Argh, been slack with blogs compared to my usual flow of one blog a day.
Mentioned many times previously, I still haven't found my motivation and I feel like I need to get away from the project and just let it rot for a while before I get back into it.
Summary: In making a game so many aspects of it are tied together (such as mechanics, visual style, and what it's actually about) that any kind of indecision will set fire to your work and destroy it. My god. That's pretty much what happened. Indecision straight from the start, decisions being made and unmade, conflicting opinions on what we should do--ARGH
We still don't have a defined visual style. We still don't have a core story that ties everything together.
I'll just write whatever I want and make it related to the basics of what we have now.
Friday, August 31, 2012
Tuesday, August 28, 2012
Blah
Still need to write the main storyline in regular written story format. We have the backstory for most of the characters and things that go on but I don't actually know what goes on in the main storyline during the duration of the game. I don't know what to do about that because every time we get to a decision, then I get clear on what I have to do. BAM!! Something happens and suddenly something about the decision changes. Then I don't know what to do because it feels like once something appears definite it just magically becomes just another decision to make rather than something that's solidly decided. If all the fundamental decisions keep changing then I don't know what the heck I'm doing with the story because I don't want to write a full story only to find that none of what I wrote is of any relevance. I would write many different ones, but only if the fundamental things are solidly decided. Because if I don't know the basics of what we want in the story I won't have a guide as to what could happen in the story.
For example, let's say you tell me to write a story but you don't tell me about anything that I must have in the story to work with what you're doing. Let's say you want to have some crazy story but you forgot to specify that what you really want is a story that has robot unicorns and narwhals in it. Except the idea was never solidly decided with a gazillion other ideas and decisions being tossed around. Then I write a story about flying hotdogs that squirt rainbows and other delicious condiments. Spot the difference.
If what I write doesn't fit any of the basic things you need it's not going to work.
Because there are so many things flying around and not being decided solidly I don't know what the hell I'm doing. In addition, literally every time we get something decided it always becomes UNdecided. It's always, "Let's do this and that." "Oh gosh, we can't because we're not exploring enough." Ok, exploring means trying different things and finding something out. Storytelling means sticking to a certain path and progressing along to find out what's at the end. If we do a story and we decide on something and stick to it, is that really exploring?
Argh, so little being solid just doesn't motivate me because I have no direction as to what I'm doing. And in all honesty I've been blatantly procrastinating on writing because I have no idea what I'm doing. Mark me down all you want, I'm not shy about admitting my failures, confusion, and other unfavourable conditions.
For example, let's say you tell me to write a story but you don't tell me about anything that I must have in the story to work with what you're doing. Let's say you want to have some crazy story but you forgot to specify that what you really want is a story that has robot unicorns and narwhals in it. Except the idea was never solidly decided with a gazillion other ideas and decisions being tossed around. Then I write a story about flying hotdogs that squirt rainbows and other delicious condiments. Spot the difference.
If what I write doesn't fit any of the basic things you need it's not going to work.
Because there are so many things flying around and not being decided solidly I don't know what the hell I'm doing. In addition, literally every time we get something decided it always becomes UNdecided. It's always, "Let's do this and that." "Oh gosh, we can't because we're not exploring enough." Ok, exploring means trying different things and finding something out. Storytelling means sticking to a certain path and progressing along to find out what's at the end. If we do a story and we decide on something and stick to it, is that really exploring?
Argh, so little being solid just doesn't motivate me because I have no direction as to what I'm doing. And in all honesty I've been blatantly procrastinating on writing because I have no idea what I'm doing. Mark me down all you want, I'm not shy about admitting my failures, confusion, and other unfavourable conditions.
Friday, August 24, 2012
Moving along
Wrote the story to get a clearer idea of what we're going, with general sequence of events. Even though we're only doing small parts of the game, it's easier to know what you're doing if you have the whole thing written out.
Drew down a bit of level-design for Tim as well, so that he can plan out and start making the actual world and gave Nick a huge list of models to make. Actually did the level-design before writing an overview of the story and little snippets about the characters. I think drawing out what I wanted in the game helped me come up with a simple story for it.
Drawing of what certain things roughly look like and where they should be
Another drawing of the same thing but with text to explain what the drawn objects actually are.
I still feel demotivated though, because for me I'm in charge of story but I don't know if I'm doing enough. Writing a story for a game is a bit different from writing a classic story, at least at this stage anyway. You still have back stories and you can add quite a bit of detail to those, but in the actual game not all the details show through because of the interactive nature of games. So while writing what happens in-game I have to keep it bare and simple, rather than full on detail. Gotta keep it simple too rather than a story that takes a long time to unfold because to show the story, we're only making small parts of the game. So maybe I can save the full story for supporting material in the exhibition instead?
I think now, my job is to gather and make supporting material that informs the work and ties everything together. We did plan to have a special book with drawings and story in it as part of the exhibition, so maybe I can start on that. I did write in my learning goals that I wanted to improve my writing and drawings, so I can definitely do that in preparing our exhibition material. I wrote that I wanted to do 3D modeling and maybe a bit of programming as well but since the roles specifically for that are taken up already and there are other jobs waiting for me to finish them, I think I'll focus on the writing and drawing instead. I'll still help out in giving feedback on how things should be placed, improvements on how things look and so on when needed though. In summary, I'll only do a bit of modeling and programming when I'm needed for that as I have my own role to look after and I don't want to hog all the work, which prevents the rest of my group from achieving their learning goals since the ones doing the modeling and programming explicitly said they wanted to do specifically that.
Wednesday, August 22, 2012
Perspective
Haven't blogged in around a week because nothing much happened and the general mood is despair and demotivation.
It's still the story that's the problem and exploring. Is it really exploring if you only decide on one particular way to tell a story?
Maggie suggested that we change only one variable to play around with elements within a story. We agree with this so we've decided that perspective is the one we're going to change.
For example, you start off the story with the perspective of one character, but throughout the story you change your perspective to different characters. It's still the same story, but should you wish it you could touch a character and take on that character's perspective to fine out more about him/her. So you can swap perspectives at any point in the game.
So we have this, and as Daniel has noticed when he talked to us this morning, we still don't have a definite focus on what the end product would be. We have the potential to pull of what we're doing, but the problem is we don't know what we're doing.
Since our ambiguity idea was generally disliked and argued against we now need to craft a definite story to tell rather than leave a wide, open interpretation as to what the story is actually about. The ambiguity element was thought to be a "cop out" and not really a story, doesn't really explore storytelling. I can see the argument in that and I do agree that it feels like we're not really exploring storytelling.
