Lizard Through Time

1. Beginning, sets the scene you talk to Incredible Fella and he explains the situation.
2. Dr.Doom's lair (main dungeon). You find a note that directs you through the wormhole and what Lizard Man has to do. The wormhole takes you to the 80’s.
3. Just a basic set to immerse the player in the time, just a straight path that leads to the arcade
4. The arcade has multiple sprites that you must talk to in order to find out where to go.
5. Secret back room where you find another note and wormhole.
6. In the Dinosaur era there is a cave at the corner to go in.
7. In the cave there is a dead scientist a final note and the serum you need to save incredible fella
8. You give him the serum and there is a secret exit he shows you that ends the game. 

I used Mclouds concept of using small little words to create perception(51). It was difficult to portray a “Lizard Man” or an “Incredible Fella” with 8 bits and with limited colors and space  to create. So using dialogue to push through the story and the character was what I had to do. In transitions I tried to use the Japanese transition of using them to establish a mood or sense of place (72). With this thought in mind I used transitions going through the wormhole. Using the wave as a way to give the player a sense of sci-fi travel so when they find their sense of place it transitions a little easier. Or when they go through the cave in the prehistoric era there is quite literally a tunnel effect which worked out perfectly. In using the timestamp method I added “extra panels” in the 80’s to make it feel longer and more adventurous(101). I thought that if each time travel was just one room it wouldn't really seem like the game is traveling through time just traveling to different places. So adding the extra panels or frames in the 80’s to make the player have to actually explore helped with the time stamp. 

Watching the theme park videos, the biggest lessons I took away were having a backstory and immersing the user in an environment graphically with the little details. For example if this was some crazy theme park and my last project was a movie. The audience would already have an idea of the story and its sense. The recurring characters like Incredible Fella was a nice call back to immerse the audience in the story/setting. So naturally, when the story takes place in a dungeon and you see Incredible Fella, the scene has pretty much been set. My only regret was to have had more detail on the actual villain of the story or Lizard Man universe. Second was using graphics to fully immerse the audience. One of the ways I did this was by using animations in the tiles like the flames in the dungeon. Also in the arcade with the moving games, and the games in general. I thought the one thing that really screamed the 80’s would be an Arcade. Using those little details helped me create an environment that the player could explore and relate to. Another thing would be the transitions I learned in Mclouds book. Like I said earlier the transitions really helped me simulate a transition through time that made the act of time travel seem more understandable to the player.