Prisoner’s Dilemma: The Ballad of Peg-Leg Lenny

Prisoner’s Dilemma: The Ballad of Peg-Leg Lenny

Overall Vision

• Summary. In this game, you play as Peg-Leg Lenny, a simple pirate who was unfairly tossed in the brig. The player must utilize item descriptions to figure out how to escape their prison.

• Genre. This game is a point-and-click adventure game, in the vein of The Secret of Monkey Island. Since the uses for different items are obscured, there is a puzzle element as well.

• Target Audience. The target audience for this game is teens and adults, as there is some alcohol presence and harsh language present in the game.

Mechanics

• Character Goals. The player character (Peg-Leg Lenny) has a simple goal: to escape the brig.

• Abilities. The player has the ability to mouse over obstacles and items to better understand to what use they could be put; in addition, the player can manage an inventory of items and eventually create and detonate bombs to escape.

• Obstacles. There are several walls that the player must navigate through the use of different items — as well as the general obstacle of discovering what the player must do to escape.

• Items. There are several different items in the game, including several bottles of various substances, a candle, chains, ropes, and bombs. The player must figure out which item interacts with which other item in order to successfully escape the brig.

• Resources. There are few resources in the game — though it is possible to die by standing too close to an explosion.

Dynamics

• User Interaction. The player must utilize 8 direction movement and the mouse to play the game — that being said, there are few game over states that can be reached. The main challenge of the game is to discover how to proceed, not avoiding death.

• Proficiency. The main proficiencies required for this game are reading comprehension and critical thinking, as identifying what each item can be utilized for is key to completing the game.

• Gameplay Data. The only gameplay data displayed is the player’s inventory, which displays their current equipped item, their components collected, and whether or not they have created a bomb.

• Controlling the Game. The player starts and stops their game with the mouse. As there is no impending threat to the character at any time, there is no real need for a pause button.

Aesthetics

• Overall. The overall look and feel of the game is that of a cartoon-ish, pirate adventure. The characters, music, and items are all meant to give off a goofy, swashbuckling impression.

• Game Art. The art assets of this game are pixelated and bright, keeping with the goofy pirate theme.

• Sound. The sounds in this game are relatively basic, with a song that plays during the game, some bleeps and bloops to mark when items are picked up or deployed, and an explosion noise that occurs when the bombs are deployed.

• Plot.The plot of this game focuses on the titular character Peg-Leg Lenny and his effort to build a bomb that will let him escape from the brig of the pirate ship he is currently confined to.

• Emotional State. This game is meant to provoke a low-stakes but contemplative mindset, as the main challenge of the game is to consider the different uses of each of the items.

• Fun. The central form of gratification in this game stems from solving the various puzzles that the game places before the player, and ultimately figuring out the solution to escaping the brig and winning the game.

Credits

All visual assets such as characters, items, and tilesets, were created by the itch.io user Pixel Frog. The song that plays throughout the game was created by itch.io user ansimuz, for the GothicVania Cemetery pack.

Reflection

This was an interesting game to work on, as I had to quickly decide which ambitions I wanted to hold on to and which ambitions I needed to discard once I started developing it. My initial idea of the game was to incorporate a dialogue system on top of the current inventory system, as well as include a few enemies who would interact with the player character in a variety of ways. Ultimately, when considering my time restraints, I decided to dedicate my efforts on making sure that all of the different items in the game interacted together in a proper way without any sort of game-breaking exploits or bugs. I figured that the core of any adventure game is the puzzle element of discovering how to proceed, and so adding any additional characters or enemies would merely be frustrating if the central mechanisms were not solid.

I had a lot of fun designing this game, in terms of developing the maze and thinking out how the different items would interact. For my next game, I’d like to continue with the point-and-click adventure theme, with possibly the addition of more characters or alternate ways of completing levels.