Debriefing

Description about the company:

Hyves is a social networking website comparable to Facebook and MySpace. It started in september 2004 and is still active today. It is mainly used in the Netherlands and it counts 11 million users. As a member you can post and share messages, pictures, videos and other stuff that might interest other members (like friends, family or colleges) of Hyves. At the meeting we met 2 representatives of Hyves, Tom Kleijn and Derk Braakman. Tom is the technical project manager and Derk is the API Manager at Hyves.

Motivation for this assignment:

Hyves approached us to create a game for their website. The reason for this is try to gain more members, but a specific target group. They have a game section since 2010. As of now, most of the members on Hyves who play games on Hyves are female, specifically housewives. What the guys from Hyves want the makes more interesting for other target groups. They want to get more males and a younger audience to their website. With this in mind, they asked us if we can deliver a fun social game that can attract the target group they want.

Then next to Hyves, we have a second party to keep in mind and that is GATE ( Game Research for Training And Entertainment ) who gave us acces to their IP called “CarKit”. They created an educational game where highschool students could use their knowledge about physics they learned at school. In this instance it is about mass, acceleration and velocity. They can apply their knowledge in the game to see if the results meet the expected result they had in a playfull manner.

However the people of GATE felt that the game wasn’t on par with the initial idea they had with the game. It was quite educational, but it lacked the fun they wanted the player to experience. It felt more like a simulation, rather then a real game. So they gave us the IP to work with and giving us the chance to create a game that truly shows that education can also be applied in games.

Target group:

Hyves was already pretty specific about the target audience. Since most of the players that play games on Hyves are housewives, they wanted to attract more males to play the games and preferably a younger audience as well. They weren’t very specific with the age group, but somewhere between the age of 12 and 20 would be a good reference. Because of the nature of the game, it would be good to keep in mind that students can use the game in a way to apply their knowledge of physics to see if the desired result holds against the outcome simulated in the game. Also the game should be accesible for the casual players as well as the hardcore players, in the sense that people can enjoy the game with or without using the knowledge of physics.

Furthermore we had to keep in mind that there is no violence in the game, so no blood. They want to hold their image as a user friendly platform. The world is colorfull and rich with fantasy. Also it is aimed for people who like racing games, play online versus strangers and friends alike.

Goal/Aims:

For Hyves it is important to get more members on their website and gain a new target groups, that as stated before are foremost a younger audience with males in mind to play the games on Hyves. Furthermore Hyves wanst to create a bigger in their game section with new and fresh content not seen on other comparable websites.

As for GATE, they want to see a game that succesfully intregrates education with fun. As of now, most educational games are simply not fun to play, because of the heavy focus on education rather then fun. In most cases the educational game’s structure is that the game is build around the educational scenarios, rather than integrate it as part of the game and therefor breaking the immersion of the game.

Ideas and themes:

Before the briefing it was already clear that we had to create a racing game that applied science into the game as the main focus point for the educational side. However the subject for science was totally up to us. But we were already sure to use the natural elements of science that are used in racing, which are force, mass and velocity. In our game the player has influence on these principles in real-time (like changing the mass of the vehicle, changing the amount forced used on the vehicle, using the momentum gained the acceleration). While racing through different scenarios within the level, the player requires to apply their knowledge correctly to get the most benefit of the situation.

Choice:

The client chose us because we are a very capable team that has a wide variety of expertises within game design and development, able to bring any ideas to a fully working game. We are creative, flexible and professional, striving for fresh new content, originality and innovation.

Timetable:

There were specific deadlines given to us, so we are able to plan the timetable to our own desire. Ofcourse the deadline of the game will be at the end of december.

Communication:

Communications with Hyves and our supervisor goes through e-mail and or telephone. Through our blog at http://magneticrhino.blogspot.com/ , both parties can follow our process of the game.

Deliverables:

Our goal for the deliverable is a fully working game with atleast one level where players can race. The game applies elements of science that the players can influence in real-time during the race. It is playable online with multiple players at once. The game features high end graphics, animations, music and sounds. Furthermore the game offers high replayability with archievements, unlockables, ranking and different race types.