The footprints of Power [Vallan jäljet] is a multiplayer game concept and playable prototype, which integrates a serial story and game. The game was playable via www browser.
[P]layers use resources to place bids on different groups on the game. At every update the player who made highest bid gets the ownership of the group. Some groups have abilities, e.g. they provide information about what other players are doing, adds to the value of some groups owned by the player, etc. Different have different values and abilities. The value of a player’s groups calculated on update affects howmany resources s/he will receive and also adds to their overall score. The players can send messages ti each other via game and they can donate or trade resource to/with other players. The winner is the one with highest score at any given predefined moment.
The series is a show/story about young singer and her very clamorous and yet so troublesome life, as she is being slowly introduced to the “real” powers of society [which includes the players of the game].1
The idea behind the concept is that the Footprints of Power would be a game that is integrated to television series: The players can learn about the world of the game and gain some insights on groups in the game by watching series. The game can some situations influence how the series progress (using bottlenecking, i.e., quicly terminating branches).
Credits: Petri Lankoski (lead game design, programming), Inger Ekman (game design, story), Satu Heliö (game design, story), Jani Nummela (graphics).
Game was developed using Python.
References
- Ekman & Lankoski (2004). Integrating a game with a story–lessons from interactive television concept design. Computer & Graphics 28, 167–177. Available http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cag.2003.12.002.
Petri Lankoski 