Interactive Narrative Week 5

For this week, I decided to play "The Wolf Among Us" and during my experience, I was constantly thinking about what morals I followed and what kinds of choices they lead me to make.

The Wolf Among Us is split into five different chapters and mainly involves the point and click mechanic for players to investigate around the mysterious death of a character named Faith at the beginning of the game. There are also quick time events along with conversational choices when interacting with other characters which can impact the player's narrative varying from slight to vast lengths.

The player controls Bigby who was previously known as the Big Bad Wolf along the Fables and because of his dark past, he now acts as the Sheriff of Fabletown to reconstruct his bad image. Being shown this fact alone made me consider how I would make my decisions from both my own morals along with where the character stood within society. Because the other residents of Fabletown have a hard time believing Bigby stemming from his aggressive nature, I found myself following my "no violence" policy, holding back when it came to violence in an attempt to prove Bigby had changed as an individual. Even though this killed me once during the beginning for not hitting the Woodsman with an axe, the majority of the events afterwards awarded my decisions with characters remembering my small acts of kindness during the narrative progression. Brandon Perdue mentioned, "There is plenty of reason to try to quantify a player's moral choices somehow in the game system. It allows rewards for certain kinds of activity. Non­player characters can react according to a player's reputation." Even though there is no clear mechanic gauging your reputation implemented within the game, the clear variety created for character relationships and narrative paths made it feel as if the player's moral choices made an impact. The game offers many choice situations, both small and large, to challenge the player with what they believe is correct, and also has times to test the player's patience when interrogating other characters: how long will you hold back until you bring back the wolf's claws?

Overall, The Wolf Among Us is a game which I consider a more compelling one because of its strength regarding how it incorporates the player's morales along with the gameplay and narrative. From this fact alone, I intend to continue my experience until the end with this game. :)

References
Telltale Games. (Developer). (2013). The Wolf Among Us [Video Game]. United States: Telltale Games
B. Perdue. (Author). (2011). Ethical Dilemmas and Dominant Moral Strategies In Games [Article]. http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/6460/ethical_dilemmas_and_dominant_.php

20/03 Update - Character turnaround

Our group doesn't have a turnaround yet so I drew a character turnaround of Butter for his current design. It is highly likely that we will change his clothing (wrapper) from what we have at the moment. ><

Butter

Mass Update! - 17/03

Continuing from before, I sketched a few ideas regarding the different poses Butter could use.

Pose for the camera Butter! ><

Where will your butt sit?

I also designed a few plates with one idea in mind: make it look cringe worthy. To give this effect, I added multiple patterns filled with hearts, roses and flower petals to make it look as if Butter prepared this lovely seat to look romantic but appears cheesy instead. My group members along with lecturers liked the bottom left design with the flowerbed, saying it fit the idea the best out of all of the plates.

Feedback Session

We had a group feedback session with the lecturers today, and we were relieved to hear that they thought we were really nailing the character down with all of the group's hard work. We had also discussed our problems with the butter wrapper which lead to ideas of it being changed into a highcollar shirt rather than a bathrobe. 

Throughout the week, a few of the other members headed to Jonathan's apartment to do some early sound recording for the animatic Mikayla and Michelle Z are preparing. (Really sad I couldn't go because it sounded like it was hilarious x'D)

Mass Update! - 15/03

The final script has been announced and the puns were approved by lecturers! X'D Many thanks to Mikayla and Michelle Z for their hard work in putting the script together along with having to come up with the vast number of puns!

New Pun: "I 'AM' the cream of the crop!"

Working off the final script, there was a group discussion with the storyboard Mikayla and Michelle Z made. We all had input on details such as camera angles and how the character could be posed. It was really helpful in the way it made it a lot easier to actually visualize the animation. We were a bit worried about the timing and did make a few cuts from the original storyboard to shorten it and now Mikayla and Michelle Z are going to transfer it to an animatic.

Page 1 filled with sticky notes :D

Page 2!

Looking at the storyboard, I decided to draw a few pose ideas for the butter along with designing the plate he would present himself on.

Mass update! - 14/03

Mass update on what happened during the past week! ><

Current chosen design

Our team gathered together and we discussed all the different ideas we had for the appearance of our Butter character. It was good that we had many people working on him, because the more ideas made it a lot easier to get his design on point. In the end, our group decided to use this as the base design, while developing how his clothes work throughout this week. We had combined many different aspects from everyone's ideas. 

