Believers Bedlam*Final Design Doc

*Formerly Mesmerize

Developed ByJames Godfrey­Kittle ­ Game input/control, pixel art, menu codeFengbo Li ­ Portraits (x4), pixel art, testing docs, titleMary Macheski­Preston ­ Writing lead, portraits (x6), music pick, UIBrendan Byrne ­ Icons, pixel art, UI art/code, instructionsWilliam Green ­ Sound effects selection, icons, pixel artChris DeLeon ­ Engine, portraits (x2), animation, pixel artWith music by Kevin MacLeod of incompetech.com (via Creative Commons)

Game GenreRTS lite, head­to­head local multiplayerRoughly similar in style to battle­mode in North & South on NES (Infogrames, 1990)

Name ChangeThroughout production ­ up until very recently ­ this game has gone by the working titleMesmerize. Searching the internet for “mesmerize game” has turned up another gametitled Mesmerize, for Playstation 3, released in 2007. Even aside from legalconsiderations, simply to make our game more easily found on Google we’ve opted toswitch to the title that tied with Mesmerize in our team’s initial vote from among suggestedtitles, and the tied name was Believers Bedlam.

NarrativeThe magic of fairy tales and holiday characters ­ historical and fantastic alike ­ has longhelped unite children and cultures across generations. Belief in such stories can make ussmile and bring great joy through shared understanding. However rising skepticism, arapidly spreading desire to deal with the world more literally, has begun to erode faith inmagical and legendary characters. Children have lost one source of simple pleasure, andseemingly gained nothing in return but worry and fear.

However the lack of belief from children puts the very existence of fairy tale and holidaycharacters in jeopardy, and such mighty forces from history won’t simply sit back andaccept being eradicated. In Believers Bedlam, magical and legendary characters fromFairy Tales compete with those of popular Holidays to win over the most hearts and mindsof children by putting on performances rich in spectacle. Will this be the final stand for anentire class of imaginary characters, once treasured by children across the land?

Game MechanicsBelievers Bedlam is designed primarily as a two­player game, with one player controllingholiday characters and the other guiding characters from fairy tales. Support forsingle­player functionality is provided for practice, however the game makes clear in themenus that two player mode is the “real” way to play

Each selects three characters from their respective roster, mapping them to differentcontrols keys on the keyboard. The holiday side uses 1, 2, and 3, whereas 8, 9, and 0 areused for the fairy tale side. Characters vary considerably in skills, such as the range of theirpowers, speed of their movements, or predictability of their actions, creating strategy indepth in crafting a line up that balances capabilities as a coherent team.

When characters perform spells ­ acts demonstrating the character’s unique and

memorable value to the children ­ all children that witness the spectacle become followersof that character. The magical characters controlled by players can leave the play field atany time, bringing followers closely behind. Children led off either edge of the screen gofrom being mere followers of one character (“Easter Bunny”) to being genuine believers inthat character’s entire team (“Holiday Characters”).

The first team to convert more than half the crowd of children into believers in their team ­leading them off the left or right edge of the play field ­ wins the game. There is no timelimit, which means that match time scales dynamically to the skill of players, makingmatches between beginners slower paced, and matches between more experiencedplayers potentially much shorter.

Players use simple, mechanical controls to coordinate their chosen characters. Each keyavailable to the team is mapped to a single character. In order to offer players enoughcontrol over the magical characters, we adopt a “fishing rod” metaphor. This explicitlydetermines the vertical and horizontal positions of characters. There are two short linesmoving vertically at each side of the screen, which indicate the vertical position of thecharacter when sent out. Characters cast spells right after they are stopped to providegreater control over the characters, without overcomplicating the controls or overcrowdingthe keyboard. The first press of that key sends the character out into the play field, the nextpress makes them stop where they are at to perform their spell, and the next time their keyis pressed the character returns to their home side to bring back any followers, convertingthem to believers for the team. One interesting feature of Believers Bedlam, whichemerges from the distinction between followers and believers in the game, is thatcharacters can steal mesmerized kids from the opposing side, so long as the kids haven’tleft the screen.

