Container City (proposed name)

Container City is a 3D puzzle game inspired by an architectural project: Container Tower by Ova Studio. In the game, the player controls containers, which are units of a building, to fit into a structure. The structure is a building where residents will move in. The better the structure is satisfying the requests of the residents, the higher the popularity of a structure, hence more residents will move in and more money can be earned. The player can also design, sell and trade their containers with other players through social networks. The player will gradually build up a collection of buildings, which display as a city.

Vision: Container City becomes the most active social game in the world.

Platform: Smartphones, iOS and Android. Network access is not required but recommended.

Player(s): Mainly single, but player can interact with other players online.

Genre: Puzzle, Simulation (GOD game), Strategy, Social, Casual game.

Target audience: ages from 16 to 30. Elder teens to adult, male or female.

Background

Container Tower is an architectural project of OVA Studio. A Container Tower is constructed by fully portable and customizable units. Along with a core units utilized with an elevator, the containers in the shape of cargo are slotted horizontally into a grid made of steel beams. The containers can be built somewhere else and assembled on-site. They are fully portable and flexible. A container can be removed on demand, shipped to other places and fitted into other similar structure. The containers are also fully customizable within the given form factor. They can be manipulated into different functional modules, including but not limited to: residential, office, shop and leisure. Customers can design their own combinations and slot the design into the structure efficiently.

In the game the player is creating his own container tower through challenge. The player will see various residents gradually move in and receive rent from them as feedback. The player will develop an emotional attachment by owning and managing his own creation. The ownership and reward are the positive reinforcement to encourage the player to play the game. The progress of the player can be measured by continuous growth of the city and the growing income rate. He is also motivated by competing on a leaderboard with the coins he have.

Philosophy of Design

The game is designed based on the following philosophy.

Control and Ownership:

Casual games like Tiny Tower have their magic in hooking the players to keep playing. First there is certain randomness that the player will not get his desirable items too easily. To seek for more control, a player will follow a given progression. Second, as the player created his collection after overcoming challenges, he can go back and admire his own collection. There is a sense of completion received by the player. But the game does not stop. The player will move onto other layers of gameplay and motivated in some other ways.

Motivation:

Competition is one of the major motivations used in this game. All the progress is concluded into a metric and it is put on a leaderboard. The player will figure out a strategy and habit of his own to achieve better performance in order to compete with players around the world and friends.

Social game

By linking the player to the city of their friends, he will be provoked by his envy when he sees something his friends own but he does not. On the other hand he will feel superior if he owns something his friends do not. Players can also work together to achieve more.

The players will extend the magic circle of the game from virtual world to real world by group discussion. Social game can get into the everyday life of the players and the players will keep going back to the game in order to maintain the circle. The clichés and psychology in social game can enrich this game dramatically.

Overview

This game is inspired by the pre-built and on-site assembles properties of the Container Tower. The player will launch a unit, see it flies toward an empty slot on the structure, and stop its movement at a right timing to fit it in an appropriate place. The tension of the player is created by two factors:

1. Chance of misplacement. Player needs to stop the moving containers at a right timing, or it will be misplaced, or even worst, lost permanently.
2. Randomly appeared containers. Each container has its value and the placement of the container should somehow fulfill the request of the residents in order to increase popularity (performance). The player pays to enter construction mode, but the containers are given to the player randomly. As each container is valuable, how to manage the placement becomes a challenge to the player.

The player gains more control to the container as he progresses.

Residents start to show up and move into the tower. The player will see they wander around everywhere in the tower. They will ask the player to solve their request occasionally. If they are satisfied, Satisfaction points are offered to the player. Resident’s satisfaction increases income amount and rate of residents moving-in, as a reward to the player. The Player uses coins earned to buy one-time assist items, upgrade and specific types of containers, resulting more accurate management of the containers. The difficulty shifts from controlling the containers to managing the residents strategically, so as to increase income.

