WatchOut
CCTV puzzle game
Game info
2.5D, third-person
Role-playing, Strategy
Single player
Mac OS, Window
Story
One day, a hacker (i.e., player) receives a locked box. He is very curious about what is inside this box. To unlock this box, he needs to collect the precious treasures from different restricted areas and get the passwords. Because the hacker is weak and the hacking is his only talent, he finds the stupid thief to help him steal the treasures.
Characters
He has fulfilled his imprisonment period and left the prison.
- Stupid but physically strong
- Follow instructions of the hacker
- Find treasures along the way
He has discovered the physical talent of the thief, and asks the thief to cooperate with his hacking skills to steal treasures and valuables.
- Can hack into different electronic devices (e.g. CCTV, PC)
- Guide the thief along his path
- Discover the environment of the scene
- It relies on the thief to interact with the scene physically
Key ideas
- CCTV serves as Hacker's viewpoint
- Communicate with thief via clicks
- Timer as a calculable failure point
- Non-obstructive in-game tutorial
- Fully interactive environment
- Player freedom in exploration
- Collectibles and customizations
- Performance affects ending
- Replayability
Game play
Missions
120s
Discover hidden boxes and open them to get passcodes within the time limit.
Characters need to work together to unveil the ultimate secret.
Control
Point and click on nearby areas to move the thief
Press to Z/X to change CCTV view
Z = Previous CCTV view; X = Next CCTV view
Click to control the theif and interact with the objects
Addition games elements
Outfits collections
Mini-games (e.g. find differences)
Storytelling with animation
How to play tutorial
Game Structure
Ideation stages
1st ideation
Hacker use CCTVs as a viewpoint to help the stupid thief (AI) navigate in the level, hide from CCTVs and find treasure.
- Switch electronic devices correctly
- Switch CCTV correctly
- Avoid being captured by CCTV
- Destroy the record that captured the thief's face (3 records the most)
Pros
- Originality, Immersiveness, Challenging
Cons
- No player freedom
- Focus on predicting the timing
- Requires patience as AI moves in the path
- Little meaningful player decisions that contribute towards the ending
2nd ideation
Hacker and Thief accept a challenge from a criminal and go to steal bits of his crime evidence.
Pros
- Time constraints less annoying
- Freedom in Point and Click navigation
- Politically Correct
- Story dynamic
- Potential player choices
Cons
- Relevancy of CCTV
- Thief isn't being helpful at all
- Unclear logic between new character and winning
- Thief and Hacker's uniqueness diminished
3rd ideation
Box in the box for open the precious treasures.
Pros
- Unexpected development
- More room for fiddling with the story
Cons
- Relevancy of Box
- The ending must feel rewarding
- Underwhelming at times
Final ideation
The thief interacts with objects, and Hacker navigates the thief. They explore the way to unlock the mysterious box, as well as loot valuable things they come across.
Pros
- Relevancy of Box
- The ending must feel rewarding
- Underwhelming at times
- CCTV serves as Hacker's viewpoint
- Communicate with thief via clicks
- Timer as a calculable failure point
- Non-obstructive in-game tutorial
- Fully interactive environment
- Player freedom in exploration
- Collectibles and customizations
- Performance affects ending
- Replayability
Cons
- More efforts in level design
- Passive enemies and failure points
Prototyping
Equipment and technology
Showcase
My role
- Take part in all the design and brainstorming stages with my teammates
- Less focus on the 3D modeling but more contributing to the ideation, game development and experience
Reflections
Sustainable Game
Although the demonstration of this game is signal level, we did consider how to make the game more sustainable, which I learnt is one of the important parts to design a game. As people are easy to get bored with an easy and simple game, we try to consider how to make it playable to keep the players, e.g. a complete and interesting storyline, goals, game mechanism, interaction.
Cooperation with different disciplines
As a game involves a lot of different disciplines elements, like characters, music, environments, interaction, interface, etc, we tried to divide the works and combined our knowledge to make this complete game. We had to communicate hows different parts work with each other.