Trust Climber

Trust Climber: Some Final Thoughts

TCFin

We got to a point with Trust Climber where it sort of does what we wanted it to do; a two player game in which there is one climber and one belayer. The belay has to give slack or reel in rope to support the climber, and the climber must climb to new heights. The players switch roles depending on where they are in the climb. We were able to get these mechanics up and running, and implement an Xbox controller which both players use to play the game, one player using the a,b,x,y buttons and the other player using the triggers on the other end. As I mentioned, this prototype kind of worked, but it was clumsy and it was pretty broken. We had set out to explore climbing/belaying as a metaphor for trust between players, but this interaction doesn’t really start to get at that idea. In general the group felt there was not much merit in developing this prototype any further and to move on. Although it didn’t work out to be anything particularly compelling, it did help us to focus what we want to include in the final experience we create. One of the better features of this piece was the rope that Ben put together, along with the pulling in, paying out mechanic that went along with it. The connection is at the core of the emotional target the group is interested in evoking,and that has directly informed the prototype we are currently working on.

P.S. These are a few games we were looking at.

Solo Joe Rock Climbing
GIRP
Extreme Climbing
Mount Your Friends

Week 7 Update

It’s week 7 and we are coming up to one of our major milestones; we need to make a decision about what we are going to be working on for our final project for the rest of the year by this weekend. Sword Dancer/Rhythm Fencer turned out to be a handy little prototype that came together into a proof of concept pretty quickly, and now the whole team is working on a prototype we are calling Trust Climber. The premise is that you play as one of two climbers who must work together to scale a wall, with one player leading and belaying, while the other catches up to them. We are trying to implement a rhythm element, which will most likely be negotiated by the player/players themselves, as opposed to requiring them to adhere to some underlying beat.

TC1 TC2 TC3

Climbing is achieved by pressing one of the WASD keys to grab hold of nearby handholds labeled with the same letter. When the Climber switches positions with the belayer, they control the rope with the left and right mouse keys. Some of the rocks fall after they have been grabbed in order to make the player keep up a pace of climbing, which we hope will translate into the rhythm negotiation mentioned above. We are also looking into implementing Xbox controller input, with both players using one controller. There is a definite progression that is developing through these last few prototypes, and we are hoping the underlying concepts in this prototype and the last two will all fit together organically into our final idea. The climb continues.

640px-Matterhorn_ascent_Dore

Matterhorn Ascent, Gustave Doré, 1865
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