Games and Joy Final Prototyping: Stay In Bed Simulator

For my prototype, I plan to build out my previous work on Stay In Bed Simulator, most significantly by adding an alt controller that is, well, a bed.

Mechanics: through the use of pressure sensors, control player movement through their position on the bed. If they get off of the (physical) bed, or fall off of the in-game bed, they lose.

Flavors of Joy

I’ve been thinking a lot about joy as growth and struggle, as well as alienation from/gamification of the normal. Through deeply weirdifying a normal experience — staying in bed, ignoring your responsibilities, feeling stressed out — I hope to get my users to think more deeply about the processes and gamifications of their day-to-day lives. In my manifesto, I talked about how productivity, for many in my generation, and specifically in this program, has become our primary measure of value. By making a game where the entire goal is to be unproductive for as long as possible, I’m hoping that players will begin to question that framework. It’s highly possible that I don’t accomplish this goal at all, or that it doesn’t work quite the way I’d hoped, but it’s an avenue I really want to explore. What does a game that gamifies laziness look like?

Milestones

This week: ideation and “paper” prototyping. Purchased a weight/pressure sensor and a flex resistor to test which will work better for my purposes.

Week 2: prototype controller, get pressure sensor input communicating with Unity. Determine if it’s usable for movement, or just for game state. Obtain mattress/futon. Debug game further, add some more functionality/aesthetics.

Week 3: build out full controller. Continue debugging/aesthetic work. Playtest.

If all goes well, I think this will be a great project for the winter show, so ideally in the week following our final presentations I can incorporate any feedback/fix any issues that may occur in the building process.

Prototype

In case my games haven’t made it clear, I’m not what you would call a “visual” person. Here’s the old college try at an illustrator prototype:

Hypothetical paper prototype: lay out a bunch of paper like a mattress. Have user move around on it, manipulate existing game prototype to reflect their motions. See how that goes?