After many tedious hours of energy drinks and hot fries, the Development Document is complete.. Here it is for your eyes splendor..

Dev Doc

The First Step

It didn’t take long for game designers to come to the same assessment we just made and to give birth to games that rewarded players for playing sports in a much more frenetic style.   Games like NBA Jam and NFL Blitz took existing sports and honed in on the most exciting aspects of the sports.  Things like gravity, arm strength, and speed took steps well away from the world of plausibility in favor of more exciting gameplay.  The first year sales results of these titles showed there was a market that was not being served (Blitz outsold Madden its first year) and the first iterations of these titles are considered gaming and arcade classics.  A new subgenre titled arcade sports had been created.

These titles have gone through several iterations up to the modern day and many other sports have received similar treatment.  Unfortunately, newer iterations of these titles have remained largely the same as the original titles and have not further pursued the evolution that made them such sales successes in the beginning.  The next question then must be what steps can be taken to reinvigorate this subgenre and what limitations does the genre currently face?

A Different Perspective

One of the universals across both arcade and simulation style sports games has been the perspective.  These games try their best to convey the same look and feel of the game that you get when you’re watching a real game.  When possession of the ball changes, the player’s avatar switches to the new carrier.  This has the effect of making the player feel more like the coach than any particular player on the field.  This play style doesn’t give a player the same connection to their avatar as a game in which you play a single character.

In Madden NFL 2006 a new game mode was introduced that allowed you to create a player in the position of your choice and play just that character.  (NFL Superstar)  At first pass it seems like a good idea but there are two obvious problems with the mode.  First, the perspective switches to first person which makes it far too difficult to be aware of what is going on outside of the player’s vision.  Second, many of the plays your avatar would not be the feature of the play and be forced to do mundane tasks such as blocking.  The combination of these two problems greatly detracted from the gameplay experience.

The real problem is not that controlling a single character is unviable in a sports game, but that it’s not very enjoyable in a football game.

Pulse

So what would a sport look like that was designed with these lessons in mind?  This is the question we are trying to answer with Pulse.  Pulse is a focused sports experience.  It is focused on the parts of modern sports that make them enjoyable to play and to watch.  It is focused on making the player feel like an integral part of the experience at all times.  It is focused on creating an attachment between the player and their avatar.  Pulse is about empowering the player.

Pulse takes cues from several existing sports but in the end is its own animal.  Games take place between two teams of three or four players.  This smaller team size makes it more viable for each character to be controlled by a unique user.  Players are able to select from several different positions before play starts, each with its own strengths and weaknesses.  Each position will have its own unique look and feel that will add replay value to the game and help to attract players with a variety of different play styles.

Pulse is played from a different perspective than any other sports title, an over-the-shoulder third-person view.  This perspective allows the player to be given clear visual feedback with respect to what is happening to their avatar.  It also allows for players to be more in control of the experience by giving players the ability to free-look and target at any point in the game.   Randomness and luck are enemies of great gameplay and keys to player frustration.  This perspective allows players to be directly responsible for that perfect pass, or directly responsible for the turnover.

It’s a social form of entertainment

The past ten years have born witness to the rise of video games as a predominantly social form of entertainment and not an isolating experience.  The popularity of social and multiplayer games has grown exponentially in just a few years and analysts expect the trend to continue.  Sports titles have, thus far, only taken advantage of some of the more stereotypical forms of multiplayer entertainment.  Part of the problem has been that there hasn’t been a sports title designed to exploit the new multiplayer and marketing avenues now available.

The design of Pulse is such that it has the potential to reach a market previously unavailable to the sports genre.  The world of competitive multiplayer games has taken over the hardcore market and breached well into the hit-driven/social market.  Sales records have been shattered by titles like Call of Duty: Modern Warfare and Halo that have sold in excess of 10 million units with a single release.

While sales expectations of this height are certainly far from what can be expected, it does show the strength and size of the available market.  Even new IPs, such as Borderlands, have been able to find success in this market by providing a new twist on familiar goals.  (3 million units sold)  With the inclusion of features like player advancement, customization, and matchmaking, Pulse would have very real relevance in this expanding market.

After 3 hours of intense Pulse action, we came away with absolutely incredible feedback. One great feedback was that the play-testers never got tired of playing. After every session they were pumped up and wanted to keep on going. HUGE plus. The kids that came in also were great at giving us valid and helpful feedback. We filled up half of the white board with feedback that they were giving throughout the entire session. Also, Seth made a great survey that asked key questions about the game and what we could do to improve it. Definitely a great first run, and we are looking forward to putting these results in visual form and posting them up here on WhatsYourPulse!

New pictures of our team have been posted in the “The Team” section!

The Pulse Team now has a Twitter account! Follow us @whatsyourpulse