Genre: Sci-fi, survival horror, first person shooter.
Selection of content: Doom 3 is a very dark game that involves the player moving around corridors and science labs etc. It is quite a scary game and includes some jumpscares, and lots of atmosphere and ambience. The colours used are quite gritty and dark.
Construction of content: Unlike the original Doom, which focused on fast paced first person shooter gameplay, Doom 3 is mainly story driven and is a lot slower paced. It is also quite linear, and the play has to keep advancing through levels. There isn't a great deal of exploration.
Narrative conventions: You play as a anonymous space marine who has been sent to the UAC mars base. While there, an experiment goes wrong and a portal to hell is opened up. Demons invade the base and possess most of the staff that are working there. It is the players job to go through the base eliminating all of the demons.
Codes and Conventions: The game includes standard first person shooter things, such as health, ammo and armour that you can pick up. Doom 3 includes mainly traditional FPS weapons such as a pistol and machine gun. There are also some other guns such as the cyber gun and the BFG.
Target demographic: Doom 3 is quite gory and has photo realistic graphics (they are very dated now but at the time they were great.) Because of this the game is aimed at people who are at least 18 years old. The game also mainly targets males.
Game Title: CarnEvil
Genre: Light gun rail shooter, horror.
Selection of content: CarnEvil is an on rails shooter/arcade game (the in-game character moves on his own, and the player points a light gun at the screen and shoots enemies) that involves the player moving around a haunted amusement park. The levels are quite colourful and obviously have a very heavy circus/amusement park theme. The enemies that are used are very freaky, especially for people who have a fear of clowns or other circus related things. A lot of gore is also included, and as you shoot the enemies they become more bloody and injured.
Construction of content: The game contains 3 main levels that can be played in any order, and a final boss level which can only be played once the other 3 levels have. Each level ends with a boss battle. Because the game is an on rails shooter, it is extremely linear, and the player cannot explore or do anything other than shoot the enemies on the screen. CarnEvil is also an arcade game that is played on arcade cabinets. Because of this, the game requires credits to play, and whenever you die you have to insert more credits to continue.
Narrative conventions: You play as an anonymous guy who is on a ghost tour riding through a graveyard. He jumps off the ghost tour to explore the graveyard and finds a tombstone with a jesters face on the top. He inserts a golden token from the bottom of the grave into the jesters mouth, and the amusement park begins to rise out of the ground. There isn't really much else to the story. Your character becomes trapped and he has to fight his way through the park.
Codes and conventions: The game is fairly fast paced because you are shooting constant waves of enemies. The game doesn't show different weapons on the screen as there are no first person hand/gun models. However the player can obtain different weapons by shooting floating power ups. The game includes a shotgun, machine gun, flamethrower, acid bath gun and a magazine increase. It is quite easy to play and anyone who has had experience with FPS games will know exactly what they are doing.
Target demographic: Because of the games gore and creepy content, it is definitely aimed at older teens and adults. I think males be primarily interested in this game, however because of its wacky and sometimes amusing theme I think any teen or adult could enjoy it.
Game title: not decided (my Killer Klowns game)
Genre: First person shooter, horror, action.
Selection of content: Our killer klowns game will be a first person shooter and have about 4 playable levels, one of them being a tutorial. The game will feature different environments, some quite dark, creepy and claustrophobic, and some more open and bright. The game will involve killing killer klowns, talking to NPC's and completing other various objectives.
Construction of content: Our game is fairly linear but does involve some exploration with our bigger levels. The player goes through 3 levels, the last one ending with a boss fight.
Narrative conventions: In the game you play as Mike, one of the main characters from the film. Mike has become and alcoholic, because nobody outside of Crescent Cove believes that the killer klown attack actually happened. Each of the levels in the game is based on Mikes dreams, while he is locked in a prison cell for public intoxication. The player finds out about the dreams at the end of the game when Mike wakes up in his prison cell.
Codes and conventions: The game will be a first person shooter, and will use a health bar with a general looking HUD. Since the levels are based in Mikes dreams, we will probably make some changes such as giving the player unlimited ammo and wacky guns from the film, such as popcorn and candy floss guns. Standard weapons such as baseball bats will also be included.
Target demographic: The game will be aimed at teens around the age of 16 and above, and will not really be targeted at a specific gender. People who enjoyed the film and or are obsessed with the film may get some enjoyment out of the game.
How were these games marketed?
Doom 3: Doom 3's TV commercial starts with people telling the viewer that they "will not survive," "it will be painful," and "you're doomed." This sets a serious tone for the ad and the game. This is then followed up with a montage of in game footage, showing the various horrific in game demons and monsters. Metal music plays in the background which fits with the action happening on screen. The high-octane ad gets viewers hyped up about the game and you can clearly tell that the target demographic is teen/adult males.
CarnEvil: CarnEvil is an arcade game and is quite old. The game could only really be found in arcades (you can emulate it on PC as well.) The only reason I know about CarnEvil is because I saw it in an arcade years ago. The arcade cabinet itself and the interesting, eye catching artwork used could count as a method of marketing, because if it gets the attention of people in the arcade, then lots of people will want to play it and it will make money. I personally found this game quite unique and interesting compared to other games in the arcade, which is why I have remembered it for so long.
Despite CarnEvil being very gory and freaky, anybody could play it really, especially if it's in an arcade since it's very accessible.
How would we market our Killer Klowns game?
Since Killer Klowns has a very specific fanbase, advertising for the game would probably be done in more specific ways. The game could be advertised on a site such as the Killer Klowns wiki, because it is a site that fans would most likely visit. We could also post it to a social media site such as Reddit. Reddit has things known as "sub-reddits," which are reddit pages with posts dedicated to certain topics. Each sub-reddit has it's own community and dedicated users/posters. If we posted the game on Reddit in a game dev related sub-reddit, lots of people would see it. No matter how we would do it, it would have to be on the internet, even if this was a proper game being published. Killer Klowns in general doesn't have enough fans for a TV ad or anything greater.
