Design Progress
Proposals
We presented some narrative ideas to our client to get feedback on our design process. With the help of the Transformational Framework, we created some proposals that we wanted to use to teach media literacy.
Newspaper Simulator
Categories of Disinformation:
- Bias
- Manipulated Content
Narrative Premise:
- Modern / Reality
Play As:
A news provider to control reader’s emotion & opinion
Gameplay:
The game consists of several events, each event starts with a scene, and there are several interest points in that scene. The player can take photos of these interest points. The player plays as a newspaper editor and controls the articles that will be printed.
Then players get into the article forming part. Players can use evidences taken to generate articles.
Rogue AI
Categories of Disinformation:
- Bias
- Manipulated Content
Narrative Premise:
- Future / Dystopia
Play As:
A sentient AI designed for Disinformation
Gameplay:
The AI(player) was developed for spreading disinformation. At first, it worked well. But at some point, it became sentient and wanted to sabotage the empire’s propaganda campaign.
1st half: Disinformation is the priority. Do everything possible to sow discord.
2nd half: Orchestrate several media events/leaks that inform the people of the empire’s cruel intentions.
Challenge:
This should be done while avoiding being discovered.
Actions should be well thought out, as the player would be contradicting what they did in the first half.
Detective Disinfo
Categories of Disinformation:
- Bias
- Manipulated Content
- Conspiracy
Narrative Premise:
- Future / Dystopia
Play As:
A truth fighter
Gameplay:
A Phoenix Wright-like game; the player plays as a truth-finder who is dedicated to fighting against false propaganda by dictatorships or monopolies. The player combines evidence notes and uses a search engine to obtain more information.
After players find enough evidence, they can post an article to reveal the evil intentions of the disinformation.
The effect / feedback of that article is based on how well the players are prepared (how much evidence did they collect)
Visual Novel, Decoding Disinformation
Categories of Disinformation:
- Faulty Knowledge
- Manipulated Content
Narrative Premise:
- Modern / Reality
Play As:
A protagonist who get involved in a conspiracy and need to break it
Gameplay:
The player is in a venue with other characters. The player can walk around, collecting things, and talk to others.
The player also carries a smartphone, to take pictures, search online, and use social media.
The story is told by conversations, social media posts, and objects in the environments.
There will be a conspiracy these people get involved, and lost of disinformation from those conversations, posts, even articles searched online.
Players need to distinguish the disinformation, collect corresponding evidences around/online & making posts to influences characters’ opinions to break the conspiracy.
Composition Box
This is our composition box, including the summary of our Inspirations, needs and experiences.
Takeaways & Others
Client Meeting
Our client had mixed reactions regarding these proposals. However, our biggest takeaways from the client meeting were in the form of these questions:
- How do we narrow down the problem space? Everything sounds very high level.
- What are the goals that we want to achieve?
- How do we go about achieving these goals?
- How do we assess the player’s knowledge?
For the rest of the week, we spent time understanding more of the Transformational Framework and researching other games and experiences in this space.