With the rather lengthy process of coming up with an idea now over, I began planning the elements of my game.
The primary scoring system would be based on how much you can write. In front of the player there would be a functional computer I would need to code, and with each button press on a keyboard, the screen would fill with text and the score would rise.
The gameplay aspect would come from the concentration system. As you type away, a bar at the top of your screen acts as your health, slowly being eaten away as you play. The ‘distractions’ that could occur around you would cause this gauge to be eaten away faster unless they are dealt with. Finally, if the player was able to reach certain score goals before they ran out of concentration, the bar would reset, and the gap to the next reset would become larger.
This would be the key gameplay loop, where you would need to balance typing on the keyboard, dealing with distractions, and hoping you were fast enough to make it to the next concentration boost.
I had 3 main distractions in mind the begin:
• Flies buzzing around the player and bugging them until they are swatted away
• A phone going off which you would need to turn off
• The room getting too hot or too cold which was affected by the use of a nearby window
With the ideas for mechanics out of the way, I began thinking about the environment for the game to be in, deciding the base it in a dorm room, taking inspiration from ‘lofi’ artistical choices.
I collected all my ideas and references together in a padlet, which can be found here: