Rouge Type dev log Entry 2.4

REFINING DESIGN

Interestingly enough, I've been working with horses for the past few months and been refining the control design. The actual coding is much less impressive.

As I mentioned in Rouge Type One Step 2.0, Things are slow and I'm working on movement still. I'm using Friendly Cosmonaut's pixel perfect movement rather then Shaun's, because it works into the overall stretch goals of a simple growth/ time/ day night system that is an aspect of the main design. Right now I can't figure the glitch that makes the box draw itself rather than move and ghost underneath walls instead of colliding with them.

Base build will be in Beta when


1. Player Movement  & Action
Because I want to include a variation of ways to interact with the map because the more combinations of approaches to play the broader the options in replaying the game.
Kinds of movement are more important to consider than speeds of movement. If the player can run or walk only matters if there are times when both are the optimum option.

Consider this, on a big project maybe you'd see and expect 16 different vehicle types with customization and tuning options, but if every line of code counts why include 10 vehicles that no one will play with? On the same side why code an entirely new vehicle or action that will only be used once in a while? This is why the kind of movement rather than the speed should be considered, if their are 3 options of unlockable vehicles and the only difference is speed then only one is useful at any given time. But if the three move differently; then the result is the player perceives movement differently. Checkers is a different game than Chess. When you play checkers you are looking at the board and movement for each piece all the same, but on a game of Chess every piece matters individually from each other because you must consider the board from a variety of perspectives.

So sticking with that theme of approach and perspective changing what the situation is, we're sticking with classic adventure-game-platforming-puzzle-movement.
That means WASD controls
1.Crawl-walk-run
2.Climb up/down
3.Shoot arrow
4...And catch-all "interact".

Alpha would work include
1.Multiple weapons
2.Jump
3.Swim
4.Swing on rope
5.Mounted(on horse)



2. Level Spawn

The inspiration for what I'm looking to make with the level design comes from the likes of Binding of Issac. Zelda's lost wood segment, and Nuclear Throne.

Base build will include one homestead room that allows entry into the segment of randomly chained forest rooms, each forest room will have randomized placed exits to the other forest rooms(incorrect door will lead one or more rooms back), upon climbing to the top of the trees from any of the forest rooms there will be a vertical parallax triggered to bring a far off tower into view (as if climbing to a greater height and seeing the tower in the distance) The tower will be either in the north, south, west, or east quadrant of the canopy and only visible in the distance if it is daylight, or there is a light in the tower, or a full moon, or whatever.
The purpose of this is to create some benefit or value that can alter the difficulty of finding the tower besides simply changing the number of forest rooms the player must play through before reaching the tower, or what would be characterized as the boss level.

Tentative step after this would be to tool separate randomizing sequences with separate sprites to differentiate between forest dungeon rooms, cavern dungeon rooms, and fortress dungeon rooms.

Option 1
Heartbeast Vs1

Option 2
GmSkew Cave Generator

Option 3(pick me)
Heartbeast vs2



3. Enemy Spawn

In truth I don't want to even begin to tackle this until I've figured how the dungeon generators are worked out, most of the player's interaction with the enemy will be in the random chained rooms, how many I make and how they work together should be linked to the difficulty. I'll set the number of enemies and difficulty of sort of enemy to increase as the player gets closer and closer to whichever specific tower and enemy.

Hand crafted levels will always retain a better quality of polish then any procedural generated level, but what I can do is control how many and how close together the encounters are. The main plan is to aid a single item into the random spawn of the forest that will position the mobs and give them an origin point to operate from.

Beta draft will include a firepit in it's randomly spawned forest levels, the firepit will be in one of the more open corners of the level and will spawn with mobs around it, this will be the basis for where I test out the AI.

Beta will include
1. Mobs that rage while player is in view, chase after the player, attempt to inflict damage, and loose rage while player is out of view.

2. tentative next step at this point would be to build onto the base A.I. and include duties that they might be performing, for example one might tend the fire while idle, the other look for firewood, possibly forging for food (an option if I get the level spawning to work nicely with the farming segment.



4. Art Assets
I'm not bad spritework, but also I'd rather design and aim within my own capabilities. I'll at least gear my placeholder art to resemble a Zelda 3/4th's top down isometrics perspective similar to oldschool gameboy art. I might do a hyper simplified pallet, like Rougelight Or (again) something like Titan Souls.

As important as art is ultimately, skin without muscle or bones isn't a body, so I'm going to spend little mentioning the art during the bulk of the coding and testing process.

Tackling Logic, and the Challenge of coding in "choice"

How does Story relate to Coding?

For pretext first we should discuss Ludonarrative, or simple the narrative elements inherent in the mechanics of a game. It's been discussed before on this blog, but refresher is always good. In the manner that all mechanical actions possible to the player are framed within a narrative act, the play is the story. Interacting with a game, in itself, adds to the game's narrative. This is most easily recognizable when there are different manners in which a player can interact within the world. This can be something so simple as changing which class your character is, or having player action lead to different outcomes for the endgame scenario; to the more vague and small moments of,  did Peach or Bowser win at the flower cup, or did Mastercheif favor the pistol or battle-rifle while saving the earth.

The point being that the mechanics of a game and the narrative of a game are inherently intertwined and cannot be accurately discussed separately, this implications of this as this article will explore, is that if the ludonarrative or playstory (story that's within the actions allowed to the player) has a poor narrative it leads to unsatisfying gameplay.

This isn't limited to the previous discussion of having each action lead to the broader arch as previously discussed; actions not for the hallow sake of themselves but for the overarching theme of the narrative. the previous point is what leads to the distinction of the "annoying mini game" vs side quests or moments of interaction that seem integral to the feel of the game. While Wind Waker is a story about a young islander fighting off monsters in island castles and dungeons, you can't imagine it without being able to sailing between islands. The sailing is an integral part as it's part of exploration.

There's the pretext, this discussion will be about instance to instance puzzles, and the problematic narrative of "choice" existing in what is ultimately a deterministic world. As always, the really hard problems turned out to be philosophy ones; and as always, philosophy has the answer... kinda. 

First we'll discuss a number of approaches to the problem and then discus the divergent instances that compound what appears to be the essence of the problem/solution. 