The containers are categorized into 4: residential, office, shop and leisure. Residents will request based on these functions. For example a resident will request an office and garden next to his apartment. However, any new resident will request for an apartment first. Shop containers will also attract non-residents to come and add income to the player.

City Layer

The game will move to a higher layer as the player completes a utilized building. The player can move around the map and start another building according to residents’ request. The residents start to request for moving their apartments around the world. The requests from residents are offered randomly but within a frame of the player’s progress. The city will soon grow into a building collection gallery of the player. The player can anytime revisit and edit each of them. Settled residents generate continuously income for the player.

Decoration Layer

The containers have their own skin which comes randomly. The player can pay a tiny amount of coins in order to re-skin it instantly, or pay more coins in the market to buy a desirable container. However the skin is almost totally an appearance issue. Only a few residents will request for specific type of skin, and those requests only come after the player reaches certain progress.

A furniture shop will be offered to the player after a patch. The player can buy furniture to decorate the interior and exterior of each of the containers. Again, it only affects the appearance of the containers. But the decorated container will become the player’s own collection. The player can share and trade with his friends to earn more income, or simply show off.

Market Layer

The Online Market shows the containers posted for sell by players around the world. Container bought in the market will be stored and ready to be used. The player can also post their containers for sell in here.

Gameplay

Initialize:

At the beginning of the game the player will start in a tutorial stage in building mode. A resident shows up at the left bottom tells the player he wants a basic apartment to live in. An empty frame of a container tower stands in the middle of the screen. A basic apartment container appears at one side. The player is guided to place it. If the player fails to do that, new container will appear until the player succeeds at least one time. When the player fails, the resident will be scared and collapses, and returns to normal as another container shows up. The resident thanks the player with a pop up dialogue after his success and moves in. The player will see him wandering around the apartment. The player continues building until ten random containers are used up. The player will move onto an inventory screen and guided to buy another 10 random containers in order to enter the building mode again. The player is told that if a request of a resident is satisfied, the SATISFACTION meter will rise. More residents will move in the tower according to the meter. It is basically the end of the tutorial mode.

Instructional rules:

The player taps the rotation wheel at the bottom to turn the structure 90 degrees.

The player holds and drags the container horizontally and vertically to aim at a desirable slot.

The player single taps any empty space to launch the container. Single taps again to stop. The container will snap into the grid automatically.

If the container is stopped too early or lately, it falls. If the container hits an existing container at the edge, it also falls. Fallen containers are lost forever unless they are retrieved with an item.

When there is a resident’s request, the player does not need to respond to it immediately. But there will only be one request at a time for each tower. If the request is fulfilled, the resident will thank the player with a pop up dialogue box. Satisfaction increases after the player confirms and closes the dialogue box.

A pop up dialogue box shows when there is resident moving in. The player will see the resident wanders around after he taps confirm and closes the dialogue box.

Rent from the residents will be generated at the end of each day in real life (or the first time the player starts the game in each day). Rare residents received randomly at a low chance or through special request increase the total amount of rent received each time.

City View:

City view is unlocked as the first apartment is 80% filled with containers. The first resident (in the tutorial) will request to move to another city. The player will be guided to buy item-“container unslotter” from the item shop. Only container with at least one side facing void space can be unslotted, so the player may need to redo several times. Unslotted containers are stored in the inventory. The player can use them to start the building mode anytime they want for free. The player will see the city view. In here he can tap the second city to unlock for free to start another tower. The player selects the unslotted container from the inventory and slots them in the new tower to earn the satisfaction points. The game moves on.

In city view, the player can buy new city to start new tower. But each time a new city is bought, the next one will be more expensive to buy.

The player can go back to each tower he built to add or unslot containers. Each tower has its own resident’s request and each can have one at a time.