Believers Bedlam strives to promote replay through dynamic differences in characters, theasymmetric balance between the teams, and the unpredictability of human challengers. Formore details on those character differences and team balance dynamics, refer to theCharacters section.

TechnologyWe programmed Believers Bedlam entirely using ActionScript 3, which compiles to flash,however development happened entirely without (and outside of) Adobe Flash CS,favoring command­line compilation scripts and plain text editors. We utilizedAdamAtomic’s Flixel library for optimized framebuffer­based graphics and animatedsprites. Other tools usde by the team during development include Photoshop, Gimp.org

(free Photoshop alternative), and Audacity.

CharactersHoliday TeamThanksgiving Turkey

The Turkey is a symbol of the holiday Thanksgiving. In Believers Bedlam, he cookshimself up to win over children. In terms of gameplay dynamics, this fixes thecharacter in place and has a long recovery time, which makes the mesmerizedchildren difficult for the opposing team to realign, though simultaneously prevents theTurkey from returning promptly with the children. If the other team observes carefullythe time that the turkey performs its spell and times a spell to happen shortly after itreturns to uncooked form, the characters can be won back and returned before theturkey can respond.

CupidCupid is the son of the goddess Venus, and famous as a representatives ofValentine’s Day. He shoots arrows of love past the children, impressing them with

the power of love as it flies gracefully through the air. Being a winged character,Cupid moves much faster than nearly all other characters (besides the Tooth Fairyon the opposing team ­ also winged!). The arrow, being small and fast, is not visibleto children from very far away, but it covers a great deal of area quickly in thedirection that Cupid faces, extending his reach and speed even beyond where hiswings can take him. Cupid can even retreat to his side just as soon as the arrowflies, hurrying children affected by it back to his side to become believers, before theopposing side has a chance to react to his actions.

Easter BunnyThe Easter Bunny was historically a sign of fertility ­ thus the combination of eggsand the rabbit (stereotypically known for its great number of offspring). In her modernform, she hides brightly decorated eggs with treats and toys hidden inside. WithinBelievers Bedlam, she scatters eggs far in random directions, functioning with arange similar to that of Cupid, but without any way to predict which direction theeggs will be thrown in. Thus makes the bunny’s effectiveness a matter of probability,acting as a wild card, and when the eggs get thrown vertically up or down on thescreen this character’s influence becomes the greatest along those dimensions.Being a hare, this character also runs and wanders much faster than all charactersaside from those that fly.

Viking Leif EricsonLeif Ericson discovered the Americas almost 500 years prior to ChristopherColumbus. His mighty viking ship sails across the field, introduce children to hisrelatively new holiday (made official by President Obama in 2012), Lief EricsonDay. Because the ship travels predictably straight out in the direction of the Viking’sfacing, it functionally is a bit like Cupid’s arrow. However the viking walks muchmore slowly than Cupid can fly, on account of his heavy norse armor and arms, andthough the ship is visible from a much greater distance than Cupid’s arrows, itmoves more slowly and covers less ground than the arrows. This makes the Vikingmore effective than Cupid nearer to his side, to play defensively or in a same­siderush tactic, but considerably less useful for realigning kids mesmerized by the otherteam before they can be converted into full believers.

LeprechaunThe Leprechaun is a Celtic fairy that became associated with St. Patrick’s Day.This clever rascal plays pranks, spreads luck, and hides pots of gold at the end ofrainbows for children to find. The rainbow is visible from a great distance, but unlikemany other forms of spectacle it does not move. Its relative persistence alsoincreases the liklihood of foiling an opposing character’s attempt to realign kidsmesmerized by it.

Santa Claus

Santa Claus is one of the most famous holiday characters. Every Christmas he fliesacross the world in his reindeer­pulled sleigh and delights children with gifts. InBelievers Bedlam he flies overhead proving to the children that he’s real. This isvisible from a great distance, and covers a great distance, however because Santarides in the sleigh when he performs the maneuver he tends to wind up further fromthe side he needs to return to. Santa is considerably overweight and out of shape,meaning that when he is not riding in his sleigh he is among the slowest of thecharacters, leaving him highly exposed to his followers (though initially plentify)being realigned before he can return with all of them to make believers of them.

