Research : Storytelling

 

 

As part of this project, we assessed ways that story is told in games.

Linear story :

Perhaps the most popular form of story in games can be identified in the Call of Duty series. The game gives you a cut scene before a mission setting the tone for the level ahead, then the game points you at an objective and the player fights their way toward it. Progression is usually very narrow with very few chances to deviate. During gameplay there may be plot significance to alter the flow of the game, and many visual and audio cues are presented to the player in order to ensure they're not missed. Ways to progress are narrow and usually one way.

Another example of this story method is shown in the Super Mario series. An initial cut-scene is shown and sets the story; 'the princess is in danger, go save the princess'. A simple story that can take the character through any number of levels.

This form of story tends not to be very rich, but is easily understandable to the majority of gamers.

RPG :

Following traditional role playing games, video games such as Oblivion and Skyrim and the Fallout series allow players to fully customise their own character, choosing race, hair and skin colour. For this reason the player is usually referred to in generic terms.
This gives a sense of immersion and attachment to the character you make and then gives you the freedom to travel the world travel as you want. As well as this numerous storylines are possible to be picked up and followed as the player wishes.

Whilst this "pick up story" gives the player a large amount of freedom, I feel that the lack of immersion takes away from the plots that are given to the player.

Procedural exposure :

My personal favourite form of story telling is that that can be seen in Bioshock. The player is thrown into a world where very little information is given to them, and through a series of audio diaries and cut scenes more and more story is revealed.
In this way, plot and context evolves around the player, keeping them hooked and interested.

User imprinted :

One direction for storytelling is shown in Dark Souls. Wherein the extent of story given to the player in minimal. The game starts with a brief cut-scene that identifies the world that the player will be in, but is very scarce on any other details.
Throughout the game, items can be picked up that have vague descriptions that hit at story elements that the developers had in mind, however some of these items even have the possibility of not being dropped by enemies or show up at all.
Even after completion of the game, players have the possibility of missing entire game areas, and therefore missing more hints to the hidden story.
For these reasons, Dark Souls is criticised for being boring or too hard whilst at the same time gaining a huge online following, dedicated to following the background lore.
It is important to note that this form of story telling runs the risk of losing more casual players quickly.

Story - Not a necessity :

Surprisingly an increasingly popular direction for story in modern games is the lack of it.
Minecraft, for example simply gives the player a randomly generated world and gives them the freedom to do whatever they want, from creating giant superstructures or exploring alternate dimensions. Notably the removal of story removes the reason for why these things can be done, and allows for an enjoyable experience.

To conclude story is presented to players in a variety of ways, each has their own strengths and weaknesses and we will need to assess each one thoroughly before implementing into our game.



Backstory -

The backstory to a game is lore or story that serves as the backdrop to the game that is about to be played. It is usually introduced and explained in an opening cut-scene.
If not all backstory is displayed in the opening scene, the backstory is usually easily accessible or slowly given to the player over the course of the game.

The Massively Multiplayer Online game (MMO) Guild Wars 2 presents the players with a different backstory cut-scene dependent upon the type of character that they choose. In addition, the cut scene does not give specifics about your own character due to the nature of MMO's tendency to allow for the player to create their own story.

Quest / Task -

A quest or task is usually given by Non Player Characters (NPC's), used to direct the flow of play. They can also given vital information, and at times may even be made a prerequisite for further progression. Tasks tend to reward plays for completing them with new gear or money.
As well as this, tasks that are set are not always mandatory, but can cause the player to level up or progress faster if they take the time to do them.

As shown below in Assassins Creed 3, the player can engage in optional tasks given by NPC's for additional money that can be exchanged for more and better equipment.

Event -

An "Event" in game terms refers to a scene or section of a game that drives or develops the plot of the game.
This can be achieved through cut-scene or gameplay, via dialog or on screen actions. This usually involves character interaction, or something very visually prominent to ensure it is noticed.

The betrayal of General Shepard (as shown in the video above) in Modern Warfare 2 is an example of a video game "Event". In it the trusted General kills the player character in order to acquire technology that he presumably intends to use for his own purposes. The cut scene essentially creates a new Antagonist in the storyline and develops Shepherds character further.