From that, I worked on trying to get different designs for Butter's wrapper. We intended to make it look like a bathrobe to give off the affect of a "high class" character despite his incredibly cheesy lines.

Little idea of including a heart on the wrapper for when Butter is rejected

Different ideas for Butter's wrapper

I tried to explore how the butter wrapper could be used as a bathrobe...by starting off with looking at one. For the 2D arms, our group remembered Doodlebob from the Spongebob series and got influence from that. I sketched up different designs of how the "sleeves" would work, along with seeing if the waistband from the bathrobe would look natural - later in the week, we realised a lot of us were having trouble making it look like a bathrobe without the waistband because actual butter wrappers wouldn't have it in the first place. T_T; There were also little inclusions of how the word "Butter" could be written on the robe along with the heart.

Interactive Narrative - Week 4

This week, I had decided to try the tactic game "The Banner Saga" due to being a fan of the Final Fantasy Tactics games. While doing so, the game had made it extremely clear regarding when the player encountered "choice situations" while the consequences were left uncertain. This meant that as the player, I would have to consider different outcomes and the current status of my clansmen while trying to get them to safety.

The game involves a different variety of choice situations, the most prominent game play situation being the tactical battle system. The player must control different characters with different strengths and weaknesses as they try to take down the main villains who go by the name Dreads in a turn based battle. This in itself, can be seen as a choice situation because the player must make wise decisions in an attempt to defeat the enemies with the least deaths as possible: characters falling in battle would leave them injured for the next one, making it more difficult. However, while poor choices could lead to defeats, the game had times where I found it quite forgiving as your main fighters would be injured along with a few casualties of clansmen who never play any role towards the actual narrative. Some battles appeared important for the storyline, but because I never received an actual "game over", I didn't find it too devastating apart from feeling guilty about the death of my clansmen, so it was quite surprising when I actually "died." Initially confused, I realised that it was the same in other tactical games I had played in the past. Sebastian Domsch mentioned, "Depending on the extent of information about the consequences of a given choice, the nature of that choice will differ..."(2013) Not knowing when the game would announce a "game over" made my decisions a lot more careful rather than just clicking whatever I wanted to for the sake of hitting something. "Would I need to replay the level? Even if I don't, will I have enough supplies now for my men to survive?"

More important moments of choice situations are included when the player chooses how the characters interact with each other. When controlling leaders Hakon or Rook, the player has the choice to either make the characters try to maintain peace within their respective caravans, or make them treat the other members in a hostile manner. This is done through conversations with other important characters where the player physically picks which piece of dialogue their character shall speak. Along with this, the player will also have to make decisions that would affect the morale of the caravan during their journey, meaning that they will encounter different events along the way - an example being the option to save dying bandits. I personally saved them despite being low on supplies and their backgrounds: I wanted to build my character as a hero. The impact of my decision was told a day later, as the bandits had taken a portion of the supplies and disappeared. The game gives you interactive choices to build your character into who you want them to be. Some choices aren't too relevant like a drunk clan member, while other ones could lead to major consequences such as having a strong fighter actually die. A lot of choices actually seemed to determine whether people lived or not, even during the least expected moments.

After playing the game, I concluded that player choice - no matter how little impact it may have - personally makes games feel immersive. The player gets to "craft" their character through the story, as well as having to rack their brains regarding what kinds of conclusions could await their decisions. The mysteries created from my morales were what held my attention throughout the game.

References
Domsch, S. (Author). (2013). Storyplay [Book]. Germany: Walter de Gruyter GmbH
Stoic. (Developer). (2014). The Banner Saga [Game]. Austin: Texas, Stoic

11/03 Update - Development and Feedback Session

Because I'm helping the head of 3D (Jerwin) with the 3D animation, I decided to focus more on the actual "body" of Butter. The silhouettes from before were the starting point to exploring different shapes of the butter: seeing how things would and wouldn't work. I wanted to keep the rectangular base shape of the butter, but add differences such as a melted bottom.

Body Shapes - What works?

 After sketching designs for different body shapes, I then went on to explore how the hair could look for the character. Curls were the most used due to the butter's softness which would cause strands to hang loose. I thought that using a butter knife for "hair styling" would have a natural look, while also giving the character a unique appeal with the strange hair.

Butter, which hairstyle would you like today?