Que Sera Sera

Determinism is the belief that nothing that happens in the world could in any scenario, not happen. That whatever sequence of events is inescapable and unavoidable. This situation mirrors the reality of created worlds. In any movie or book, the events of the story will unfold exactly as they have before and always will. Similarly in coded worlds, they are integrally tied to the succinct and defined moment of the creator. While in philosophy this challenges most notions of freewill or purpose, in games it's more so an underlying challenge of purpose, but more on that later. In created or coded worlds the experience of the viewer or participant mirrors what the Stoics termed Eternal Reoccurrence. That everything that will happen, not only will happen and is inescapable, but has likely already happened before this instance, and will happen again in the exact same way in the future. Unlike most they did not believe that the inability to change the future would undermined freedom or freewill, because the event and the will linked to the event are separate things. According to the Stoics, if I'm destined to take a nap or not before I go to work, does not have any bearing on if I have the will to take a nap. This is known as soft Determinism. We see this in games in that no matter how many times you play the game the same events will be triggered as they are coded, and after no number of playthroughs can you avoid the hardwired series of events. Of course, this doesn't necessarily undermined hos satisfying the gameplay is, there are plenty of instances of games where there is no way to vary from the set path and yet the game still feels satisfying. Possibly the most famous and revolutionary exploration of this, is of course, The Stanley Parable.

Or, for a more 'on the nose' experience... 

If you haven't yet, play the game.

  The Stanley Parable as it's central gameplay gimmick, is the narrator dictating your movements throughout the game. This is first dictating your movements before they are enacted, playing with the notion of linear progression where the player is completely passive and has their will aligned with whatever appears to be the narrative, but then.. as the level design subtly tempts the player to walk off the directed path or investigate other corners, the narrator dictates the players rebellion. The resulting back and forth, which is really something that has to be experienced, is an exploration of the player's limitation within a determined medium and the very game's limitations within presenting choice. The game is a tongue in cheek in tongue in cheek in-.. spiral into oblivion. Yet while it directly plays with the ideas of player choice, and possibly undermining player choice, at no point in-playing does that choice feel cheapened. Let that sink in, in a self-aware determined 

environment, that makes it's determined nature blatantly clear, at no point does the player feel their actions are pointless.. in a game about showing you how your actions don't lead to anything "special".     

Divergence

All games have in a sense been tackling this problem, where what feels like a lack of player agency is in fact not conveying a sense of meaning behind actions. No player wants to do something "just because" they want to do it because of what it means in the game they're playing. The designer makes choices in gameplay valuable by making them meaningful within the context the game provides. When the choice is meaningful in terms of gameplay (powerup new ability) but not in terms of the story ( person dying = no change on the part of the player's mo) then we have that infamous diagnoses of Ludonarrative Dissonance, or in layman terms, "this part or acting in the game feels cheep, contrived, and just doesn't make sense". 

 Divergent options that viably allow the game to be played differently allow the player to control, have a sense of agency with, and give meaning to the emergent narrative their participation in the game creates. It can be something so small as jumping on top of a koopa instead of jumping past or as complicated as using a +8 great sword with knockback and larger area of effect instead of a +9 dagger with higher dps. Choices become memorable when they stop being the automatic no-thinking-required kind, when they become personal. This is what creates memorable gameplay, this is what makes experiences that stick with us. This element of participation in the emergent narrative of games is what makes video games such a uniquely compelling and personal media to its fans. It's why people end up relating so personally to video games, because their actions and will become a part of the experience-

Gahhh, yeah okay.

So, in the most clear instance of this, we have divergent stories. 

Divergent stories as I'm referring to them are the kind where a primary aspect of the gameplay and theme of the game is a value on specific player choices. This covers everything from the recent AAA's exploration of dialogue options that lead to multiple endings or multiple romance options, to open worlds where there is no specific order to complete mission before the end game, to the choose your own adventure novels of yesteryear. All of these explore the same effect of divergent path in play. The challenge and deciding factor of this effect is its logical presentation within the context. The presentation of the divergent options must be logical, they must follow from the situation of the world as a both sound and necessity to the story as an overarching experience.To break this down to it's simplest components, in a choose your own adventure book, imagine how the writer would create the stream of events. After you've gone the route of the wizard, how would it feel to have the character bludgeon a guard to death rather than petrify him or shoot lightning bolts? No, a thief must be allowed to try to steal, a barbarian to fight, and a wizard to spellcast. There's a necessity for all player actions for the game to present some sort of foreshadowing, something that builds the internal logic that leads up to each moment of player action overcoming the obstacle. When there has been little to no buildup, either because the internal logic is just assumed and taken for granted or because the developers simply couldn't be bothered, we have coined the term "game logic" or more specifically within the point and click community "Sierra logic". There are plenty of fantastical scenarios that occur in games without the blink of an eye, this isn't because we rationally assume we could do the fantastic in real life, but because the game has presented the fantastic in slow building manner that allowed our suspension of disbelieve to keep up with the internal logic of the scene. I do not believe it makes any sense to be able to control my momentum mid-air during a jump, but when I experience this in a game and then experience being able to jump off a wall, the realization of wall jumping is natural. And overcoming that puzzle feels satisfying. 

The same way that building any rich internal lore for stories takes a slow and complex build of internal logic, the emergent story the player creates through actions takes a similarly slow and nuanced build. Without this built suspension of belief at worst case we end up with sierra logic where the game is almost unplayable or at best where what happens on screen doesn't translate to the player as actions that are there own. As game critic and internet personality Arin Hanson "Egoraptor" put in his video essay comparing Zelda titles

"A puzzle is something you have all the information for, the only thing standing between you and the solution is your own ability to put the pieces together in the right way, the satisfaction you attain from solving a puzzle is from the A-HA moment. When the pieces fit and you only have yourself to blame for it. If you're missing a piece, how are you suppose to get to a conclusion a solution?

The satisfaction doesn't come from the door opening, it comes from the puzzle itself...

It's daunting, it's interesting, it engages you, and it's really easy to understand, and because of all this it's satisfying..."

Having all the information in this sense leads to the logistics problem of what amounts to the design equivalent of foreshadowing. Which, might sound impossible. How can a story in an emergent narrative seemingly foreshadow the end at the beginning when the end hasn't been "created" yet? Well, because it's already determined. Back a the example of the choose your own adventure, the key feature is that the story starts out extremely vague, which is perfect for establishing the first Blue Moon, the thing which is unbelievable but form which the player has their first step  into simultaneously believing, building, and being part of a fantastical world. the one crazy thing which all internal logic stems from. my personal favorite from fiction. 

In The Stanley Parable the game regularly plays with what is assumed to be a "reset" state, commenting on the last play through or braking the forth wall mentioning how everything will start over again and again until the player does as the narrator wants. It strings together what would otherwise appear to be alternate endings, separate stories, into a single cohesive narrative. What appears to be an impossible number of divergent paths all basically leading to the same "ending". How is this accomplished? This write up took much longer than I wished and I still have to get some sleep in before work. We'll take a closer look at different instances of gameplay that handle divergent paths next time. Until then; feel free to write about your favorite game that has alternate endings, romance, or dialogue options and why you like it or think it works in the comments. 

