Monday, February 16, 2009
Tentative Timeline
February 17-March 17 Storyline Development
March 1-17 Landscape Creation in Maya
March 18-31 Character Creation in Maya
April 1-14 Story Animations
April 15-30 Unity Development
March 1-17 Landscape Creation in Maya
March 18-31 Character Creation in Maya
April 1-14 Story Animations
April 15-30 Unity Development
How many people will I need?
I don't have a specific number of people in mind for this project. I think I could accomplish it alone, or I could have the help of one or two more people. The more people, the further I could progress the narrative. If it would just be me, it would become relatively limited for what I can do in the amount of time left. It would be great to have some others help, but it is not necessary to get the idea across.
What will need to be done:
Create landscape
Create character(s)
Rig character(s)
Create storyline
Animate storyline
Put together in Unity (which should not be too hard, technically. Maybe just some Trigger scripts to activate the animations. Also a script allowing you to "skip" the gameplay)
Any takers?
What will need to be done:
Create landscape
Create character(s)
Rig character(s)
Create storyline
Animate storyline
Put together in Unity (which should not be too hard, technically. Maybe just some Trigger scripts to activate the animations. Also a script allowing you to "skip" the gameplay)
Any takers?
What will my narrative be?
So here is the real question: What will my narrative be? If I am planning on having the narrative make up a significant portion of the game, then what will it be about? What will it say? This is still completely open at this point.
Jack had me thinking about what my point of view on the subject is. I think narrative is an important part in any game and on the immersion of the game (for certain genres, that is), but I am just as guilty of skipping over narratives. There are some games which I have more of a tendency to skip than others. For example, Oblivion. You can completely skip over the narrative, even when describing a quest. But there is a log that is kept and a marker is placed on your map for where you should go. Therefore, listening to the narrative is unnecessary, and since they are often presented in a boring manner, I tend to skip over them. This kind of narrative leads a player to be only interested in game play. You want to explore more than do.
In contrast, some of the Final Fantasy games hold my attention more. They have really detailed stories, which are often very important to certain tasks you do.
The story is more interesting, too. I even enjoyed the story when there weren't the cinematic effects: back in the Final Fantasy IV and VI days for the Super Nintendo. This kind of narrative leads players to be interested in both narrative AND gameplay, since the interactivity is what furthers the narrative. You want to accomplish certain tasks.
But now I'm off track talking about more games. There are a few different directions I can go in for the narrative.
-I could have a really interesting narrative, almost like a book, which has little to nothing to do with the rest of the game.
-I could have a very descriptive narrative that tells the player to do something specific, telling them how to interact with the game. (This is probably more how game designers should work to keep a player interested)
-I could have a narrative that is incredibly boring and monotonous, which would drive the player to want to skip the narrative and get on with the game. But it would go on and on and on and on.... (I am leaning towards this one!)
Again, how exactly I am going to do it is up in the air at this point. This is what critiques are good for :-)
Jack had me thinking about what my point of view on the subject is. I think narrative is an important part in any game and on the immersion of the game (for certain genres, that is), but I am just as guilty of skipping over narratives. There are some games which I have more of a tendency to skip than others. For example, Oblivion. You can completely skip over the narrative, even when describing a quest. But there is a log that is kept and a marker is placed on your map for where you should go. Therefore, listening to the narrative is unnecessary, and since they are often presented in a boring manner, I tend to skip over them. This kind of narrative leads a player to be only interested in game play. You want to explore more than do.
In contrast, some of the Final Fantasy games hold my attention more. They have really detailed stories, which are often very important to certain tasks you do.
The story is more interesting, too. I even enjoyed the story when there weren't the cinematic effects: back in the Final Fantasy IV and VI days for the Super Nintendo. This kind of narrative leads players to be interested in both narrative AND gameplay, since the interactivity is what furthers the narrative. You want to accomplish certain tasks.
But now I'm off track talking about more games. There are a few different directions I can go in for the narrative.
-I could have a really interesting narrative, almost like a book, which has little to nothing to do with the rest of the game.