Fairy TaleThree Little Pigs

The Three Little Pigs myth involves a family of pigs who are attacked by a Big BadWolf. In Believers Bedlam, they show off their victory over the wolf by having the wolf,caged, howl to impress the nearby children. The wolf’s howl can be heard from afar,but the pigs are slow, and repositioning the cage is much slower than otherperformances such as egg throwing, making the Three Little Pigs “tanks” of theconversionary play field.

Pied PiperIn his folk story, the Pied Piper cleared a town of rodents by luring them away withmusic. When the town refused to pay for his services, he got back at thetownspeople by luring their children away. He is relatively nimble, and the oddtrajectory of his music notes makes him a decent all­around character, without anysignificant strengths or weaknesses.

Humpty DumptyHumpty Dumpty comes from a nursery rhyme in which he falls off of a wall andcannot be put back together. In Believers Bedlam, he cracks apart over and overagain for all of the children to see. When the children gather from all around in anattempt to help put him back together again, it’s already too late ­ they have becomebelievers! Humpty’s performance creates quite a show, making him a greatcharacter for disrupting a cluster of kids that have recently been converted intofollowing the opposing team.

Jack and the BeanstalkJack plants magic beans, growing a bean stalk, and steals from the giants in theclouds a hen that lays golden eggs. In Believers Bedlam he carries around his henthat lays golden eggs ­ out of hubris more than anything, and it really slows down hismovement quite a bit. However when he plants magic beans, a new tall stalk sproutsfrom the ground and goes high up into the clouds, impressing children from allaround at a great distance. Due to the relative scarcity of magic beans, Jack has a

longer waiting period than many other characters for the time required to recoverybetween performing.

PinocchioPinocchio was made by a lonely man, and brought to life by a blue fairy. His goalwas to become a real human boy. When he lies, his nose stretches out, whichchildren in Believers Bedlam find amusing. He continues to wander through crowdsas his nose grows, giving him a larger effective area than other characters that needto hold still to perform their spectacles. However since Pinocchio’s spell requireshim to stick around, he can’t retreat after sending out a conversion object the waymany characters on the opposing team do with love arrows, viking ships, etc.

Tooth FairyThe Toothy Fairy originates from the fear of witches using body parts to cursechildren. She exchanges money for children’s lost teeth. In Believers Bedlam, she isthe fastest character ­ being winged like Cupid however much smaller and morenimble. She leaves delicious candies on the ground for her spectacle, causing thechildren’s teeth to rot, leading them to believe in her. The candy has a very smallradius of influence, however its persistence renders those children converted by itdifficult for the opposing team to recapture. Combined with the Tooth Fairy’s speed,the impressive persistence of the candies affords her unique strategies, like racingacross the play field to drop a candy near the opposing player’s edge ­ causing anychildren returning along that line to immediately realign and being walking towardthe Tooth Fairy’s side.

Double­Coded MediaThe writing of Believers Bedlam is double coded, which means it is designed to appeal tomultiple age groups in different ways. This is accomplished in a number of ways. To appealto children, the game possesses a very colorful art scheme, an appealing and easilyunderstood world full of magic and fun, and lots of chaotic spectacle. The controls aresimple and easy for beginners or non­gamers to interpret, allowing for younger players tostill engage with the experience.

The adult appeal is more subtle. Much of the dialogue includes puns and jokes that mightjust seem generic to children but could be appreciated at a different level by olderaudiences. There are also hints to the commercialization of fantasy hidden in BelieversBedlam, such as a cashier sounds playing every time a character wins over a child intobecoming a believer. Some clues in the game also allude, for example, to the choice ofcharacters for the red team (holiday characters) relating to the Republican party, beingcomposed primarily of religious figures (Easter Bunny, Santa Claus), nationalistic figures

(Thanksgiving Turkey), and a character of warfare (viking). At a different level the game’scentral notion of kids losing belief being a disconnect from cultural heritage, and theensuing overreaction of the imaginary characters ­ representing the believers in them ­trying to win children back through spectacle is an allegory to the relative rise of secularismin recent memory, the corresponding radical positions taken by many deeply religiousmembers of society, and the resort to showmanship (TV evangelicals, church paintball) towoo their impressionable hearts and minds. That the action basically depicts the magicalcharacters abducting children, and in­fighting between people of power (adults) staunchlyholding opposing yet ultimately very similar beliefs, is another valid reading of the game’stheme in relation to the way that religious bickering of adults pulls children in conflictingdirections and makes enemies of an otherwise homogenous group. Lastly, the strategicdepth of the gameplay enables an amoutn of strategy for more mature users to hopefullycontinue enjoying the game after the novelty of the concept wears off.

