Development Process

From the beginning of development, we wanted to ensure that Once Upon a Pop-Up would be enjoyable for children from all walks of life, regardless of physical or neurological impairment. To achieve this goal, we envisioned how players with such impairments might be able to interface with the game. This led to the mechanic of idling NPCs interacting with the game world in unique ways. Children who may have limited mobility can still interface with the game world by remaining stationary on a single tile, and doing so will yield unique results. For example, remaining on the Archer tile for a certain period of time will enable them to perform alternate attacks that yield higher damage outputs against the dragon.

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In addition, we decided to make the king an autonomous NPC to give the game a sense of uniqueness during each playthrough. The king's actions are governed by a finite state machine that cycles thorugh different AI protocols at random. This, coupled with the unpredictably of which tiles children will occupy on any given play session, creates an emergent narrative that the children themselves craft. In doing so, each playthrough is made fresh and exciting; especially beneficial if children play the game multiple times while waiting for their appointments.

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