Game, Video Game, Alpha

When building the alpha for Heroes of Rock, I get a lot of people that say they want to see "my game."

I'm my way home from class on Tuesday I was thinking a lot about the terms video game and game. I was also thinking about a comment Roger made about how he didn't want to show our alpha games because he wanted to impressive people. Roger has a great point, if we show prospective students or the press a game that looks like a prototype, it could potentially hurt our reputation as a team or as a program.

I don't really want to show my game yet, though I'd be very proud to show off what we've done so far. I think we've made a lot of progress but at the same time it's difficult to only be at alpha.

Back to my first comment: Right now I wouldn't say that Heroes of Rock looks like a video game - at least not yet. Right now, it's basically a block that goes around fighting other blocks. That's not exactly the most glamorous place to be but it brings up a good point.

The Alpha of Heroes of Rock doesn't have to look like an xbox 360 video game, it needs to play like a GAME. Games involve a tasks with rewards and punishments. The player feels fun depending on the tasks and how those tasks are accomplished. For our alpha, we are demonstrating our GAME, not exactly our visual representation of our game yet.

At this point in our development, it is important to think about the GAME, not just the VIDEO game. I might not want to show off my blocks jumping around yet but I need to make sure it's fun before we proceed. If we have a fun game, we can turn it into an awesome VIDEO GAME.

Alpha isn't a place where I want to show all of my friends yet but it's important in our overall development.