Chapter 1: Game Research 

My project has one main source of inspiration. Thor god of thunder, released on PS3 in 2011. This game was scored on Metacritic at 39, one of the lowest scores I have ever seen in my gaming years. The reviews for the game are negative. 

Most of the complaints seem to be aimed at the developers as the game created in   With my game, I will aim to avoid the shortfalls that the Thor videogame faced. These things include : Repetitive gameplay, Lack of difficulty progression, minimal level variation and many more. 

Infamous 2 

Another videogame that I have taken inspiration from is Infamous 2. In this game the protagonist ( Cole) has been getting used to his electricity powers and enhancing them using reactors gained through the story.   As the game progresses, you as the player are faced with various encounters that directly affect the story. As well as this, the colour of Cole’s electric powers changes colour to reflect the players choices. Red for evil, blue for good. As mentioned, the colour of Coles powers change depending on the players actions. In my game, I could spin this idea to affect the world representation directly. Bright colours for good actions, Dark colours for evil actions. 

Unlike the previous game, Infamous 2 avoids the pitfalls of poor level design by letting you loose in a big city, complete with skyscrapers, slum type areas and the occasional swamp areas. Games like this are hard to get wrong as many gamers love the open world style. This is evidenced by 2 key factors. 

1. Several entries in the series 
2. High sale numbers 

 According to google, “Sucker Punch's PlayStation 3 title Infamous has sold 1.2 million copies after worldwide release in 2009. This fact enforces the opinions of players. Following the same thought process, I have studied 2 more games like infamous. These games are Deathloop and Dishonoured. 

Dishonoured 2 

Following the remarkable success of dishonoured, developer Arkane studios released a sequel. This game followed the same formula as before but with bigger more open levels, improved movement mechanics and an improved catalogue of powers. Dishonoured 2 has many new abilities depending on the protagonist chosen, as well as returning favourites such as Blink, Dark Vision, and Bend Time. Some new powers are Far reach – Emily’s version of Blink and Domino – Link enemies together and one’s fate is shared with all.   

Deathloop 

After the successes of the Dishonoured series, Arkane Studios released a spin off title called Deathloop. This game took everything great about Dishonoured and improved it. A new mechanic was introduced to this game in which if you die, or the day ends every enemy you have killed resets back to their original positions. While I cannot mimic the same mechanic as Deathloop, when the player dies, they will regain all health and ability timers will reset.  On Metacritic, Deathloop has gained a user rating of 6.4 and a meta score of 88. Many reviews are highly positive with players calling the game “conceptually ambitious” and “a masterpiece.."

https://www.metacritic.com/game/playstation-5/deathloop