Item shop:

In here the player can buy one-time-use items and tools. They are mainly tools to assist the player in building and controlling the containers. They are not free. As the player gains money more effectively (as he progress), the items are no longer expensive compare to how they appeared at first. The player will buy and use the items more frequently at later stage. Bought items will appear in the inventory. The player needs to choose them before entering building mode in order to use them.

The items are as follow:

Unslotter – $100 – removes a container and places it into inventory. If an apartment with resident living in is taken down, the resident will stay with the container, but will not pay the rent

Unslotter ultima – $ 5000 – returns all containers in a tower to the inventory

Freezer lv1 – $100 – slows down the next container slightly

Freezer lv2 – $1000 – slows down all containers slightly before exiting building mode

Time machine lv1- $1500 – slows down the next container significantly

Time machine lv2- $15000 – slows down all containers significantly before exiting building mode

Safe net lv1 – $1000 – protects the next container from losing permanently. Fallen container returns to the inventory

Safe net lv2 – $ 10000 – protects all containers from losing permanently before exiting building mode

Rental ads – $ 10000 – boosts satisfaction by 50 for half an hour. More frequently the residents move in and shop in facilities

Repossession officer – $5000 – kicks a resident out of a container. The resident will be lost permanently

Initiator – $5000 – initializes a tower into its primitive state. All containers and residents will be lost permanently

God’s Hand – $100000 – retrieves the last lost container.

Resident and request:

Normal residents move in randomly. But there are special rare residents that move in with a less chance. They have special personality such as paying higher rent, requesting more frequently, requesting with a pattern, generate more satisfaction point, etc. Bellows are examples:

Busy business man – always request to move in between cities.

Oil King – Ultra rare resident. Pay the highest rent. Appears only after the player acquired more than 5 cities. Moves into apartment attached to 10+ leisure containers.

Big family – Pay high rent. Requests to attach 5 apartment containers to each other.

Shopaholic – only requests shops attachment. Shop rapidly.

Property reviewer – various requests, but generates more satisfaction than other residents.

Requests can be categorized into 3:

1. To particular types of containers near each other.
2. To move a container or set or containers to other city
3. To decorate a container in a specific way, eg, put certain furniture in. (will not appear before decoration is unlocked)

Friends and network:

In this menu the player will connect with Game Center and Facebook to see a list of friends also playing this game and visit their city. The player can also invite friends to join the game and share his city and tower view to social network.

Online Market:

The player can browse the containers the other players worldwide posted on the board for sell. The earning rate and residents’ abilities are also shown. The player can also sell the containers from his inventory. Notes that residents can be sold along with the apartment they are resting in.

Leader Board:

Money is the major measurement of progress throughout the game. This metric is put onto a leader board to compete against all the players worldwide. At later state of the game, spending on items are no longer any obstacles to the player but necessity. The player invests money in expanding the city (acquiring more cities), kicks out residents who pay less rent, and creates combination of containers to maximize income/day. The ranking on the leader board can change dramatically after each action the player plays.

Balance and Progress:

This game is set up to have a higher difficulty at first. The player does not have much income. Random containers are more affordable. A container is launched with a high speed. The player has less control at first because the assistant items are all quite expensive to them at this state. After his city grows to a level he has regular income, he can afford to buy more items in order to build more accurately. At the later state, the cost of the items is no longer a matter to the player. The player gain better control in the building mode. The challenge in this mode becomes minimal. The game dynamic shifted to management and competition. The income will go on increasing. (refer to graph 1)

Graph 1.

Graph 2 explain how exactly is the game dynamic shifting. Income in the game mainly comes from resident’s rent and shop’s earning. At the first half of the game, the total number of residents and shops can be boosted by acquiring more towers. The player will receive occasionally rare and powerful residents but the growth of the income is generally stable, until the number of towers reaches its maximum. The player has already gained a good control in building a tower. The player will start optimizing his tower by exploring more efficient earning combination of apartment and shops, and more powerful residents. The player will take down older structure he built in earlier stage of the game and create new ones. He will also kick out (or sell) residents who are not good enough (not generative enough). In result of that, the income somehow drops, but rises shortly after. The player will also be more aggressive in earning, so that he can get to higher place on the leaderboard.

