WHAT THE BAT? - Review
"WHAT THE BAT?" is a VR game on steam in which you complete different sets of minigames, with the down side being your arms are bats.
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I have decided to take inspirations for the idea with the Chopstick idea. Th reasons were as follows:
1. The idea is similar. Instead of arms and hands, you have bats, making the minigames harder to complete
2. The low to mid poly art direction is what I wanted my idea to be. Its fits well with this sort of game since its not to be taken seriously, instead making it quite light-hearted and simple to enjoy.
3. It is a VR game. For the chopstick game idea, I wanted players to play with the VR set so that they could place themselves within the game world and immerse themselves in it.
Since I don't have a VR headset to play with, I looked up gameplay to understand how the game works:
Gif taken from Steam. It starts off with the players getting to know how the game works. In this level, players are to hit the baseball towards the trophy so that they can continue.
As you complete each level, the trophies would be in different places. In this section, the trophy is further away and underneath the box trap. Players will have to hit the ball accurately to not hit the box, otherwise they won't be able to hit the trophy
The next level is "Childhood" - in this level, you place objects into the box.
This time, you hit the Banana, which shoots out the juices to get into the toast.
Going through different levels - going through your life from Childhood to Adulthood.
The game continues and essentially it is "rinse and repeat" - go into a level, complete the minigame, then continue with the next one. This is the game loop that they have, but it keeps the gameplay interesting with unique minigames that they have for each level.
What to take forward:
The art-style in this game is exactly I wanted to use for the chopstick game. Although simplistic, it fits with how silly the game can be. It is not too detailed so that it does not draw the focus away from the tasks to the environments around the player, whilst also being visually pleasing to look at - especially when it becomes chaotic (objects flying around the place).
So with my game, the art-style will be low-poly to imitate that style.
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The mechanics for this game is to complete the minigames in order to continue with the next level. It does not tell you exactly what to do, rather allows the player to guess what they have to do. For gameplay, the game takes you to different scenarios, seeing what you can do.
It begins with using the bats as intended (hitting the baseball), but then escalates further by using them as part of everyday life.
The mechanics and the gameplay for chopsticks will be similar - the player completes everyday tasks with hands as chopsticks, but goes through a life of a worker (Waking up, going to work and back).
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A VR game allows the player to see the environment around them in 1st person - as your head moves, the camera moves as well. For this game, players become part of this character and seeing the things that the character will do. It allows the players to feel part of this world.
I aim to make this game VR. But instead of having standard controllers, we use custom controllers (which are chopsticks) to not increase the difficulty but also to imitate that feeling of holding chopsticks.