Back Again!

After arriving back in New Zealand, I found that a lot had changed since I had left. The story we had previously chosen to start had been scrapped and all the work leading up to that point was now reasonably pointless. Instead we had a new story, very different and rather dark and twisted. Though the concept had changed in terms of actual progress not much had been done in the 3 weeks I was away in terms of moving forward from where we were when I left, in fact we were basically in the same place, only with a different story. I didnt mind this too much, but no one was really able to completely explain this new concept to me at all, maybe due to some miscommunication amongst the group. I guess from this point I started to become a little more pushy to try and get people to break apart the story for me not only so that I could understand what it was that we were doing and in turn needed to be done, but also so the group was more clear in what we we were doing.

The overall morale of the group seemed pretty low when I arrived back and basically none of them were really all that motivated to get anything done. (This isn't a stab at the group, just an observation). This really made moving on from the point we were at very difficult because I dont think any roles had been assigned in concrete and  I question if anyone really knew what it was they were needed to do. It felt really disorganised and a quite unpleasant atmosphere for the group.

It was at this point I felt like I needed to put back on my leadership hat and try and fix some of the immediate problems I saw around me, firstly by establishing what exactly our story was about, and how we planned on telling it.

Off to China

I feel a little guilty running off to china at this point after only just coming up with a solid idea for a game framework. Basically we came up with the idea to create a world that was harsh and cold, a winter wasteland. This world was a world without the heat of flame, and because of this we decided to create a very limited art style using only a  monochromatic art style until the fire was introduced. Basically the story was about an adventurer that left his tribe to seek a legend, tales told of a mysterious light at the top of a mountain holding the power to both bring life and destroy it.

Im hoping that now that this story has been established, though it felt a bit rushed, will mean that we can all start focusing on designing and building the game up. Below is one of the concept drawings I did for the game.

I still feel a little worried as nobody has really taken much of a leadership role in the group, and I'm worried that because of this I feel there is a chance that things may change quite dramatically after I leave if someone decides to step up to that role and change things around. We'll just have to see though, for now I'm taking a holiday!

Storyline Struggles

As a larger group of 5 people coming up with an idea that everybody agrees on is particularly difficult. Everyone has so many very different ideas on what they want this game to be makes the whole thing very difficult.A number of ideas that get put forward either one or more people generally poses a strong dislike for the idea or want something different. One idea like this is the idea of making a horror game based on a story that is made to frighten and scare the player, an idea that I am really not keen on. I basically see the horror genre as too much of an easy way out in terms of story not only in games, but films especially. Not to mention recently they are being over done with games like Amnesia: The dark descent and Slender captivating a huge number of people. Unfortunately for me a number of the group want to pursue the idea so I may have to bite the bullet in order for us to make a solid decision.

The main problem we are finding though is that no one is making any solid decisions, I have suggested compromises to the horror story by incorporating horror elements into any new ideas I put forward, but people seem rather hell bent on keeping the game based solely on scaring the player, of course with a bit of story underneath. I am just worried that with a horror based game we will become to focused on scaring the player and not put in enough effort into actually exploring the project which is narrative and storytelling through games. Never the less the group seems to be stuck in this stage of deciding on a story and nothing is really getting done, its starting to get frustrating and with my trip to china quickly approaching I would really like to have a solid story sorted out so that we can just get on with making the game itself.

Meeting's with tutor's at this point really don't seem to be helping all that much, as because we don't have a solid idea about what we are doing, the new suggestions and advice they give whilst being both conflicting and very different tend to just send us back into indecision and trying to please not only everyone in the group but the tutors that will be assessing us as well. The whole situation gets a little stressful at times and I just hope things will sort themselves out before too long.

Starting the Project

Well according to the pitch we made, this semesters project is "An exploration of storytelling through a game". This means we are going to look at which ways are effectively used for storytelling in games, and some ways that generally don't go so well. For me a huge part of making a good game is whether or not it has a good story. A lot of modern games tend to focus on gimmicks or fast paced, adrenaline pumped action, with very little contextual details actually explored in the game environment but instead a bunch of pointless missions to make your way to a certain area and kill some major character. DULL.

Our exploration is to look at how storytelling in games is important not only in the content of the story that makes it so good, but also in the way that it is told. In turn with out game we plan to explore different methods of telling certain parts of the story to explore the methods used and find their strengths and weaknesses, but also create a story that is enjoyable to discover and play through. Lucy is in charge of story writing but we have brainstormed a few ideas already and decided on the setting that we would like to have the game in being a winter wasteland. A cold, harsh environment that causes hardship and strife amongst the hardened inhabitants.

We have brainstormed a few ideas of what we want the story to be like, and there seem to be a number of very different ideas on what we want to see in the game. Everyone is putting forward ideas and we are all probably going to have to make some compromises to put a final story together.

We've started looking into a bunch of Indie games that have been made previously that explore new and innovative ways of both playing the game but also telling a story. We chose indie games because I feel they are often the games that test the boundaries more than your average commercial game company does, because they have more freedom in a sense than other companies. On the list of Indie games that we have looked at, these titles have really interested me specifically.

The main game that interested me was Bastion. Bastion is a fantastic adventure about a boy that wakes up after a terrible calamity ravages his world. This game immediately stood out to me with the fantastic narration that progresses the story in the game so very well,  below is a video of the introduction to the game to give you some form of idea about what I mean.

The use of narrative is driven in a way by the actions the character takes but also is informative in the sense that it provides hints and clues as to where the player needs to go, but also creates background to the world for example when the kid finds a memento from a girl he used to fancy. Normally the player wouldn't have known this fact from just finding a collectable, but the narrator adds that extra layer of depth which is really fantastic. I would really like to have something similar done with the game that we create to really strengthen the story.

An Exploration Of Storytelling

This semester we're looking to have a bit of fun with our project as this semester we get to pitch our own idea's for what we want to do for the semester. The group met up and discussed a number of ideas for the project. We looked at doing a film or web series, as well as creating a physical art piece, but eventually we settled on the idea that we all wanted to make a game.

Now immediately ideas started flying around about what we could potentially do with our project but we still had to pitch everything to the tutors, so I set about writing out our pitch form. Pitching a project in itself isnt actually as easy as it sounds, It obviously wasn't as simple as "For our project we want to make a game, this is a basic storyline, these are the roles we'll take and then bam!"  The whole thing involved constantly talking to a number of tutors to find out what was needed in the pitch form and what they thought could improve the pitch and make the project fit more easily within the course. Well after everything was done, we then had to pitch our idea to the class, this was supposedly to find people that wanted to  join in the project. I felt a bit bad when doing this as the project had been planned using the same group from last semester and a number of people were really keen on joining in the project. For a pitch it seemed more like just explaining what we were going to do rather than opening it up to other people to come and join us, which sort of defeated the purpose of the pitch for me really.

We got everything approved and Nick Hudgson has joined the team as our lead 3D modeller and animator. Lucy will be in charge of storyline and script writing, Edrian will be in charge of concept art and Art Style for the game and me and Tim will be in charge of game mechanics as to making the game environments and coding for the game etc.

Usually I tend to take a leadership role with the projects I work on, but this time I specifically took a step back from the leadership role in this one as I have made plans to go and visit my girlfriend in China for 3 weeks in the middle of the semester. I have made a point of mentioning this to the group and they are all happy for me to do this.

IE + IM