I ended up continuing my journey down the hair road, leading to exploring a bit of facial hair. Because facial hair makes a character look quite masculine, I thought it would be a nice touch to our rather flirtatious Butter. However, while doing so I realised that this would require a face to create many designs: something that Jonathan would be working on in 2D. I ended up going back to focusing more on the 3D aspects of the model.

Time to get some clothes young one.

I was starting to try different ways the butter wrapper could clothe our character while also thinking about how this would affect his limbs if he ended up having any at all. We initially had also considered having the wrapper act as his arms and after asking group members, everyone agreed that this would be the most natural looking approach...

BUT...(ter...-_-)

After seeing some of the designs with muscular arms, our group started thinking, "What if he just grew arms during a certain event for comedic effect?" A classmate also gave ideas of doing something similar to tadpoles growing limbs. From this discussion, we decided to consider having a 3D body, but using 2D elements for the growing arms to match with the 2D face. This would also save time for Jerwin and I when it comes to animating. :D

On another note, a feedback session with the lecturers was held for each group. We actually had a lot of good feedback. A lot of us are doing concept designs, meaning we had more opportunities to nail the character.

The script? Nearly there! The puns were great to the point a lecturer stated,
"Don't churn me down is delightfully awful" -Dane 2016

The first pun "Bready" was told to be reworked into another butter pun so the viewer doesn't become thrown off. Also, the puns would have to build up in humour and still stay true to the character, meaning if you acted as the character and were embarrassed to say a line, then it is probably a bad piece of dialogue. 

Aside from that, all goods, all goods! I plan on doing some final sketches for the design of the packaging.

Interactive Narrative - Week 3

After playing the game Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, I came to realise that the story nodes used within the game resulted with both strengths as well as weaknesses towards the narrative and immersion.

Pascal Luban and Joël Meziane describe in their article "Turning a Linear Story into a Game: The Missing Link between Fiction and Interactive Entertainment" (2001) that cut scenes are used to introduce characters as well as important objects to feed enough information to the player so they keep wanting to play out the narrative. Cut scenes are quite frequent during the play through of Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, often showing the different obstacles that need to be overcome, as well as important objects such as the dagger which gives the player the power to manipulate time. However, while most cut scenes are deemed relevant, there are a few unnecessary ones such as the protagonist sheathing his sword every time a battle sequence is over. Along with this, I found it rather off-putting when cut scenes had no way to be skipped, especially if they had already been viewed before.

While cut scenes had both strengths and weaknesses within this game, I thought the lack of text and other "extravagantly detailed gauges" was a plus factor towards the player becoming immersed within the universe of the game. Apart from the tips given during the tutorial, there is little to no text throughout the game telling the player what objectives needed to be carried out. Also, the health and sand bar is located at the top left and both are not designed to look extremely decorative. If the game lost this simplicity, the player would have a harder time getting fully absorbed into the atmosphere the game sets.

A final story node I came across would be the camera angles within the game. Pascal Luban and Joël Meziane also mention in their article that "Changes of camera shots essentially allow a visual diversity and thus stimulate the audience's attention." Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time had integrated mechanics of including landscape cameras to aid the player through their journey. Instead of helpful, I actually found this rather pointless as a game mechanic. The only use of it was appreciating the visual design of the environment but it hardly ever helped when I had trouble finding where I actually had to go to.

The mentioned story nodes were only the main ones I concluded to have affected my experience regarding how immersed I was with the narrative. Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time definitely has a strong use of story nodes, especially the lack of text and unnecessary graphics to help the player become more absorbed. However, the game does also include a few weaknesses when it comes to cut scenes and camera angles which slightly hinders this immersion factor.


References
Ubisoft Montreal (Developer). (2003). Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time [Video Game]. France: Ubisoft

P. Luban, J, Meziane (Authors). (2001). Turning a Linear Story into a Game: The Missing Link between Fiction and Interactive Entertainment [Article]. Gamasutra

Butter Character Profile + Final Script

I realised I hadn't uploaded Butter's character profile or the final script we were working off T_T

Character Profile

Script

Thank you to both Mikayla and Michelle Z for the character profile and the script for the group!

07/03 Update - Initial Concepts

Our group split into 2 groups to:
       -have Mikayla and Michelle Z to start with storyboarding

       -the rest of us would come up with designs for our Butter star :3

Mikayla and Michelle Z had also provided us with a character sheet for us to consider while coming up with character designs. He's a rather simple character to fit a simple story: his main  trait is that he is rather greasy and flirtatious. He also wears the wrapping for clothing.

