I'm going to be looking into the idea of indirect control in games. In a game that gives the player a lot of freedom in what they do, there is a chance that they can become lost or otherwise not know what to do. Indirect control is where the designer shows the player what to do, without the player knowing that they've been shown it.
For my BA in Games Design, I created a level where the player walked through an environment collecting items. I guided the player firstly by using text prompts, symbols and having the player repeat actions. But then those prompts faded away and I used more subtle methods, such as having objects move or fall in an attempt to get players to look in the direction that they need to go.
I'm going to be looking at this in greater detail, and one of the first thing I'm going to do is run playtests to see if there are things that people naturally gravitate to when they are playing. Things like colours, lighting, certain graphics and different materials. I could also look at if the results change if the player is put into different contexts, for instance if the game involves shooting, will they gravitate towards the same things if they were playing a puzzle game?
There is a whole host of variables that could be tested, so over this week I'll be reducing them down to realistic amount that I could test.
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