Interactive Narrative - week 6

After trying out "Fahrenheit: Indigo Prophecy" for this week, I found that the way the player interacted with the playable characters played a large part in the progression of the narrative and my own involvement with it.

Throughout the game, the player is able to control different characters to progress the narrative from a multiple of perspectives. The game's mechanics mainly involve the player to decide how they will carry out certain objectives given to them, an example being the beginning of the narrative when Carla and Tyler are investigating the restaurant for information regarding the murder. Some actions performed are clear that it actually impacts narrative progression, while the player is also open to make decisions such as Tyler turning on music which isn't necessary at all to the given objective. However, the game has a mental health meter which is affected by each character's interaction with the environment, meaning it is affected by what actions the player wishes the controlled character to carry out. Keeping a character healthy can also be considered important to the narrative, as the story wouldn't be able to progress when the player gets a game over due to the meter reaching zero.

The game seems to follow a linear narrative, but with non-linear gameplay. This can easily be noticed even within the first level of the game: Lucas can either hide his murder weapon, meaning it would be slightly harder for the player to find while playing as Carla and Tyler, or he can completely forget about it and have it abandoned in clear view on the bathroom floor. The game's narrative only seems to branch off the player's decisions during the final level, as there are a total of three separate endings to this game, while earlier choices alter the player's gameplay experience until the next story node. The choices offered within this game, whether it being actions or conversations between different characters, allows the player to become immersed and feel an interaction between them and the environment within the game. An article about video game characters mentioned, " As such, Andrew Burn (2006, pp. 72–73) argues, they play a dual role as both player agent and fictional character, belonging simultaneously to the “ludic” and “representational” systems that comprise the game." (2013). This statement describes the relationship the player has with their playable characters: they control their actions much like a puppeteer, but the characters themselves would be an entity with their own thoughts and emotions within the game world they exist. This relationship allows the player to feel a connection to the set fictional universe and in "Fahrenheit: Indigo Prophecy", the way the player's choices affect a character's actions makes the gameplay appear more interactive in comparison to, maybe a platformer.

From my experience with the game, "Fahrenheit: Indigo Prophecy" involves game mechanics which allows the player to form a relationship with the characters they control as they interact with the game's universe. This interaction which allowed for non-linear gameplay of a linear narrative was a driving factor towards my want of further playing the game.

Resources 

Quantic Dream. (Developer). (2005). Fahrenheit: Indigo Prophecy [Video Game]. France: Quantic Dream

Aldred, J. (Author). (2013). Characters from: The Routledge Companion to Video Game Studies [eBook]. Routledge.
Retrived: http://animation.onlearn.co.nz/pluginfile.php/2711/mod_resource/content/0/Characters.pdf

02/04 Update

This week, I focused on finalizing plate designs by making notes on what shape it would have, along with what shapes it would include.

What is on the Plate?

I talked with the group members and they agreed when I said I wanted to make it look as if the butter himself had decorated a space for him to invite his love interest to. As mentioned in a past update, I really wanted to make it appear like some setting for a cheesy romance film but at the same time, not overdo it too much to the extent it pulls the focus away from our butter star.

For starters, I shaped the plate into a flower shape because it wouldn't be as interesting if we just had a circle. Also, it follows the theme with the multiple roses placed at the four sides of the plate since roses symbolize love. I also intend to include a flowerbed of roses in the middle for Butter to situate himself on - litter him with roses and it is a bed made with love >.>;;

Drawing for the Rosebed

I drew up a bunch of roses for his bed and intend to colour it with simple shading so it doesn't stand out too much - the red will already be enough to make it noticeable. If I feel that there are too many leaves, I plan on removing them along with making some of the roses have less petals as they look rather...detailed(?) compared to what I want (apart from the rose on the left side).

Past Update >.> - 28/03

Jerwin from our group had made a bunch of colour concepts (Thanks man!) and from looking at those, we all decided that the golded wrapper for the butter would make him look the most elegant, as well as emphasize his "high end creamy blend" status.
However, we had changed our wrapper shape into the Elvis Presley type high collar shirt as suggested by lecturers due to how we couldn't really have a bathrobe without the waistband.
We weren't too sure how we would make the folds look realistic so...
Jerwin, Zack and I had a job:
Round 2 photoshoot with butter. Jerwin went to the dairy and purchased a stick/block/bar of butter >.>;;;; (A plus being that it had gold wrapping! :D)

Front of butter - Couldn't open it fully because it already smelled bad as it was

Side view of the butter wrapping

Back of butter - raised for the butt

The back would have the brand name and logo

We did this mainly to figure out how the wrapper would have its creases and folds, meaning it would help us to make the wrapper look as natural as possible during the modelling process.

After studying the butter, we had a few design points that we knew we had to include in the final design:

Results during investigation

-Barcode at "front" 

-Might include nutritional information
-Ripped Top Half for Collar: Presley shirt
-Bottom of wrapper curls up + folds at the back for the butt
-Writing on the "back" for logo

Producer Michelle Zhen also suggested we include the slogan "Spread the Love" where Love is replaced with a heart symbol instead for the ripping effect at the end when the butter is heartbroken.

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.