User InterfaceIn order to provide agency and accessibility in Believers Bedlam,we put a large amount of workand iteration into the information design.

Character Selection ScreenOn the header of the character selection screen, the brief line of “pick 3 representatives per side”is given to tell players what to do. The main area of this screen shows characters’ detailedinformation: a portrait, biographical texts, and stats of their magical powers, which give players adecent understanding of each character and assist them in picking the representatives. At thebottom of this screen, icons that represent each character are displayed with control keysassociated with them placed aside.Players first use WASD (or IJKL) keys to browse characters. If they decide to pick onecharacter, they press one of 1, 2, or 3 (or 8, 9, or 0) keys to assign a control key to thischaracter. After both sides are settled, players should press the spacebar to start the game.

Game State IndicatorAt the top section of the playing screen, the icons of each chosen character are listed togetherwith the control keys associated with them. The brightness of the icon indicates whether acharacter has been sent out to the playground. If a character is on the playfield, its control keywill be shown along with the character icon, therefore, even if players forget which key isdesignated to it, they don’t need to turn their attention to the header section to build theconnection.A short piece of animation will be played if a character cast its spells. This not only enhancesagency over character actions, but also expands the visibility of their magic power.When a kid believes in one side, he/she will change color with a red or blue tone denoting whichside he/she belongs to. A crowd belief bar reveals how many kids have been mesmerized byeach side. Different opacities show whether kids have left the screen. If not, characters from the

other side still have a chance to mesmerize them.

Chatter BoxAt the bottom of playing screen, there are chatter boxes for characters from each siderespectively. The monologues uncover different personalities of characters and add to the senseof humor and attitude of characters.

Non­game Screens Title Screen

The title screen serves as the home page of Believers Bedlam and foreshadows the coregame mechanic of competition between the holiday and fairy tale sides. Two stylized logosare designed for holiday and fairy tales, respectively: the Christmas wreath represents theholiday side, since when speaking of holidays often the first thing which comes to our mindis Christmas; an imaginary castle is designed to represent the fairy tale side because thatis a classic fairy tale setting where fairies or princesses might live. Colors are consistentthrough the whole game to eliminate visual chaos and complexity. The color transition onthe game title Believers Bedlam implies that both sides attempt to exert their influences tokids.

Credit ScreenThe credit screen lists each team member and demonstrates everybody’s contribution tothe game. Instead of having a title for each team member, we put everyone’s work on therebecause we all wear different hats and take various responsibilities.

Instruction ScreenThe instruction screen shows how to start the game, how to play the game and how to winthe game. We emphasize the controls of the game by listing control keys each time. Thesentence “Kids no longer believe in you!” shouts the backdrop story of the game andsuggests what players should do.

Sound EffectsSound Effects were utilized to emphasize important events during game play and to bringattention and clarity to certain actions. Sound effects were used as followed:

A bell to begin the round. Cash register noises to signify a child being “captured.” Spell Casting:

Santa ­ His signature jolly laugh over sleigh bells. Leprechaun ­ A magice jingle to accompany the rainbow. Leif Erikson ­ A viking war horn to signal the arrival of his ship. Easter Bunny ­ A voiced friendly invitation to “find the eggs.” Cupid ­ A sharp twang of his bow. Turkey ­ A hearty gobble over a sizzling oven. Tooth Fairy ­ A mischievious giggle. Pinnochio ­ His classic claim, “I’m a real boy.” Jack ­ A gutteral grunt from the giant. Humpty ­ An alarming crash as he falls to pieces. Pied Piper ­ A snappy little tune on his pipe. The Little Pigs ­ A lonesome howl from the captive wolf.

