Nice Games Jam: "The Loft"

This week, the clubhouse becomes the birdhouse; we're talking pigeons! Dale created a prompt inspired by Ellen's activities as a child and she bombards your nice hosts with a TON of pigeon facts! We somehow designed a game out of it!

As a note, Ellen's was still recording remotely but the first 5 minutes she was recording on the wrong mic! We corrected it after those 5 minutes. 

• Breeds of Pigeons across the Globe. - Layne Gardner, The American Pigeon Museum and Library
• Racing Pigeon Training 25 mile - Hoosier Outdoors, YouTube
• Racing Pigeons VS. Falcon (Pt.1) - "One Wing" - @Pigeonmaniacom, YouTube
• Amazing video of a hawk chasing a homing pigeon -  Their own world, YouTube
• A Rare Appreciation of the New York Pigeon - Alexandra Wolfe, The Wall Street Journal

• Ellen's pictures of pigeons she posted in the Miro board

None yet! It's a game design doc.

• Control a group of pigeons

  • Real time strategy racing game

  • Manage each bird by going to each bird, checking statuses and causing communication so pigeons can help each other get to the goal

  • Players can give stats bonuses to each individual bird

  • You as the player don’t know where the pigeons are going, you have to figure out where the pigeons’ goal is

  • Can be multiplayer

  • Swapping between each pigeon gives you information about that pigeons’ status

  • Players have a very vague idea of where to go at the start

  • When a predator appears, the player needs to outsmart the predator to escape and keep racing

    • Then the player is off course and needs to find their way back

  • Some races can be longer, where you need to find a place to rest for the night and have enough food

• Game loop

  • You get a random selection of pigeons

  • Compete in a race

    • Start in a random place on the map

    • Pigeons know where they need to go but the player does not

    • Players need to deduce where the pigeons are going and make sure to lead all of them in the right direction

    • Players control each pigeon individually, moving a pigeon will influence the other pigeons but will not move fully in that direction. Players need to guide each pigeon to their goal as a group, but control them individually.

    • Control of pigeons is in third-person perspective, players need to jump between pigeons to see the whole view of the flock

    • There are areas on the map that the player will know about that can have more risk involved (like areas where predators will often be)

    • There can be some collectables around that the player can pick up with birds to get bonuses (more points? movespeed?)

  • When you complete the race, you can remove a pigeon from the racing group and add a new pigeon from a set of 3 randomly generated pigeons