Thursday 31 March 2016

31/03/16 - Interactive Narrative - Grim Fandango

Grim Fandango is a point and click adventure game, with a play style that at times, can border on pixel hunting (a common trope within games, where you have to find the right, tiny area to click to progress), particularly if you use the new point and click controls, over the original tank controls.
We discover the story through the occasional cutscenes, which show up rather rarely, usually as a 'reward' once you've completed an area or story segment - and more often, the story is developed through talking to the other, non-player characters.
Every one of these characters are interactable, and not just a stock standard background characters - Grim Fandango has taken an approach to the game that could be considered 'if they're not interactable, they're not included'.
The game forces us to interact with these characters, at least to an extent, as a lot of the characters give clues to puzzles, or will progress the story upon interaction (ie. talking to a 'dying' Glottis will prompt him to think of a way to customize the cable car, leading you back to Rubacava).
For every interactable character, you are offered four initial dialogue choices, three of which will often open new question options, and one of which just ends the conversation. To progress a puzzle or story segment, you will be required to talk to people - however, you are not 'required', per say, to exhaust all possible dialogue options with them. It's entirely possible to navigate any of the conversations in game, asking the fewest questions possible - but odds are, unless the player knows exactly which lines are the correct lines for the solution, you will wind up running through multiple conversation branches. Often whether you want to or not (personally, I find it enjoyable to try every option the game offers, but this is in no way mandatory).

But could the game have developed and pulled off such a story without any of these characters?
Firstly, from a technical standpoint, no, seeing as many of the characters progressed the story and puzzles - and with no one there to talk to, or interact with, the game would stagnate.
Storywise, you also couldn't extract the characters from this game and expect to uphold the story - because Grim Fandango is incredibly character based. The story makes the ideas, and strengths of the story clear through how certain characters are portrayed.
Each and every character is written to be intrinsic to the games world, and the narrative we are following.
Manny, for example, is written to be likeable - by the player, that is. He's rough around the edges, a little seedy - but he's the underdog. The guy beaten down and wrongly stuck with an injustice. So maybe he's not a great person to a lot of the other characters in the game. But his personality is written to make the player like him, in order to spur their motives to help him in his quest. Similarly, characters such as Hector are written to be disliked by the player - he's sleazy, he's bad, and there's no reason for the player to sympathise with him at all. He's the villain, plain and simple.
You take these characters from the story, and what is left of the plot? With no Manny, we have no one to stop Meche from getting sucked into the same gambit as all of the other Number 9 ticket holders. With no Meche, Manny would be stuck in the same job, day after day, never getting anywhere. With no Hector, there would be no mystery in the first place, and Manny would be working off his debt, fair and square.
Manny, in particular, is a very interesting character, as it is he that the player is offered sole control of for the entire game - but even through the dialogue choices we are offered, and how the player plays the game does not influence his character enough to be able to reduce him to an 'avatar'. Jessica Aldred (2013) describes characters as entities which "take on strong, fictional identities that are recognizably separate from those of their players." (p. 357). Going by this measure, each and every single interactable AI within Grim Fandango, are characters of their own, and not merely methods of completing the game, or options to develop our own avatar. All of them, be it Manny, or Glottis, or the group of worker bees down by the docks, showcase enough of their personalities and identities, even in the most minute amounts of required interaction.
Grim Fandango's characters are so instrumental to the plot, that to even remove a single one from the narrative, would stop the story completely.

- Jessica Aldred. 17 Dec 2013 ,Characters from: The Routledge Companion to Video Game Studies Routledge. Retrieved from http://animation.onlearn.co.nz/pluginfile.php/2711/mod_resource/content/0/Characters.pdf

Thursday 24 March 2016

24/03/16 - Interactive Narrative - Fahrenheit (Indigo Prophecy)

I'm going to start off by making a point of the fact that I do not like Fahrenheit. Not because it's necessarily a bad game, but more because it didn't interest me much at all (in fact, one of my favourite parts was that you could play Theory of a Deadman (they're a good band) on the stereo system in Lucas's apartment), and because I find the gameplay mechanic itself painful and tedious.
However, in the sake of fairness, I will try and keep my judgement of the game neutral.