Personally I'm still lost with what we're doing. We make decisions but they fly off and become nothing. We come up with an idea and there's always something wrong with it. Conceptually anyway. If we didn't have to think about it conceptually and just make a game that's worth your time we'd be speeding off with our work right now.
Tonight I'm going to write up some short stories to do with the game. We agreed that what I'm writing is the final decision, because we've been tossing around decisions and nothing's in concrete. The story is the core of everything here, we can't have decisions about it be halted any longer if we want to complete this on time.
Also, here's a drawing I did that's related to the game. It's one of the strange, unsettling baby creatures in the game:
It's still the story that's the problem and exploring. Is it really exploring if you only decide on one particular way to tell a story?
Maggie suggested that we change only one variable to play around with elements within a story. We agree with this so we've decided that perspective is the one we're going to change.
For example, you start off the story with the perspective of one character, but throughout the story you change your perspective to different characters. It's still the same story, but should you wish it you could touch a character and take on that character's perspective to fine out more about him/her. So you can swap perspectives at any point in the game.
So we have this, and as Daniel has noticed when he talked to us this morning, we still don't have a definite focus on what the end product would be. We have the potential to pull of what we're doing, but the problem is we don't know what we're doing.
Since our ambiguity idea was generally disliked and argued against we now need to craft a definite story to tell rather than leave a wide, open interpretation as to what the story is actually about. The ambiguity element was thought to be a "cop out" and not really a story, doesn't really explore storytelling. I can see the argument in that and I do agree that it feels like we're not really exploring storytelling.
Personally I'm still lost with what we're doing. We make decisions but they fly off and become nothing. We come up with an idea and there's always something wrong with it. Conceptually anyway. If we didn't have to think about it conceptually and just make a game that's worth your time we'd be speeding off with our work right now.
Tonight I'm going to write up some short stories to do with the game. We agreed that what I'm writing is the final decision, because we've been tossing around decisions and nothing's in concrete. The story is the core of everything here, we can't have decisions about it be halted any longer if we want to complete this on time.
Also, here's a drawing I did that's related to the game. It's one of the strange, unsettling baby creatures in the game:
Tuesday, August 14, 2012
Critiques: We're not exploring
Had critiques today and the main feedback was that we're not exploring storytelling at all, no evidence of it. Yes, I agree with this to be honest and that's what we're stuck on.
We're supposed to be exploring methods of storytelling within a game rather than the game and how its mechanics works. We haven't done this frankly. We've been to focused on the details of the game rather than the story.
Afterwards we had heaps of help from Jenny to help us out of this horrible place. She's really good to talk to for feedback. She told us that it might help to pick apart out original question and start from there and gave suggestions on how we could explore storytelling.
What does exploring mean? Finding something that's new to you, maybe it's not "new" but was always there before and you didn't notice it. Searching, finding out about something. Testing how something works.
What is a story and how is it told? We need more research to do with this and how storytelling changed over time. Split up bits of how story is told though, only some aspects we can think of. There's probably more. There's perspective (omniscient, first person, third person, etc), time (is this a flashback, happening right now, or hasn't happened?), and voice (what's the tone of the story? What style of voice is it told in? Comedy, horror, sci-fi, fantasy, etc? Different genres have different voices and conventions, of course the voice also changes according to the timbre of the author. For example, what would it be like if Shakespeare wrote George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four?).
It would be best and be more of an exploration of how stories are told in games if we had a really simple story and used different ways of telling the same story instead as opposed to deciding on ONE method of telling a story and having one game. When you just have one, it's not really exploring. When you have multiples of the same story, but told differently then that's really exploring methods and elements of story.
We're supposed to be exploring methods of storytelling within a game rather than the game and how its mechanics works. We haven't done this frankly. We've been to focused on the details of the game rather than the story.
Afterwards we had heaps of help from Jenny to help us out of this horrible place. She's really good to talk to for feedback. She told us that it might help to pick apart out original question and start from there and gave suggestions on how we could explore storytelling.
What does exploring mean? Finding something that's new to you, maybe it's not "new" but was always there before and you didn't notice it. Searching, finding out about something. Testing how something works.
What is a story and how is it told? We need more research to do with this and how storytelling changed over time. Split up bits of how story is told though, only some aspects we can think of. There's probably more. There's perspective (omniscient, first person, third person, etc), time (is this a flashback, happening right now, or hasn't happened?), and voice (what's the tone of the story? What style of voice is it told in? Comedy, horror, sci-fi, fantasy, etc? Different genres have different voices and conventions, of course the voice also changes according to the timbre of the author. For example, what would it be like if Shakespeare wrote George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four?).
It would be best and be more of an exploration of how stories are told in games if we had a really simple story and used different ways of telling the same story instead as opposed to deciding on ONE method of telling a story and having one game. When you just have one, it's not really exploring. When you have multiples of the same story, but told differently then that's really exploring methods and elements of story.
Thursday, August 9, 2012
Vicious Cycle
We're in a stupid, vicious cycle and it feels like nothing will ever get anywhere. Ok, so last time we had the fire thing --> work through details after getting basic stuff --> oh this and that doesn't work --> scrap it all and start all over again.
Now that we have another basic idea with chasing a shadow (mentioned in previous blog), we're trying to plan out every single fucking little detail again. Suggested to repetitively look at a bajillion examples of games to see how they tell stories in games and somehow magically come up with something new. Oh yea? Well they're all pretty much the same! If you're gonna ask me to go look at some examples I'm gonna be cool with that, but if you tell me to look at examples so that I can copy how they do it exactly and somehow call that new then go away. LEAVE. Everything's been done before and you know it! Don't lie to me. But that doesn't mean we can't take something similar and use it in a different way. Then it's like "Oh now we can't get every little detail right now at the very beginning, oh it's not gonna work cos we didn't get everything right on the first go. Argh, we should just scrap everything since we can't get everything perfect right now. The tutors will say THIS! The tutors will say THAT! They'll say we're not EXPLORING storytelling enough!"
Oh yea, let's totally do that, it will definitely work. AND DO IT ALL OVER AGAIN. Yep, I can see how we're intrepid explorers of storytelling in gaming when we HAVEN'T DONE ANYTHING OR TRIED ANYTHING, JUST THINKING.
Yes, the tutors are useful and their advice is useful. But you know what? You don't have to do whatever they want you to do. If you did you'd have a shit project cos they all want you to do a different thing.
I'm just so frustrated and pissed off right now about how we're approaching this. So I said to my group to just DO IT. We have enough to get started, why the fuck are we worrying about all the miniscule details and trying to get everything right before we've even tried anything?
