Design Document for:

Music World
It's all about the music ! right?

All work Copyright 2011 by John Paul Sharp Written by John Paul Sharp Version # 1.00

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Table of Contents
MUSIC WORLD_______________________________________________________________________ 1 GAME OVERVIEW____________________________________________________________________ 3 MUSIC WORLD_________________________________________________________________________3 MARKET ANALYSIS___________________________________________________________________ 4 AUDIENCE PROFILE_______________________________________________________________________ 4 DISTRIBUTION__________________________________________________________________________4 DETAILED GAME DESCRIPTION______________________________________________________5 THE CORE IDEA_________________________________________________________________________ 5 BACKGROUND STORY_____________________________________________________________________ 5 GAME OBJECTIVE_______________________________________________________________________5 GAME PLAY & MECHANICS________________________________________________________________6 SET UP_______________________________________________________________________________ 7 ASSESSING OUTCOMES_____________________________________________________________________ 7 OTHER ASPECTS_________________________________________________________________________ 8 LEARNING___________________________________________________________________________9

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1 Game Overview
1 Music World
It's all about the music! right? Music World is a cross between farming applications like Zombie Farm and simulation games like Restaurant Story. What makes this game stand out from whats out in the market are the educational opportunities that arise in randomized scenarios players must face. Games like Restaurant Story do not have mechanics in place which truly resemble what it takes to run a restaurant; all a player can do is select different types of food and the money just comes rolling in! Music World attempts to create an actual challenging experience for players that is true to the industry but also comical, fun and entertaining. Randomized scenarios during game play address issues in running a music venue (e.g., an artist arrives to perform belligerently drunk, an employee stops a fight and hurts a patron who is now thinking of suing the business, a patron wont stop putting the moves on an employee who no longer feels safe working there). Much like an interactive comic book, the player is presented with these scenarios in an outrageous, comedic way. The player gets to choose options for how to mediate these problems and consequences come with each decision. The player might lose an employee or artist, face a hefty fine or avoid a problem altogether. While the consequences for decisions may not directly reflect real life in these scenarios, the content of the scenarios make for perfect discussions points when it comes to running your own music venue. Target audiences for this game are the tech-savvy iPhone and Android app lovers, yet Music World appeals to gaming grandmothers on Facebook and bored teens on Twitter. College students who are studying the music industry will find the most educational benefit from playing this game, but the comical, comic-book aesthetic is approachable to anyone who enjoys playing online social games. Because app-based games can easily be updated, Music World has the ability to keep players interested with new items, artists, employees and scenarios. The opportunities for entertaining, yet meaningful educational experiences are limitless! Background Story The game begins when an attractive female with glasses pops up on the screen and asks, Hello, there. I am your assistant. Currently, I am female. Would you like me to be male? If the player responds no, the Assistant slides down and reappears as an attractive male with glasses. If the player responds yes, the Assistant continues unchanged. The Assistant asks, Is there anything else you'd like to change? The player is then given the option to change other characteristics about the Assistant, like skin color, face and body shape. Now that I meet your standards of appearance, let's go over the budget. The Budget screen is shown and highlighted in the budget is ASSISTANT SALARY. The assistant circles the highlighted text and says, Don't forget to pay me. The Assistant then covers the rest of the budget which includes building rent, 1 part-time employee and a brand new artist. These are your recurring expenses. One grand a month? That's only thirty-four dollars a day! Nice! Now let's take a look at your cash flow. The screen flashes to the cash flow statement and focuses on the total of $2500. The Assistant circles the number and says, Twenty-five bills? Wow. I hope you're rich or have some sort of secret partners. Let's set up your stage. From this point on, the Assistant helps the player set up the dcor of the venue and introduces the employee and artist. Our first employee is Eddie, a lanky, pimple-faced youth, green to working, but eager to get started! Our first artist is a shy music student who's never performed before and scared to death. Looks 04/23/11 3 of 9 John Paul Sharp

