Activity Abstraction

So yesterday we had our Atlanta Game Developer Meetup. I am making a greater effort to meet people in my area who are interested in game design. Besides, I just like talking about games.

Matthew Weise and I were discussing how cool it is when game use an abstacted game mechanic but it still related to the activity which you are doing enough to make a nice logical connection.

For example, in Puzzle Pirates the carpently puzzle you are really "repairing" holes. The game mechanics and the conceit of the game tie together very well. On the other hand some of the games, such as sailing, the tie is very loose.

Mathew mentioned a "remembering" subgame in Indigy Prophecy that was really just a simon says with arrow keys. Not a very good connection there but it got me thinking of what would be a good mechanic for remembering.

I imagine a web of nodes where you must connect paths, follow paths, make matches, etc. Memory really is just a bunch of connections. You could make some cool games based on it.

I threw together a really quick prototype. Its terrible programming is is very processor intensive but whatever.

Nodes connected with lines. You can click and drag the nodes when you release them they change color. Some ideas:

• Once you move a node you cannot move it agian
• Player has to connect so many nodes in a certain time period
• Connect nodes to form a loose shape. This shape could be tied to "the memory"
• etc.

This is a really wonderful exercise I think. I will have to work up some more tasks like this to tackle.