End Game -

"The End Game" is the climax of the story; the big battle, the final twist and last revelation. This is what the game has been leading to, and logically should create a sense of finality, accomplishment or mystery depending upon the game.
Regardless the end game should feel like a very evident finish line of the game.

The Legend of Zelda game series displays a very iconic "End Game" scenario wherein the Protagonist, Link, defeats the Antagonist, Ganon: in a final battle and in doing so saves the world from a bleak future.

Our plot -

Our plot is based on and inspired by the Brothers Grim story, Little Red Riding Hood.
The player will control the granddaughter of the original Red Riding Hood named Ruby.
Ruby is out on a visit to her Grandmothers house. However when she arrives she finds that her grannies house in a state of disarray and suggested violence.
Ruby's thoughts are then to escape and reach the relative safety of the Woodcutter's house further along in the woods.

Implementation -

During the initial planning of this project we fully intended to record and apply monologue for the player character, Ruby. This would allow us to direct the player from one objective to the next, much like the linear story telling shown above.
However this was later dropped as other project elements took priority. In its place we implemented a simple text box GUI that would state the characters thoughts as progression occurs.


Our game essentially starts with a story driven "Task"; to collect flowers for the Grandmother of Ruby.

To give the player further incentive to keep moving, we created an "event" in Grannies house. The bloodied walls and floors as well as the visual cue, suggests that this initial objective is not safe. This develops our story.

Finally the player is set a final vital task to reach the Woodcutter's house, and in doing so save themselves.

17/06/2013 (DS)

Creating Footprints

In order to immerse the player more in the game and add to the ascetics of the game I started to included footsteps to be left by the players they walk.

Initially I attempted to do this by placing a projector above the player, and getting it to cast footprints down on the floor at a set interval. However this method did not give an accurate representation of footfalls so I decided to find a better way to do it.

After a little thinking and searching I came across a method that would would follow each foot as it hit the ground.

To begin with I attached cubes to the feet of the player, so that they would come into contact with the ground when the walk or run animations were played.

Next I attached a piece of script to each of them that would detect when they come into contact with the ground. However it quickly became apparent that I could not use Collision because this would interfere with player controls, causing the player to walk up into the air.

To get around this I used the cubes as triggers instead and altered the script to react to them.
Each trigger was then linked to a corresponding cube set up above the player which would instantiate the projector of the correct print when trigger came into contact with the floor.

The image below shows an example of the prints in action.

(DS 29/03/13)

Randomised death scenes

In order to stop death feeling too repetitive I decided to try and give the chance of seeing something different each death.
To this I took our death animation and posed it differently in three different ways in three different saved scenes.

After loading them into Unity's build settings I took note of where each of the scenes were loaded.

Finally in the Player's Controller script I wrote a piece of code to tell Unity to load any of the scenes that held the death animation (14 - 16) when the players health fell below 1.

(DS - 29/03/13)

Grannies House Design

The general 'Grannies House' design was inspired from a combination of medieval French cottages and cottages designed by Disney. Understandably, it went through a few different concepts before the idea was finalized and even different 3D models were made just to see if it would fit in with the visual style of the game.

The initial idea for this concept was that it was a design of a standard medieval cottage, although it fit in with the visual style of the game it seemed too real and the design we were going for needed that 'cartoon-y' Disney element to fit in nicely.

*First Render of 'Grannies House'

For this idea I had designed it by taking inspiration from Red Riding Hood from 2011 (as can be seen above). The idea was that it looks creepy yet unrealistic which made it a great candidate for the role, however when it was created in 3D it didn't seem to be up to par with the style of the game and had also created many problems with the model itself and so it was dropped.

This idea was just to see how simple the cottage could have been and how realistic it could have been as well, seeing as this design is from a direct inspiration of real medieval cottages styled in the same way. Needless to say it was dropped pretty quickly, but as an idea I think it served it's purpose.

This is the idea that I finally settled upon. it was designed with a realistic mind set but also with the Disney style to it. It was also designed to give an innocent look from the outside whilst seeming creepy from the inside.

JT (27th March)

Small Assets

The small assets that our game contains were kept with the theme of 'Medieval France' so that when the player enters Grannies House nothing seems out of place and that they feel as though it's accurate to the time period.

The broom was stylized mainly from actual brooms that existed in medieval times and was also designed in the same way that Disney would have made it.