Playtesting HighlightsPlaytesting Documentation Round 2Notes collected by Mary Macheski­Preston.

Bug Report:The game will crash if you try to press a character key after a match is overSteps to reproduce:1. Complete a match with any characters2. Hit the 1,2,3,8,9, or 0 key3. Note that occasionally the game will crashNotes / Comments:Children are not pulled off of the screen fast enough –Their movement speed is too slow and the matches are too short for them to be effectivelycaptured.Santa’s shadow is confusing –It is hard to tell where his ability is effecting. Is it the shadow or the actual sleigh?The three little pigs do not look like pigs –I thought they were the children at first.I don’t like that it is hard to control how far characters travel across the field –Can I even do that? It seems random to me no matter what keys I press. It makes it hard totake kids back that are already believers in the other team.I don’t feel like I have much agency over what happens –I know what is going on, but I don’t know how to control things to try to win better.It doesn’t feel like I did anything to win or lose, especially now that you don’t have energy.Multiple people commented that they felt they could not influence the “battle” much.

This was mentioned by almost every person that played!What do the stats mean –Can there be an explanation of what they do? All of the characters still feel the same.“I don’t know what any of this shit means!”Add additional strategy dynamics –Maybe we should visit “defensive” characters. One possible implementation of this issending out a “defensive” character that freezes an “enemy” character and steals whatevercharacters said person had. This would help there be more choice when it comes to teamselection.No recovery time on offensive units seems to be working –How fast they walk and cast their abilities is just as effective for cooldown functionalityIs there a logic to the order of the numbers –This could help add strategy to team selection.Lots of smack talking was going on –Is it possible to try to encourage this more in the game? Maybe character dialogue couldchange based on who is winning and how many children they control.The screen is still very busy –I am having a lot of trouble keeping track of everything that is going on.One interesting idea would be to change kids to a costume of the character, using colors todetermine ownership instead of icons.You could also have a single icon for holidays and fairy tales instead of icons for each unit.Scale everything up a bit and reduce the density of the kids.Questionnaire – two questions in one slot –“How many video games do you play and which kind?” should possibly be separatequestionsQuestionnaire – one question is non intuitive –“How clear was it to determine which characters were which during play?” should have 5 behigh instead of 1.I did not like the icons over the children’s heads ­Sometimes they overlapped and looked too similar.The game would be more engaging if characters were more unique –Adding a rotation of abilities or differing animations would make them feel more special

Playtesting Documentation Round 1Notes originally by Brendan Byrne and survey by Fengbo Li, captured into summary bulletpoints by Fengbo Li. Things that are confusing： why character icons are dark whether character will mesmerize kids on their way moving in and out of screen

what characters are doing whether a character is on my side or on my opponent’s side whether a kid is under my faction how many kids are on my side where my characters go when I send them out how to win; what strategies could help when a character decide to cast a spell and why he choose to do so why some characters seem to stay longer on the playground than others what is the difference between different characters; why should player choose oneover another what will happen when the player does something; the effects and action are kind ofdivorced What is the energy bar assoicated with (the connection between the energy and thetime a character could stay is not transparent) why there is sometimes a dramatic change on number of kids on a player side –because the other player’s characters steal kids from the former, but it is difficult for playersto tell and understand whether players need to do something to make the kids “return” Flaws and Problems: characters on the same side will steal kids from each other:probably when a character is trying to make kids believe him, first check whether a certainkid is already mesmerized by characters from the same side, if so, pass it and continute tocheck next kid not enough instructions and explanation:how to play; how to win; how kids are brought back by characters kind of too chaotic:probably think of ways to group things together when they are on the same side(movement, color, etc.) duration is too short; people can’t get the idea of how to play until multiple roundsand can’t understand what they did that led to their success or failure:a brief tutorial about the game’s objective, control and strategies might be help difficult keeping track of top bar, kids and characters at the same time:they are separated and which icon points to which character is not that obvious hard to differentiate characters and kids:make them larger or make kids semi­transparent, etc. difficult to budget energy and time simultanously, yet could be the fun and challengeof the play make sure the power of characters are evenly balanced; if not, state that explicitly Controls:

problems: generally lacks control on characters – the position of characters makes a hugedifference, however, players couldn’t efficiently change that lacks agency game seems kind of random can’t tell what effects my action will cause one play­testor questioned the gameplay by saying “What is the gameplay? Justsending out my characters?” Suggestions: control the vertical position of characters change the horizontal position of characters (push characters to the center of thescreen) by keeping pressing the key associated with it; and a character will influence thearea they are you if players release the key control whether a character should cast spells or not, instead of letting them usetheir abilities by default when they are on the screen Game State Indicators / UI are not effective enough: characters are in/out of playground – character icon gets dark characters entering and leaving the screen – sound effect, etc. how many kids a character has mesmerized how much energy a character still has Music: repetitive music loop is fine for 30 seconds, but if players play the game multipletimes, it is kind of annoying Visuals: most people love the art and character design or think they are fine, except oneplay­testor totally dislikes the aesthetic style most play­testers feel the number of characters and kids are fine, 3 out of 18 saidthere should be less, 3 out 18 said there could be more, yet the main problem is the screenis busy and chaotic somehow. Things are separated and not semantically bound. Andpeople have trouble deciding where to look at and building connections between differentthings. Nice things about the game: game concept: kids don’t believe fairy tales and holiday characters each player could control multiple characters plenty of characters to choose from different characters have different spells (different animation or graphics torepresent that) to influence kids icons over the kids’ head indicating who is influencing them character design, aesthetic style

controls are easy to remember chaos

Feedback from kid testersWe’re doing our best to address these specific points between now and demo day!

Age 11Very analytical child

Experienced with many videogame genres, from Mario Kart and old school Final Fantasy gamesto simple flash games on Friv.

Enjoyed the game. Stated she would play it for fun. Took a few solo play rounds to figure it out,then was able to beat the computer. Really liked the concept, but started to pick apart many ofthe portrayals and saying compared to preconceived notions ( Confused as to why there was aviking; wondered why only the wolf's head was in the trap; wondered why the tooth fairy givescandy instead of coins; annoyed with the bean stalk just being a straight line)

Age 9(almost)A creative free spirit

Experience with many games, like Mario Kart, but not as experienced as the first kid tested.Plays a lot of Friv games.

Could not begin the game on her own. Left her to figure it out for several minutes but eventuallyhad to show her how to select characters. Could not fully figure out how to make the charactersdo what she wanted. Played more than a dozen rounds solo and never won; quit in frustration.Came back because she loved the concept; played 2 player but never got close to winning andquite again in frustration.

Thought the pigs were too big, wondered why the bean stalk didn't start larger on the bottom,with big leaves, tapering up smaller and smaller at the top. Thoght the tooth fairy sounded like awitch. Preferred santa, but wondered why he was so mad.

Age 7 (almost)Thinker, but impatient

Experience with games, but with less patience to follow through.

Could not figure out how to select characters (he can read well, but the directions were toounclear for him). Had to be shown. Only played the game twice. First time, he sent the rabbit out(accidentally) and let it just sit there. It happened to land on a large mob and just held them for along, long time until he finally pressed the button to send the bunny back, and then he won.

Asked to stop playing because the game didn't do what he wanted and he only won by accident.Convinced him to play again, again had to be shown how to select. Again managed to send thecharacter out on his own, but still couldn't understand what to do from there (despite accidentallydoing it last time). Eventually the computer won and he was done, with no interest in playing 2player.

General observationsFor all 3 of them, that you click with the mouse at the first informed them that they shouldcontinue using the mouse. This caused most of the confusion with selecting characters. Falloneventually figured it out on her own, but they all stared at the screen for a while not knowing whatto do. Quinn and Silas had to be step­by­step directed and even then they still thought they coulduse the mouse.

The directional keys also caused them to believe they would have more ability to move than theydid. Each thought that the character on the screen could be maneuvered via those keys. Silasnever got past it. Quinn began to understand the in and out function, but still used the directionalkeys on every play which caused a lot of her frustration. Only Fallon realized that the line on theright meant something, and only after several playthroughs. Each of them expressed frustrationat being limited in actions in ways that they believed the game had informed they should be able.