What The Fake

Game Design | Mechanics | UI Design | Individual | 2024

Demo Video

Background

What The Fake is a project inspired by the current social media platform's trending public opinion events' problems. In order to gain more views and clicks, private-owned media accounts are not satisfying with regular news and information, as people are tending to browse the more professional news media accounts. The private-owned media accounts are beginning to post some undefined but breaking revelations. These news stories do not have enough evidence to prove their authenticity, but they do have enough shocking revelations. Netizens love these kinds of stories, even if they are wrong or fake. They need a reason to blow off their steam on the Internet, and the person who is described as the bad guy in the revelation is a great target to attack. Most of the time, the revelation could be proved fake after a while, but the harm done to the people who are related to the revelation will remain there.

An intern accuse one of the famous host of the biggest TV station sexual harassment. She failed at the court because she lacks of evidence. But the host was still got fired and never get back to work since then.

Lin Shengbin, the victim of the “Hangzhou nanny arson case,” announced to netizens the good news that he had regrouped his family and had a new daughter through the social networking platform. Netizen begin to blame him and accuse he as one of the participator of the arson. The local police department had to reopen the investigation of the case. Lin was proven innocent at last.

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A student fall from the school's building in Chengdu. His mother strongly demanded on Weibo that the school restore the truth of the incident. Since the school did not release the relevant information immediately, a large number of rumors appeared on the Internet. In addition, there were various rumors such as the body of the deceased was cremated without authorization and the police dragged the family of the deceased, which dominated the public's emotions and the direction of the topic.

Concept

The game allow players to navigate the game experience by making their own decisions to determine the truthfulness of news content, thereby exposing the phenomenon of news media resorting to unscrupulous tactics for profit.

Inspiration

DO NOT FEED THE MONKEYS

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DO NOT FEED THE MONKEYS is digital voyeur simulator where you watch strangers through surveillance cameras. Invade their privacy and witness their most intimate moments.

The inspiration of this game that gave to me is the satire on human nature. Voyeur is wrong in most time, but if you become a voyeur and can even earn a lot of money by doing so, you won't stop yourself.

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PAPERS, PLEASE

In Papers, Please, the player takes on the role of a border-crossing immigration officer in the fictional country. The player must review travelers' passports and other supporting paperwork against an ever-growing list of rules using a number of tools and guides.

The inspiration of this game is the desire of the power and the sparkles of the kindness. I want my game to give the player choices to decide other's fate.

VA-11 Hall-A

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VA-11 Hall-A contains nonlinear gameplay, and the game's plotline is influenced by the drinks the player makes and how the customers react to them.

The inspiration of this game is the story will go on not by what player had said, but what player had done. Your behavior is the main key to the end of the game.

Mechanics

Basic Mechanics

The game have 4 basic elements: Time-Remain, Money, Stamina, and Vanity.

Time-Remain is a reminder and checkpoint for the game. It could be a rent payment due date. Players need to meet the requirement before the due date, or the game will give them the punishment.

Money is the most important thing in the game. With it, you can pay the rent to keep the game going, buy the food to fulfill their stamina, and buy the goods to satisfy the vanity. You can earn it by work and your social account.

Stamina is the value that allows you to make the movement in one day. Without the stamina, you can't go to work and collect the evidence.

Vanity is a hidden element in this game. Players need to buy the things they desire in order to fulfill their vanity. This is the main reason in this game that drives the player to earn more money by fair means or foul.

Preparing Stage (Get the information of the revelation)

On call Cleaner:

Player has a job as a worker for an on-call cleaning company. They will be sent to different places to do the cleaning job. These places include hotels, apartments, offices and clubs.

During the work time, in order to get a higher pay, player need to finish all the cleaning work on time.

'The evidence' :

The salary from your mean boss won't be enough for you to satisfy your needs in your daily life. So, player need to gathering useful 'evidence' to create a trending revelation post on your personal social media account.

Some clients of the player may be celebrities, politicians, or entrepreneurs. Players can gain tons of views from the revelation post about these people, so try to gather as much 'evidence' as you can, which is the strategy when working.

The evident could be a series of photos or a record of online chat.

Fake and fabricate

However, not all clients have a little secret waiting for the player to find out. So, if players are short on money, this is the last chance for them to buy a limited edition figure. They need to make up enough fake evidence to accuse their victim when posting a revelation.

Account running

After the work and the evidence collection, It's time to go home and start running the revelation account.

The main goal of this part is to choose the evidence that got in the daytime and select a proper title for the post.

The Title and the quality of the evidence are two determining factors of this stage of game. A clearer photo or an Inflammatory headline can help you gain more view of your posts. However, using too many aggressive contents may lead to a bad consequence on your whole game process. So, finding a balance between the fabrication and the authenticity is an important key in the entire gameplay.

Income and expense

In the game, players have two ways to earn the money, one is by doing a part-time job, and the other is through their social media account. In your daily life, players need to spend money to pay the rent in order to continue the game flow. They also need to buy food to recover their stamina and keep on working. Another important thing is vanity, it's ok to ignore it at first when players don't have much money in their hands. As the money in their pocket grows, the vanity point will increase to a high level, forcing the player to buy the luxury to decrease the vanity level, otherwise, the game may lead to a bad ending.

Prototype Design Process

What The Fake start with a brainstorm of what I what and what are the vital elements of my game.

The design draft of the income counting logic of the social media account. Basically, the income is depending on the number of follows and the views.

The design draft of game story and game flow. Residing which way is led to the bad consequence or the good consequence.

The design draft of the daily routine of the player in game. Including daytime schedule and nighttime schedule.

The design draft of the relation between the followers number and the views number.

The design draft of different scenes in the game. Including the NPC, function and activities.

The UI in the game are mainly among the nighttime after the player's daytime works. It's similar to a computer's UI as all the operations are done on the computer. Including shopping, posting and chatting.