Now that we have another basic idea with chasing a shadow (mentioned in previous blog), we're trying to plan out every single fucking little detail again. Suggested to repetitively look at a bajillion examples of games to see how they tell stories in games and somehow magically come up with something new. Oh yea? Well they're all pretty much the same! If you're gonna ask me to go look at some examples I'm gonna be cool with that, but if you tell me to look at examples so that I can copy how they do it exactly and somehow call that new then go away. LEAVE. Everything's been done before and you know it! Don't lie to me. But that doesn't mean we can't take something similar and use it in a different way. Then it's like "Oh now we can't get every little detail right now at the very beginning, oh it's not gonna work cos we didn't get everything right on the first go. Argh, we should just scrap everything since we can't get everything perfect right now. The tutors will say THIS! The tutors will say THAT! They'll say we're not EXPLORING storytelling enough!"
Oh yea, let's totally do that, it will definitely work. AND DO IT ALL OVER AGAIN. Yep, I can see how we're intrepid explorers of storytelling in gaming when we HAVEN'T DONE ANYTHING OR TRIED ANYTHING, JUST THINKING.
Yes, the tutors are useful and their advice is useful. But you know what? You don't have to do whatever they want you to do. If you did you'd have a shit project cos they all want you to do a different thing.
I'm just so frustrated and pissed off right now about how we're approaching this. So I said to my group to just DO IT. We have enough to get started, why the fuck are we worrying about all the miniscule details and trying to get everything right before we've even tried anything?
Wednesday, August 8, 2012
Story Construction: Cornered
Went over the story more today and found that the whole world without fire thing was totally screwing us over. It was as Maggie had predicted, there are many limitations in a world without fire. For example, you can't even have leather, any kind of light source that's not natural, extremely primitive conditions, very little technology if any. It wasn't working. Another thing we were trying to get around was the incentive to find the fire. Mere curiosity isn't a good enough reason we decided. I mean, let's think logically, if you were a kid and you hear about a story about some magic fire in a world where fire doesn't exist and everything outside would try to eat you, you probably won't have the sudden inspiration to go find the fire.
Even if we did the double world, real or not real world kind of thing it still wouldn't eliminate the limitations that the fire idea has. We've pushed ourselves into a corner.
After brainstorming with the group this is what we've got:
-It's still set in the Winter Wasteland
-We want people to make their own interpretations of the story so we can't define too many details, but here's the "story" in one sentence: You're chasing a shadow. You feel like you'd die if you don't
-The mood is dark and macabre. Weird stuff happens constantly and you can't tell whether it's real or not.
-Paranormal/psychological
-Other than moving you can also pick things up, jump, shine light at things
-Some threats are real, some are fake. There are "things" after you that would slow you down so the shadow moves further away from you. The shadow does leave a little trail though that fades over time. You just gotta find it quick should the shadow be far ahead of you.
Even if we did the double world, real or not real world kind of thing it still wouldn't eliminate the limitations that the fire idea has. We've pushed ourselves into a corner.
After brainstorming with the group this is what we've got:
-It's still set in the Winter Wasteland
-We want people to make their own interpretations of the story so we can't define too many details, but here's the "story" in one sentence: You're chasing a shadow. You feel like you'd die if you don't
-The mood is dark and macabre. Weird stuff happens constantly and you can't tell whether it's real or not.
-Paranormal/psychological
-Other than moving you can also pick things up, jump, shine light at things
-Some threats are real, some are fake. There are "things" after you that would slow you down so the shadow moves further away from you. The shadow does leave a little trail though that fades over time. You just gotta find it quick should the shadow be far ahead of you.
Tuesday, August 7, 2012
Story Construction: Solid Decisions
Decided on who the narrator of the story should be and some definite characters. Also dissected our inspirations to see how the game works as a whole.
I made a simplified view of how I see a game and stripped apart our inspirations to the bare core. This is to understand how they work.
I see a game like this triangle. You have three main components working together. It's gameplay (what you can do in the game and how you interact with the environment), the story, and the presentation (how the story is told and the aesthetic of the game. This includes visuals and audio).
Previously I went over a little bit on the presentation part of Bastion, Limbo, and Journey. I'll talk briefly about the triangle.
As you can see, the artwork in Bastion is very lush and detailed. In fact, the visuals are hand-painted, which I find amazing and makes me appreciate the work a lot more. It reflects the way the story is told by the narrator too, because the style of storytelling is also very detailed and multi-layered. The soundtrack is absolutely amazing as well. It's dramatic and reflects the mood of what's happening. It's quite detailed. Below is in my opinion the best soundtrack from the game (Outphase52, 2011):
This is the ending song. It has two sets of lyrics and it's sung in a duet that doesn't actually fit together like a regular duet. This is in the sense that they don't sing to each other, but separately if you get what I mean. The tune definitely fits together, but the character of the song is portrayed in a way they're they're not singing together. It's like two people who are really actually the same talking at the same time with different opinions. Absolutely beautiful and the lyrics reflect one of the themes that the game is about. In Bastion, there's this theme of war and relationships between races, their differences and how their conflicts ultimately destroy each other. In Zia's lyrics it appears that she is singing in the Ura's point of view (she is an Ura). Which is ironic because she doesn't identify with the Ura's desire for revenge in the game. The Cael's built this massive wall as protection against the Ura, she sing's about this and implies how those walls would fall some day because the Ura will "be here before too long." But there is this one line that I think is specific to Zia, "One day your bird is gonna fly". I think this is referring to how Ura refuges are allowed to stay in Caelondia, but only if they never return to the Tazal Terminals. This is the case of Zia, but with the Calamity destroying everything including the wall she was finally free.
The second part is sung by Zulf, another Ura. He sings in the viewpoint of a Cael, which is also ironic because after he found out that the Calamity was originally made by the Caels to wipe out the Ura for good, he wanted revenge. He traveled to Caelondia before the Calamity because he believed that there could be peace between the Ura and the Caels, he thought of Caelondia as his second home. The Caels he loved and trusted, tried to make peace with, betrayed him. He had a Cael for a fiancee, but the Calamity killed her too, which I imagine would enrage him even more. This is reflected in his lyrics where he refers to "Mother" who is Mycia, the goddess who watches over Caelondia and how her glowing heart is guiding him home to Caelondia. There's a verse that seems to refer to his fiancee as well "I take your hand, now you'll never be lonely. Not when I'm home, sweet home".
There's one verse that links both songs together: "Lie on my back, clouds are making way for me. I'm coming home, sweet home."
It implies that both the Ura and the Caels just want to go home, now that the Calamity has ruined everything. It makes both the Ura and the Caels sound more human despite their hate for each other. It takes pain, death, and destruction to break them and make them remember the more important things that the home embodies: peace, love, and, family.