Graph 2.

References

Stack3D. This game is kind of a 3D Tetris game which a player rotates the base to catch Tetris blocks falling from above, and eliminate by completing a row. This game is a major reference in the appearance of the building mode. This game and Container City are similar in the way they show a structure in 3D and the player fit 3D blocks into the structure.

Tower Bloxx. This game is an endless height building game. A player tap to release a block hang swinging by a giant clamp. The player overcomes challenge by learning how to get a best timing to release a block. After each building, the player will move to a city view to see all the building he built. The performance of the player is reflected by total number of residents move into the blocks. The player can take down worst blocks and rebuilt again. This game is a reference model for the building mode and city view gameplay mode.

Tiny Tower. This game is also an endless building game by Nimbblebit in 2011. This game has almost every properties of the items in the game come in randomly. A player has almost no way to control what they can get even by paying cash or in-game cash. The player is hooked by the adorable little residents in pixel style, a well-controlled pace of progress and their desire on getting their desirable items. This game is surprisingly successful and it becomes well received.

Restaurant City. This is a facebook social game by Playfish in 2006. This game is a simplified management and building game, which player collects ingredient to level the dishes in the restaurant, serves customer to earn coins and decorates the interior as he wish. This game is a reference for its social gameplay elements.

Introduction
Stop Watch Hero is a normal office man just like everybody, whose name is not very important in this game. He does not need to hide his identity as a hero like other heroes in the other stories. With his special ability: to freeze the time, he can save the world without letting anyone knows. He is just too kind to think like this.
The world is not safe. Dare Devils, mysterious specie that no one knows where they are from, possess casualties and lead them to get killed in calamity. Possessed human or objects cannot be manipulated or interfered. In order to save the world, Stop Watch Hero can only use whatever other objects in reality to save human from Dare Devils. Yes, just stop the time, move something, and watch.
At the beginning, Stop Watch Hero only involves in small case in small scale, such as a lady commits suicide. The case can easily be solved by piling up passengers to serve as cushion when the lady falls off from the roof. At this point Stop Watch Hero cannot move anything heavier than what he can carry with his own strength as a normal office man. As the Dare Devils’ invasion becomes more vigorous, he involves in bigger disaster. Airplane crash, flying saucer crash and meteor fall are commonly seen. He feels that he need more power in order to stop them. “If I can stop the time, it is making so much sense if I can also move an airplane or heavy things.” thinks Stop Watch Hero. Now he can move an airplane and heavy things.
The stage moves beyond ground level to the space, Stop Watch Hero learns to fly and breathes in space. Can he save us from the hands of the Dare Devils?
The game relates the experience of the player to Domino toppling. The game emphasizes the process on arranging the setting and to watch the chain reaction it causes when it is triggered. The game makes use of similar context with Domino toppling, but changing the blocks to objects in real live and sci-fi. The player recalls his memory and emotion when he was standing the Dominos and watching them fall. The happiness brought from this process is added up with the game content, to save the world.
Gameplay
Instructional Rules:
At the beginning of each stage, an animation showing what will happen in the next moment is played to show the player the target(s) he needs to save. Time is frozen automatically at a point before tragedy happens. Game starts right after this.
The first stage is a tutorial stage. A girl is holding a knife, about to cut through her neck. The player will see a Dare Devil floating on top of the target as an indicator. The system guides the player what to do. The player is told what is movable and what is not. Potential solution objects will blink. In this case, the player can either move a trash can to cover up the girl from her head to shoulder; hang several heavy shopping bags on her arms; move several passengers over her heads; but you cannot remove the knife from her hands. The objects will not activate until the time is resumed.
Player Action:
Player uses analogue to move forward, backward, turn left and right. (WASD for PC keyboard)
Player approaches an object and presses HOLD key to grab, presses again to release. If the object is not grabable, the key will simply not respond. The object will remain in its position, not falling according to gravity, until time is resumed.
Player presses JUMP key to jump. In later stage as the player gain the ability to fly, this key will change to a FLY key.
Player presses CONFIRM to resume the time. A confirm message pops up to prompt the player to confirm.
Objective (targets) in each stage is different; the operation of the player is hence different. But the mechanism and the control remain the same. See section STAGE.
After each stage, the player can save the replay of clearing the stage to review anytime or share through social network depend on the platform he is playing the game with.
Developer’s rule:
Player ability (Extensible player ability, extending gameplay)
As the game progress, player gain additional abilities in order to solve more demanding problems. The abilities can be divided into 2: improving strength and advancing accessibility.
Strength:
Level 1: can lift any object a normal human can lift, at most a human, not a car.
Level 2: can lift heavier object, such as light vehicles, buses, huge rock.
Level 3: can lift massive object, such as rocket, airplane, basically everything on earth which is not attaching to the ground.
Level 4: can lift architecture.
Level 5: can lift asteroid.
Accessibility:
Level 1: At first the player can only walk and jump.
Level 2: the player can jump higher, eg several floors.
Level 3: the player can fly.
Level 4: the player can fly faster
Level 5: the player can teleport between stages.
The ability will only be given to the player according to the game progress.

