Alienation was the first game concept I made while studying at Uppsala University. We worked in teams of 5 – 6 people and were given random words to get inspired from. We had the words Stranger and Doubt and decided put the player in the role of a stranger and focus on bullying and in that way make a serious game.
Role Game designer, Project lead
Date 2012
Type Space-shooter
(Concept sketch for story)
Setting
You start as a lonely alien in outer space. The character you play as has always been alone without any love or friends. In the game you search for someone who will accept you and as you drift through the universe you will meet other aliens and try to convince them that you’re friendly. The player attacks with words instead of bullets and use words such as “Help”, “Please” and “Hello”. The enemies also attacks with words but use meaner words such as “Go away”, “Leave”, etc.
Our main idea was to make the player feel like an outcast and alone while playing with the idea that words can sometimes hurt more than bullets.
(Early mockup of the concept for Alientation that our group made for the presentation. The concept was later choosen by 2 other groups that made this concept into a game.)
I made the following ripomatic to present the concept for our class and to show what kind of emotions we aimed for with this game: