Behind the Lectern
A puzzle simulation where the player becomes a teach struggling to survive a week of their demanding job.
Key Info
Engine
GameMaker
Role
Game Designer, Software Engineer, Producer
Team Size
3
Production Time
3 Months
Full Gameplay
Game Design
Design Goals
Goal #1: Purposefully overwhelm the player with our core game loop. Strenghten this using shifting and challenging sub loops.
Goal #2: Gamify real events a teacher could experience to showcase how demanding the job is. Induce player reflection on experiencing this for themselves.
Pitching & Ideation
At the beginning of my Alternative Game Dev course all students were able to pitch a game to the class. I made a presentation and pitched Behind the Lectern, resulting in it being 1 of 10 selected to be built. As part of this earlier ideation process I also ideated on a bunch of minigames from gameplay and thematic perspectives.
Core Game Loop
Problem #1: How can we help the player understand the connection between game mechanics and gameplay events?
Problem #2: How do we make the game fair and playable while being overwhelming and communicating our purpose?
Design Challenges
Solution #1: Instead of telling the player directly, we can allow them to figure it out themselves with guiding efforts like effects and indicators. By subtly teaching the player how gameplay connects to events, we can get them onboarded while
Solution #2: We can use our in-class playtests to iterate quickly and determine what dials we can turn to make the experience effective and functional. After playtesting our answers were to utilize minigames multiple times, making them harder, speeding up the timer in minigames, increasing the timer speed each day, and increasing the number of tasks on later days of the week.
Design Resolutions
Systems Design & Implementation
Core System
To fully realize our core game loop and purpose I fleshed out the core systems and interactions for our game. The primary components of this system are the timer, the todo list, and their interactions. The todo list holds all of the tasks for the player that are associated with minigames. The timer constantly updates, tracks the day of the week, and responds to player actions by speeding up or slowing down. There are many interactions I designed between these components including adding events at specific times, failing events at specific times, automatically starting events, etc.
Punishment System
To further our goal of overwhelming the player I designed the punishment system. This system reacts to the player’s actions and punishes them for making any mistake. When the player fails it purposefully makes it harder for them to recover—escalating their strength and tension. It links into the timer and todo list core systems to create a cohesive game.
Software Engineering
Core Implementation
I was the primary engineer for our team which included setting up our code and source control. I programmed all of the systems mentioned above including our core gameplay, the timer, tasklist, punishments, and all of their interactions.
Coding Standards
As the primary software engineer and producer on our team I had to take a leadership role in maintaining code and source control standards. The other two team members were less familiar with programming and had no prior experience with git, so I made a document outlining how to work in our project and how to manage changes to avoid merge conflicts.
Minigame Implementations
I implemented several of our minigames myself like eating, grading paper, and sorting papers. As the primary engineer for the project I also assisted in all of the minigames with bug fixes and adjustments.
Bonus Areas
With such a small team, I got to learn and try out a few different things!
Narrative & Writing
I did all of the narrative and writing elements of the game. This included papers to be graded by the player that were purposefully laced with mistakes as well as the tasks, events, and punishments. I scripted narrative elements to occur at specific times or on specific days.
UI/UX Design
When designing the core loop and gameplay, I wanted to get a clear understanding of how the game would look and deliver our game. Early on in development I created a UI/UX mockup that we referenced in the creation of the final product. It included a mix of important development features and player facing verbs.
As the vision holder for the project I also functioned as our producer. I divided up tasks and help the team prioritize features for each stage of development. As part of this the team collaborated to create a production plan that I maintained and adjusted throughout development.
Production
Final Product
Images from collaborative team project, not all features representative of my work.