Fahrenheit labels itself as an 'interactive film', and not a game, which in the first place, should suggest that the choices you can pick will not carry a lot of weight - as a film, while not always, tends to follow a linear storyline, which Fahrenheit does. The game hypes itself up, offering interactivity and multiple endings - only the interactivity, 90% of the time, is in the form of extremely long, extremely tedious quick time events. Some of these events don't even have a point, aside from stopping the player from having to sit through a long cutscene - which, I believe was intended to keep the player immersed in the game, only this method falls flat in execution.
The 'multiple endings' are three, near identical endings, only differing a minuscule amount, and mostly in a few changes lines of dialogue.
The choices which lead to these 'differing' endings, do not feel meaningful in the slightest. Most of the time, our choices are mostly in terms of dialogue, requiring the player to pick the correct line of enquiry quickly, in order to receive the most out of the story - and, as I noticed during my playthrough of this game, often offers the ignored/not chosen answer or choice, up again later, or gives the answer without our choice. When you receive both options after getting asked to pick one or the other, is there really any point in picking in the first place? Your choice in this scenario merely dictates which order you learn new information in, and does little to change the story, or even make it feel like you are in charge of this narrative.

For example, right near the end of the game, we find out Carla and Lucas have fallen 'in love'. I say 'in love', as such, because there was little to no build up or reasoning for this development, and personally found this extremely forced, and incredibly hard to believe. However, my point here is that we have no choice in this matter. No matter how much I had made, or wanted to make Carla distrust and blame Lucas, she always wound up with him - as if my input had been completely ignored, for the sake of the narrative being presented to us.

Some choices offered in the game felt slightly more clear - like saving the boy who had fallen into the ice, or leaving him. I made a decision, and recieved immediate payoff for doing so. However, this feeling did not last long - as neither choice I made here changed the game, or story at all. In fact, the only choice I would argue made any difference to the story at all, would be the choice for Tyler to stay with the police, or leave with Sam, as this directly changes his life - but even then, it doesn't seem to matter at all which I pick, because either way, you never encounter either again in the story.
Nothing I tried to do in the story felt at all meaningful, no matter how hard I tried.

Sunday 20 March 2016

21/03/16 - Production Studio (Cinematic) - Animatic


It took far too long exporting all of the frames for this from the psd Dora provided me, and then again far too long trying to convince After Effects to humor a 40 second clip.
But it got done.

Thursday 17 March 2016

18/03/16 - Interactive Narrative - The Wolf Among Us

In Telltale's The Wolf Among Us, a choice based game, the player gets to make choices in the form of actual branching path decisions, and dialogue choices, with varying degrees of subtlety. Decision choices, like allowing Faith to continue to drive the axe into the Woodsman, or the choice to rip Grendel's arm off or not, are clear, and exactly as they seem. These are often your 'major' actions, and offer you an opportunity - left or right, yes or no. Whenever I encounter one of these options, I can easily tell which one will progress my story in which direction - choosing to give Faith money, results in Bigby emptying his wallet for her. Choose not to, and you don't, keeping the money for later. Choose to rip Grendel's arm off, and, well - he looses his arm. Not permanently, but you sway him further into his hatred of Bigby. These choices are far from subtle, and for good reason - as most of these are defining choices, and often more specifically, actions. These are the moments where you know there's no grey area. You either do, or you don't, and the game offers you the chance to decide which route you want to take.
Do you want to live up to your fable, and be the Big Bad Wolf they all fear, or do you want Bigby to take the chance to redeem himself?
These options need to be clear, because they form a large part of how other characters will view you, and the overall ending you'll get to the game, whether or not the choices themselves seemed important or not. Sebastian Domsch (2013) suggests that "If all possible ‘after’ states are identical to each other or even to the ‘before’ state, the options have no differential consequence, and the choice is therefore not a real choice after all" (p. 114). Almost (I do not remember a single active choice during the game which did not have a differing outcome, but I will not definitively say all of the choices do, as I have no gone through and checked every single scenario again) all of the choices in The Wolf Among Us offer you clear cut variants in the story - Action A leads to Change A, which could be as small as having no money later on in the story, Action B leads to Change B, which could be keeping said money. The changes, and therefore the 'after' states, always differ from one another, meaning that therefore, your choices do matter, albeit in what can often be a minute scale. This is actually a matter that a lot of players tend to complain about in general with Telltale games - they tell us that our choices will shape the narrative, but overall, the stories remain very linear. This however, does not mean these choices are not there, and do not affect the game - they just do such on a smaller scale. These choices are still important to the interactivity of the narrative.