Pt 2

Epoche Development Talk 2, Procedurally Generated and Narrative

Epoche Talk 2, Procedurally Generated and Narrative 

First read, 

Exposition and Micro-Ludo-Nurrative

and

Game Focalization and Narrative


First I'm going to give a quick update of my progress. The pixel art program I'll be using for this project is freeware, which can be found here http://www.virtualuna.de/wiki.php?lang=eng&page=PixelStudioC. I'm reading into verbcoin now because I need to have a full grasp of how to code my algorithm. With this art program I'm going to sketch up some placeholder art and start the framework of the game. Which means the simplest version of the algorithm. Breaking a many scenario system down to the simplest wheels in a way that it will be instantly playable, but code in a way where the next iterations will fall into place easily (or as easily as possible), is proving to more difficult than said. Particularly with the dialogue section.

(image and a good read found here)

BREAKING IT DOWN
So, what do we always do when we hit a rut? We go around, but we keep digging. Everything in a generated game is connected, but it all stems from a simple set of mechanics. So those mechanics are what I will be working on. The gameplay in each match will be broken down into five stages.

1st, the characters, the game will have to randomly generate characters fleshed out with distinguishing features, stats, and personalized inventories. Setting up a test room and test figures will be my first, and most important, challenge. The quality of the game's mysteries (as currently designed) are dependent on this stage of generation working.

2nd  The basic AI movement of characters through the train cars will be directly linked to their stats. I don't have the luxury of making their movements a scripted pattern as the murders both need to have clue states and as must occur out of opportunity. When hungry the characters will go to the bar cart for a sandwich, which will be added to their inventory, which could leave crumbs on their hands, or the hands of a thief going through their pockets. The stats are a basic excuse for variables within the timeframe of each match, this effectively diversifying the instances of each match. Also by making npc's movements less predictable in later builds the player becomes more reliable on the testimony of the passengers(passive targeting and dialogue farther down). This adds suspense and strategy as the player must diplomat with --potentially-- the killer and put themselves in greater risk.

3rd, the first murder state. The combination of the stat effected movement simulation and targeting's system this is the second make or break point. Making the characters' passive/active targeting will be very very difficult.. for me. As the title implies the targeting code is how the murder selects their victim, this section will work off an expanded build of the first mechanics, expanding the stat and other variables so the game simulates the nature of the murder and the state of the crime scene. This section will eventually decide things like opportunity, weapons available, if there was a struggle, the number of clues left behind, and most importantly the imprint those instances left on the other characters. Which brings us to...

4h, claim dialogue, or better named, claim and counter claim instances. Here is where things get tricky and where my abilities with verbcoin make or break the game, each of the characters will have to have a storage system, exposure to fact states(clues) will allot them with a build of claims. Which with their passive/active targeting will organize how the AI responds to player input. This is the real meat and potatoes of the game. As the player picks up clues dialogue options are opened and they are able to 'build a case' against the npcs to decide which one they think is the murder. But dependent on the clues the npcs will be exposed to a different set of possible 'cases' and possibly against different characters, even yourself. I'm going to have to figure it so that the AI knows to respond, shifting blame(active targeting) to the claim that npc has unlocked and discrediting the claims of those it hasn't come to trust (passive targeting). This is going to be all very complicated, and in this early stage very imbalanced, broken. Which is why I'm going to need more effecting how the npc's make their decisions, how they notice features and build their clue/claim database.

5th, narrative dialogue or essentially randomized characterization/narration, is what I'm calling the extra dialogue I'll need to create. Where claim dialogue is tied to the active targeting, leading to the claims and win or fail states: the narrative dialogue is tied to the passive targeting and will result in the majority of the game's characterization. The passive targeting is essentially how a npc feels about another npc or the player, like a relationship meter, the modification here is that it is modified by the rest of the passengers. What happens is that because of the social situation the npc will assign each character a value from least to greatest (liked) and, dependent on the frequency of positive to negative responses from each character to the npc, assign biases towards those characters. This both effects how the npc will respond to the player's requests but if the npc will 'believe' the player. Certain npcs with a higher rating of the player will need less proof to be convinced of the player's claim dialogue, if that claim dialogue is proven wrong that rated will go down though. The importance of the narrative dialogue is... well the narrative. This passive targeting as an underlying feature that effects the active targeting simulates most of the mystery elements in the game. Not only through what amounts to diplomacy and cunning wit in questioning and organizing the group, but on the side of the murder it'll simulate motive and manipulation. The murders active and passive targeting act the same but as to manipulate the groups understanding of the crimes away from himself, and when the opportunity arises it simulates a murder of opportunity. This, of course, is in much later builds. And currently beyond me, but if the character creations work, and the AI movements work then half the work is done.


Tha'rrs the game plan. The five stages as currently designed, each building on previous iterations, slowly building to the more complete project. I don't have a timeline for the entire thing, I have no way of knowing how quickly I'll learn and be able to implement the code into each build, much less work out the bugs, with all of school and work. But it's definitely possible so I'm going to do it

Next time more news on code and art, maybe even some screenshots. Till then, have a good day everyone, and good luck on your projects.

Learning AGS and Narrative (discussion of play, prose, and focalization)

Oh dear god this is hard.


The first thing I learned of design.. was that something simple is complex. Just because something plays really simply and is a simple design, doesn't mean it didn't take much to create. Trying to recreate a really simple game in a manner that's better, is like trying to reinvent the wheel. Try remaking something like tick-tack-toe, ya know, something that will fit the same market and could replace tick-tack-toe in the mind of it's loyal audience... you can't.

That's because every beautifully simple design, is ingeniously complex. It's complex in the manner that it is simple but still works so strongly. It is precisely the right amount of everything to convey what it needed to, not too much where it became confusing, and not too little where it became forgettable. Think of rock-paper-scissors, as much as people try they can't really add something to the game and have the game work smoothly. They might reskin it, have three other things besides the classics; but that's just aesthetics, that's not changing the design of the game. There are three options to each player, each option lead can only lead to one of 2 outcomes.
1. fail-state, which would automatically result in the opponent's win-state (and vice-versa)
2. stalemate, which leads to a replay.

These outcomes lead to split second strategic decisions with instant reward, the timed element builds tension, the player aspect makes every game feel new despite the fact that every outcome has already been experienced. The nature of it leaves the players on an even level. Regardless of what age you are you can still loose or win with the same likelihood as you always could.

