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We are making this game

to explore and educate about the many different ways organisms adapt to their ever-changing environment. We wish to showcase the physiological changes caused by pheno-plasticity in an easily accessible medium.

Character, Control, & Camera

Character

The player:
An Ecologist/Biologist tasked with finding and noting all the “ShapeShifters” .

Natalie Wells:
A senior Ecologist/Biologist who is your supervisor. She gives you assignments, hints, information and  helps you in the game. She is a bit eclectic and zany, but means well and passionate about “ShapeShifters”. Also has a pet Grey Tree Frog, named Froggy.

Control

Touch screen inputs, similar for mouse and keyboard too.

In level:

• Tool panel:

• When tapped, it will slide out and offer tools that the player can then tap and drag out into the level.

• Camera:

• Tap and drag to rotate or tap and drag to pan.

• Pinch in and out to zoom in and out.

• NoteBook( instructions/hints/Noting shape Shifter logs):

• Button to access the notebook, can then tap sides of the book to flip to the next page.

• Tabs to click and jump to new pages.

• Percentage-based progress system where knowledge is “unlocked”.

• Menu button

• If the player taps on an organism spawns a pop up with creature information.

• It can contain fun facts, what shape they are currently in, or if they have shapeshifting forms yet to be discovered.

• Can immediately jump to their notebook page.

• Pops up automatically on transformation (first time only).

Camera

The camera would be angled downwards looking at an isometric environment. If we wanted, we can make the levels rotatable and allow for the player to rotate the camera around the environment.

Game Loop

• Manipulate the environment to cause certain organisms to shift phenotypes or “shapeshift”.

• Some manipulation would cause chain reactions

• If a new “shapeshift” is found, then the notebook will log it and open to show more information about the shapeshift, its role, and causes. Also gives you time to see your current progress in the level

• Once all are found or the user is done with that level, the user can learn more or switch to another level.

Puzzle Design

Room System

Each area will be divided into distinct rooms where interactions may occur. This may or may not be shown visually but should be very clear to players where the interactions may take place.

Each room can have organisms, environmental objects, and interactables within it.

Interactions

For instance, a room may be defined to have dense vegetation within it and 2 openings that may be opened with interactables. If a prey and a predator are within the room at the same time, it will result in the prey hiding in the dense vegetation while the predator is in the room. The prey will not be lured by bait during this time but the predator will. An interaction between the prey and predator in this case will not cause the transformation as the predator cannot attack the prey.

Traversal

Each room will keep track of connecting rooms where bait can be used to move organisms in between. However these areas can be blocked with interactables. Using the glove and the shovel, these openings can be opened and any interactions that may have been queued up (such as prey and predators in adjacent rooms) will now occur.

Tools

• Shovel: 

• A tool that is used to move dirt and plants.

• Controlled by tapping and holding to pick up, and releasing to put down.

• Will pick up dirt and whatever plants are on the dirt, and put them back down wherever they are released.

• Glove: 

• A tool used to move inanimate objects like rocks.

• Controlled by tapping and holding to pick up and drop objects.

• Bait: 

• A tool used to cause an organism to move between sections of the map.