Dialogue, however, tends to be much fuzzier when it comes to which choice means what.  The four choices of dialogue offered each time make it clear that it's time for the player to contribute to the story, and help to decide how Bigby's personality comes across.  We understand that there is a choice, seeing as we, the players, are being offered options. However, as can be considered a trend with Telltale games, some of these dialogue choices are far from as expected. Some, are, of course, as clear as they were with the action choices. Some, however, reveal less than predicted results - I sat down next to Grendel, hoping to try and be nice to him, and next thing I know, Bigby is snarling at Grendel, tension is rising, and the situation is rapidly going south.

The Wolf Among Us is a heavily choice based game, and yes, the choices are often obvious, usually predictable.


Domsch, S. (2013). Storyplaying: Agency and Narrative in Video Games.  Retrieved from http://animation.onlearn.co.nz/pluginfile.php/2509/mod_resource/content/0/Domsch%2C%202013%20-%20The%20anatomy%20of%20a%20player%20choice.pdf

17/03/16 - Production Studio (Cinematic) - Finalized Bottle Label

So here we have the finalized (potentially will still be edited later) label for our Funta brand soda.

The full label (the excess space at the sides is for an estimate with printing)

Main logo and front of bottle.

(right) Barcode and Nutritional Info

(left) Brand copyright and ingredient list

Sunday 13 March 2016

13/03/16 - Production Studio (Cinematic) - Bottle Logo

I was tasked with the feat of recreating a logo and branding that was visually similar to the Fanta brand, but different enough to be considered original.

Thus, Funta was born.

A lot of the initial variants were incredibly visually similar, once a base idea had been picked.










The logo, in it's current state, looks like this.



Thursday 10 March 2016

11/03/16 - Interactive Narrative - Never Alone

For this week's look into gameplay and narrative, I looked at Never Alone.

Never Alone readily takes up the the 'string of pearls' method - gameplay, followed by a 'pearl' of story, followed by another 'string' of gameplay, and so forth. This approach to narrative in games can be a difficult one, as you need to balance out the two so that the player both has enough time to interact and play, thus keeping them interested, but also not so much that the story 'pearls' get spaced so far apart that the story is forgotten by the time you reach the next cutscene (some of the Silent Hill games, in particular, have been terrible at this - not because the story was too far apart, but because frquently you could spend hours upon hours, running back and forth, searching for a tiny piece to solve one tiny puzzle - and you'd normally encounter many of these puzzles between each narrative segment. Or wind up with having to open and search rooms A through to M, or something of the like. However, this isn't about the Silent Hill series).

Never Alone was relatively good at balancing the two - after each puzzle, you'd receive a short segment of the story, making the narrative segments much like a carrot on a stick - you progress through the puzzles, following the narrative segments dangled in front of you. The approach worked well with the occasional lines of narration that would sometimes be prompted as you completed a part of the puzzle, reminding you that there is a story there too.
Never Alone made each narrative segment feel like a reward, and having each scene be rather short, kept it from becoming too much like it was straying too far from the gameplay.
Playing it myself, I personally didn't find the story engaged me too greatly, but that would likely be down to personal preference. I found the gameplay, and the puzzle solving to be more what encouraged me to continue with my progression through the story, and the narrative segments to be more of a pleasant break, but definitely not quite enthralling enough that I'd want to rush ahead and seek the next piece of the story.
It did keep me interested, and overall I definitely enjoy the game, but in this instance, specifically, I found the gameplay to be more my motivation than the actual narrative.

Tuesday 8 March 2016

09/03/16 - Production Studio (Cinematic) - Group Script

The script took a huge rewrite, based off of Ethan's original idea, but with a lot of revision to make the story and ideas flow better.



