Blue-Sky Brainstorm: In this exercise, use the techniques previously described to do a brainstorm for a “blue-sky” project. By blue sky, I mean that this project could not technically be made today, but we are going to pretend it could. The challenge is to come up with ideas for a “remote control” for a stereotypical character. Choose a character from this list: • Door-to-door salesman • Busy mother • God • Superhero • Politician
First, brainstorm about the character:
What does the character do? The character runs from child to child to deal with problems. Different issues range on an intensity and frequency scale that will impact the busy mom’s ability to cope and deal with the issue/problem. E.g. “Mom! The toilet’s overflowing!!” or “ Mom! Susie’s cutting my hair off!!”
What makes the character interesting? The character has a saucy sense of humour, complete with deadpan sarcasm that the kids don’t pick up.
What aspect of the character would it be engaging to control? Her emotional responses, like anger/panic.
How does the character react? The character has over the top reactions to her children’s inability to be productive members of the household and to society as a whole. The problems her children cause trigger a pop-up menu of options the player can choose for how the mom responds.
Does the character have free will? Yes to a certain extent. There are countless disasters or problems in the game environment that the player can choose from and they can control movement, direction and response of the character.
Next, brainstorm features for your imaginary controller.
What will it look like? Similar to the movie “Inside Out,” the controller has buttons for different types of emotions (like joy, disgust, sadness, anger, fear) and a slider button to adjust the intensity of chosen emotion. There is also a touch-screen panel that provides selectable emojis that are specific responses associated with that emotion. E.g. Disgust button has or 😖as options.
What could each button do?
- Joy – will present a positive reaction from the mom, and she will have an off hand remark to go along with her joyous smile and the children will never know the underlying meaning. Things that will trigger joy: the children bring flowers, the children clean their rooms, the children wash the dishes.
- Disgust – will present a throw-up reaction from the mom, the children will run away with a look of despair on their faces. Things that will trigger disgust: poop incidents, dried snot all over their faces and arms, ripped holes in muddy clothes, rotting food at the bottom of the backpack.
- Sadness – will present a gut wrenching look of despair on the mom’s face, the children will display feelings of guilt. Another possible reaction could be the endless sobbing of the mother. Things that will trigger sadness: kids fighting, kids swearing, kids saying I hate you, kids failing school, kids being bullied at school
- Anger – will present a tornado effect, the screen device will vibrate and shit will hit the fan! The mom will stand on the counter and yell at the top of her lungs until the children will run away with looks of horror on their faces. Things that will trigger anger: rudeness, broken household things, being late for school, stealing
- Fear – will have the mother running to hide in the closet leaving the children to their own devices or will have the mother start frantically running around in circles waving her arms in the air. Things that will trigger fear: the children bringing dead rodents or insects inside, sight of profuse bleeding, broken limbs, kids stuck in trees.