My point here is that early designers incorrectly correlate the number of inputs and quantity of interactions onscreen to the quality of the game's play. This is a fallacy that's typically learned after the first or second project. While tangentially related as far as design goes; input, interaction, and play are completely different aspects of game. Input is strictly analog. Interaction is strictly digital response to input. And play is the neurological response (within the player) to the perceived association of analog input and interaction. I distinguish it as a perceived association because of the play we frequently witness with young players, or even just children in play. We constantly see players lean controllers one way or the other even though that has nothing to do with the interaction onscreen. You can place a unplugged controller in your nephew's hand and they'll watch you play, clicking buttons, thinking they're involved. (I'm not the best babysitter)

Of course during early development the nuances of analog controls (just like the nuances of analog motor skills) are lost on youngsters, along with the nuances of small game interactions onscreen. With this we assume the input->interaction->play is lost on youngsters, and they perceive it to be a solely passive (McLuhan Hot) medium like film, but this isn't necessarily true. The nuances of it are lost but the cognitive response is still there, the interactions we see simply highlight the importance of agency in the input->interaction relation. In a small experiment (I'm a terrible uncle) while babysitting I brought up my Atari simulator, turned on Combat2, and handed my nephew (1 1/2 year old) the second controller. Not expecting much and knowing the little one's love of pressing buttons, changing the channels, and seeing the change onscreen I placed everything within his reach (small television/console/both controllers) on a short coffee table, to see what would happen. I instantly regretted the game choice because the foliage covers a good part of the interactions onscreen, new players might not even notice what's happening for the first few shots.

Not to diminish the whippersnapper incidentally beating his distracted uncle a few times, the game did not last long as the small nuanced interactions onscreen were not enough to hold the youngster's attention. After exploring all the controller seemed to offer him, my nephew quickly began to experiment with the console. Which had the desired effects of turning on and off, then cycling through the games installed within it's memory. This illustrates a rudimentary rule of design; agency is established through clear control. The response of play is only as strong as the perceived association between the input and interaction. The interaction must be noticeable and a clear and direct response from the input. Imagine watching a game being played where you have no grasp of the rules, until you can make the link between what players are doing and the repercussions of their actions, then all you're seeing in-front of you is gibberish actions that have no correlation. To you it can't be played, you can't voyeuristically play that game because you have no understanding of that system (input->interaction). This is at root the inherent difference between games and film, games are constructed to convey the input->interaction system to a player (design is comparable to prose) where film doesn't have this interactive(cool, McLuhan) prose. This is why Let's Plays or Walk Throughs on youtube are popular with the gaming culture as interactive material related, instead of the film culture as cinematic material related despite sharing similar a visual language. While a mostly invisible aspect that's "under the hood" the prose of games and cinema are internally different, and draw the participant into a different neurological experience.

And just like if you don't recognize the system of input->interaction, if the interaction is inconsistent the game ceases to be. When kids run around the playground and point fingers going "BAM, you're Dead!", they have simultaneously designated input and interaction. If the second child laughs falling down, pretending to be dead, they have designated the output, the system is established. Even if they dodge, or run shouting "No you didn't!" they have established a system. Then it's a game, they've created play. If the second child doesn't react, then the first child is privy to either give up on his game, or to adapt it. Imagine the child that sneaks around in a public place pretending they're James Bond and imagines shooting down robots in the supermarket, or the kid in the back seat that pretends they're launching rockets out of their window, blowing up other cars. They have designated the game to be private and within their imagination, if a stranger sees them and pretends to fall down dead in the supermarket, smiling.. well typically at that point they just ruined it. That wasn't the game child was playing first, second they didn't invite this weirdo to play. It might have similarities and be a game, but it wasn't the game being played. It's not that the player doesn't understand the system of the slightly different game of "shoot, and shoot down bad guys" but that interaction and output had a fundamentally different prose then "shoot, and imagine shooting down bad guys". The prose of the first was controlled internally and allowed a deep exploration of player imagination and narrative, where the prose of the second became a cooperative effort and drew more attention to the game itself and out of the narrative being experienced, this is why some kids suddenly get embarrassed when you jump in on their game.

-Jump next to sandcastle-

"So what-cha doing?"

-shyly sticks plastic figure in sand-

"Just.. playing.."

You're sudden attention draws their own attention to the nature and prose of their game, drawing them out of their play experience. At this point we've all learned the best thing is to draw the child back into their narrative, be a participant and not draw attention to their system by learning the rules, and responding as they decree is appropriate to the system. Let them DM. 

"I wanna play, what do I do?"

"OK, and you can be the dragon! You're over here, and you're like -"RAHH"- when the knights go inside the cave. Alright! But I'm the Green knight, you can burn my head, but I just don't die."

I'm Getting There! Jeez!

As I've mentioned games have an inherent prose of their own through the design and nature of the game. The elements of the games design, the input, the interactions, and the subsequent play are the prose of games. Game prose is the form of interactive language and game flow/feel, and same as linguistic prose is the form of grammar and flow. In a manner of speaking prose is the cellular structure of narrative. There is a rudimentary prose in narrative(storytelling) that is not directly specific to any medium (movie,comic,tv series, novel, painting, ext.)

This rudimentary aspect of prose, this universal aspect of story stems from the existence of the story itself. I am of the personal belief that every creative medium has the potential to convey a story, and might so inherently through the participation of humanity (but that's for another time)

What I'm referring to is what French Narrative theorist Gerard Genette, refers to as Focalization. The eye and voice with which the story is being told. Narrative is the recounting of a story, the fact that the story cannot be recounted without a manner of voice, or eye, or ear, or some other sense mandates that there must be -in a sense- a narrator as an individual that recounts the story. We borrow their eyes, ears, thoughts and actions; but not always directly, often a storyteller will distance themselves from the protagonist so they can establish elements like foreshadowing by allowing the viewer information the character isn't privy too. Or build drama by allowing the viewer more then one character's perspective so the viewer can be engaged on a larger scale. A young writers first struggle is commonly changing tenses when trying to change perspectives, which is understandable as timespace in any form of storytelling is a pretty weird,weird thing.

(I'd encourage anyone interested in storytelling mediums (especially visual) to look into Scott McCloud's, Understanding Comics, which has a brilliant section on this.)

I've always found it helpful when organizing, character events, time, locations, pacing, basically everything to think of the focalization (the eyes and mouth of the story) to be a character on their own. Even if the character is just a spirit that floats around the other individuals I've found it to be extremely helpful understanding and writing for the reader when I have a established character that's sort of a in-between for the reader to the fiction. Think of the narrator of the window into the story, now think of that window having some degree of character.

With this it's easier to focus the story, like an engineer removing useless or redundant parts, if it's imagined within the span of a single beings mind. Especially as the entire story has to fit into one person's mind. The narrator doesn't need to refer to themselves as a character in the story to have relevance in the story. Imagine the narrator as the person whose siting by your bedside telling a story to you. Someone who knows the story so well they could read it too you without any reference, and they chose to do it a certain way because of that. When the narrative isn't delivered in chronological order, it's sort of like someone telling you pieces that somehow fit together into a larger story, part of reading it and the experience is in figuring out why the narrator does that. Everything the narrator tells you matters, or sometimes with postmodernist-lit it matters that it doesn't matter. The same way in a novel the author won't write what happens to the character every moment of every waking day the narrator wouldn't turn around and tell you that, because it's irrelevant to the story the narrator is trying to tell you. A story with a strong voice is when the narrator has cut the fat and will only tell the reader what really matters about what happened, (or what the author decides what matters).

I am of the opinion that everyone is to some degree a natural storyteller, maybe not a concise or very good storyteller, but one non-the-less. I think it's something we learn through years of communication and through a kind of osmosis, or at least we gain the ability to subconsciously appreciate it. When we're educated to recognize storytelling, it's mechanics, and specific language we better understand why we appreciate the pieces we did. Hopefully we might even be inspired to make our own.

So I believe that to a sense people have a natural sense of thematic devices, plot, pacing, and the like. Stephen King did a interview on writing where he talked about one of his current projects based on a news story he heard years ago about some lady driving threw a store window to drive over someone. To paraphrase, King said that he always felt time was kind of like a sieve, you can't really get ride of the big important stuff. The "chaff" just falls aside leaving the "rocks" the things that just stick in your head and you have trouble forgetting. People have a sense of what is big and important, in hindsight it's always a little clearer what was actually the "big stuff" but it isn't like it goes away, but the point is people still have that kind of thing with them. I think everyone has a great sense of the moments that are big and important, and that as you gain experience storytelling and work on your craft you're learning the reason those things are big, and you learn to position those things in the light and shape the edges to get the best effect you can out of them.

At this point we've dug into a number of topics.
1. Simple systems aren't easy projects
2. The input->interaction system that produces play hinges itself strongly on a sense of agency in the player, without a sense of agency the essence of play is diminished and the interactive aspect of the medium takes a more passive tense.
3. Agency is established through clear control. The response of play is only as strong as the perceived association between the input and interaction.
4. This play dynamic is the prose of video games and ludonarrative. Similar to prose in literature being the narrative flow, the play dynamic in games are the ludonarrative flow/ the game feel.  (Pieces expanding on Ludonarrative A. B.) 
5. A story's Focalizatin is the aspect in which the narrative is being delivered. In a story the manipulation and treatment of the elements in that story's medium becomes an element of story itself. In film the angle and position of the camera are just as important to conveying the story as the dialog delivered. In comics the specific layout of panels and manner moments are conveyed mean just as much as the moments themselves. In literature the use of transitions, the inclusions or exclusions of segments, all focus the material presented. In games the use of camera angle, the interfaces, the analog input, audio or text segments, the general gameplay all create the aspects of narrative delivery. With any great story its specific focalization is necessary for the story to maintain its individual nature.
6. Humans are natural storytellers, in our understanding and mastery of elements of storytelling is where we learn to understand the natural strengths in a story and the best manner in which to convey that.

This was all about Ags  

The main reason I am always so emphatic that people who want to get into game design start small is not just so they feel the accomplishment of finishing a game and don't loose there passion to a overbearing project, but so that they hone their abilities to create good games and convey experience to the player. Games that use simple systems like basic platformers, basic rpgs, shoot'm ups, brawlers, point and click adventure, are all time proven systems with very limited focalization. The camera is set, the player can only do so much, the designer is presented with limitations. One of the first impulses of a new game designer is to take a game system and expand it's focalization; take a top down shooter and give it rts elements, make it rouge-like, multiple endings, character relations. This ends in a game that is jack of all, master of none, which results in a mehh product. Some indie game that tried to do too much without focusing on doing any one thing well. But when you have someone tackle something small for a while; whether it be your platformer, rpg, top down shoot'm up, card game, board game, Doom clone shooter, or your point and click adventure game.. well then you see someone produce clever and well crafted pieces. The reason for this is that a practiced veteran of a genre has the experience not just to reproduce the focalization (gameplay) of that genre, but has the experience to perfect(or better) their prose within the genre. They've come to understand the inner workings that make the nuanced decisions when designing interactions that result in a better end product.

I'm at a point where I've only been tangentially aware of the Adventure Game genre and it's elements, I've begun working through the Sam an Max series(one I've always wanted to tryout) and reading up as much as I can on design theory, puzzles, and story that I've found. As before the ags forum community has been very helpful and directed me to a number of resource blogs/aritcles/podcasts to check out.(listed below) My first attempt at a project had me realizing the cinematic sequential nature of ags games with their backgrounds and transitions so I invested in some books about comics... I don't know how much it was just an excuse, but so far the books have benefited me tremendously. 

I have a better understanding of angles and positioning with my backgrounds, my character design, and animations are stronger. I had heard it mentioned before but this work definitely is a must have for game designers. Even it most of it just reiterates something you've learned with experience, if you're into storytelling, there is a wealth of knowledge in here you do not want to miss. 

Of course I'll continue referring you guys to blogs that have been helpful, and better reading then mine (look to the right side of this blog). I'm going to continue writing, dusting off and resharpening my art skills, and start working out puzzles. With time, with experimentation and study, I'll start to figure out the specific strengths of the Adventure Game narrative. I'll discover the elements of pacing and storytelling within this specific genre. When I learn or find something that's helpful while I go along I'll be sure to put something up here for it. Until next time, thanks for reading, and good luck everyone :)

Welcome to the Program
-here is a great introductory series of videos to the program and all the basic coding you'll need to make your first game -  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Ml_DR76Cl4

-here is more information on the Ags program scripting -  
http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/wiki/Scripting

Focus on Design/Prose

-here is a backlog of the Blue Cup Tools podcast where Ags developers Grundislav and ThreeOhFour discuss game design and production with a heavy focus on Adventure games (shock) with a tasteful amount of divergence to other genres -  http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/forums/index.php?topic=46193.0

-while at the time of writing this I haven't had the opportunity to read these, I've heard numerous reference to these articles on adventure game by genre enthusiast Ben "Yahtzee" Croshaw. 

-  http://www.adventuregamers.com/about/author/2157

-more by Yahtzee
-  http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/columns/extra-punctuation/10959-The-Magic-of-Old-Adventure-Games

Design Sense

TALKING ABOUT DESIGN. WHY DESIGN?

At one point in time, while talking about game making, someone told me the only safe career pursuit was coding. That the coding was any game's live blood and without programmers you wouldn't have any games. This was brought up because I mentioned I do the writing for a group making games and that I consider myself a game designer, and occasionally artist, who has little to no understanding of coding. Which is why I've had such trouble physically finishing any designs. The chap I was discussing with called writing and design the easiest part. I don't know about that. Now I might be wrong, some things come easier to others so for him they might be the easiest part. He could have his coding down, and a natural grasp of story and the design talent to back it and make functional beautifully thought out interactive experience. But for the most part when people say writing is stupid easy or think that coming up with a game that sells million copies first week is just stupid obvious, are the kind of people that have never done those things. Like, they think writing a best selling novel is really easy because they haven't written much so they don't really know much about writing, and chock up the art as a simple task. They misinterpret the aesthetics, the visible content, for the craft of putting the content together.

Say we're talking about a novel. What makes the novel great is not if it has robots or werewolves in it, or even the grammar. It's the way those things are presented that makes it work, it's the pacing and use of story devises. Understanding how the reader will feel reading the work, what and how they'll think while you introduce characters and elements. It's not solely the characters or elements but the significance in their use. Everyone has read a good book (I hope), and everyone has read a boring or dull book from the same genre. Even if the grammar in both was perfectly fine, if both books had gunslinger good guy, a hot distressed victim, an evil as sin bad guy, with a three act structure, and a hero sacrificed conclusion; the good book would never be compared to the bad. No one who had given either any consideration would confuse the two. When asked what's different, you might hear "This one's just got an awesome hero, he's super cool, and killed like thirty badguys. The other killed a bunch of guys too but he's just kinda lame." We've all had those experiences where a book or film just kinda "tell" us we're suppose to like hero X or think they're the coolest but we're just not into it. You can have as many special effects and good actors in a movie, but if the story is terrible and the character's are compellingly written, the movie will be rated poorly. Now that has nothing to do with someone's sense of grammar or including cool stuff, that's the result of design. Great stories are great by their merits in design and execution. Those two things just cannot be divorced. You can't make a classic book out of great storytelling but bad grammar just like you can't make one out of good grammar but bad storytelling. Personally I feel the great storytelling will help a book/movie more then good technical execution. Poor special effects and filming is something you see everywhere in cult classics, but if the story is soulless and poorly shown you're going to have a harder pressed time finding fans. Look at the 5 dollar bin at your local Walmart.

Bringing this back to games, I'm comparing grammar to coding, and storytelling to design. I agree with the individual that coding is the lifeblood of games, but if that's true then the art is the skin and outside, the story is the animal's temperament, and the design is design of the actual animal. The design is how the internal organs work, the system of how the animal moves, what the animal does. How it frightens it's predators, finds it's food, survives. Think about animals in a design sense. Animals that were well adapted and had a design that was well suited for the environment keep living, others died out because their design wasn't suited for the environment. Sharks are really, really old, they're still around because to today's standards they still do what they need to. Like how classic old games still stand up to today's standards as engaging and fun. 

What's Going On?

I think what's happening typically when consumers or starting up game developers misunderstand and dismiss the term design, it's because they haven't been given a context to really see design as what it is. Like learning English someone points at an apple, says apple, and you think apple just means red fruit. It's more than it's surface material. There's more to writing than just put words on paper and more to drawing than just lines on paper. That's not to say they can't design. It's just they're not as aware of what they're doing. Like people who can sit down and play something ridiculously complex off the top of their head, completely impromptu on the piano without ever taking a lesson. That doesn't prove that musical theory is bunk, it proves that it's something innately appreciated. You don't need to know a think about music to appreciate Queen. You don't need to understand or acknowledge all the little bits of brilliant in a Miyazaki film to be drawn in. None of that's important because design is an invisible art, a soft science even. You enjoy and are drawn to a well designed advertisement without ever knowing it. We're bombarded with thousands of logos and graphic art a day but will still notice a well designed image dispute ourselves. We'll categorize that image and remember it for years to come without giving it a second thought, not because we tried to remember it, but because the designer knew what he was doing. Design is a thing you enjoy effortlessly, good design is something you barely notice. You might internalize a general understanding and design sense by being exposed to a medium, but then might not be able to explain later why something is bad. You'll know it's bad, but you might not be able to exactly articulate why. 

"How was the movie?"

"It was boring."

"Why?"

"Just was."

Everyone who makes anything is practicing a level of design. Anything creative is designed and could have it's merits judged by it's design. Everyone who makes games is at worst and amateur designer. I'm not saying this to make a point about designers being the most important people in game production. No, I'm just saying that what being a designer means isn't what people always think it is. Design isn't an idea, it's the execution of an idea. It's not "Game with werewolves and guns!", at it's simplest it's "tower defense, werewolves", and that's the basic idea you start with. But throughout the production you're making more and more design choices. Level design, deciding what to include or exclude to balance complexity curve, gameplay, the interface, the guns work, the way the enemies work. Yes without coding you wouldn't be able to translate that into a functioning game, but from start to finish design is implemented throughout the game and has direct effects on the game. That theory I have with storytelling and grammar in books is the same with games, how many times do you pick up that great old game you love that has the occasional glitch over the brand new one with the uninteresting gameplay? You never pick up that last one because you traded it in at Gamestop or where-ever. 

Design isn't just 'idea guy', and if you're getting into game making thinking it is, you're in for a sad disappointment. Design is something that every contributor implements in their part aspect of the production, game design means the gameplay and the level design. To me design is all I really care about in a game. If a game has a fantastic story or art but cannot draw me in with it's gameplay I won't care to continue playing. If then the art and story are created perfectly to fit with the gameplay and paced well within the levels, then there's a game I love. 

When I'm working on a game when I feel the most alive is when I have the squares and pre-art bits moving around onscreen in the way I want them too. Transitions, puzzles, effects, controls. In the back of my head I have all the art assets, but those are just the skin, what's really happening in a game happens by design. Of course none of that happens without the rest of production. Squares are nice, but can't always convey a meaningful experience like art and sound can. Think of how iconic game music is, think of how popular sprite art is in gaming culture. Think of well written stories and how that contextualized fight scenes into an epic experience you'd come back to again and again. Then think about how none of that would be possible without lines of code.. complex.. computer language. You can't expect to divorce these elements from each other and weigh one or the other as more important.. well.. actually you can have a game with no sound. And then they have made that one mobile phone game where it's pitch black and you use alone to figure out where you are in the digital world... that's such a cool design. 

OKAY.

You can't dismiss the design side of games any more then you can dismiss the technical side. It'd be like removing the rules of chess from the physical board and pieces, or taking the physical construction and pieces out of the equation and just leaving the idea.. it's just not possible. Either way, you wouldn't have chess. Even if you were to try to image a game of chess you'd need to imagine physical properties to conduct the game. The aesthetics are a softer element of production, but just as vital. Dwarf Fortress depends on it's graphics as much as Minecraft or Super Meat Boy, without their individual aesthetic sense the games wouldn't be as iconic or convey the same experience they do. If you thought Mario, Zelda, or Pokemon could be the same without their musical numbers then you're wrong.  

I know they're old videos and everyone's seen them, but a great study of design in the way it effects game experience is Egorapter's Sequelitis series.        

