The good and the bad

Researching and communicating my ideas has helped me to expand my thinking beyond the small pops on inspiration in my mind. Rather than just a thought, I have had to explain my thoughts and feelings in detail, fitting to the length of a blog post. I have also thought about how my writing can be interesting to the reader.  Some of the question pairs made me think creatively about how to express my research, and I visualised dieter rams 10 principles of good design which is still very memorable to me because of that.

I enjoyed coming to these presentations as it woke me up and inspired me for the rest of the day. I would say that the history of indie was my favourite presentation. It was colourful, it had multiple videos and it had a nice timeline which I was able to jot down for reference in the future. There was also lots of researchable slides containing artists and developers that I could look at later on.

I feel like I could have used the sources in a more viable way rather than just aiming to get the blog posts complete. I have a short memory but want to re-visit some of these ideas somewhere that is accessible and organised. My time management of this module could have been better as I had to post some blogs before the hand in, so I feel like I didn’t spend as much time on them as I probably should have. I also enjoyed the blogs more when I was taking the time to research different parts and explain thoroughly.

“Every duty that is bidden to wait comes back with seven fresh duties at it’s back” – Charles Kingsly

What I learnt

This module has taken my research down avenues I have not thought to explore when working on projects, Specifically taking my target audience’s thoughts and understanding into consideration.  I have learnt that using interactive ideas can really help me to engage my audience in new ways. I have also learnt different ways to remember information, as I am a visual learner. Also, on the other side of the module I have learnt how a presentation can be interesting and keep an audiences attention.

Throughout my previous projects I have not researched and explored as many avenues as I would like to and I think this module has definitely opened my mind to different areas, as well as teaching me the basics in game design, design in general and technology.I will definitely be looking back at some of this research for  future game design projects.

Suggestions for future:

In the future I will make a separate document on the slides noting the information that is not written so I can look for it again in the future. I should also be using the time allocated after these lectures to create a portfolio of research I can access at any time.

A) Behavioural modelling is an important part of NPC development for games. Should emotive modelling be part of that development?

I think for some games emotive modelling is very important, especially in storytelling games and interactive games; where your actions matter. Characters emotions are a part of their personality and could influence your decisions. Until dawn had really good emotive characters that kept you guessing about who the ‘killer’ was and may convince you to kill off certain people, affecting the way you play and remember the game.

When you have set decisions this works very well as they have already thought about the AI’s reaction, however in real play-time with too much options the programmed response would try to find something it recognised and build a reaction from that; not completely understanding what you was trying to do. A good example of this is Facade. The story is based on your communication with the AI and you get to decide what you talk about. The design of the game is very simple apart from the facial expressions of the AI and this is to try and mimic the response from human beings when they understand something. Cleverbot is another good example as it picks up on most of the language used but doesn’t understand more complex language and so can repeat itself or start another conversation.

B) Consider your favourite video game. If it contains AI controlled agents how individualistic are they and there behaviours, and, how might you set about improving them?

Final fantasy would be one of my favourite games, and I feel like you don’t impact the story at all through gameplay. If I was able to communicate with the characters and get response I feel it would be very minimal but could still be a cute idea. For those that love finding out the backstory through exploring it could be a new avenue of the game to enjoy. If the game was to include as much detail it would deter the players from the concept of the game which is battle tactics.

if all the characters were to have individualistic behaviours it would be overlooked by the amount of other aspects the game has. for a lot of work it would be dismissed within a minute so the user can progress to other aspects. I would however improve some of the characters dialect, if they had mentions of locations or people I think it would help me to imagine the world and sense of civilization that the game was set in. Other than this, the main characters have unique personalities and behaviours which are shown throughout the game and I think that the focus works better on them.

I think unless the game is solely focused around the interaction with AI its unnecessary and deters the players attention.

Sources:

https://www.investopedia.com/terms/b/behavioral-

modeling.asphttp://www.interactivestory.net/screenshot5.html

http://www.cleverbot.com

A) Choose one of the indie designers / developers and outline why there work and approach is of interest to you.