I started sketching some initial ideas regarding what Butter could look like. While doing so, I was given a lot of input from other group members, as well as other classmates which I am very thankful for :3

Jerwin also reminded me of the silhouette method from last year, where we could design initial silhouettes for the character first, then build the characters off the ones which seemed to fit the character description well.

..This isn't going to be enough! I plan on doing more sketches and mainly look up some facial expressions for the character. 

05/03 Update

After discussing the schedule with the lecturers, they suggested a few changes such as Michelle Zhen and Mikayla swapping jobs when they do title/credits and editing just before break. And uh...
they told me to be Director...o_O;;;
I personally think that Mikayla would have been better for the job because the story is her idea OTL. However, I plan to try and learn what kinds of visions she had for the animation and base my judgements off that. I'm guessing they gave it to someone doing animation so they could base the decisions after considering things like problems we could run across during the animating process.

We plan on starting off with moodboards for character design. I tried to get characters which were given anthropomorphic qualities to get ideas for how we could go with the butter.

Moodboards from myself(left) and Jerwin (right)

We found that a lot of characters were just given human limbs (characters from Beauty and the Beast) and characters like Bellsprout (Pokemon) and the Pixar lamp were using their physical attributes to function like human body parts like the leaves as arms, and the lamp head as...a head.


Adjusted schedule: jobs for Mikayla and Michelle Zhen changed during April

3/3/2016 - Butteam After Feedback

Today we had to discuss our final selected story idea with the lecturers. This was for us to know where we could make initial improvements, get ideas with how we could go about story telling, and character projection.
The main point was that the design of the Butter character would be crucial towards telling a more compelling story, even if it is a short comedy. Would the character have limbs? Because he was a stick of butter, we were told to think carefully about what factors could impact the design into expressing the character's feelings to the full potential.
There was a reminder about last year's Flower Sack assignment -  getting an inanimate object and giving it anthropomorphic qualities. Line of action would be a skill to look out for a lot when it comes to body language. One of the lecturers also asked, "Will the butter be...naked?" (...) This gave us ideas of using the butter wrapping as "limbs" rather than actually giving him actual limbs. The fire character Calcifer from Howel's Moving Castle was an example given to us regarding a character who usually has no limbs. Calcifer's fire morphs into arms at times, giving more space to express himself.

Look at them arms

Jerwin also reminded us that characters from Beauty and the Beast didn't have actual limbs, but certain aspects of their "bodies" were made to act as them. 

Another point made was that the puns were too broad topic-wise: he should only make butter/dairy puns so that it makes more sense. Also, we might have to cut down the amount of puns included to fit the entire animation within the 30-40 second limit. 

From these notes, I think I should probably make a moodboard filled with references to different character which share the anthropomorphic trait, along with some actual butter to see what I can do with it >.> Jerwin and I also decided to either get actual butter and craft some concepts with it, or just try using clay instead if it sounds like it will get too messy. 

Interactive Narrative - Week 2

When discussing the interactivity a game possesses, I personally believe that it should be judged by how much a person's decisions impact the narrative of the game. The interactive story game "Façade"

(M. Mateas, A. Stern. (2005). Façade (1.1) [PC game]. Procedural Arts. Retrieved from: http://www.interactivestory.net/) is one which allows the player to construct their own traditional Three Act Narrative Structure for their play session. The game achieves this by direct interaction being available through typing sentences to communicate with the characters, as well as interacting with various objects through the click of the mouse. Because of these elements, despite players being given same beginnings of being invited to the house of Trip and Grace, the events which occur will differ depending on their actions and choices when speaking to the characters, causing various middles and endings to the set Three Act structure (examples being one of Trip or Grace leaving). Therefore, the player is uncertain with what to expect as a consequence from their actions. Game designers Eric Zimmerman and Katie Salen mentioned: "If a game is certain, if the outcome is known in advance, there is no reason to play in the first place." (Zimmerman, Salen, 2003). Facade's interactivity clearly makes use of this factor because of the multiple scenarios the player can generate. However, the only flaw to this mechanic would be the clear limitations of the AIs within the game. There will be times when Trip and Grace don't take into account what the player says, and an ending is mainly decided on a "yes or no" question by one of the characters. 

Resources

M. Mateas, A. Stern. (2005). Façade (1.1) [PC game]. Procedural Arts. Retrieved from: http://www.interactivestory.net/

E. Zimmerman, K. Salen. (Game Designers). (2003). Rules of Play [Book]. United States: MIT Press