In terms of gameplay the controls are in classic RPG style. You've got your movement keys and other things you can do is use melee weapons, use ranged weapons with aiming feature, defending, take potions, activating triggers, and special skills. So the controls are geared mainly towards fighting and attacking. There are also various threats in the game. A large variety of monsters that attack you in different ways. The difficulty of the is unique as well. You activate different idols at the temple, which strengthen the threats in different ways. For example, for one idol your enemies would become faster and strike harder, while another would make them regenerate health constantly.
Here's a bit of gameply for Bastion, you can see here the narrator talking over your actions as well and giving bits of info (SealedSun, 2011):
Journey is absolutely gorgeous. The sceneries and the characters may not be photorealistic, but it really impresses you with how beautiful it is. It's simple, but stylistic.
The music is very beautiful. It's actually relaxing and really pure in my opinion. The dominant instruments are the strings, they sound very pure because they're not overpowered by other instruments. The tones are pure and you can hear a distinct voice that soars above the rest. Even though it's not as complex as Bastion's the purity of sound and score here move and undulate in an emotive way. In my favourite soundtrack for Journey, above (Journey Soundtrack, 2012), we have the opening by the strings, specifically the cello cushioned by soft, shimmering bells. The violins arrive and the wave soars and gives way to these almost meditative bells with a golden ribbon of sound by a flute weaving through it. It sounds really spiritual when the bells come in and this is fitting because at the tower you learn more about your people from the glyphs. The "ocean" that comes when you activate a glyph could be a metaphor for the sea of consciousness. When you finish the tower area in a way you have reached a higher understanding and is ready to ascend towards the mountain for your final trial.
The controls are very simple for Journey. Aside from movement the only things you can do are either sit down, fly or call. The only threat you'll ever meet is a huge stone creature that destroys your scarf (the scarf determines how long you can fly). Here's a trailer of Journey that shows a bit of gameplay (CNETTV, 2012):
Limbo's visual style is also unique. It plays with depth of field and silhouettes. There's a bit of grain in the image as well so it's like you're watching a decent black and white TV. It looks raw, simple, but attractive. People see this game and they always ask what I'm playing and whether they can get the game off me as well. The sounds are mostly ambient sounds like footsteps, water, flies, traps, and so on. Things naturally in the environment.
The controls are pretty simple. You can push/pull, jump, and activate triggers other than movement. Your threats are a bit varied though for example, stabby spiders, murderous children, traps, saws, brain worms, electricity, and so on. So you gotta think fast and smart to move on.
Here's a bit of gameplay for it (Level7nu, 2010):
We took the feed back from yesterday about cornering ourselves with a world without fire and really thought about how it could work. We decided that the Child (the main character) would wake up in a mysterious world, where there is no fire. The place is cold and wintry. Won't write about what exactly is in the story here because it would give too much away. This way things are more ambiguous, and you'll get different interpretations of what's happening. We still don't have a set of chronological events set out yet though.
Also, Daniel gave us some feedback. He notices that we're not 100% certain with how we're going to approach doing this yet. I think we can work through this and I believe as we go along the approach would become clear.
I've noticed that when one of our louder members is here nobody actually says anything even if they disagree. I'm guilty of that to be honest, and it bothers me. I don't say much because I feel that member is a better speaker than I am, but sometimes I don't agree with what he says. Also, when we actually need to talk about our ideas to tutors and during presentations he tends to say everything and doesn't leave a lot of room for anyone else to fit in what they want to say. We usually decide beforehand who's going to say what but it never really happens that way, then I end up with nothing of significance to say. I'm more angry at myself for being such a horrible speaker and not talking when someone else talks. It's rude to do that but when you don't, you end up with nothing. NOTHING. I feel subdued, shoved aside, and I feel like my opinions don't matter.
From now on no more of this. I'm sick and tired of it. I know I CAN talk, because when Maggie and Daniel talked to us I was totally fine explaining everything. And this makes me even more angry. If I can talk why don't I show this fact more often? No more. From now on I don't care whether an extrovert is around or not, I don't care if you're in the middle of a sentence. I'm talking and you will listen to me.
__________________________________________________________________________
References:
CNETTV. (2012, March 13). Game trailer: Journey [Video file]. Retrieved August 7, 2012, from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xWhS6tXtN7U
Journey Soundtrack. (2012, April 10). Journey Soundtrack (Austin Wintory) - 12. Atonement [Video file]. Retrieved August 7, 2012, from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pAtYPnCsWzo
Level7nu. (2010, July 16). Limbo Gameplay First 10 Minutes Achievements [Video file]. Retrieved August 7, 2012, from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8kZC1vlGmjs
I made a simplified view of how I see a game and stripped apart our inspirations to the bare core. This is to understand how they work.
I see a game like this triangle. You have three main components working together. It's gameplay (what you can do in the game and how you interact with the environment), the story, and the presentation (how the story is told and the aesthetic of the game. This includes visuals and audio).
Previously I went over a little bit on the presentation part of Bastion, Limbo, and Journey. I'll talk briefly about the triangle.
As you can see, the artwork in Bastion is very lush and detailed. In fact, the visuals are hand-painted, which I find amazing and makes me appreciate the work a lot more. It reflects the way the story is told by the narrator too, because the style of storytelling is also very detailed and multi-layered. The soundtrack is absolutely amazing as well. It's dramatic and reflects the mood of what's happening. It's quite detailed. Below is in my opinion the best soundtrack from the game (Outphase52, 2011):
This is the ending song. It has two sets of lyrics and it's sung in a duet that doesn't actually fit together like a regular duet. This is in the sense that they don't sing to each other, but separately if you get what I mean. The tune definitely fits together, but the character of the song is portrayed in a way they're they're not singing together. It's like two people who are really actually the same talking at the same time with different opinions. Absolutely beautiful and the lyrics reflect one of the themes that the game is about. In Bastion, there's this theme of war and relationships between races, their differences and how their conflicts ultimately destroy each other. In Zia's lyrics it appears that she is singing in the Ura's point of view (she is an Ura). Which is ironic because she doesn't identify with the Ura's desire for revenge in the game. The Cael's built this massive wall as protection against the Ura, she sing's about this and implies how those walls would fall some day because the Ura will "be here before too long." But there is this one line that I think is specific to Zia, "One day your bird is gonna fly". I think this is referring to how Ura refuges are allowed to stay in Caelondia, but only if they never return to the Tazal Terminals. This is the case of Zia, but with the Calamity destroying everything including the wall she was finally free.
