Results from Game Design Challenge: Passion for Fashion

Thomas Bruno, IT help desk technician, The Creature from Under Space

The Pitch

As an alien resembling a pair of sentient underpants, you crash-land on earth and must use your wits and your psychic clothing powers to manipulate humans sporting the right powers to rescue your crewmates, gather parts to repair your ship, all without being captured and experimented on by designers looking for new fabric types. Luckily, you can use your small size to slip through tiny gaps and holes to infiltrate human locations, or use your psychic powers to attach yourself to humans, temporally shutting down their minds and manipulating their clothes to move them around like puppets.

• Explore the fashion capitals of the world; Milan, Paris, London and more.
• Take control of humans, carefully selecting those with the right fashion choices to let you infiltrate various locations
• Avoid detection, do not arouse suspicion, and don't possess anyone for too long less they wrestle control back form you

Specifics

Market - Indie title for release on home consoles or through PC market places like Steam

Genre - Adventure/Puzzle

Theme - Sci-fi irreverent/goofy comedy

Demographic - 8 years old plus - some crude/risqué humour, but all light hearted and fun, minimal violence (Think Spongebob Squarepants level humour, silly/non-sense comedy with winks to more adult material that only the older players will get)

Gameplay

The world - The gameplay should take place on a number of sandbox levels representing segments of real world cities renowned for their fashion culture. The players will be encourage to explore, collect items, solve puzzles or just mess around in the sandbox.

Stealth - In underwear form, the player must avoid detection by humans, either by staying out of sight, or hiding in plain sight, keeping still to imitate an abandoned piece of underwear. Players can make use of their small size to navigate drains, vent etc but must be wary of cats, dogs and rats looking for a meal or a plaything. Whilst possessing a human, they can navigate the human world more freely, but must be careful not to arouse suspicion by acting out of character. Careful selection of humans wearing the right fashions will allow them into more places. Possessing a builder may get you into the construction site, but will not get you into the fancy boutique or girl's locker room.

Puzzle solving - The aim of the game is to rescue your crewmates (other underwear creatures) and find the parts needed to repair your ship. The puzzles will be a combination of stealth and lateral thinking. Crewmates and items will be hidden in various locations. Players must choose the best humans to possess in order to get inside differing locations, operate mechanisms etc. Preferably levels have multiple solutions

Example puzzle solution - You need to rescue a frozen crewmate from a fancy restaurant freezer:

Possess a fashionable patron to get in

Switch to a waiter to get in the kitchen

Use chef to get the crewmate and thaw it on the stove, then place in back alley to collect later