Dev.Log Entry Silver

Since my first portion of this entry is in reference to an Italian restaurant, I have made this piece of artwork for your viewing pleasure. Who doesn't want to start off reading a blog entry with a nice slice of pizza?!

exercise from "Additional Dev.Log Exercise Options":

You have been hired as an intern for Olive Garden. They want to redesign their kids menu to include a paper-based game that will:

• Keep kids happy (and quiet) (keep parents happy)

• Is on brand

• Requires only Red, Blue, Green, & Yellow crayons

• Menu prints only black ink + one color (optional)

As the new intern in charge of the kids' menu at Olive Garden, I have a few ideas I'd be interested in putting into our new menu. I think the kids would enjoy a two-part game. Connect the dots (forming a bowl of pasta and a side salad) that will become a color-by-number template. In the past, I have always enjoyed both activities as a young kid, and I feel like this has been a long-withstanding enjoyable activity for kids to this day. I would like to print the instructions and dots in black, and the color-by-numbers "number" in each section will be printed in green for the children to easily see them after creating their lines around the images of the pasta and the salad. I know that we often also like to include our own personal signature on our work, so it would be fun as well to have a small box on the kids' menu in which each child can draw a picture of themselves. Here's a quick layout of the idea:

While reading the text this week, I was challenging myself to figure out some of the decisions that will be made in my digital game. I can somewhat relate this to the kids' menu from Olive Garden on how I might be thinking of organizing this. Will this game be for children? What is the goal? To stay busy? Quiet? Have a loud, fun, party atmosphere for a birthday or gathering? With the game above, for example, there are not a lot of decisions that need to be made which would distract children from continuing with the game. There is the option of adding some personality to this by making a self-portrait, yet this is a small focus of the game board for the child, yet should still help to keep them occupied and entertained.

In my game, I do not want to give too many options that might seem arbitrary because I do not want to lose my player in the woods (literally) while the goal is to find themselves a way out of the woods! I would like some distractions, however, and the opportunities available for some exploration and interaction where each player might be able to get acquainted with the characters in the backstory. I want to leave enough decision points, like a breadcrumb trail, with some visual or audio queues that might have a brief side "quest" that will keep the game from becoming boring, repetitive, or too easy. The option will be there to see a bit more of the map by exploring, but it will only go so far so as not to completely change the direction and keep the player in an inescapable loop.