The second part is sung by Zulf, another Ura. He sings in the viewpoint of a Cael, which is also ironic because after he found out that the Calamity was originally made by the Caels to wipe out the Ura for good, he wanted revenge. He traveled to Caelondia before the Calamity because he believed that there could be peace between the Ura and the Caels, he thought of Caelondia as his second home. The Caels he loved and trusted, tried to make peace with, betrayed him. He had a Cael for a fiancee, but the Calamity killed her too, which I imagine would enrage him even more. This is reflected in his lyrics where he refers to "Mother" who is Mycia, the goddess who watches over Caelondia and how her glowing heart is guiding him home to Caelondia. There's a verse that seems to refer to his fiancee as well "I take your hand, now you'll never be lonely. Not when I'm home, sweet home".
There's one verse that links both songs together: "Lie on my back, clouds are making way for me. I'm coming home, sweet home."
It implies that both the Ura and the Caels just want to go home, now that the Calamity has ruined everything. It makes both the Ura and the Caels sound more human despite their hate for each other. It takes pain, death, and destruction to break them and make them remember the more important things that the home embodies: peace, love, and, family.
In terms of gameplay the controls are in classic RPG style. You've got your movement keys and other things you can do is use melee weapons, use ranged weapons with aiming feature, defending, take potions, activating triggers, and special skills. So the controls are geared mainly towards fighting and attacking. There are also various threats in the game. A large variety of monsters that attack you in different ways. The difficulty of the is unique as well. You activate different idols at the temple, which strengthen the threats in different ways. For example, for one idol your enemies would become faster and strike harder, while another would make them regenerate health constantly.
Here's a bit of gameply for Bastion, you can see here the narrator talking over your actions as well and giving bits of info (SealedSun, 2011):
Journey is absolutely gorgeous. The sceneries and the characters may not be photorealistic, but it really impresses you with how beautiful it is. It's simple, but stylistic.
The music is very beautiful. It's actually relaxing and really pure in my opinion. The dominant instruments are the strings, they sound very pure because they're not overpowered by other instruments. The tones are pure and you can hear a distinct voice that soars above the rest. Even though it's not as complex as Bastion's the purity of sound and score here move and undulate in an emotive way. In my favourite soundtrack for Journey, above (Journey Soundtrack, 2012), we have the opening by the strings, specifically the cello cushioned by soft, shimmering bells. The violins arrive and the wave soars and gives way to these almost meditative bells with a golden ribbon of sound by a flute weaving through it. It sounds really spiritual when the bells come in and this is fitting because at the tower you learn more about your people from the glyphs. The "ocean" that comes when you activate a glyph could be a metaphor for the sea of consciousness. When you finish the tower area in a way you have reached a higher understanding and is ready to ascend towards the mountain for your final trial.
The controls are very simple for Journey. Aside from movement the only things you can do are either sit down, fly or call. The only threat you'll ever meet is a huge stone creature that destroys your scarf (the scarf determines how long you can fly). Here's a trailer of Journey that shows a bit of gameplay (CNETTV, 2012):
Limbo's visual style is also unique. It plays with depth of field and silhouettes. There's a bit of grain in the image as well so it's like you're watching a decent black and white TV. It looks raw, simple, but attractive. People see this game and they always ask what I'm playing and whether they can get the game off me as well. The sounds are mostly ambient sounds like footsteps, water, flies, traps, and so on. Things naturally in the environment.
The controls are pretty simple. You can push/pull, jump, and activate triggers other than movement. Your threats are a bit varied though for example, stabby spiders, murderous children, traps, saws, brain worms, electricity, and so on. So you gotta think fast and smart to move on.
Here's a bit of gameplay for it (Level7nu, 2010):
We took the feed back from yesterday about cornering ourselves with a world without fire and really thought about how it could work. We decided that the Child (the main character) would wake up in a mysterious world, where there is no fire. The place is cold and wintry. Won't write about what exactly is in the story here because it would give too much away. This way things are more ambiguous, and you'll get different interpretations of what's happening. We still don't have a set of chronological events set out yet though.
Also, Daniel gave us some feedback. He notices that we're not 100% certain with how we're going to approach doing this yet. I think we can work through this and I believe as we go along the approach would become clear.
I've noticed that when one of our louder members is here nobody actually says anything even if they disagree. I'm guilty of that to be honest, and it bothers me. I don't say much because I feel that member is a better speaker than I am, but sometimes I don't agree with what he says. Also, when we actually need to talk about our ideas to tutors and during presentations he tends to say everything and doesn't leave a lot of room for anyone else to fit in what they want to say. We usually decide beforehand who's going to say what but it never really happens that way, then I end up with nothing of significance to say. I'm more angry at myself for being such a horrible speaker and not talking when someone else talks. It's rude to do that but when you don't, you end up with nothing. NOTHING. I feel subdued, shoved aside, and I feel like my opinions don't matter.
From now on no more of this. I'm sick and tired of it. I know I CAN talk, because when Maggie and Daniel talked to us I was totally fine explaining everything. And this makes me even more angry. If I can talk why don't I show this fact more often? No more. From now on I don't care whether an extrovert is around or not, I don't care if you're in the middle of a sentence. I'm talking and you will listen to me.
__________________________________________________________________________
References:
CNETTV. (2012, March 13). Game trailer: Journey [Video file]. Retrieved August 7, 2012, from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xWhS6tXtN7U
Journey Soundtrack. (2012, April 10). Journey Soundtrack (Austin Wintory) - 12. Atonement [Video file]. Retrieved August 7, 2012, from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pAtYPnCsWzo
Level7nu. (2010, July 16). Limbo Gameplay First 10 Minutes Achievements [Video file]. Retrieved August 7, 2012, from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8kZC1vlGmjs
Outphase52. (2011, July 22). Bastion Soundtrack - Setting Sail, Coming Home (End Theme) [Video file]. Retrieved August 7, 2012, from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GDflVhOpS4E
SealedSun. (2011, August 16). Bastion Gameplay (PC, 1080p) [Video file]. Retrieved August 7, 2012, from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bRXKPdIAAqw
Monday, August 6, 2012
Story Construction: Archetypes
Talked to Maggie today about what we're doing and actually made quite a bit of progress today.
I explained the story and how it's about a child looking for fire in a world where fire is literally dead. Maggie pointed out that we could be trapping ourselves in a corner because without fire there would be a lot of things that that world can't help. This is because technology may be limited without fire. She also talked briefly about archetypes and how we had some really good ones in our basic story already. She suggested that we look at the work of Joseph Campbell and Carl Jung on archetypes.
I've already had a brief look at Joseph Campbell's The Hero with a Thousand Faces. I've also watched a two-part video about it and how in some games you can find the archetypes of Campbell's monomyth (Hero's Journey).
Here's part one and part two.