Stage and scene setting
What will happen to the target is not the dominating the scene setting. It is the placement of movable and not movable objects that shapes the challenge in each stage. As the stage changes, the resource that player can use changes (extensible resource and environment).
The stage and challenge design can be sorted into the following:
1. Solve by key
One or more key objects need to be discovered and place at appropriate place in order to solve the stage.
2. Solve by massive work
Repetitive action is demanding in this kind of stage, such as piling up many human bodies. But the workload is rewarded by the funny animation trigger by the setting. Sometime many casualties are injured to save a single target.
3. Solve by timing
Right object should be place and fire at right time after the time resumes.
All three categories are following a level of ridiculousness. Rules in real world are not necessarily applicable. The player will learn relevant environment recognition skill and spot the relation between objects.
At the beginning levels, the player solves daily life level problem, like traffic accident, murder, somebody commits suicide, and something falls from the air. At intermediate stages, bigger disaster gets into the play: earth quake, monster invasion, tsunami, airplane crash. At later stages, the scene moves beyond the Earth surface to space. The player needs to save human race from meteor fall, planet explosion, alien invasion, etc. The core game play dynamic and loop does not change much, but the environment and resource change. In some later stages, the player also needs to think outside a stage. He is given ability to teleport between stages. Resources in earlier stages which the player can bring back are also part of the strategy.
Reward
The major reward of the player is the progress of the stage and the pleasure from solving the problem wisely. At the end the player clears all the stage and saves the world from Dare Devils.
The sharing of the stage replay is also part of the pleasurable elements. Friends of the player can see the creative setting and the funny result it causes and give comments. This can also provoke more potential player to buy and play the game.
Reference
Amazing Alex, bad piggies from Rovio. These two games are having a Build-and-solve style of play. The player picks from a range of given inventories to put into the stage, which can be activated with gravity and special function, to solve a given problem. The problem can be guiding something to reach certain goal, or hitting something with the setting. This is a major reference to gameplay mechanism.
Katamari from Bandai Namco Games. This is an action puzzle game published on console first, then portable and mobile devices. Player walks around the setting in each stage to absorb objects to form bigger stack of object. The goal in each stage is making the stack as big as possible to reach a target size given. This game is a major reference to player action and scene setting.

