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Rapid Design Prototyping 
 

What is Rapid Design Prototyping?

It is the practice of developing game design concepts quickly and concisely.

As a university module I found this course to be integral for the honing of my storytelling and project design skills. 

I have had to design a number of different games based on criteria set by my course lead. 

Let me tell you about the designs I had the most fun with.

 

"Bumper Struck" 
A capture the flag asymmetrical game. 

It's a  game where two teams compete to capture the opponents flag and tow it to the team base in order to win. 

The game is based in an arena and involves different kinds of vehicles, each with a different kind of advantage. The design plays on typical character classes translated into bumper cars and racing. 
I loved working on this design, because it really made me think outside of the box. Criterion for a successful design was to avoid use of standard knight/mage/thief classes and balance the gameplay between the players and objective. With use of standard types of heroes one could easily stitch a mainstream design and implement it. As an individual presently working within the Motor Trade, I saw a perfect opportunity to mix my daily life and imagination to bring about a design which is fun and engaging to play while also meeting the criteria for an unique design. If this design has piqued your interest and you want to find out more about it, please drop me a message via the contact section and I will happily talk about bumper cars in a digital arena with you.

"The Tangra`s Quest"
A DnD - like adventure.

This game was the first ever board game I ever made. It is also the game that opened my eyes to the really fun concept of "Game in a Jar", which as the name suggests, is a game whose neccessary components must fit in a jar. 
The game is an adventure quest in which the players must traverse the world, obtain sacred objects and use those to capture and entomb a mischievour entity wreaking havock in the world. 

This title was heavily inspired by Bulgarian mythology and strives to familiarise the player with a piece of culture often neglected. 
At the end of the day mainstream myths like the ones about Zeus, Odin or Jupiter are widely used as a reference point in modern cinema and storytelling. I saw an oportunity to indroduce the players of this title to another, unknown and unfamiliar myth and weave their actions into the tales about Tangra. Tangra is a pagan god of olden times, it is one of the dieties rulling the Balkan slavic tribes prior to the introduction of Christianity. I firmly believe that tales must be kept alive, they are gateways not only to another time, but also a window into some fundamental human traits - like the passing down of wisdom. 

"Curse of the Heike Crab"

A single-player adventure game.

This title was inspiried by a story in the Konjaku Monogatarishu -  a collection of ancient asian and Japanese tales. 
In this design I took the liberty of interpretation and imagination. The concept is anchored in feudal Japan, a time in which the Samurai and Ronin are a prevalent unit of force, a time in which the nine-tailed foxes enchant humans, time of spirits and snow hags, magic fish and giant turtles.
The player objective revolves around the lifting of a generational curse placed on a deserted samurai. The player comes to realise that in order to successfully complete the game, they will need to enlist the aid of ghosts, plead with malicious spirits and find honor for themselves and the Heike Samurai (who is the deserter turned into a giant crab).
The game is concluded once the curse is lifted, but by such time, a player would have had an oportunity to meet some of Japan`s most famous mythological creatures and dive into thouand years old tales.