On November 5th, I went to a fighting game event held in Atlantic city in the showroom of the Hard Rock Hotel. The event was called “Battle for the East”, and was held over 2 days because of all the competitors. At this event I was able to gather a lot of information about competitive yet fun games, and because I was at the Hard Rock Hotel I was able to pick up ideas from the casino. I talked to a lot of the people at the tournament and between matches a lot about video games and then was able to show them parts of my game on my tablet that I took with me there. The questions and responses i had gathered over the time of this event will be incorporated into my Senior thesis.
My most common question that I asked the competitors about was what the believed made a game fun and competitive. The responses varied from person to person but it mostly centered around the feeling of having a heavy risk and reward system. I equate it to fighting games where going for a heavy move could lead to a lot of damage to your opponent but if you miss or it gets blocked you could recieve a lot of damage in return. This is also why people can get hooked on gambking because if you bet a lot of money on a single hand and win the feeling is amazing but the opposite ofcourse will happen if you lose.
I then went on to explain the concept of my game to them and how it plays on the risk and reward system with betting. I explained some of my mechanics for the game revolving around the betting of them games with the roulette wheel, and that seemed to peek some of their interest. Then I explained how my risk and reward system would work with the mini games and betting. Depending how how much you bet if you bet high then you could get bonuses to the mini games but if you lose you are risking a lot of your money to try and win over the others. They asked for an example and I then showed them some of my game on my tablet. It was a very simplified version of the real game but it worked for now. It showed them how if every had risked the most money they could that it put everyone at risk to get knocked out way faster than the winner.
I then would show them my character designs and they all agreed that I need a lot more color options for each character so that everyone could be the same character but with their favorite colors. The suggestion to the characters was to try and make them all around the same size so nobody got an advantage over the other in that aspect.
The information I gathered has helped me form more of my senior thesis and only excited me more to put a lot of work into it. The responses from the people at the competition were mostly positive so that was a really good confidence booster. The only thing left now is to keep on working and try to make the best game that I can.