The mop was designed in the same way as the broom, in fact the mop and broom are pretty much the same model as all that was changed was the texture and some slight adjustments to the model itself. The style of the mop was made in the same way as the broom also.

The stool was designed as a generic medieval stool.

The arm chair was designed from a standard medieval chair but with hat Disney element again, to make it look stylish but simple.

The bookcase was styled as a generic medieval bookcase, the corners were rounded on the top to make it look less 'new'.

The bucket was styled from a standard medieval bucket.

The tree stump was styled from a Scottish pine tree to make it fit in with the rest of the game as it is surrounded by Scottish pine trees. The axe that is in the tree stump was modeled directly onto the tree stump and also designed as a standard medieval wood cutting axe.

The shack, modeled by Will Pritchard, was designed to look as though it was made to look like the Grannies House model and was textured to look somewhat new.

The chicken coop, originally modeled by Will Pritchard, went through some slight alterations to the model so that the player could see the inside from the outside, the texture was designed so that the player had the ability to see through the chicken wire fence that surrounded the coop and that was made possible by applying two different textures for the model, one being a standard .JPG for the wooden sections and a second texture being a .TGA or 'Targa' file using to full advantage the alpha channels that the file contains so that it is possible to see straight through the texture.

JT (28th March)

Game Document

Group Members

Mark Miller - Team Leader
Will Pritchard
Dan Sweet
Jacob Thorley

Title

Riding Red

Grannies House

Dancing with Wolves

A trip to Grannies

A trip to Grandma’s

(ALL) (15/01/2013)

Red Riding
(All) (27/02/2013)

'Red Riding Hood'
(All) (14/03/2013)

'Red Riding'
(All) (14/03/2013)


Short Description

Red Riding Little Girl visiting her grannies house, Starts sequence or tragic events that will lead to destruction and Bloodshed Horror and dismay, the whole journey is a desperate attempt of survival.

(MM, 15/012/013)

A young girl visits her grannies house to discover the traumatic scene of her grandma's messy death. Stranded out in a harsh, cold woodland, the young girl must now flee to the only other safe haven available to her.

(DS 16/03/2013)

Game Genre/Type

Platformer

Horror/Storybook/Puzzles

(ALL) (15/01/2013)

Story-Adventure

(DS, WP 13/03/2013)

Examples Images:

Scenario

Red Riding Hood, using black, white and red. Noir feeling to it, Female protagonist thrown into a nightmarish bid for survival, fleeing for her life from the terrors of the forest.

(DS,MM 15/01/2013)

Twist on the fairy tale "Little Red Riding Hood", where in the player will control a young girl, Ruby who initially sets out to collect followers to suprise her Grandma. The player will explore the secluded wooded area surrounding the house in order the gather flowers before going into the house. However when arriving at Grannies house Ruby discovers a empty home, and the scene of unexplained violence. Now the player must venture through the woods, avoiding wolves in order to get to a place of safety - The Woodcutters House.

(DS 13/03/2013)


Long Description

Red takes a visit to her grandparents to a heart-wrenching end. She is thrown into a world of disarray and confusion, and must use her wit and intelligence to escape the dangers that will hound her through the forest that has become a nightmare of traps and natural hazards.

(DS, MM, JT, WP 15/01/13)

Follow the story of the young girl "Ruby" as she makes a trip to her grandmas, only to find the scene of her untimely end. Now, scared Ruby must make her way through the woodland, avoiding the wildlife in order to reach a place of safety.

(DS 17/03/2013)

Game System

In the development of our game we will be implementing Raycasting, in order to give the enemy AI a way of detecting and killing our player.

We will be using a 3^rd person controller to control our characters.

We will also be creating and animating our own characters to place inside our game. We will create all of the items and structures placed inside the game.

Monsters and any other AI will be programmed to either attack our character on detection or flee from it; we also have planned a baiting system to distract creatures with food or objects thrown, for a very brief moment of time.

(DS,MM 15/01/2012)

Red Riding will feature character models animated using Maya 2011, these will be created and implemented by the team, in addition to scenery objects.
Our game will be run by the Unity3D engine.
All scripts implemented will be written in JavaScript.
Raycasting will determine the sight of enemies in order to detect and kill the player, or head towards bait.
The player will be controlled from the 3rd person perspective with a 3rd person controller.

