# Week 2 (09/23/2020)

This week we conducted research on the games suggested to us in the feedback session of our greenlight pitch during the lecture last week on 09/16/2020. I also reached out to some of my friends working in the games industry more familiar with games with specific mechanics, such as the ressurrection mechanic we were trying to communicate during our pitch, and are still working on articulating in language that is as clear as possible.

The game we found most closely resembles what we're trying to achieve is called Life Goes On: Done to Death (link to trailer (opens new window)). The game is one wherein each dead body left behind by previous playthroughs act as platforms, weights on buttons, etc. for subsequent playthroughs.

Another game (a whole series of games, actually) that shows previous attempts is the racing game Trackmania. The game is based on trying to get the best time in a closed racetrack, so it lets the player restart instantly with the press of a button if they take a turn that's too wide, or smash against a corner instead of gracefully drifting through it (link to gameplay (opens new window)). When you finish the track, you can, and are encouraged to, run it again in pursuit of a better time. This time however, you are joined on the track by a ghost of the run you just completed (or your best run out of multiple ones). Not only does this let the player observe where they might've taken a too-wide turn, but it also adds a sense of urgency.

Light After Death seeks to combine these two elements, but not in pursuit of achieving an explicit goal (although we hope that aspect would emerge; again, we have many playthroughs built into our timeline for this reason). We want the player to strategize how they solve the puzzle that is the game world, fraught with difficulty, while learning from past playthroughs.