In the Imagination of a Child

[DaFalcon]

Not wanting to hijack this thread (http://www.idevgames.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&threadid=2300&perpage=10&pagenumber=1) , I split it and moved this section to "Game Design" -Alan

Originally posted by GoodDoug
"Androkid" is the little brother to Android, and it uses the hand drawn looking graphics. Its brilliant, and I would like to see more stylized games come out.

I have had in mind for about a year a design for a game that would feature very similar hand-drawn graphics... the whole game is taking place in the imagination of a child who is drawing the picture that the player is playing in ... be sure to have fun (as measured by the game's "rules") or else the child gets bored and angry and starts drawing in lightning bolts and enemies. I really like this idea though it needs plenty of refining...

I plan to take old drawings of mine from childhood and use those as inspiration for the game's graphics. I might even scan in a couple of them and use them wholesale :) If only my former self could be told - he'd have been so excited :lol:

I agree that more games with sylized graphics would be a very good thing :p

[griffin239]

Watch Sesames Streets Elmo's World for inspiration in this line.
Every time I watch him with my daughter I want to texture
everything with rough crayon scribble.

I like the "in the imagination of a child" game idea.
Anything could happen.
And the "he's bored" hell raising sounds really interesting.
Especially if game levels progressed with "real world" cut scenes...
like Mom saying "time to eat"...or parents arguing or a bully or something.

I think though as adults and as almost adults as most of us are its really
hard to reach back and figure out whats fun as a kid.
A child's idea of fun is odd.
Maybe sitting with regressive
hypno-therapist to explore ones inner child would be a method
of getting the most "child" out of your developer self,
while avoiding exploitation charges from Mom's and Dad's.

Or pulling your hair out from trying to decipher child-speak.

[DaFalcon]

My favorite thing about the idea is probably that one of the win conditions is that you must be having fun :-) Isn't that what games are supposed to be about?!

That would also be the most difficult thing to try to program in, and probably one of the first features that would be on most developer's chopping block, but I hope to avoid that (the joy of indie development)....

[jamie]

The "in the imagination of a child" concept reminds me a lot of the book series "Harold and the Purple Crayon" are you familiar with that?

Also for some reason an old cartoon called "kidd video" comes to mind...

[DaFalcon]

lol, it is sad that I know this, but my only familiarity with that book comes from, I think, the movie "The Story of Us" in which the wife is arguing that the husband is like Harold. At least, I think that's what happened, and I think that's the movie it happened in. But I will have to look further into that book :-)

[Chris Burkhardt]

The "in the imagination of a child" concept reminds me a lot of the book series "Harold and the Purple Crayon" are you familiar with that?
I love those books :love: :)