So I'm making these things again.

So after not really being able to wrap my mind around code. I opted to step it back and start simple. Something I typically try but end up trying to sneak in more features then a program is flexible enough for. And by that I typically mean doing so meant a more code heavy revise than I could handle.. But I think I've found the right thing. And I think this might be the hardest thing for starting up designers (or those of us that have never finished a project on our own), you need to find tools that are simple enough for you to wrap your mind around using them to create your idea, and the tool has to look simple enough and be the least amount of threatening on approach that you don't feel intimidated and overwhelmed when learning.

I found Ags.

And I was draw to ags initially the way I am typically drawn to something.. it was free. Spending the time to download and drudge through the tutorials is some of the best time I've spent. And I say that as a poor, currently under-slept, not quite starving college student. It's break right now for Christ sakes and I can't get myself to sleep in. I'm super excited to have one of my old designs not only off the back-burner (as I now have tools to slowly coax pages of scribbles into sweet digital life), but not just off the back-burner, but to see the tools at my disposal and realize how very doable this vision is. Often with a design orientation, you get an idea for something --and any good designer will tell you, it's not the thing that matters it's the manner in which it works, that makes a truly good design-- and when you don't have any training or understand the vocabulary of how your pen works(coding; in a manner of speaking) then you have the assumption your grand idea isn't possible and is too complex mechanically. And that's what I had thought for the longest time with many of my designs, so what did I do. I focused on the gameplay, the input output relations with the player and the essentials of what really made something. Because if I could figure that, and break a game down to it's smallest components, and then possibly get myself to the point of building those components, then I could design a project solely around that singular component, and then with time build on new features learn and work up to an engine that I could use to build the stories I wanted to.

Once to build a metroid-ish/brawl platformer I started the designs for five separate titles that slowly scaled back the functions of the game until the one I started working on was literally two frogs that could either step forward or backward and were fencing with their tongues. Like a dive kick game, but it's step forward or step backward kick. Attacking while stepping forward made a simple straightforward thrust. A backward step with a attack would make a sideways slash that could parry a hit. That was it. You would go forward in an attack or move back to defend. 

And really, I'll probably end up using that same strategy to make my final products, lord knows it'd help fill out the empty file designated for finished products.

Any finished product is a trophy in itself

But my point is, it's nice to know that the set of stairs that lead to your dream projects aren't always as massive as you think. Dream accomplishments aren't nearly as impossible as we think, the tasks are actually very human and legitimately possible.

And, my goal on this blog now.. along with using it to help keep me honest and frequent with my internship writing. Is to show off how possible these dream projects are. I've always been a massive fan of Wolfire Games' marketing strategy of showing start to finish because I know how much that meant to me when I was first thinking of game design. That sudden realization that follows being introduced to your deepest dream activity as a realistic profession, "Crap.. this could be what I do. Even if I need to do a second job, I could be doing this. I could be making those kinda things." That realization that game design and creation wasn't... it wasn't something so out of reach, not a "I could never do that.." situation. And when I first saw those games being made, when I followed the squares on screen betas turn to polished alpha releases, all of that just got me so excited. I spent.. well I haven't stopped thinking about games. Not just as a retreat, or pastime like they were before, but as my worlds. Instead of retreating into a book or movie or game like it was a favored place to be comfortable and be myself in, I started retreating into these as if they were close friends that whispered hints and tricks about how to excite the audience, make them laugh, or make them care. My notebooks at school actually started being used.

BACK ON TRACK

So, soon as I pull together the braincells to figure out fraps.. (probably lost half the audience, I swear I'm not completely incompetent), I'll record myself working on this project. Possibly do a tutorial session about everything that goes wrong and how to trouble-spot where you're going wrong.. because I think I've run into almost all of the most basic ones and in trying to find what's wrong realized there isn't a single person on the internet who was simple enough to make the same ignorant mistakes I've made. Thus far I've figured all the problems I've run into by myself (I'm very proud). There will undoubtedly be more in the future. But for now I'm going to upload and dictate my design process, both selections from my notebook on how I'm mapping and keeping track of the perspectives. And mentions of what I learn, as I learn the AGS editor and coding tips and hints.

-My first error, which was one of the most frustrating, was the room I had created was unable to load the background image I had drawn for it. Which was frustrating because I'd go back and forth between the general settings and the image I had made because they were the same size, pixel for pixel; and the computer told me they weren't. The issue had been, of course, the room actually wasn't the same size as the general setting, this was because after I had made the first room I changed the general setting size. This was because I made the room, checked the size, looked at my image editor and realized I wanted it bigger. The rooms are built off the general settings but once built isn't linked to those general settings anymore. The resolution does not bend back and forth to my will in these separate rooms. So basically all I did was delete the room, remake it, and the image worked. That took me two days to figure out. I want you to see me in all my pathetic glory so when I have something to show and you're first reaction is "meh, alright.. that's kinda neat." You'll see how far I've come.

-And here's my coup de gras, or at least I hope it's the most facepalm I get learning this... Facepalm.. Facepalm Games.. that's what I should call my youtube development videos! You see you have to find a way to make it fun, you even have to make losing fun, with my history of game making, this is going to be a whole lot of fun.

My coup de gras was I couldn't get the inbuilt editor to draw walkable areas. I'd select every tool in the little bar, draw rectangles, draw line tool, draw pen tool, and all those other things.. I don't know what do.. But anytime I'd try to draw on the page it'd tell me that I couldn't do that, that I had the eraser selected. And I'd get very upset because I didn't. And it was saying crap about a properties plane, and I couldn't find what they were talking about. It made me very upset, but I had seen the light at the end of the tunnel.. this was possible and this design has been brewing in my head for almost two years, the functions I thought I couldn't do and the art-style had been brewing for four years, and that functionality was literally a number of months of work away. It was possible, I was just being ignorant, and I'd make it work. Enter roughly four days of doing almost nothing but fart around on my computer trying different things on the editor and having five tabs open looking through basic tutorials later I realized I had the properties of the room set on Walkable Area 0... as in no walkable area at all. Meaning I wasn't drawing.. which would automatically set the pen to a function that wouldn't work. 

  

No matter what you start learning, you will always start off making mistakes you will laugh at in the future. So enjoy it, realizing painful ignorance is the universe's way of making learning fun.

My next hurdle.. along with everything coding. Is to find a good paint program to get the kind of pixel art I'm looking for. So far I'm using Sketchbook Express 2011, and with some farting about I might be able to get the precision stuff that I want but right now the settings are giving a difficult to control --as it's designed for tablet and pen(a set i don't really have)-- and faded soft brush effect in the lines. And.. well I'm looking for more pixel accurate hard color effect. Plus this isn't a program everyone can download. So I've downloaded and will come up with a review for PixelStudio next post along with more on the Island.

