Welcome back!

This will be my sixth post on my design blog. Today I will be discussing the information that we learned in the sixth week of my Game Systems Design class. As I have said in my previous posts if you follow this blog, I would appreciate any feedback you may have. Anything at all, whether it is critiquing the design of my game or giving me inspiration/recommendations.

Minor Update:

So I spent some time creating a nice background song for the beginning of my game. I created the song in a program called FL Studio. In this program, I used drums, kicks, and high hats. Also, I used a synthesizer called FLEX in order to create the piano sounds you are hearing right now. This music is 100% created by me and I own all the property rights to this song. I am only showing a sample of the song here so it does not get stolen, just in case.

I wanted to create something that will set a good pace that tells the player I should be doing something right now. A type of tune that makes the player feel anxious. However, I wanted this song to be more of a lo-fi beat and less aggressive. Something that feels a bit cozy for players so they feel comfortable. I think I did a good job in producing that effect. I also wanted for this music to give a somewhat mythical/magical vibe to the world.

I am pretty proud of the song I have made so far, I think it will make a great addition to my game.

This week:

To start this post today, we are going to continue Module II, the module I started discussing last week. This module is called Fundamentals of Gamification: Learning to Prototype. The lesson we learned during the second week of this module is about telling a story. Personally learning about storytelling has been one of my favorite lessons so far. One of my favorite things to do with video games is to discover the lore of the game.

We will go over narrative/storytelling and the impact that they have on the games that we create.

• Elements of Narrative
  • Character
  • Plot
  • Setting
  • Style
  • Theme - Professor Slota

Games are driven by NARRATIVE, an intersection of settings, events, and people.

Designer narratives help us engage with game content and can act as a vehicle for transfer to the real world. - Professor Slota

This is an example of a circular diagram that can be used to help structure the narrative of your game. There are other diagrams like The Hero's Journey diagram that can also be used to help structure your narrative. However, I personally like Dan Harmon's model the best.

This model basically says that YOU as the protagonist, NEED something. The player GOES to SEARCH for it. Once the player FINDS that thing they TAKE it. When the player RETURNS to where they came from they are CHANGED for better or worse.

The Embryo model is supposed to act more as a guideline than an actual rule. That does not mean it's the only way to construct a good narrative either. There are plenty of other models to structure your narrative around like The Hero's Journey model.

Personally, The Embryo model fits what I am looking for the best in how I want to structure my narrative.

My Game

• Scope
  • How big is the world?
    • The world is going to be a small sliver of a much larger world.
      • The world will be constructed by a series of rooms similar to Hollow Knight or The Binding of Isaac
        • Passing certain milestones/areas will unlock certain areas in the world the player previously did not have access to.
• Sequence
  • In what time period is the story being told?
    • Short time span
      • Lore-wise the game will be based on a long time span
• Perspective
  • From whose perspective is the world presented?
    • First-person perspective from the protagonist's point of view
      • The character will start off knowing very little about the world until the player progress thru the game and learns about the world

Thank you for reading my sixth post on my blog. In my next post, I will be going over module II in greater detail one last time. I will go over all of the information from Week 7: Getting a Lay of the Land as well as give more insight into the design of my game. Any feedback is greatly appreciated! Please leave a comment!