-I could have a very descriptive narrative that tells the player to do something specific, telling them how to interact with the game. (This is probably more how game designers should work to keep a player interested)
-I could have a narrative that is incredibly boring and monotonous, which would drive the player to want to skip the narrative and get on with the game. But it would go on and on and on and on.... (I am leaning towards this one!)
Again, how exactly I am going to do it is up in the air at this point. This is what critiques are good for :-)
Sunday, February 15, 2009
Observations on Narrative
Over the weekend, I made some observations about narratives. I purchased two used PS2 games: Soul Reaver 2 and Xenosaga: Episode I. Both of these games were made in 2001. When beginning to play, both of them had extraordinarily long introductions, probably around 15 minutes each. Soul Reaver's introduction was painful to watch. Because it was a sequel, it focused on furthering the past story. So one of the reasons it was a bit hard to watch was because I don't remember the story from the first Soul Reaver (since I hadn't played it on my Dreamcast since I was in eighth grade). The narrative was mostly dialogue, set in a dark room between two characters.
On the other hand, Xenosaga was much more interesting to watch. This was the first one of the series, so it did explain itself fully. The setting was much brighter, and the opening sequence had a much more cinematic feel. There were multiple scenes, starting out with a "mystery" that some excavators discovered. After this scene, it jumped 400 (or was it 4000?) years into the future. Even though I believe this opening narrative was longer than Soul Reaver's, as a gamer, I was much more interested in Xenosaga. During Soul Reaver, I was mashing buttons trying to skip the narrative.
Another trend I am noticing is the length of opening narratives within video games. The earlier games had little to no opening sequences. In fact, much of the setup narrative for the game was found in the booklet that came along with it. This set the scene. But once you started the game, you instantly were able to play.
During the time that CG was introduced to game systems (Playstation, Playstation 2), the opening narrative became MUCH longer. It is as though you are about to watch a movie. But the recent trend for opening scenes seems to be a significant time-cut in the opening scene. Also, there is often interactivity mixed in with the narrative itself. This helps to keep the user interested in the game and the story.
On the other hand, Xenosaga was much more interesting to watch. This was the first one of the series, so it did explain itself fully. The setting was much brighter, and the opening sequence had a much more cinematic feel. There were multiple scenes, starting out with a "mystery" that some excavators discovered. After this scene, it jumped 400 (or was it 4000?) years into the future. Even though I believe this opening narrative was longer than Soul Reaver's, as a gamer, I was much more interested in Xenosaga. During Soul Reaver, I was mashing buttons trying to skip the narrative.
Another trend I am noticing is the length of opening narratives within video games. The earlier games had little to no opening sequences. In fact, much of the setup narrative for the game was found in the booklet that came along with it. This set the scene. But once you started the game, you instantly were able to play.
During the time that CG was introduced to game systems (Playstation, Playstation 2), the opening narrative became MUCH longer. It is as though you are about to watch a movie. But the recent trend for opening scenes seems to be a significant time-cut in the opening scene. Also, there is often interactivity mixed in with the narrative itself. This helps to keep the user interested in the game and the story.
Thursday, February 12, 2009
Idea #1
I am interested in the previous discussions we have had in class about narration vs. interactivity in a video game. When it comes to telling the story in a video game, there is often a button to scroll through the narration more quickly, if not skip the narration all together. Even though I am very much guilty of this, I think it is backwards. The narration should be what drives a person to want to play the game. It should be the motivation.
I would like to create a game that is mostly focused around the narrative. You will not be able to fast forward or skip the narrative cut-scenes. Once a cut-scene is over, the gameplay will be very very brief, even with the option of skipping the gameplay to move on to another narrative cut-scene. This will invoke feelings of frustration within the viewer, since most players are more interested in playing the game, rather than being caught up in the narration.
I would like to create a game that is mostly focused around the narrative. You will not be able to fast forward or skip the narrative cut-scenes. Once a cut-scene is over, the gameplay will be very very brief, even with the option of skipping the gameplay to move on to another narrative cut-scene. This will invoke feelings of frustration within the viewer, since most players are more interested in playing the game, rather than being caught up in the narration.
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