An entertaining game design...

So, my Game Design Professor gave us a homework, "Worst Idea Ever".
Basically, we had to brainstorm as many games as possible by mashing different genres and themes together, then write a design doc for the worst idea. Ever.

I came up with so many terrible combinations! Eventually the idea I chose was "Relaxation Augmented Reality War". Well, the design turned out to be pretty good! So with no further ado, here's the paper:

Jerks Must Die!

ABSTRACT

We all have encountered some really annoying people in some point of life, admit it or not. Unfortunately, these people are often the people we would have to deal with on a daily basis. A really bad boss, a lazy co-worker, a loud neighbor, an ex that keeps coming back, a stalker living in the lab you have to go to... In this reality, we are powerless against these sources of frustration, can't do nothing about them due to the ethics of human society; and that is good, for we need to behave on our inner angel and with rationality. The feelings however cannot be released, and they linger on us, exhausting our mental energy.

Won't it be nice to release these stresses? What if, in a fantasy world, you can act out these feelings on the people you hate, without suffering consequences?

BASIC MECHANICS / NARRATIVE CONTEXT

In Jerks Must Die! The player uses an augmented reality device to mark people as target. The device then record these jerks, create an army of digital copies, and let the player beat, stab, shoot, smash, rip apart, burn, bomb, nuclear-bomb, rickroll, run over with a truck, and Shoryugen the living *beep* out of them.

The genre is relaxation while the theme is war, and augmented reality is a major part of the technology to make this fantasy more expressive.

Obviously, this would be a digital game. With the current technology, the best way of executing it is to take the portrait picture of the “jerk”, use it as the face of a digital “doll”, then let the player beat the army of jerks on their computer screen / mobile device screen. If the augmented reality technology allows, we could generate digital copies of the exact same person on, say, a Google Glass display, while tracking the motion of player, so that players really feel like destroying them themselves. The jerks will have computer generated facial expressions reflecting their pain and fear. Oh and when they don't get attacked, they put on an annoying face.

Because the goal of the game is to let the player release their fury on the jerks, it will be negative to have a lose state; instead, each action player uses on the jerks will amount to points and the goal of player is to get as many points as possible in a time limit. The player starts with basic attacks: beating, stabbing, etc. The points upgrade them and buys new attacks. Other mechanics to help the game to be more interesting can be combo counter that increases point multiplier, achievement systems that awards 50 TRIPLE KILL! MASS MURDERER! Etc., but that would be the basic mechanics. The game also has more social components, displaying the daily / monthly high score, and allowing the user to record videos of game footage and share.

ELEMENTS OF GREATNESS / WEAKNESSES

Although it has an intense gameplay, the purpose and the result of playing this game would still be relaxation. If motion tracking can be implemented, then it would even be more effective, because physical activities increases blood calcium, which stimulates the production of dopamine. It also produces endorphin, which is one of the chemicals generated while relaxing. This game could be very successful, because it fulfills people's need of coping stress in their lives and it fulfills their power fantasies. Some may question the moral of such product, thinking that fantasizing about killing people would only strengthen the negative feelings and worsen their relationships, or even turning us into killers. Besides, what would the “jerk“ feel when they found out they have been targeted? But it is only natural for individuals to develop coping mechanism against stressors, and we only gave them a good way without hurting anyone in real life. Of course, the concerns aren't unreasonable, but there are ways to help fixing them.

In order to reduce the danger of blurring the line between fantasy and reality, urging people to become actual mass murderers, the graphics of killing had to be quite unreal and designed in a hilarious manner. Non-realistic styles – such as cartoon - are preferred, to create the feeling that players have entered the wonderland outside this real world, where they could act as themselves, while not being their self in the real world. Or put it this way: the player would need to If this was made hilarious enough, it could also be used as a joke with friends, showing them how they got beat up and laughing at it together.

As for the concern of worsening people's relationships, strengthening the negative feelings, I would actually argue the opposite. People cope with stresses with the goal of facing the stressors better. When an individual is relaxed and happy, he/she can be more productive and friendlier, and a friendly attitude is always more likely to get a friendly feedback. The game was made to help the players relax, and hopefully face their stressor, face their stressor, and remove their stressor by stopping getting stressed by them. The final goal of targeting someone is to remove them from the target list, or to play the game as a friendly joke instead of stress relief. The last concern is about the consequences of the “jerks” finding out they've been targeted. I really don't have a solution for that, but anyone with sense would not play the game right in front of their stressors unless if the player really wants to damage their relationship more. And if that's the case, hey, a game won't really make a difference.

PRODUCTION POTENTIAL

The game is definitely worth prototyping and trying out, both just as a profitable app that has the potential of going viral, and as an interesting social experiment. The augmented reality part would have to come slower and in little chunks, since technology hasn't advanced to the point where everyone has Google Glass. (But that day is coming!) For now, the previously mentioned version played with portrait photos of the target should be able to be easily prototyped. Now please hold on to the rail for the waves of controversy.

“It was the best of ideas, it was the worst of ideas.”