like you're employee's a newbie and you're artist is scared to death! You'll need to train your employees and promote your artists, but that takes a lot of time and a bit of money. You'll figure it out. If you need me, I'll be around to help you do whatever you need to do. I'll also be around in case any trouble comes and let me tell you, trouble will come! But don't worry, I'll follow orders perfectly. Just make sure your orders are well good ones. I don't change the world, I just do what you say. The Assistant wishes the player good luck and poof into the corner. Now we are looking at the generic venue and its up to the player to decide what comes next. But wait! The Assistant is already back. There's a problem. Eddie just broke two dishes. Cut to slide of Eddie clumsily failing to catch a falling glass. I think he was trying to work too fast. What would you like to do, boss? CHOOSE: Tell him it's alright, but he needs to slow down. Tell him he's paying for it! Fire him. The choice is up to you, but you never know what's going to happen or how much it will cost!

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2 Market Analysis
1 Audience profile Music business students and educators get the most benefits from playing Music World, but this game addresses issues that are relevant to small business and entrepreneurship as well. Because this is a social game, it is fun and approachable for a large and widening demographic of social networkers across the globe. 2 Distribution Gamers will find this Music as an application for Facebook and smartphones and as a mini-game for gaming consoles on distribution services like Xbox Live and PlayStation Network. To make the game accessible as possible, a free version will allow anyone to download, install and play the game. Users who would like to support the game can also buy super-packed accounts with extra cash or a fully furnished, themed venue (e.g., jazz club, acoustic coffee house, metal bar, etc.)

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3 Detailed Game Description

1 The Core Idea Players can build, customize and manage their own musical venue with the help of their friends. 2 Game Objective The objective of this game is to keep your own music venue afloat by training employees, promoting artists and making decisions on surfacing maintenance scenarios. Social objectives are to customize your venue for friends to admire as well as updated leader boards to show who's making the most cash. (Already I am wondering about the social play aspects. Can you crib from Farmville and add mechanics such as attend a friends venue? Maybe having friends show up benefits your crowd vibe, but costs you money (because you have to comp them at the door!) 3 Game Play & Mechanics This game consists of 7 tabbed screens, with the Home screen being the default. Any other additional screens (mainly the Scenarios) pop out and play out until closed by the player. Navigate through the game by pressing the icons and words in the horizontal tab. Home Screen Players view a 2-dimensional visual representation of their customized music venue, complete with a stage and a serving bar with optional chairs and tables. Beyond the default selection, players can choose which animated employees and artists to view on their home screen while other characters, patrons walk back and forth, order drinks or watch the stage. Players can edit their venue by selecting items to move, sell, or store. Optional soundtracks, sorted by genre, can be purchased so that the player can hear music while playing. Budget Screen Players have a set amount of cash and recurring expenses related to paying rent, artists, and employees every month, to be taken out through daily increments (e.g., if a player has $1000 in recurring expenses, $34 will be taken from the Cash Flow every day). Players also receive income every month based on the number of employees and the amount of business coming in from artists to be payed in a similar manner. If the player runs out of cash, she or he can borrow from a fictional bank without reserve or interest, but they will incur a debt which will continue to grow until paid and can make it difficult to rank very high amongst friends. Employee Screen This screen allows players to thumb through their hired and fired (i.e., retired, archived) employees with their levels of training. The player has the option of spending a certain amount of time and money to train an employee. When the player has trained the employee, she or he must wait a specific amount of seconds, minutes, hours or days. When that time has passed, the employee will increase in level and make a faster rate of money for the business, increasing the cash flow. Some employees will have certain issues presented in the Scenarios and depending on how the player makes choices in those scenarios, some employees might need to be fired. Sometimes rehiring an employee will improve their ability to make money for the business and sometimes, it doesn't help at all. The way this plays out with each employee is random, with certain archetypes of employees programmed into the game. Employees can quit their jobs in a scenario. If that happens, the character cannot be rehired and is simply archived. Artist Screen The artist screen is the same in structure and function as the employee's, but the player has the option of promoting them, which also takes time and money. The mechanics for artists is the same as employees. Artist archetypes are randomly assigned to a character and will have Scenarios attached to them that can affect the amount of business they bring in day by day. As Artists progress in levels, they bring in more patrons, but depending on the decisions players make in the Scenarios, some artists my need to be fired and 04/23/11 6 of 9 John Paul Sharp