An article I found argues against the Hero's Journey, stating that "not every story is a Hero's Journey" and that for this reason it is somehow irrelevant and invalid (Hull, 2010). From what I see I think the writer of that article assumes that the Hero's Journey and the existence of archetypes is some kind of formula that's supposed to work for every story. I personally disagree with this notion. While certain structures and archetypes do exist, they're just generalisations and ideas on how stories may or may not work. I don't think they're intended to be formulaic rules that are absolute. They're interesting and they're something to look at, but I don't think you absolutely to have them to get a good story. I mean, if you had to obey a certain archetype and your character has to be exactly like it we'd end up with a lot of the same characters but in different books and under different names. That would be boring and I don't think this is the case with good books. We all love different characters because they are in their own way unique "people" and that's why you can really connect with well-written characters.
I recognise many of the archetypes Campbell touches on, as well as that of Jung, but like I said, they're only generalisations and make it easier to understand how components of a story work together and to quickly understand the basic traits of a character personality. So I don't see a need to really make or change any characters to conform to Campbell's monomyth or a particular archetype.
For today I talked to the group about the differences in how the story is told in our three main inspirations, which I talked about in the previous entry, and we decided where we wanted to be on the spectrum. We want the story to be very open but we don't want it to be like Limbo where there is absolutely no information or appearance of a story until the end. So we decided that we'll keep it open but have an unreliable narrator that gives you just enough information to give the player a starting point/context to make their story in but not enough to fully tell them what the story may be about. This way you still have a sense of a story throughout the game but since details are limited you get varied interpretations as to what's really happening. It will be narrated, similar to how they do it in Bastion, instead of having cutscenes and long bits of text to read. This is to preserve the flow of gameplay and story. Cutscenes and walls of text make experiences feel too disconnected and choppy.
_________________________________________________________________________
Bibliography:
Campbell, J. (2009). The Hero with a Thousand Faces. United States: Pantheon Books
Hull, J. (2010). Not Everything Is A Hero's Journey. Retrieved August 6, 2012, from http://storyfanatic.com/articles/story-theory/not-everything-is-a-heros-journey
Penny Arcade. (2012). Season 4, Ep. 20 - The Hero's Journey (Part 1) [Video file]. Retrieved August 6, 2012, from http://www.penny-arcade.com/patv/episode/the-heros-journey-part-1
Penny Arcade. (2012). Season 4, Ep. 21 - The Hero's Journey (Part 1) [Video file]. Retrieved August 6, 2012, from http://penny-arcade.com/patv/episode/the-heros-journey-part-2
I explained the story and how it's about a child looking for fire in a world where fire is literally dead. Maggie pointed out that we could be trapping ourselves in a corner because without fire there would be a lot of things that that world can't help. This is because technology may be limited without fire. She also talked briefly about archetypes and how we had some really good ones in our basic story already. She suggested that we look at the work of Joseph Campbell and Carl Jung on archetypes.
I've already had a brief look at Joseph Campbell's The Hero with a Thousand Faces. I've also watched a two-part video about it and how in some games you can find the archetypes of Campbell's monomyth (Hero's Journey).
Here's part one and part two.
An article I found argues against the Hero's Journey, stating that "not every story is a Hero's Journey" and that for this reason it is somehow irrelevant and invalid (Hull, 2010). From what I see I think the writer of that article assumes that the Hero's Journey and the existence of archetypes is some kind of formula that's supposed to work for every story. I personally disagree with this notion. While certain structures and archetypes do exist, they're just generalisations and ideas on how stories may or may not work. I don't think they're intended to be formulaic rules that are absolute. They're interesting and they're something to look at, but I don't think you absolutely to have them to get a good story. I mean, if you had to obey a certain archetype and your character has to be exactly like it we'd end up with a lot of the same characters but in different books and under different names. That would be boring and I don't think this is the case with good books. We all love different characters because they are in their own way unique "people" and that's why you can really connect with well-written characters.
I recognise many of the archetypes Campbell touches on, as well as that of Jung, but like I said, they're only generalisations and make it easier to understand how components of a story work together and to quickly understand the basic traits of a character personality. So I don't see a need to really make or change any characters to conform to Campbell's monomyth or a particular archetype.
For today I talked to the group about the differences in how the story is told in our three main inspirations, which I talked about in the previous entry, and we decided where we wanted to be on the spectrum. We want the story to be very open but we don't want it to be like Limbo where there is absolutely no information or appearance of a story until the end. So we decided that we'll keep it open but have an unreliable narrator that gives you just enough information to give the player a starting point/context to make their story in but not enough to fully tell them what the story may be about. This way you still have a sense of a story throughout the game but since details are limited you get varied interpretations as to what's really happening. It will be narrated, similar to how they do it in Bastion, instead of having cutscenes and long bits of text to read. This is to preserve the flow of gameplay and story. Cutscenes and walls of text make experiences feel too disconnected and choppy.
_________________________________________________________________________
Bibliography:
Campbell, J. (2009). The Hero with a Thousand Faces. United States: Pantheon Books
Hull, J. (2010). Not Everything Is A Hero's Journey. Retrieved August 6, 2012, from http://storyfanatic.com/articles/story-theory/not-everything-is-a-heros-journey
Penny Arcade. (2012). Season 4, Ep. 20 - The Hero's Journey (Part 1) [Video file]. Retrieved August 6, 2012, from http://www.penny-arcade.com/patv/episode/the-heros-journey-part-1
Penny Arcade. (2012). Season 4, Ep. 21 - The Hero's Journey (Part 1) [Video file]. Retrieved August 6, 2012, from http://penny-arcade.com/patv/episode/the-heros-journey-part-2
Friday, August 3, 2012
Story Construction: Inspirations
Not much development over the last two days, however, we did get our basic story. So I'm gonna work hard on that to get the best story for our game and did a bit of research.
Anyways, before I start on explaining why my research is useful and what I learned let's take a look at our goals for this story.
For me I want an original story that has a lot of meat in it. I don't want a hollow shell of a story that doesn't mean anything. Just a superficial little shell that offers nothing to the overall end product. A game that is simply a game.
I want it to make people think and enjoy the story for what is. This is especially important to me. For a story to be like that I want it to be a stand alone original story. I don't want people to play this game and think, "This is just like this story I know but in a different setting and different character names. Everything else is the same." That would be boring and predictable. I want people to play it and think of the story as a story on its own rather than a copied story of something else.
That's not to say we shouldn't look for inspiration and merely pull a story out of thin air. That's impossible. Everything comes from somewhere, it's just a matter of expressing what you want to say and determining how you want to say it. This is where you need to find the core of your story. Decide what you're really trying to say and how you want to say it. Do you want the audience to see what you're getting at guided by your voice or do you want to show them and let them decide for themselves what they have just seen?
