April 9 Class Notes

Presentation Slides

• Dynamic narratives aren't necessarily moving from one to the other; object oriented notion of narrative is based off of object oriented programming; classes have variables. When you collected enough variables of a class you can enter another class (trigger that class). Having a certain inventory system triggers certain elements
• fire - important for many things; fighting and cooking and etc. Making food made us smarter (cascading effect); benefit of warmth, protection, striking fear, hurting oneself.
• What if we made it more object oriented; make it less like a series of linear narratives
• first person world puzzles issues?
• what does the player DO at each painting?
• One interaction per painting where users can choose to activate that bit of story -- more paintings needed, easier to manage
• OR multiple interactions per painting that unlock different parts of the story? -- fewer paintings needed, harder to manage
• CONCERN: this could turn into a bunch of little minigames and that's a bad thing. needs a basic mechanic that is relevant in all paintings
• walk, run, pick up stuff, choose direction, engage/not engage :
• sneak (not run) from a predator
• try to kill a predator that might fail, or go back to village to gather peeps
• characters dying might have issues down the line for the plot
• node sets ('classes') can be a collection of variables
• takeaway - come up with VERY simple mechanisms that work. simple things to do at various points.
• kill an animal, your pickup motion can "eat" it
• boss battle at the end is a bit meh.
• maybe the reason why this thing appears is because something has desecrated sacred ground - what if player can undo it?
• maybe if you do fight, you realize that fighting was the wrong answer
• what if beast has a baby?
• something that uncovers what the thing is
• class input -
• single input system to represent life is "gamey" but interesting
• varied gameplay isn't possible with limited time and limited resources
• what does the player KNOW at the beginning of the cave? why do they know they're in a cave?
• how does the viewer know that you're trying to tell them the story of the first person character?
• symbol on the wall matches symbol on the hand?
• letter to open the story?
• first painting needs to be important
• jpatt sidenote - what if first painting is map-like; what if there's some sort of painting cue along the walls to imply walking direction.
• How do they know to interact with the walls?
• how does the player know what the goal is?
• platforming permanence - doing things has impact on how you can progress (failure to get food in first person platforming sequence, etc). do these things also happen in paintings?
• decide how we want player to play through experience

Spring Term Week 1 Notes

• Our focus for the term should be to push the envelope in regards to the narrative of our game.  

• Currently the weakest area of our game is the player's decision on how to play the game: violently vs. passively.
• It's like trying to make two good game experiences vs. one.  
• Also, seems simplistic rather than creating a more complex narrative and creating a drive to act and respond a certain way.

• Suggestions
• Give the player different strategic choices throughout the game that influence the play.  
• Borrow from history
• Look into various empires throughout history and their philosophies on how to rule the people they conquered.
• Example: Persians

• Try to build up a history (this could play a major role in the game)
• Choices that generate parts of the narrative further along
• Example: By killing the chiefs son, war breaks out between tribes. 
• Could even have missing story chunks as if those parts were told with shadows/shadow puppets.
• Play up the language of the cave as a visual narrative.

• Symbol mechanic could be used to build a Rosetta Stone that is revealed later. 

By next week, we need to come up with ways to push our narrative further using.  We need to figure out what the player knows, what the player sees, and what the player does.  

We can use storyboards, the game mechanisms, and the choices made throughout the game to describe our planned changes.  We need to be able to supply a solid example of what one play-through of the might be like.  

Cave Tale Paper Prototype

Cave Tale Paper Prototype
Meeting Jan 21, 2013
Attended by Full Team

• Game Structure
• Players - 1 Player vs. AI
• Objectives - Reach the campsite at the base of the cave with the stick of fire.
• Procedures - 
• Player encounters "Unknowns": shadowy entities whose intentions are unclear.
• Select one option among [Illuminate] or [Spear]
• Illuminate reveals what the entity is
• Tribesman - can be useful as an asset, they have resources like spears and can help during platforming sequences
• Predator - dangerous beasts that can be killed and harvested for meat or avoided using bait
• Game - Killed for meat, less dangerous
• Spear will automatically destroy it
• Once revealed, player can make [offering of meat], [use spear], or other options as the game progresses
• Player traverses platforming sequences that compose of the cave's structural makeup, e.g., they jump across stalagmites.
• Rules
• The more damage done to one species, the more aggressive and numerous they become
• Each room has a roulette-style chance for what unknowns are
• The player's behavior influences the design of the agonist
• Resources
• Spears, Meat, Flame
• Gameplay Mechanic Visualization
• World System
• Player Activities
• Rewards/Meters
• Why is this subjective?
• Cave Tale dynamically reacts to user actions in a way that not only affects the gameplay but the narrative structure. 
• The choices players make directly influences the outcome of the game; as the light expands so does the agonist's understanding of the world the player leads it through.