possibly rehired as the number of patrons might decline. Some artists, like employees, can quit their jobs in a scenario and may become archived. SHOP (Items) Screen This screen shows all the modifications to customize and expand the venue. Players can buy and sell items and choose to expand and de-expand as needed. New items can help increase both money employees earned and the amount of business artists can bring in. Most items and expansions are unavailable until the player can reach a certain level of training and promotion with hired employees and artists. An option is included to store items not displayed on the Home Screen. Friends Screen An option is included which will allow players to find and add their friends on Facebook, Twitter and other social networking sites. A list of all friends with links to visit their venues is listed as well. The Friend's Venue Screen looks much like the Home Screen, but smaller and without the options for modification. The options instead are to sign your friend's guestbook and tip the business and help them with their cashflow. Log Screen Achievement objectives will be listed here with scores of completion (e.g. three employees trained at level 10, visited and tipped ten friends). These are optional and not crucial to winning the game, but when completing certain goals, a cash or dcor bonus is given. Also, a log of activity (the guestbook) from friends and the player's activities are listed. Also, leader boards are seen on the log screen, giving the player to see their ranks amongst friends in regard to the number of patrons, number of days open, amount of dollars made, and who is actually bringing in the most profit. Scenarios The scenario screen comes up randomly during gameplay and happens once per day or less, depending on how often the player logs into the game. When a scenario first appears, it pops out and plays like a flash comic-book movie. The player watches a short scene with one of their employees or artists and is then prompted to choose one action of three possible choices. Some scenarios will reoccur depending on the decisions players make. Sometimes a fine will be given and the player may find that firing an employee is the only way to stop a negative scenario from reoccurring. On the other hand, some scenarios could actually help a player's business. As employees and artists survive scenarios, they will improve in level and make higher daily sales or bring in more patrons. The longer a player can keep an employee, the more they will help the business, but keeping them around is difficult. Here's an example of a scenario: A minor comes into the establishment and orders alcohol. The employee did not card the minor and unfortunately, a police officer was there on duty and checking IDs. Both your business and the employee were fined $500. The player has the option of 1) letting it slide, 2) warning the employee or 3) firing the employee. If the player fires the employee, that scenario will never occur with that employee again unless rehired. If the player lets it slide, the employee may get caught for not checking IDs again and the business will lose another $500. If you warn the employee, the character might quit! How the characters grow over time depends on the decisions players make in regards to their scenarios. 4 Set up All you need to get set up in the game is to download and install the free version on your smartphone, gaming console, or on Facebook. The Assistant provides an immediate tutorial and the beginning of the game. 5 Assessing outcomes If a player is able to successfully make good decisions with the given scenarios, he or she will be able to maintain a positive cash flow. The player has then demonstrated some knowledge about music business issues. 04/23/11 7 of 9 John Paul Sharp

6 Other aspects The most critical component for the successful execution of this game is high quality art and sound. Dcor items should be visually attractive enough to entice players to spend more money on them. Sounds are also important and should be high quality, comical and musical sounds. Like most social games, this game will have an option to hear music in the background and so several genres of looped music beds are important to give the gamer the experience desired.

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4 Learning
The learning outcome desired for the student playing this game is to appreciate that there is more business in music business than music. Given scenarios relevant to owning a music venue, students will be able to think about and make choices regarding artist and employee management. Teachers will be able to use these scenarios to facilitate conversations about music business issues. Some questions students and teachers can think about: How do laws affect the way a music venue is run? How many types of 'legal situations' can occur? Why is it difficult to manage people? Can one person own and manage an entire music venue in real life? What does it really take to be a successful business owner? While the game itself does not train anyone to become a real live music venue owner, the challenge of the game and the scenarios presented do get people thinking about what it takes. The real goal of this game is to take a bit of the dryness of music business and present it in a way that is endearing and entertaining.

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