I'll show you what I mean by that using our main inspirations for our game. There are three main inspirations that we're using at the moment:
Bastion by Supergiant Games
In Bastion the story is told through narration that happens throughout the game. What your character does is narrated at times and when your character moves through the world details and history of the area are told by the narrator. The details and histories string together to explain what happened prior to the Calamity (an apocalyptic event that happened moments before your character wakes up) and why it happened. This style of storytelling is very specific in the information it gives and adds a lot of depth to it. It gives you additional information as the game moves along and most if not all of your questions are answered by the end of the game. There is no debate as to what happened in the story because it was guided and defined. No loose ends.
In summary, Bastion's story is very clear in showing you what the story is about. Narration is a great tool that it utilised to give flow. This is because when you have a lot of cutscenes to explain the story it becomes staggered and disjointed. Here, using narration you play as the story unfolds through narration.
Limbo by Playdead
At the other end of the spectrum we've got Limbo. Limbo has zero dialogue and zero cutscenes. It simply refuses to tell you anything in favour of you finding out what's going on by yourself. Even the ending is really ambiguous and doesn't tell you much. I'll explain what happened.
The tagline for the game is "Uncertain of his Sister's fate, a boy takes a journey of exploration in the mysterious and hauntingly beautiful world of LIMBO." At the beginning you wake up in a forest and along the way you meet giant spiders and children who for some reason want to kill you. In fact, wherever you go everything is trying to kill you in one way or another. Eventually you reach a total of three different areas: The forest, the rooftops with the hotel, and the factory place. In the end you're back at the forest where you finally find your sister. The boy doesn't approach her though, standing a short distance away. She senses him there but the scene doesn't show her turning around. The final scene in the credits shows that a lot of time has passed shown by the rotting ladder and two swarms of flies buzzing away where the two children once were.
As you can see, when you play the game the game just IS. It doesn't explain anything to you so you gotta decide what it is you've just seen/experienced. Is it a sad story with a happy but wistful end? Or is it something much, much darker? Because of the way the game doesn't tell you details of the story there are many interpretations and theories as to what Limbo is actually about. The player has the freedom to decide what the story is.
There are many theories about Limbo due to the fact that it doesn't actively tell you what its about like in Bastion. Here I'll show you the two most interesting theories I've come across.
The Death Theory
One theory is that the Boy is actually dead. He's traveling through Limbo, a place between life and death, to get back to his sister to say goodbye (Homestar563, 2011; ImaBee2, 2010 ). The sister senses his presence at the end, where she mourns his death beneath the tree house he fell from, and after a long time she dies too, hence the ending scene with the flies.
The reasons for his death vary depending on the person who supports this theory. Some say he fell from the tree house (the most popular) while others say he died in a car crash. In some theories the sister is also dead (Bratcher, 2010).
In a way, this theory is about dealing with grief and death.
Villain theory
The villain theory is more morbid. Limbo is already a very macabre game so to some it doesn't make sense to have a happy ending. The ending scene is gritty and filthy; doesn't look happy at all. This theory postulates that the Boy is, once again, dead. However, he is seeking out his sister for revenge--to kill her (Reparaz, 2010). The children who try to kill the Boy are actually trying to protect his sister from him. This also explains why the children flee when the Boy gets close. You are defenseless against something that's already dead. It also ties in well with how the Boy respawns moments later. It also explains why the sister doesn't turn around even when she senses his presence.
For me this theory is really interesting because that way you'd be unknowingly playing the villain the whole time. I think it fits in well with the overall vibe of the game as well.
There are many other interpretations of the story, for example, some think it's about growing up, rejecting rural beginnings and sacrificing your friends and family for power, and so on. I love how this game gives different people a different story. This is the kind of freedom a game that doesn't tell you what it's about can give you and I think that's really special.
You can find more story theories about Limbo here, here, and here.
Journey by Thatgamecompany
Journey is somewhere in between Bastion and Limbo. Journey uses cutscenes to tell you the story about the world you're in but has no dialogue. So the story is guided in a way but leaves enough room for different interpretations to be made. When I played it I thought the story was about how greed and power destroys peace between people and how your desires can lead you to get out of control. It causes you to forget who you are. Thus, the journey to the mountain is about learning from past mistakes and finding yourself.
The various other theories for Journey I've read about read along a similar line of thought. For example, the search for enlightenment and higher understanding about the world, growing up, life, and so on. The theories aren't as varied as Limbo's but they do run across similar trains of thought.
The thing we need to decide on is where we want to be on this spectrum. Do we want to guide the player, give them a lot of freedom to decide what it's about, or a bit of both?
__________________________________________________________________________
References:
Bratcher, E. (2010). Limbo: What Does it all Mean? Retrieved August 3, 2012, from http://www.gamesradar.com/limbo-what-does-it-all-mean/
Homestar563. (2010, September 10). Limbo; The Ending Speculation and Thoughts [Video file]. Retrieved August 3, 2012, from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AR3mreYegVA&feature=watch_response
ImaBee2. (2010, July 21). LIMBO - The Ending (HD 720p) [Video file]. Retrieved August 3, 2012, from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2kgZZ89mh-Q
Reparaz, M. (2010) Limbo: What Does it all Mean? Retrieved August 3, 2012, from http://www.gamesradar.com/limbo-what-does-it-all-mean/
Anyways, before I start on explaining why my research is useful and what I learned let's take a look at our goals for this story.
For me I want an original story that has a lot of meat in it. I don't want a hollow shell of a story that doesn't mean anything. Just a superficial little shell that offers nothing to the overall end product. A game that is simply a game.
I want it to make people think and enjoy the story for what is. This is especially important to me. For a story to be like that I want it to be a stand alone original story. I don't want people to play this game and think, "This is just like this story I know but in a different setting and different character names. Everything else is the same." That would be boring and predictable. I want people to play it and think of the story as a story on its own rather than a copied story of something else.
That's not to say we shouldn't look for inspiration and merely pull a story out of thin air. That's impossible. Everything comes from somewhere, it's just a matter of expressing what you want to say and determining how you want to say it. This is where you need to find the core of your story. Decide what you're really trying to say and how you want to say it. Do you want the audience to see what you're getting at guided by your voice or do you want to show them and let them decide for themselves what they have just seen?
I'll show you what I mean by that using our main inspirations for our game. There are three main inspirations that we're using at the moment:
Bastion by Supergiant Games
In Bastion the story is told through narration that happens throughout the game. What your character does is narrated at times and when your character moves through the world details and history of the area are told by the narrator. The details and histories string together to explain what happened prior to the Calamity (an apocalyptic event that happened moments before your character wakes up) and why it happened. This style of storytelling is very specific in the information it gives and adds a lot of depth to it. It gives you additional information as the game moves along and most if not all of your questions are answered by the end of the game. There is no debate as to what happened in the story because it was guided and defined. No loose ends.
