First off, a huge congratulations to all of the finalists for this year’s USC Advanced Games Contest. Although I have yet to see many of the proposals, the ones I am familiar with are truly excellent and you should all be tremendously proud. I am posting the proposal I submitted, which did not make the cut. As a freshman, this was hardly surprising, but my experience creating the proposal was absolutely worthwhile nonetheless. If you have any questions or comments, I would love to hear them. Thank you, and fight on!
House of Cards
Gameplay and Controls
House of Cards is a game about creating stability in multiple households. It is meant to be played many times, with each play-though resulting in a drastically different experience. At the beginning of the game the player is given three card houses. Each house is initially unstable, represented by the house swaying back and forth. As the game progresses, the houses continue to lose stability if left unattended. Each house is made entirely out of physical cards, but instead of numbers and suits, the cards contain people, places, and conditions. When combined into a house, the people, places, and conditions come to life and the player must observe and affect the outcome. The houses are made up of randomly generated cards, although each house must contain an assortment of people and conditions. The people are given jobs that hint at their characteristics, but the majority of their characteristics are randomly generated, ensuring that the gameplay never becomes stale upon multiple playthroughs. Because the gameplay involves multiple houses and swapping cards between them, it could work well as a multiplayer game, and that option will certainly be left open.
From a pure gameplay perspective the game only features two mechanics. The user can drag and drop cards and manipulate the camera. The game is simple enough to work on multiple platforms, but the iPad would be the ideal platform for its interface. The controls are simple enough to work well with a mouse, controller, or even as a Facebook game, but from this point on I will refer to the controls in terms of the iPad. The player can drag and drop cards at any point, and the basic rules of physics are entirely ignored. For example, removing a card from a house will not cause the house to collapse, as the choice of cards is far more important than their physical location. As houses become increasingly unstable, they may collapse and the player may drag the cards off the table and into the empty spaces to form new houses. By rotating the iPad, the player may view multiple sides of the playspace. To further illustrate this function I will refer to an iPhone game called WordFu. In WordFu, the player is given many six-sided cubes with letters on each side. By rotating the iPhone, they may view the different sides in a pseudo-3D effect. This effect would undoubtedly prove to be beneficial when used in House of Cards.
Sample Playsession
The game begins and three card houses appear on a table. In the first house, a carpenter lives with his wife in a middle class household. The carpenter and his wife are represented by two different cards in the house, but because they are part of the house the two characters are free to move about inside. Several other cards become the living conditions. There is a salary card that hints at the amount of money the carpenter makes, and a charity card that reveals that the family is charitable and donates a portion of their income to the needy. A crib card in the house reveals that the wife is pregnant. Without any further action taken by the player, the carpenter and his wife start to become unsettled. Through their body language, it is discernible that the carpenter is worried about providing for a new family member, and the wife becomes more helpless and the situation becomes more stressful as the baby comes closer to reality. The house sways back and forth at a constantly increasing pace until eventually it collapses, and the cards are left scattered on the table.
Let us take a step back for a moment. The previous example depicted the results when the player fails to interact with the game. The player can change the situation entirely at any given moment. In this playsession, he first contemplates hunting for a better salary card for the carpenter, but is afraid of negatively affecting the other households. There are just enough cards to create three card houses, therefore there will never be any left over. The player is also reluctant to remove the charity card as it is a symbol of the family’s kindness, and its removal could create further problems. In the player’s second house, a single man lives in a beautiful home and is paid a hefty salary. However, his beautiful home cannot allow him to overcome his loneliness. Thus, the player makes a trade. He removes the crib card from the first house, and replaces it with a medal card from the second house. The conditions change immediately. The medal is now the carpenter’s, turning him into a man of some importance. His living conditions improve immediately, but not drastically, as his salary is the same. However, his wife is no longer pregnant, and thus he is more confident in his ability to provide for his family. In the second house, the man first loses some confidence after his medal is taken away. He is still wealthy, but no longer as important. However, the crib has an altogether different effect. The player had hoped for the crib to bring a baby, which would give the man company. However, in the presence of a single man, the crib serves a different purpose altogether. It is revealed through the man’s body language and use of props that the crib belonged to a child that was taken away after his wife left him. The player must act immediately to save the second house, and quickly decides to remove the wife from the third and most stable household and places it into the second house. The man is now married, and his house quickly becomes stable while the third begins to sway rapidly. The game continues in this manner until either all three houses are stable or all three houses collapse. There are only two outcomes, but the ways to reach them are endless.
Goal for Gameplay
House of Cards is meant to provide a thought-provoking and enriching experience and will be able to be enjoyed no matter how many times it is played. A single play-session should not last more than ten minutes, and a positive outcome is always more difficult to achieve than a negative outcome. The player’s choices represent not just an aspect of the gameplay, but the gameplay in its entirety.
Game Innovation
House of Cards represents a different type of experience that allows for the player to write his or her own individual story with each playthrough. The fundamental game mechanics do not resemble the foundations of any established genre in particular, yet are simple and accessible enough for the game to have the potential to reach a large audience. Interactive media has an enormous amount of storytelling potential, and because the game gives the player control over the narrative, it will serve as a means of tapping into that potential. In addition, the game is short enough for anyone to fit it into his or her everyday schedule, and those with more time can enjoy multiple playthroughs with entirely unique outcomes.
As stated in the gameplay document, the game would work on any number of platforms, but would perform best on the iPad due its ability to mimic the notion of touching the cards and accelerometer for camera control. It is rare to find games on mobile platforms with storytelling ambitions, and House of Cards would immediately stand out amongst the flood of iPad and iPhone games for this reason alone. Players will be instantly familiar with the cards that the game uses as its representations, but the game will display its advantages in being a digital work when the cards come to life and dynamically affect the game state.
I garnered my initial inspiration for House of Cards from the Radiohead song of the same name. The song features a strong metaphorical narrative; therefore from the moment I first began conceptualizing the game it was meant to tell a story. Unlike the song, the game does not offer much narrative content upfront, but by the end of the game a full story is written. With big budget games such as Heavy Rain and Mass Effect allowing for the manipulation of a story, it has yet to be seen what can be accomplished on a smaller scale. In addition, video games have proven time and time again that simulation can produce interesting results, regardless of how abstract the simulation may be. Games such as The Sims and Jones in the Fast Lane have displayed the joy that can be experienced in simulating everyday life. By combining story manipulation with simulation, House of Cards will take the next step forward and create an altogether new experience that can be fully enjoyed on a bus ride, but nevertheless leaves the player anxious to experience the game all over again.
Please watch this video after reading the proposal: