Week 10

Abstract Our learning objectives for the week were:

Gain a foundational understanding of agile practices.
Obtain a basic awareness of the envisioning process.
Have a basic understanding of Agile estimation techniques.

Post 1: Designing story for games and Story Arcs

Kazushige Nojima, famous for working on Final Fantasy (Final Fantasy series. 1987-2020) and Kingdom Hearts (Kingdom Hearts series. 2002-2020), created classic, long-lasting experiences by building complex and emotionally challenged characters. His series of games contained story arcs that bled from game to game. Compelling players to gain affinity around them and continue playing.

Brooke Maggs (2020), the narrative designer for Control (2020), also shared her experience on how game narrative designers differ from 'normal' writers by reinforcing the point that the process is highly collaborative. That writers must work to define the narrative of in-game features, dialogue systems, oversee the character creation and implementation of the story.

But before collaboration, she suggested simple narrative exercises and recommends the game Fate Core (2013). Fate Core (2013) is a narrative game where players create and play through a story together. Each player progresses through the game with a character they have designed. Assigning aspects that represent a character's basic skills, capabilities, training, and innate attributes.

You start with the normal tabletop items such as a pencil, paper and a character sheet. Your 'Fate' is then decided around special six-sided dice. The cool thing about the game is that players can exploit a character's aspect to make the story/game more interesting. So, for example, when I played Fate Core (2013), I created a teacher with a drug habit, meaning my character would do anything for the next hit. Other players could try and mess with my character and give them challenges that were specific to them.

These narratives created were so powerful narratives and impact our experience positively. I was hyped to continue writing but didn't want to go too far without speaking with the team. So I set up a working session with Dan to finalise the main pieces.

I had a few ideas about how I wanted the story to go. I knew we needed a companion character to serve as the in game 'tutorial' component.

Games such as Ocarina of Time (The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, 1998), and Paper Mario (Paper Mario: The Origami King, 2020), have used similar concepts.

In Ocarina of Time, a character called 'Navi' is used to guide Link throughout the game. Helping Link learn the controls, solve puzzles and teach him how to open doors and pull blocks etc.

In Paper Mario (Paper Mario: The Origami King, 2020) we are introduced to Olivia. Like Navi, Olivia helps Mario throughout the game and can transform into large origami creatures called Vellumentals on certain Magic Circles, providing Mario extra abilities.

Abilities I wanted to add a character to the game that could provide extra abilities and guide the character through the game. I started to look at abilities the chips in our heads could have in the world I had designed.

I broke them into Physical and Mental abilities and attached them to game mechanics. This way, the story and gameplay could complement each other.

The world I had built was controlled with chips; therefore, there would be no rebellion, and everyone would comply. There would be no reason to waste resources on guns and 'force' people to do anything in conventional terms.

They would do it or be killed remotely via the chips.

Physical attributes include Magnesis, where elements could be drawn towards you, such as scrap metal and energy. This energy could be then used as a projectile and or also large explosions.

Dead Space 2 (2011) inspired the idea of no weapons and Magnesis as the story is set in a similar time period, and the protagonist does not use a traditional weapon.

After coming up with the thinking, I sat down with Dan, explaining how the backstory worked and the plausibility of abilities within the world I had built.

We discussed the game engine that was used and I explained the world itself would have no guns, so we would need to adapt the Magnesis elements to become projectiles.

Thankfully all the elements could be included and it worked with the game engine the guys wanted to use.

Backstory Early artwork and team discussions included a character called Spark. But I wasn't sure how to write him into the game. I started to plot a timeline of story progression and the events that got us to the point where the game started—writing a back story that could become the game ending or feed into the final scenes.

Using FigJam, I started by defining the Goals, Challenges and Actions of the three key 'characters' within our story.

Asimov, our main protagonist's goal was to determine what caused the global shutdown and put things back.
On the other side, our main antagonist's goal is to put things back and regain control of the world.

I thought that as Asimov had lost his memory, he could be manipulated, taking inspiration from films like Memento (Nolan, 2000)

I came up with the following backstory and went through it Dan.