In summary, Bastion's story is very clear in showing you what the story is about. Narration is a great tool that it utilised to give flow. This is because when you have a lot of cutscenes to explain the story it becomes staggered and disjointed. Here, using narration you play as the story unfolds through narration.
Limbo by Playdead
At the other end of the spectrum we've got Limbo. Limbo has zero dialogue and zero cutscenes. It simply refuses to tell you anything in favour of you finding out what's going on by yourself. Even the ending is really ambiguous and doesn't tell you much. I'll explain what happened.
The tagline for the game is "Uncertain of his Sister's fate, a boy takes a journey of exploration in the mysterious and hauntingly beautiful world of LIMBO." At the beginning you wake up in a forest and along the way you meet giant spiders and children who for some reason want to kill you. In fact, wherever you go everything is trying to kill you in one way or another. Eventually you reach a total of three different areas: The forest, the rooftops with the hotel, and the factory place. In the end you're back at the forest where you finally find your sister. The boy doesn't approach her though, standing a short distance away. She senses him there but the scene doesn't show her turning around. The final scene in the credits shows that a lot of time has passed shown by the rotting ladder and two swarms of flies buzzing away where the two children once were.
As you can see, when you play the game the game just IS. It doesn't explain anything to you so you gotta decide what it is you've just seen/experienced. Is it a sad story with a happy but wistful end? Or is it something much, much darker? Because of the way the game doesn't tell you details of the story there are many interpretations and theories as to what Limbo is actually about. The player has the freedom to decide what the story is.
There are many theories about Limbo due to the fact that it doesn't actively tell you what its about like in Bastion. Here I'll show you the two most interesting theories I've come across.
The Death Theory
One theory is that the Boy is actually dead. He's traveling through Limbo, a place between life and death, to get back to his sister to say goodbye (Homestar563, 2011; ImaBee2, 2010 ). The sister senses his presence at the end, where she mourns his death beneath the tree house he fell from, and after a long time she dies too, hence the ending scene with the flies.
The reasons for his death vary depending on the person who supports this theory. Some say he fell from the tree house (the most popular) while others say he died in a car crash. In some theories the sister is also dead (Bratcher, 2010).
In a way, this theory is about dealing with grief and death.
Villain theory
The villain theory is more morbid. Limbo is already a very macabre game so to some it doesn't make sense to have a happy ending. The ending scene is gritty and filthy; doesn't look happy at all. This theory postulates that the Boy is, once again, dead. However, he is seeking out his sister for revenge--to kill her (Reparaz, 2010). The children who try to kill the Boy are actually trying to protect his sister from him. This also explains why the children flee when the Boy gets close. You are defenseless against something that's already dead. It also ties in well with how the Boy respawns moments later. It also explains why the sister doesn't turn around even when she senses his presence.
For me this theory is really interesting because that way you'd be unknowingly playing the villain the whole time. I think it fits in well with the overall vibe of the game as well.
There are many other interpretations of the story, for example, some think it's about growing up, rejecting rural beginnings and sacrificing your friends and family for power, and so on. I love how this game gives different people a different story. This is the kind of freedom a game that doesn't tell you what it's about can give you and I think that's really special.
You can find more story theories about Limbo here, here, and here.
Journey by Thatgamecompany
Journey is somewhere in between Bastion and Limbo. Journey uses cutscenes to tell you the story about the world you're in but has no dialogue. So the story is guided in a way but leaves enough room for different interpretations to be made. When I played it I thought the story was about how greed and power destroys peace between people and how your desires can lead you to get out of control. It causes you to forget who you are. Thus, the journey to the mountain is about learning from past mistakes and finding yourself.
The various other theories for Journey I've read about read along a similar line of thought. For example, the search for enlightenment and higher understanding about the world, growing up, life, and so on. The theories aren't as varied as Limbo's but they do run across similar trains of thought.
The thing we need to decide on is where we want to be on this spectrum. Do we want to guide the player, give them a lot of freedom to decide what it's about, or a bit of both?
__________________________________________________________________________
References:
Bratcher, E. (2010). Limbo: What Does it all Mean? Retrieved August 3, 2012, from http://www.gamesradar.com/limbo-what-does-it-all-mean/
Homestar563. (2010, September 10). Limbo; The Ending Speculation and Thoughts [Video file]. Retrieved August 3, 2012, from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AR3mreYegVA&feature=watch_response
ImaBee2. (2010, July 21). LIMBO - The Ending (HD 720p) [Video file]. Retrieved August 3, 2012, from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2kgZZ89mh-Q
Reparaz, M. (2010) Limbo: What Does it all Mean? Retrieved August 3, 2012, from http://www.gamesradar.com/limbo-what-does-it-all-mean/
Wednesday, August 1, 2012
Got a basic story finally
Tomorrow's our presentation with Andy, we're pressed for time with story. However, it turns out with this added pressure we're actually getting some good ideas and now we have a basic story.
Previously, we talked about fire worship and how in the Winter Wasteland fire is obviously precious. Therefore the idea of fire being precious or divine would fit in well with the setting.
Prior to the main storyline the gods existed to keep balance and natural order in the world. That is, until the Ice God rebelled to gain more power. The Ice God defeated and effectively killed most of the gods until the Fire God remained. The Ice God was still winning though and the Fire God knew this. So before dying the Fire God cast his/her final essence somewhere on the Earth.
Now, fast forward to the main storyline in a world devoid of fire. We've got this kid listening to the story about the Ice God and the Fire God. This child is adopted, found at the base of the mountain. The child begins to get curious, wondering if the story could be real, and wants to try and find the last essence to bring back fire.
The child begins on their journey to find the truth.
That's the basic frame of it. We'll need to add more details to it to flesh out the story of course. There'll be more of this as the game is developed.
Previously, we talked about fire worship and how in the Winter Wasteland fire is obviously precious. Therefore the idea of fire being precious or divine would fit in well with the setting.
Prior to the main storyline the gods existed to keep balance and natural order in the world. That is, until the Ice God rebelled to gain more power. The Ice God defeated and effectively killed most of the gods until the Fire God remained. The Ice God was still winning though and the Fire God knew this. So before dying the Fire God cast his/her final essence somewhere on the Earth.
Now, fast forward to the main storyline in a world devoid of fire. We've got this kid listening to the story about the Ice God and the Fire God. This child is adopted, found at the base of the mountain. The child begins to get curious, wondering if the story could be real, and wants to try and find the last essence to bring back fire.
The child begins on their journey to find the truth.
That's the basic frame of it. We'll need to add more details to it to flesh out the story of course. There'll be more of this as the game is developed.
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