 http://www.freegameaccess.com/unfair-mario.htm

In Unfair Mario, there are annoying and seeming unfair traps. I like these kind of rage games, but I didn’t want to make a game whose only real point is to be a rage game. I decided to put some silly traps in Escape the Coloured Squares and was therefore influenced by rage games like Unfair Mario.

The genre of the game is action as the player is almost always moving to try and avoid the enemies and traps or reach the exit. The game could also fall under the strategy genre as the player may need to be strategic to avoid all the enemies and traps.

Audience and Competitive Analysis: The target audience for Escape the Coloured Squares is 8-12-year olds. This seems like the age group where people are most likely to play games similar to this such as Pac Man. Younger ones may find the game too hard and older people may find it boring and or easy. It may still appeal to all age groups in some way as it can be fun when you finally beat an annoying level. The game may have some sort of scoring system. This would be good so the game could have a competitive aspect to it. People would be able to compare high scores. Even if scores end up been too hard to implement people could still compare how many levels they were able to beat or the strategies they used for beating levels etc. This would be about as competitive as my game would get.

Game Treatment and Concept Art: For my game, I wanted it to look a bit different. I think I am aiming for a retro look. I decided the enemies would be coloured squares. I decided to make the player a white square. The game is set in various enemy bases and the player must escape them.

Image of the player

 Image of an enemy

 I am going to try and make the background of the game have a retro feel as well so that the art styles don’t clash too much.