Jason Rohrer’s work is very different and you can see the level of progression he has made through his work. From shooting geometrical shapes on a grid to hand-drawn life stories Rohrer’s work is always changing and has unique ideas that have never been done before.  He uses wide ranges of inspiration to create ideas for his games which he sometimes posts on his personal website. Using simple programs like MS paint and gimp he has created story games, apps and multiplayer games

One of his games interests be in particular, called ‘Sleep is Death’. This was his seventh game produced. The concept is very unique. Kids play and make stories with their imagination. Recently sandbox games have become more popular (Garry’s mod for example) which allow people to make their own games within a game. I’m in love with this idea as the possibilities are endless and make memories. Of course, this is always way more fun with other people. Rohrer included these different elements to make a story based sandbox game where players get to decide what the story is, what visuals to include and how well they role play.

His newest game idea; One hour One Life, is also a very different idea that I will definitely be following and taking inspiration from.

‘Header’ For Sleep Is Death, by Jason Rohrer

B)  What do you think could be the most exciting indie projects that are in development

The most exciting project to me is the development of a game called ‘Stonehearth’, founded by Tom and Tony Cannon. Originally, the demo was used to start a Kickstarter which originally asked for $150,000, however they ended up making $751,920 and gaining 22,844 backers. overwhelmed by their support, they make sure to post weekly development blogs to let players know of the updates they are working on.

Started in 2013 it is still being updated and pushing the boundaries now in 2017. controlling villagers became popular after the make of ‘virtual villagers’ in 2011. To this day, people still play this classic game as it comes out on different platforms. I think this was an inspiration to many games including Stonehearth.

The developers of stonehearth have however taken many different ideas to make their game modern and exciting. one of the most interesting concepts to me is that you can create your own buildings and control your military. The game is very in depth and lets you control the whole creation of your town/village. At the very start of it’s creation; the developers talked about wanting to incorporate a multiplayer aspect that has never been done before with this kind of game.  On 21/11 the weekly blog was about testing their multiplayer idea, and included a video of some of the developers being able to play in the same world. however there was still a lot of problems for actual players regarding this, but i’m very excited whenever I see updates have been made.

‘Stonehearth’ By Radiant

sources:

https://discourse.stonehearth.net/t/stonehearth-steam-grid-icons/7611

http://hcsoftware.sourceforge.net/jason-rohrer/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stonehearth

A) select one example to outline the key concepts of the interactive narrative genre?

Interactive narrative games are made with the purpose of engaging it’s audience within a story that they are able to determine the outcome of. The story must keep the players attention by giving them plenty of choices so they feel they are impacting the game play. Story lines in other genres such as MMORPG’s are mostly ignored and skipped to prioritize leveling and battle, so these are perfect for people who enjoy more story based interaction

Other medias like books have adapted on this idea by using page numbers as indication of how to follow the story based on decisions. People have also made simple yes-no ‘decision graphs’ that help people decide certain things based on their answers.

One twine game called ‘Horse Master’ by Tom McHenry makes you think about the organisation of your thoughts and information given so you can progress. Without the knowledge of the thought hidden in the text, you cannot progress. I think this is a good example of what an interactive narrative needs to be. there are few pictures and no sound, but only the readers perceptional imagination from the aspects described. The style is similar to that of a web comic but with more interaction. Using the readers imagination rather than adding images makes the story feel personal  and will also make it more memorable.

Horse master: The game of horse mastery by Tom McHenry

B) does the interactive narrative still have a role to play in video games today. Give exemplary examples?

Some of the most popular modern games use this genre as a starting point. Until dawn, for example, was a huge success not only among gamers, but also movie fanatics; as it incorporated that strong sense of story and characteristics from real people. There was an end goal of the game (keep everyone alive). Different endings also made people play the game more than once. Discussion of how people played the game differently is what made the game popular; almost being a competition between friends to see how many people you could save. Thinking back on the game, I remember it more as a movie because of it’s beautiful graphics and intense story, and think they could’ve included more when it came to action scenes. The actions at the beginning of the story didn’t actually decipher the story as it went along, only the life threatening actions towards the end did, which made all my actions up until then useless in terms of story line.

There was a therapist scene in until dawn which actually explained how you perceive things and what you’re actions mean which was really interesting and I think they should’ve adapted that more within the story.

Without being interested in where the story takes you, there would be no point of playing. However, some games like ‘It’s a beautiful day’ by Yllogique focus more creating an atmosphere to the game with images and sounds you can explore by selecting different options. The aim for this game is to see ‘the beautiful day’ that is outside, and it’s not as simple as it seems. The game has a relaxing vibe and is a self-care game that makes you think about your actions.

It’s a beautiful day by Yllogique

https://www.pcmag.com/feature/317795/the-top-10-interactive-games-for-story-lovers/1

https://itch.io/games/tag-twine