<<<START>>>

Asimov's role within Monkii is a builder. He creates AR clothing, AR environments and manages the memory platform. Over time, Asimov began to feel murmurations of past memories but dismissed them as dreams or Déjà vu.

Asimov began to investigate, looking into subroutines performed by the chips in his head. He found that Monkii had implanted these murmurations. The smart chips also induced chemical manipulation. Blocking normal sensory input, distorting memories, weakening reason, logic and emotion and create addiction. Asimov secretly begins to create a patch.

Gaal Laas Geel, Chief executive of Monkii corporation and close friend of Asimov, discovers Asimov's plan. Worried that Asimov would destroy the world, Gaal has created heads over to Asimov's apartment and confronts him.

Gaal arrives moments before Asimov deploys the patch, and they struggle. Asimov deploys the patch in the struggle, and Gaal's physical implants begin to fall off and explode, launching Asimov into the wall.

Gaal attempts to transfer his consciousness to a clone body wirelessly but fails. Gaal is furious with what Asimov has done but is helpless to do anything with his body destroyed. He sees Asimov unconscious on the floor and realises the network is down.

He sees Asimov sturring.

Asimov wakes, disillusioned and disorientated. There are screams outside as cars fall out of the sky and into buildings. He looks around the room and sees (unidentified) pieces of hardware on the floor.

Gaal realises Asimov doesn't recognise him and hatches a plan to manipulate him. Bots are seen chasing individuals and seem to be devoid of emotion and empathy they once had. A video wall of Asimov's quarters is cracked, and an alert indicating successful deployment flashes.

<<<END>>>

The chemical manipulation, blocking of normal sensory input, distorting memories and weakening reason is inspired by Ghost in the Shell (Jun'ichi Fujisaku and Camillia Nieh, 2006), Philip K Dick's We can remember it for you wholesale (1992) and Aldous Huxley's, Brave New World (1932).

Cinematic Intro With the back story created, I discussed how this could be weaved into the game with the team. A few meetings ago, we had an idea about a cinematic intro that could be used within the game and promotional trailers. We had discussed this a few weeks back, but Luke hadn't progressed anything, and I think Dan started sketching some ideas.

I also put together some ideas and found inspiration from Chris Palmer's Batman: The Long Halloween (2021). I took some screenshots and shared them with Dan so we could align on what I was thinking.

We then mapped out the in-game scenes and went through the button controls, and I wrote a script to include the dialogue within the game.

Scene 2 - In game

Asimov wakes, disillusioned and disorientated. There are screams outside as cars fall out of the sky and into buildings.
He looks around the room and see's (unidentified) pieces of scrap on the floor.
Bots are seen chasing individuals and seem to be devoid of emotion and empathy they once had.
A video wall of Asimov's quarters is cracked, and an alert indicating successful deployment flashes.

Scene 3 - Dialogue

Scene 4 - Fighting

Finalising the story elements was such a relief, and I'm confident that we put together a plausible exciting narrative that could be expanded on as we put together more chapters of the game. The full file can be found here.

References

Final Fantasy series. (1987-2020). Square, Square Enix
Kingdom Hearts series. (2002-2020). Square, Square Enix
MAGGS, Brooke. 2020. ‘The Art of Video Game Narrative Design 101’. Medium [online]. Available at: https://medium.com/@brooke.maggs/the-art-of-video-game-narrative-design-101-c7a5f119d77 [accessed 30 Sep 2021].
Control. (2020). Remedy Entertainment, 505 Games
Fate Core (2013). Evil Hat Productions
Nolan, Christopher. (2000). Memento [Film]
Paper Mario: The Origami King. (2020). Intelligent Systems, Nintendo
The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. (1998). Nintendo EAD, Nintendo
Palmer, Chris. (2021). Batman: The Long Halloween [Film]
Dead Space 2. (2011). Visceral Games, Electronic Arts.
Jun'ichi Fujisaku and Camillia Nieh (2006). Ghost in the shell:stand alone complex. Milwaukie, Or: Dh Press.
Huxley, A. (1932). Brave New World. New York: Harper & Row.
Philip Kendred Dick (1992). We can remember it for you wholesale. London: Gollancz.

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