Goodnight everyone, good luck with your projects. 

Game Design Needs Better Storytelling Pt1[E]

Author's note - So while writing a small essay for school I got on the topic of storytelling and while not wanting to vary too far from that paper's thesis I'd like to say more on the topic, so that is what this is going to be. We're going to discuss storytelling in games, popular narration mechanics in other creative media and how they can be adapted to an interactive media. Understanding these will give us a better perspective on how story can be delivered within video games. Now not long ago Bob Chipman -no this blog will not be entirely responses or offshoots of what one internet personality says, Bob just brings up good topics, get off my back- Mr. Chipman as the Game Overthinker put out an episode on the rather popular topic of developing video games into competent film. And because the video was pretty good and I'll be bringing up some of what is mentioned later in this discussion, here, give his blog a quick look and watch it.

MECHANICS

 In the Game Overthinker's video he addresses how for the most part games historically have been lackluster in the storytelling department, and he's unarguably right. Of course there have been a number of shinning gems throughout the years, and even within the media's oldest routes we've found ways through gameplay to translate real and powerful experiences, as an example I'm going to site the 1980's Atari arcade Missile Command. And if you'd like an explanation take a few minutes and hear Extra Creditz's argument on the topic of Narrative Mechanics. Of course this is may kind of small stuff to some of you guys, "Games can tell a story about an experience by having you act out that experience?"

But of course there's more to it than just that, if it was just that the addition of film level graphics and cinematography along with some amazingly detailed mechanics using dialog (morality/story altering) would have catapulted the video game medium into its own Oscar worthy level of appreciation. And we all know it's not achieved that yet, because every year games come out and the major criticism -second to technical flaws- are a poorly designed and executed plot or character experience within the game. The story is boring, the characters are one dimensional, gameplay does not reflect the story or character's experience, the only connection to an excuse of a story are poorly made cutscenes... We've basically heard them all, and the problem is we keep hearing them. Remember Dead Island and that tear jerker tease trailer they had, along with those terrible characters and plot they delivered? Actually the game was just pretty awful in general, I felt no shame in trading that back in for store credit at Gamestop, wish I had bought it pre-owned in the first place if at all actually. So something is broken and it should be fixed, as much as some people might believe it's doing away with cutscenes it's not. Look at Bioshock. That game is held up as a shinning example of how to ingrain story and plot into gameplay, and it does it through cutscenes.  

Video games are a medium all to themselves, the take lessons and borrow theory from others like literature and film, but are governed by completely different rules. most important, and noticeable, is that the player has direct influence on the speed of the games/story progression through gameplay. The bulk of their experience is delivered from what their avatar is able to or, in some cases more significantly, not able to do. The gameplay has to reflect the story because that is the part of the characters experience you, as the player, are directly a part of. And because gameplay is what players are truly involved and interested in game designers have gone with themes and a hand full of story forms that can be reflected through gameplay right off the bat. 

TANGENT DIVERSION: PULP FICTION

These kind of story forms that just jump right into the action are reminiscent of the pulp fiction of the 1890 - 1950's. "Pulp" referring to the cheap composite wood pulp paper that the magazines were printed on. These magazines were so cheap to produce and had so many different kinds of action packed high fantasy short stories they became thee cheap american entertainment and escapism (besides sports) during the depression era. This basically were (along with comics) the origin of geek culture as we know it, possibly even the origin of the 'Jock vs Geek' click divide that persisted so long throughout our popular culture. Within this largely experimental and new kind of literature some of the greatest writers of that generation were found, names that have spawned works that, through varying forms of media; have lasted generations, become literary classics, and even inspired classics outside of their own medium. Pulp's high fantasy, imaginative visual style was also a clear direct inspiration for early game design, spanning from the arcades and early consoles when pixels were still discovering aesthetic tricks to... well now.

BACK ON TOPIC: MAKING SHAPELY FICTION

I digress, game designers use a many of the same narrative mechanics used in pulp fiction to get the characters into the action as soon as possible to get the player into the game. I'm going to comment on concepts and material for these mechanics from a great book on creative writing by Jerome Stern titled Making Shapely Fiction. 

(content examples)

     This is literally one of the best practical resources for sharpening storytelling technique and execution I have seen to date.  Now all these concepts are within Mr. Stern's book, and I'm just going to summarize a few of the shapes so if his work interests you then seriously, look into it. This book is more then worth getting your hands on if you're getting into a storytelling medium. 

BEAR AT THE DOOR

All stories, despite length or content, can be broken down to simple narrative concepts. The distinct way that the creator decided to present their material and the implications on the story that result from that. For an example the first kind of story we are going to talk about is the Bear at the Door, this type is when the character and reader are instantly thrown into the action. Something is wrong and the a pressing issue demands the character's attention right away and in most cases is completely unavoidable. It can be anything from depression, or standing in the trenches with your rifle waiting to hear the whistle and climb over into no-mans land. Notice these kinds of situations demand immediate choices from the characters; the kind of split minute decisions that show the character's true believes and motives, how they react under pressure, the kind of things that are really under the hood.  The way the character handles the struggle dictates our immediate impression of the character. The same goes for video games; when after an opening firefight there's a cut-scene and we watch the protagonist goes to kill an enemy, but we see him stop and hold back, we know that even in the face of danger the character holds onto his values. 

The true meat of this story shape is the inner conflicts that arise in the face of the bear, it's the smaller more human problems that let us relate to the character. He can't bring himself  to become an executioner because despite all his training and the battle going on around him he's still the young man that grew up in that quiet suburban home. Our solider might have gotten into fights at school, but that wasn't anything close to this. Even though his family has always held up their nation's military and the concept of duty with such a high respect life was something completely different then duty or honor, it was sacred. Sacred in the way that never needed to be explained, and yet here he is. Fighting ultimately because more powerful uniforms have told him to, killing people considered enemies because they ultimately felt they needed to stop these soldiers. He realizes he doesn't really want to kill these people, but still has driven to because of his basic self preservation; they seem unyielding in their aggression and he doesn't even know who they are. So there is a pause when he raises his gun. Does he pull the trigger?     

The Bear at the Door is even more so true within gameplay and controls. Let's backtrack a bit, Atari's Missile Command -which is probably the best example of a Bear at the Door shape narration in game- from the start of the game you're thrown into the place of the only one able to defend the surrounding towns from the nuclear onslaught. Your decisions must be done in real time and instantly affect gameplay, every move you make effect the outcome of your small digital world. You are instantly interwoven into the full experience, your actions are the story. You feel the responsibility and guilt in the decisions and those emotions become yours.

Next time, Blue Moon and the Journey shape in games and what we could do to do them better.

Read onto Part 2