After a good long chat with Professor Fu it was apparent that just posting requests to the social sites asking for items is just absolutely stale and I had to step back and ask what can be different? What can shake up these boring old social games?
Looking back at the “Cause a Random Event” feature I think I can expand upon it. It is in own kind of like crowdsourcing but what-if instead of just causing one event the un-registered user can create an alternate path of the story line? The whole point of this is to encourage collaboration and engagement of users from the social media sphere. What if registered users could create official paths and stories too? These little things could be interesting. As for the random event that feature could still be kept and can be utilized as a blocker for the player/user as they quest about in the story world.
Here’s an example:
Player has posted on twitter that they have JUST started a new story. Twitter follower (TF) clicks on the link and views the player’s current progression who is happily finishing tasks for the towns people. TF decides that the player has it too easy and so TF clicks on the button to cause a random event to happen that involves a swarm of bunnies invading the town. Now because the bunnies have invaded the town the player has to clear them out before s/he can talk to the towns people again. If s/he tries to talk to the towns people they will comment that they cannot do anything until the bunnies are gone.
Random events only happen in the area that the player is currently occupying. However there is the option to take the player and transport them to another area that is way off the path. This is where the un-registered user can create a side-path to document the player’s lost journey back to where they were prior to becoming lost.
Another possible random event is that the player may have their items stolen from them and then they have to go and find out who took their belongings thus creating a mystery within the town. The player cannot advance on any of the regular story nodes until they get their stuff back.
Random events are meant to slow the player down and to spice up the story line. This feature gives the users a chance to embellish the stories with their own flair and to make it unique.
Alright so random events seem like they would be fun but what else can the tweets, shares or posts contain to entice outside users to click on the post? Asking or pleading for things is absurdly lame… This I need to dive in and ask what scares everyone and just do it. What is scary about social media for games? Handing the reins over to the community and let them decide the players fate within the game. So what if the player posts an upcoming battle against a foe and the community has to take sides which could be interesting and be the deciding factor of if the player wins or loses the battle. Allow for heroism and villainy to run rampant amongst the story world and see what the community has to offer…. it certainly would be an interesting twist to see amongst the tired old social games. As of right now social games are linear in fashion for the story lines; they require the player/user to grind away with useless tasks with “mock” variety whilst they continue to a final goal. What I propose is to offer a template path but allow for branching and alternate endings created by the users. Just give the players the necessary tools to create these paths and see what happens.
I think by changing the format of social media games to a non-linear narration will offer a better experience for everyone.
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