TRAUMA can be downloaded here:
TRAUMA.exe
TRAUMA is my degree project, and is all about messing with your head. The player wakes up to find himself captured by a man who goes by the name of Xandex. He offers to let the player escape alive, if s/he can complete Xandex's games and achieve a high enough score (75) . The game has two different endings, depending on if the player achieves a score of 75+ or not.
The project was about experimenting with gameplay mechanics and visual illusions and trying to fuse the two together. The illusions were to play either a central or a peripheral role in the challenge, making the game harder because of their existence. What's interesting about visual illusions is that it is your brain who makes things "move" and whatnot. The illusions include no animation at all, so part of the challenge is for the player to "unthink" the illusion in order to gain more points and thus escape alive.
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TRAUMA is divided into four separate mini games, each with its own unique illusion. I'm going to explain what I had in mind with each game:
Game 1:
A "moving" labyrinth and unpredictable enemies. The pattern of the labyrinth makes it move in a wave-like pattern and so my thought was to challenge player navigation. The goal of the game is to gather treasure chests that pop up randomly around the labyrinth to get more score. Due to their small size and the max2 cap, players are required to search for the chests, making the illusion come to life even more. Enemies are spawned at every third chest pickup.
I deemed the experiment successful, as the illusion had a direct impact on the challenge.
Game 2:
A familiar grid with white dots. Black dots seem to appear inside the white dots when viewed in the peripheral view. How appropriate then that the goal of this game is to click on black dots in order to gain more score. They pop up randomly inside the white dots, and so players have to tell the illusory ones apart from the real ones.
I deemed the experiment successful, as the illusion had a direct impact on the challenge.
Game 3:
Rotating circles inside a room covered with spikes. The goal is to fly around and gather the "black spheres" inside these rotating circles. At every third sphere pickup a flying enemy is spawned. The rotating illusion was meant to disturb the player's sense of distance, making it a challenge to see past the illusion in order to avoid enemies.
I deemed the experiment not successful, as the illusion did not have direct impact on the challenge. The disturbance of the player's sense of distance was not convincing and many who played it reported that the illusion was only distracting in a general way.
Game 4:
A spiral that is not a spiral. The illusion is a set of circles that give off the impression that it's a spiral. The player rotates around a "layer" and can change both direction and layers. Enemies spawn at random, as well as chests. The challenge in this game is to not misjudge the layer the enemies and the player is, which can sometimes lead to devastating results since players, and myself, constantly mistake enemies to be headed for collision, when in fact they are on another layer.
I deemed the experiment successful, as the illusion had a direct impact on the challenge. Game 4 is also the one I feel is the best example of how one can implement illusions into the challenge.
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In conclusion, my experimentation with illusions and gameplay was successful and very educational. In my report I wrote that "it works well and is an untapped genre to the casual gaming market. It is important to analyze how the illusions are perceived and how they feel, rather than studying what happens in the brain. There is indeed potential for developers to study and learn to create their own illusions for games like this. (...) The illusions invite to something that players are not used to, namely a challenge that's not programmed; it's their own inability to manage the illusion."
(Translated, as the paper was written in Swedish.)
Game 1 and 3 uses illusions "Dongurakokko" and "Rotating Snake" respectively, created by Professor Akiyoshi Kitaoka at Ritsumeikan University in Kyoto, Japan. I am ever so thankful for his permission to use his illusions in my game, and I urge you to take a trip to his page, where he has tons of these mind-bending illusions!
Akiyoshi's Illusion Pages
The project was about experimenting with gameplay mechanics and visual illusions and trying to fuse the two together. The illusions were to play either a central or a peripheral role in the challenge, making the game harder because of their existence. What's interesting about visual illusions is that it is your brain who makes things "move" and whatnot. The illusions include no animation at all, so part of the challenge is for the player to "unthink" the illusion in order to gain more points and thus escape alive.
----------------
TRAUMA is divided into four separate mini games, each with its own unique illusion. I'm going to explain what I had in mind with each game:
Game 1:
A "moving" labyrinth and unpredictable enemies. The pattern of the labyrinth makes it move in a wave-like pattern and so my thought was to challenge player navigation. The goal of the game is to gather treasure chests that pop up randomly around the labyrinth to get more score. Due to their small size and the max2 cap, players are required to search for the chests, making the illusion come to life even more. Enemies are spawned at every third chest pickup.
I deemed the experiment successful, as the illusion had a direct impact on the challenge.
Game 2:
A familiar grid with white dots. Black dots seem to appear inside the white dots when viewed in the peripheral view. How appropriate then that the goal of this game is to click on black dots in order to gain more score. They pop up randomly inside the white dots, and so players have to tell the illusory ones apart from the real ones.
I deemed the experiment successful, as the illusion had a direct impact on the challenge.
Game 3:
Rotating circles inside a room covered with spikes. The goal is to fly around and gather the "black spheres" inside these rotating circles. At every third sphere pickup a flying enemy is spawned. The rotating illusion was meant to disturb the player's sense of distance, making it a challenge to see past the illusion in order to avoid enemies.
I deemed the experiment not successful, as the illusion did not have direct impact on the challenge. The disturbance of the player's sense of distance was not convincing and many who played it reported that the illusion was only distracting in a general way.
Game 4:
A spiral that is not a spiral. The illusion is a set of circles that give off the impression that it's a spiral. The player rotates around a "layer" and can change both direction and layers. Enemies spawn at random, as well as chests. The challenge in this game is to not misjudge the layer the enemies and the player is, which can sometimes lead to devastating results since players, and myself, constantly mistake enemies to be headed for collision, when in fact they are on another layer.
I deemed the experiment successful, as the illusion had a direct impact on the challenge. Game 4 is also the one I feel is the best example of how one can implement illusions into the challenge.
----------------
In conclusion, my experimentation with illusions and gameplay was successful and very educational. In my report I wrote that "it works well and is an untapped genre to the casual gaming market. It is important to analyze how the illusions are perceived and how they feel, rather than studying what happens in the brain. There is indeed potential for developers to study and learn to create their own illusions for games like this. (...) The illusions invite to something that players are not used to, namely a challenge that's not programmed; it's their own inability to manage the illusion."
(Translated, as the paper was written in Swedish.)
Game 1 and 3 uses illusions "Dongurakokko" and "Rotating Snake" respectively, created by Professor Akiyoshi Kitaoka at Ritsumeikan University in Kyoto, Japan. I am ever so thankful for his permission to use his illusions in my game, and I urge you to take a trip to his page, where he has tons of these mind-bending illusions!
Akiyoshi's Illusion Pages
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