Well… Do not steal my idea please. If you think it is good and you accidentally stole it, give me credit lol

Lau Hon Ming Henry
ITGM 351_Cognitive art of game design
Professor: Jose A. Rueda
23 Sept 2012

Tama-? (proposed name)

This is a taming game, which the player creates a pet to tame. The player shoots photos, edits photo and doodles, and the work will combine, morph and become a pet in the game. The properties of the objects in the photos and the doodle affect the properties of the pet. The pet grows by feeding with more photo. Player can bring their pet to socialize with the others or fight them. This will also change the pet, or even born next generation by breeding.

Vision

This is a game to be showed, played and sold in the Museum of Modern Art in NY.

Objective

Design a taming game for mobile devices and personal computer, in which the players create their own pets by collaging photos and doodling. This game aims at stimulating creativity and emotional attachment of the players to their pets, their growing, moving art pieces.

In order to make the game be considered as art, or a tool of art, the game references process and context of modern art, particularly DaDa-ism, which emphasizes “art can be anything, anyone, but need to be called in a context of art”. The game encourages the players to think, create and share actively their creation. Eventually the players can proudly call themselves and being called “an artist”.

Overview

Platform: Mobile and PC. Online MMO.

Player(s): Mainly single, but player can interact with other players online.

Genre: Taming game, social game.

Target group: ages from 3 to 20. Ranges from kids to teens.

Estimated developing time: 3 month with a team of about 6 people.

Introduction

Starts from early 20^th century, art over the world shifts from exclusive to public. Art is no longer about technique in drawing, painting, sculpturing, but turns expressive, contemporary and playful. DaDa-ism founded by a group of revolutionary artist in Europe area, is a remarkable influence to modern art today. In this particular art style, artists do not create spiritual and long lasting master piece. Indeed they focus on temporary and instant creation. There may be meaning within an art piece the artist wants to express, but often time the piece is just intriguing viewers’ curiosity and thinking. DaDa-ism also makes use of “ready-made” objects. Factory products are taken away from their original purpose and recontextualized as a form of art. Photos and objects collages are also common methods in creating art. This way removes artist, the creator, and tradition art form from an art piece. The distinction about the creator of the piece is blurry. This idea of “art can be anything, anyone” is introduced. Anything can be art if they are called in a context of art. The idea brought huge impact to art in the era. Art no longer demands excellent drawing skill and expensive tools and paint. Anyone can make art.

This game is referencing a Japanese taming game Tamagotchi. Player takes care of a little digital pet in a device. The pet grows, evolves, gets old and dies at the end. Tamagotchi created the genre and brought up other similar games such as Digimon and Nintendogs. In this type of games, players will easily attached to the pets they own emotionally as they take care of the pets, check the status regularly, play with them and please them.

By combining tamagotchi and Dada-ism, the gameplay becomes a tool of art; the game and the products become a form of art. Players create their pets by collaging photos and doodle. Players watch their art pieces grow gradually and transform into bigger pieces. They manipulate their pieces by feeding the pets more art ingredients, photos and paint. Their pets also interact with pets belong to other players to breed and fight. The socializing part of the game generates art pieces for the players further. It is imitating how modern artists influence each other by exchanging ideas and learning from each other. The pets of the players as an art piece are not long lasting and stable. They grow and change through time and socializing. The results are sometime not expectable. But it also fits into a property of many DaDa pieces: temporary pieces will change and decay through time. Process and development of the pieces become more important than the result.

The players are able to share their pets and view the others’ pet in a platform, which is contextualized to a gallery. Their pets are not only look like art, but also called art in this environment, hence the game becomes a combination of many evolving art pieces.

Gameplay

Instructional Rules:

Initiating the game:

The player shoots a photo with the webcam or build-in camera of with his mobile device. He then select the area of the object he is making as the pet. The background is then removed by the system.

Player can compose several objects together, but many of the parts are not shown at first. Indeed, the extra objects grow as the pet grows.

Player can also draw on the pet with given palettes.

