Pandaland

Panda Land is a Swedish indie game that reminded me of Miracle Girls, due to the fact that the player throws food at their enemies to defeat them. It was created by Svante Danielsson using Game Maker, a free program many people use to make short games.

The game is set in Södermalm, Stockholm, Sweden, where you play as "indie pop girl" Amanda Panda who tries to save her friends from an evil lizard. Your enemies are "tanned upper-class brats from Östermalm" and you replenish your health with various items, including cake, beer and iPods.

It was useful to look at Pandaland because I think its cute graphical style would appeal to girls and the game is also quite humorous.

Miracle Girls

I will now look at a few platform games that exclusively target a female audience, in order to inspire more themes and gameplay ideas.

Firstly, I looked at Miracle Girls a Japanese game for Super Famicom, developed by Takara, 1993. While researching for my dissertation, studies have shown that girls typically do not like violent games; therefore, I am looking out for platform games that aren’t violent. In Miracle Girls, which was aimed at a female audience, the two protagonists don’t hurt their enemies. Instead, they throw sweets at them, which make them friendly for a few moments before going back to normal. Also, if the main character loses all her health, she doesn’t die, she just cries instead. Finally, unlike most platform games of this time, which had a boss fight at the end of every level, the bosses of Miracle Girls are simple mini-games.

Although Miracle Girls isn’t an excellent game, it was interesting to look at how it goes around using violence for the sake of its target audience. I especially like how the character throws sweets at enemies, rather than killing them.

Hohokum

Hohokum is an upcoming game I played at the Eurogamer Expo, developed by Honeyslug. I was drawn to the game because its characters and colours reminded me of Noby Noby Boy for PlayStation Network. The game has very interesting controls, reminding me of the 1970s arcade game “snake” and the goal is to rescue stranded people by letting ride on your back.

As I am hoping to develop a 2D platform game, with 3D environments, the art style was very inspiring and gave me a few ideas how I can design my own levels. Also, I often appreciate games that avoid violence when dealing with conflict.

The Path

The Path is a short horror game developed by Tale of Tales, based on the Little Red Riding Hood. In the game, the player is given a simple instruction: “Go to Grandmother's house and stay on the path.” The player can pick one of six girls to plays as, and the game mostly centres on exploring the very atmospheric environment to collect items and find the wolf. The game itself is very slow and I find the narrative very ambiguous, which builds on the game’s macabre mood.

From playing The Path, I have learned that narrative can be subtly expressed through atmospheric and explorative environments. I would like my own game to use this kind of technique to express a story.

PixelJunk Eden

PixelJunk Eden is a very atmospheric platform game where you control a small character that jumps and holds onto the environment to progress through its levels. I was drawn to Eden because of its incredible art style, by graphic designer and musician “Baiyon.” I also find the concept of the game very interesting: The player must grow the plants to reach their desired destination. In an interview with Baiyon, he explains that “in making the game, I focused on growth over destruction, on constructing rather than repairing.” I found this to be a thoughtful alternative to having a violent game.

Game Research: Limbo

Now I will move on from looking at Alice in Wonderland media and look at games. I will first look at the varying art styles of different games, in order to inspire some ideas for my own game. As I am hoping to make a platform game in this academic year, I will try to look only at platform games. However, I may look at other genres if they have art styles and mechanics that could be relevant to my project.

Firstly, I looked at a recent game “Limbo,” for the XBOX 360. The game’s art style is in black and white, using silhouettes to express the characters and environments. Limbo’s gameplay seems to be more about puzzle solving than platforming.

What I have learned from looking at Limbo is the importance of building an atmosphere. Limbo has very morbid themes, and this is certainly expressed through its graphical style and pacing of its levels.