You're hosting a small party at 9:00pm. It's 8:49pm and you're not prepared. Quickly drive to pick up your friends who cannot drive, shop for necessities and calm your friends down when they message you. You don't have time to lose.
Developed: February 2018 - March 2018
My Role: Solo Development
Type: University Project
DESIGN DECISIONS AND PROCESS
Gatho at 9:00, was made for a university assignment where we had to create a game based of a real life experience. I chose the feeling of being unprepared and rushing to get stuff sorted for a party. Although not directly a reflection of the real life experience, the game emphasises the feelings you have in a short, exciting experience.
There are various different "tasks" or "scenes" in the game, which the player has to accomplish in order to move onto the next one. I wanted each of them to have a different mechanic, to create the sense of disorder and increase the pressure on the player. Each of these scenes encourages pressure and anxiety for the player in different ways.
- The Driving scene, has the player thinking fast, finding the right letter on the keyboard to finish as fast as possible.
- The Friends House scene, has the player spamming the space-bar, hopefully increasing their heartbeat slightly and encouraging motor-functions which can be seen in the real world equivalent as in-patience.
- The Messaging scene, has the player spamming any key on the keyboard to reply to their friend. This implies the sense of urgency and drills home the fact that failing to finish the game will disappoint the player's friends.
- Finally, the Shop scene, has the player hastily looking for produce in a small shop. This can encourage anxiety, in-turn; having the player perhaps making bad decisions or missing obvious items.
Other elements in the game which can encourage the intended experience are:
- Music. This was done by finding a fast paced track on Incompetech (Darkling) and then adding a ticking clock every 1 second. Not only does the music encourage fast behaviour, but the ticking implies that there's no time to lose.
- Popping Text. Each scene in the game has coloured text which pops in and out. They provide information and context to the scene, as well as encouraging the player on how to act.