The properties and personality is determined by the system by the following: 1) nature of the object: geometric, organic, smooth, spiky etc; 2) color: hue, color temperature, tone etc; 3) taming habit: care, play and feed frequency, environment etc. 4) social record: fight winning rate, play group etc.

During the game:

Pet has its own emotion, behavior and personality. During the idle time in the game, the pet will behave accordingly.

The player sees his pet wondering around in the middle of the screen with default empty background. The player also see a list of action in the main game interface at the bottom of the screen. Player can hide the menu if he want to.

Following action are offered to the player in the main game interface

1. feed. Player can feed the pet with system given food or customized food. Customized food means the player draws or shoots photo and edits it to be the food for the pet. Customized food can be saved for later use. However if the player stores it for too long, the food decays.
2. Play a game. Player can play mini-game with the pet. They are give several games to start with: Baseball, disk throwing and catching, boxing and playing house. However in those provided game, the player can only watch the pet play. More games can be obtained through in-app-purchase and update. Additional games offer more interaction between the pet and the player: rock, paper, scissors, tic-tac-toe, candy catching, etc.
3. Environment. Player changes the living environment of the pet in here. Player can choose a scene from provided scenes, download extra scene or creates his own scenes. The environment gets messed as the pet lives longer. Player also clean and maintain the scene in here.
4. Social play. Player can log on to a server to look at pets from other players and their friends. Players chat and pets also chat here. Players can also put their pets into multi-pet mini game and fight in here.
5. Breed. Player can breed with pet data obtained from social play. The second generation pet will have the combined nature of the involving pets, but the original pet the player own will die, as a player can own just one pet at a time.
6. Store. The player buy items in here. Items include editing tools and taming tools. They can be free or pay.
7. Record. The player view their taming diary in here to check track the growing of the pet. The player can also look at the record of their previous pet.

Game ends when the pet reaches its end of life. Player can afterward start another pet.

Developer’s rule:

Developer’s rules focus on what affect the attributes of the pet.

Outlook: this part requires an analytical image engine which recognizes the outlook of the pet. Outlook includes nature and color. Spikes and warm color may increase the fighting ability of the pet, but the bad temper of such kind of pet will increase the difficulty in taming hence reduce the life span. Rounder look and gentle color increase the social ability of a pet hence increase the chance of breeding.

Taming habit: Time spends with the pet is dominating the taming process. However excessive activity also bring fatigue to the pet. Meeting the pet’s need is leading to a better result, which may be but not limited to: long live span of the pet.

The pet grows by pre-assigned photo and all elements in the database in the game. If the player allows the game to access to the media library of the device and social media album, such as Facebook, Twitter and Google plus, the pet will grow with more variation.

Living envoronment also affects the growth of the pet. A messy environment induce a bad temper to the pet, while peaceful, nature environment makes the pet happier. Not only the pet grows in the game, the environment also changes gradually. Elements extract from media library will get into the habitat of the pet ocassionally. Player needs to be cautious whether an element is bring bad effect to the pet. If so, remove them.

Through time, the pet will mess up the place and the habitat becomes dirty gradually. Player needs to clean it up by choosing cleanup from the menu.

Strategy

Quickly after the player plays for one or two life cycles of the pet, he will learn the growing pattern of the pets. One may start to feed the pet strategically. The player may choose whether growing the pet as long as possible, to breed progressivly and to win in fight. The player can achieve the result they want by creating, feeding and making them live in specific type of photos. For example if a player want a spiky angry pet, he will start shooting many spiky red object to create and feed the pet with those photo. But the result is not tptally controllable. The arranged randomness makes the game long lasting.

Reward

The player will gradually create a personal collection of the pets as art piece. It is a collection of their own playing history. The game also provides an online platform for them to show off their work.

By breeding the players earns a network of relationship by looking at the name of a pet: the subling of player a and player b and player c and player d…

By winning a battle the player earns fame and items. Pet also absorbs parts from the losing pets and has chance to grow winning items on themselves.