Dilemma, a game for the first 15-466 Game Programming assignment by Yue Peng Toh (Ken) with images from Barry's Clip Art Server.
I wanted to invoke a degree of frantic helplessness and dilemma in the player, to place the player in a situation in which he/she has somewhat limited control over a dire situation. However, he/she can somehow still salvage or improve this situation, but has to evaluate within a short time span how to achieve the best possible scenario with limited resources, which can be very morally difficult and may involve sacrifices he/she might not want.
If the above was a little vague, the following should makes things clearer. The game is a scenario where 11 people(or "equally" valuable things) who mean a lot to the player (father, mother, computer, TA, etc) are drowning in a sea, all at different rates. The player has to scramble to save as many (or all if he/she can) as he can by extending a helping hand to each of them as best as he can till official help arrives. By tapping a key designated to each sinking character once, he extends their survival by a second. The heroic player who tries to save all will need to give his attention consistently to all 11 characters, giving them a pull whenever needed and keeping them alive. The typical player might be forced into a frantic dilemma to decide which amongst his/her loved ones are worth keeping alive, and which of them to feed to the sharks :X The game also assigns a predetermined "worth" value to each character. Typically characters who sink faster are worth more (eg. the baby). Players will want to focus more attention on these characters.
The novelty in the game is in the gameplay mechanic: the use of the keyboard layout as the map of the "sea". Each new game generates a random arrangement of 11 characters spread across the "keyboard". The player with his 2 bare hands, has to reach out and attend to these 11 spreaded-out characters as best as he can in the stipulated time, which induces a sense a scrambling finger-frenzy required in the game.
Also, the idea of using 11 characters is to emphasize the idea that 10 fingers (limited resources) may or may not be enough to save all the 11 characters and that some one might have to be sacrificed for the greater good.
The game does achieve the goal of producing the desired effect of dilemma and frenzy. Admittedly, players who are well-versed with keyboard keys and great multi-tasking skills will definitely fare better.
Also, I think players tend to adopt a "save-all" strategy simply because it is more fun (the frantic pressing, everywhere) which does lessen the "dilemma" and choice-making part a little. One way to improve this is to show how much each character is "worth" in terms of points before the game. If they knew from the start, they might be willing to make sacrifices instead. But then again, the players will know after a few rounds that some characters are worth more than others.
Another thing that worked well was the randomization of the position of each characters. It gives the gameplay some replayability, because the new positions might require the player to spot sinking players quickly in a different way.
The half-opaque growing water level on each character was also effective in portraying the eventual feeling of loss as the characters get covered by the water over time.
Finally, some additional stages and difficulty levels can be added. This can be done by delaying the time of official help arrival, increasing the number of characters, or reducing the character survival-times. The existing score page at the end of the game can also be improved to show the breakdown of points. ( summation of worthpoints x time left on each player).