Wednesday 2 March 2016

03/03/16 - Interactive Narrative - Facade

Halfway through attempting to install this game on my laptop, which caused first the installer to freeze, then my laptop to freeze, then to freeze on the reboot screen, I wondered 'why did I choose this game again?'.
But my reasoning was relatively simple - having played all three of the suggested games for this week, I chose the game that was a) the most interesting to me, and b) the game that had your choices matter the most (to an extent).
Ironically, then running the weirdly installed version led to a scenario with no audio, aside from the chosen name (Chloe), and the couple arguing wildly, ignoring most of  my comments, and responding to things that had never been actually said.
Clearly, not the intended experience.

No worries, I got the game working as intended - plus having played (a lot) before, I knew the general principal of the game.

The way the story is built in Facade is relatively simple, using a generic three act structure. We start off with a small audio clip, indicating that we are an old friend of Trip and Grace, and that we're meeting them to see their new apartment. Begin Act 1. We're welcomed into their home, and introduced to the characters. We learn that Grace works in advertising, and used to be an artist. She comes from a well off family. Trip is harder to learn about, but we can learn that he came from a poor family, or that he frequents sports bars. Act 1 is driven forward relatively quickly, as a problem is quickly introduced - albeit not entirely clearly. In a tradition Three Act Structure, Act 2 should be prompted by a catalyst, to set things into motion. In Facade, isn't clear to start what, exactly is the specific catalyst - perhaps it's you being there, perhaps it's the new apartment - but regardless, it's noticable that there is some tension and disagreement between the two, which can be picked up in the fact that they are arguing before they ever open the door to let you in, should you sit and listen a little, rather than immediately knocking. The conflict here - which in game, is in the form of Trip and Grace's arguing, with you taking on the role of mediator - spans the majority of the game, with each character raising points and asking you questions, which can escalate into a heated debate, with multiple potential endings - either a successful resolution, either Trip or Grace leaving, should you side with one more than the other, or finding yourself escorted out of the house. These potential endings, although rather short, create Act 3, in which the story, and the points leading up to it, are summarized and end. Interestingly, it's clear to tell when you have reached an 'end', or the third act, as, in at least the cases of the bad endings, (they divorce, or toss you out) the characters will announce that they have either 'had enough', or in the divorce endings, ask you 'is everything you've said tonight supposed to mean something?'. At this point, nothing you can say or do matters anymore, or matters very little.

Though, it's not the first time interactivity in this game means very little. Logically, the point of the game is for you, the player to prompt responses, and respond either postively, or negatively, to their questions. However, it's entirely possible to complete the story, without ever speaking a word. Your interactions, although intended to be the force driving the story forward, do not matter. The characters talk, and should they not receive the answer they want - or any at all - will simply move on to their next point.
And even when you do interact, and attempt to drive the plot in the direction you want it, in many cases, the AI will outright ignore you, or talk over you, driving the topic forward before you even have a chance to reply.

Your input into this story may feel like it has weight during your first attempt. Or maybe you'll miss the story so easily, as many people do, instead finding it humorous to yell random things at the pair, hoping to spur a response. But you play it again. 'Didn't they say this last time?', you wonder, attempting to change the direction of the story, or seek a different conclusion. You attempt to throw in new keywords, hoping for a new line of investigation, only to get yet another 'uhh...' as the characters fail to register your point, and continue with their lines as normal.
And as a test - I played the entire game, doing nothing but saying 'potato', constantly, and managed to get the ending in which they both stop, and deny that anything has gone on, saying they're fine, and that you should leave.
'What does this picture say to you?'
'potato'
'That's a great answer!'
The most interesting point with that, was that Grace raised the point 'You don't even give me a yes or a no answer when I ask', suggesting that they were aware, that yes, I was shouting gibberish at them. But it didn't change the story, at all. In refusing to participate in the story, it carried on without me.

Facade isn't a bad game. But from what I can see, your choices do not matter a great deal, and the narrative will continue regardless of what you do.

03/03/16 - Production Studio (Cinematic) - Production Schedule



























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