Welcome to The Game of Influence 

- A social survival game -

Our Game concept: 

The player navigates a social world where they are constantly being included or excluded based on the choices they make. The player starts in a group, but is slowly pushed out if they do not follow the unspoken norms.

Cultural Values & Societal Themes 

The Game of Influence challenges players to navigate a social event with the tools & social heritage they have, trying to avoid breaking unspoken rules, even though some may not know what those "unspoken rules" are.  The game explores European values like human dignity, freedom, and equality, exposing the ways in which privilege and bias shape opportunities. The game forces players to confront a harsh reality:  not everyone starts with the same privileges, and success is often determined by factors beyond personal choice. Every choice impacts your saturation level, a visual representation of your fading social presence. Make too many missteps, and you risk being pushed out of the social circle entirely and the saturation will drop to zero.

How the Game Communicates there Cultural Values?

The game presents an interactive social simulation where players experience the impact of cultural biases firsthand. At the start, each player is randomly assigning an identity, religion and income, placing  them within an unspoken social hierarchy. As the player navigate a  judgment heavy environment, they have to face biases, an unfairness. 

Our aim is for players to quickly realize that the same choices, manners or way of behaving can have different outcomes depending on their assigned background. To reinforce this, we use a desaturation mechanic: every time a player is judged negatively, the game’s saturation level decreases. At first, the change is subtle, but over time, repeated judgment leads to complete desaturation, making it visually clear that the player has been marginalized and excluded from the social circle.

The message we want to convey is that a society that is full of biases where people judge others without self-reflection, erases individuals, undermining their human dignity, freedom and equality.  By immersing players in this experience, we want to encourage self reflection, helping people understand the weight of systemic barriers, glass ceiling, and the ease with which someone can be excluded from opportunities and society itself.

Bellow a storyboard draft that visually represents how the desaturation of the game works:

Team members & their role Player Experience: Interactions, Stories & Emotions

In our team we all have a designed responsibility, but we prefer this responsibility to be shared and fluid between us, to ensure a smooth game and collaboration from all parts.

Florentina Bujupai - Storyteller / Gamemaster

Sofie Østerby Spielberg - Artist

Sofie Bredahl - Designer

Evelyn Denise Lencina Rosales -  Crafter

We all have taken the role as a GameMaster, at some point of this project.

Mood Board

Expert Council

Link to our Figma presentation:

https://www.figma.com/deck/H32Oiai3AhwDxMwgfZzIFR/Untitled?node-id=1-37&t=0iGNuSHV75Vq068M-1

Our experience with the Expert Council was overall really positive. They appreciate our way of integrating the European Values into a game that includes social interactions, and represents cultural heritage,  and the impact this can have on individuals when they loose human dignity, real freedom, and equality. The council seems to like our idea of playing with saturation levels  as a way to communicate social standing and cues. The council had overall boots our concept. 

The council was very clear with some things we haven't think about much and that could be included in our project. We will move forward with our concept by applying the following implementations:

• Disclaimer about color saturation at the start of the game.
• Colony Howl food inspired (weird snacks and weird food)
• Playable Character is random, but keep all of the choices fixed as the same to everyone. 
• Multiple play through mechanics to portrait the outcomes of different player given their background.
• Ambience with audio cues (a way to show if it was a good or bad choice.

The Expert Council’s insights helped us refine our concept in meaningful ways, and we’re excited to move forward with these improvements.

Player Experience: Interactions, Stories & Emotion

We want players to feel a mix of tension, frustration, and self-reflection as they attempt to maintain their place in an unforgiving social hierarchy. Players will:

• Experience judgment and privilege firsthand as the world reacts differently based on their assigned character.
• Feel the stress of social survival, mirroring real-world experiences of discrimination and favoritism.

By the end, the game leaves players questioning: Was it really my choices that determined my fate, or was it something beyond my control?