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.

Game Design Needs Better Storytelling Pt2[E]

Part Two of Game Design Needs Better Storytelling Pt 1

BLUE MOON

So now we see how Bear at the Door is applied in games, but this is normally what only shapes the beginning -or on a smaller scale, the conflicts- within games. But a even more prominently used shape in gaming is the Blue Moon, the Blue Moon is the act of presenting the reader with an impossible or unheard of situation, the kind of thing that either doesn't exist or would happen only once in a blue moon, as the saying goes. 

SUSPENSION OF DISBELIEF

Now this is something the industry has been using since the very beginning of gaming, and yet we still have titles that completely fail to deliver. In high fantasy you can put a player into a world and perspective that they'ed never get to experience otherwise, and within that premise writers can say something about the world and our inner selves. The fall is in the creator's imagination and even in reality; you can imagine fantastic worlds of dragons, forest spirits, aliens, zombies, and werewolves but there are so many works of fiction that already have. The viewer thinks, oh yeah it's one of those, and has been pulled from the experience. A cliche is a cliche, despite the context. The reason classical fantasy types are still viable genres for creation is the human phenomena of suspension of disbelief, when you start a story and first present the world the viewer is willing to accept it existence with the context of the story. And then depending on the execution of exposition, how you reveal story and characters to the viewer, the player will become more and more engrossed within the world. 

A rule of thumb in writing is to have one main thing the viewers have to accept; fairy-tale creatures are real, a pharmaceutical company has started the zombie apocalypse, we can relive your assassin ancestor's life with science, a plumber is transported to a strange world, or probably most notable example..

And after that is established the reader will accept anything that's within the possibilities of that first Blue Moon. As information is presented as long as it flows with a logical escalation, it feels believable. You're a wizard, so wizards and witches are real, so magic is real, so magical creatures are real, so there is another secretive side to our world, so it's maintained that muggles are hidden from this magical world, so magical gifted individuals must go to school to learn control of their gifts, so there is an entire ministry to keep order and maintain the wizarding world from muggles, the list could continue going but you get the idea. This is possibly the most basic rule when delivering exposition, and one of those ones that early writers seem to neglect more then anything. 

MORE SUSPENSION

Another commonly used tool in Blue Moon shape stories is to distance the narrator from the story in the beginning; 'my old man heard it from his dad's friend from in the war.' The narration explains they understand the story seems far-fetched so they're asking us as viewers to simply take it at its worth as a story, and so we do. We are willing to suspend disbelief that much farther because narrator has established that they are not responsible for the story, and so there is not much we as viewers can do but take the story for its worth. Look at the 1987 film The Princess Bride, without the grandfather/grandson storytelling aspect it's a really strange awkward little film. Think of the film without that side story, it's just kind of goofy and pretty well loses it's real strength as a story. An example of this technique used for exposition in games is the Witcher 2. Don't get me wrong, the storytelling has plenty of problems, but it does some things with this mechanic that we should look at to consider how this could be better adapted for storytelling in games. But, we'll talk about that another time.

(Geralt wants you to tune in again later)

 .So we've taken a look at how a properly delivered exposition and the suspension of disbelief can help the player get immersed in fictitious worlds, lets take a quick look at the most common ancient story shape and pacing.

JOURNEY 

 Last but certainly not least is the Journey, expected to be the oldest shape of storytelling the journey story has become one of the closest and most dear to us. That's because it is about overcoming adversity and growing as an individual, rites of passage into adulthood and achievement of self-affirmation, things that we can all understand and empathize with. In some degree nearly every story is about a journey of sorts, in the exception of a few really confusing art-house films. 

In a good Journey it instantly makes the reader see from the perspective of the protagonist and engages them in the conflict. As the oldest type of story the journey shape naturally has already worked out the best flow for its story to be structured on.  

(The picture above is the Three Act Structure of  the 2010 film The King's Speech.)

THE THREE ACT STRUCTURE

The three act structure is the most used story structure in narrative mediums; the difference in games being that, as a interactive medium, designers work a way to either skip the first act and fill it in later or get through it as quickly as possible. That style is known as In medias Res, (look at the Bear at the Door story shape in part 1) and essentially explains why things like Amnesia and flashbacks are used so often with the main character in games. This makes it easier to convey the first act, the background and life before the dramatic question without having to slow the pacing of the game for exposition. (The Extra Credits fokes did an amazing job explaining what I just went over with the story structure and such, but in much better detail with examples, if you don't get it yet watch their vid.)

Okay now the Three Act Structure is typically characterized by three distinct stages separated by two main plot points that signify the turning points in the protagonists story.  Think of this structure applied to your favorite dramatic film and decide where you think the two main plot points are to divide the three main acts.  When well done the plot points punctuate the shift in the stories tension and can really drive the protagonists story, by the end of the film you really empathize with the character's plight.

FINIAL CONCLUSION
Bad stories are the production of bad writing, plain and simple. Bad storytelling can be a little more difficult to pin down. I feel with all the complaints about bad storytelling the main root of the issue is when the story cannot decide where the different acts start and end or how to deliver the transition plot points. The times where you have gotten to some supposedly big important part of a game and just not cared. Look at Mafia2, the gameplay is mostly competent, but it falls flat at ever dramatic scene. (we'll give that title a breakdown later, it deserves it)

The industry is starting to figure it out but in respect to the bulk of triple-A titles, with little exception, the tricks to delivering a well structured narration within a interactive medium are still a hit and miss deal. To some it's only getting worse because of the producers-only-greenlighting-projects-that-look-like-something-that's-already-out-leading-to-stagnation-and-the-limitation-of-creativity-in-the-medium problem. But in my opinion it's simply a part of our growth, you have to fail to learn.

If you're paying attention you can already see the producers and tripple-A tycoons starting to figure out that well crafted stories can make good experiences, and people pay  for those. That and just maybe writers have found more crafty ways to sneak in good stories :)

      

We'll talk more later. Until next time, thanks for tuning in everyone and have a great night.

Next time we'll talk about exposition and why sometimes so many of us just don't care.