(DS 16/03/2013)

Narrative Structure

Picking flowers for grandma. No cloak to start off with, once 10 flowers (Red Roses) are collected Gui text pops up (Or audio clip) saying “ That’s enough I think grandma will like these”, after the girl will proceed on her journey towards grandma’s in the Forest, in this turn of event the landscape will become darker and less coloured following a clear pathway you will find grandmas house, arriving the atmosphere becomes different, the nice music stops, the landscape is now dark, grey and black, it looks lifeless, entering the house, you hear a kettle whistling coming from the kitchen, approaching the kitchen through the hall way, a violin string is struck to add tension, entering the kitchen the camera immediately zooms in on the gore, Granny is there torn to shreds and dead, this will make the player realise that this game is no longer intended to be a friendly game, a loud scream is played to add a sudden jump of fear, then the screen proceeds to go black. This concluded the Demo introduction.

(WP,MM 21/01/2012)

The character starts in a wooded area where they will be prompted (via GUI or Audio) to collect 10 flowers for their grandma. The immediate area will contain flowers, wolves and apples. Once the player has navigated around the level and collected 10 flowers, they will be able to enter the small house at the end of the area. Upon entering the player will see a scene of violence, and will be prompted again to seek a safe place from whatever killed Ruby's grandma. This will lead the player out the back of the house which will then connect onto a larger forest area. This area will also include bait pick ups, and patrolling enemies for the player to get around.

(DS 16/03/2013)

Game play

The player consists of running, walking, and sneaking around the map, using the mechanics of hiding in certain areas, and a mechanic allows the usage of food being thrown to distract many things. The player must survive the journey to safety from the Grandma’s House evading Traps, puzzles and the enemy, using stealth and intelligence, whilst also trying to remain unnerved from the horror in the surrounding landscape.

The ability to hide makes being detected by enemies a lot more harder, and makes your character and yourself feel safe, use this to your advantage by jumping spot to spot to remain unseen for longer periods of time and make it onto the next area.

Using third person you can jump run, and walk to keep on going on your journey, and see what is around you, this will keep you aware to an extent, but also increase the fear from atmosphere.
We are also going to attempt to implement the usage of a Wired Xbox controller for our game.

(MM, 15/01/2012)

(Updated! MM, 12/03/2013)

The majority of the players game play will be navigating the wooded areas surrounding them, avoiding wolves by baiting them out of their path, or running by them in order to proceed.

(DS 15/03/2013)

Room Map

The player will start in a wooded area near a lake, the player will be prompted (by GUI or Audio) to find 10 flowers for their grandma. Once these have been collected the player will be able to go into the small house deep in the woods. The player will enter the house and will be confronted with a scene of blood and violence. The player will be prompted again, indicating that Ruby needs to find a place of safety

(DS 15/03/2013)

Title and Information screens

Story book style opening to main page, there will be no scoring, the Death page will display the message ‘…and so our story ends…’.

Information and instruction will be among many other subsections of the menu, Other subtitles will include ‘Instructions’, ‘The making of ‘A trip to grannies’’, ‘Concept Art’.

These menu’s included should help the game become more enjoyable.

(MM 15/01/2013)

Inclusion of the story book may be dropped due to time restrictions.

(DS 08/03/2013)

When starting up the game, the player will see a simple menu, with the options to start or quit the game, set upon the back drop of Grannies House.
Upon death, the player will see a splash screen simply stating that they have died, this screen will eventually fade and the player will re spawn at the start of the area they had died in.
Upon completion of the game the screen will display credits of the people involved with the game. When it is skipped, or ends the screen will revert to the title menu.

(DS 16/03/2013)

Audio Requirements


Using numerous sound files, we will create the atmosphere of the game to be many things at different times, for instance small audio clips to add tension, or even moments to make the player jump, longer audio files to fill in time with walking or creeping so things don’t seem as dull, many different audio files will be included to supply the best appeal to both the game and it’s playability quality.

(MM 15/01/2012)

Sound files to create atmosphere of being in a forest, as well as footsteps on snow to further immerse the player.
Title screen and theme music are being supplied by the band "Resonance." (http://www.facebook.com/resonancewm?group_id=0)
Wolf sounds, such as howling, snarling and barking will also be required.

(DS 15/03/2013)

Map Layout

The current areas that have been developed and placed within the game, all areas have extensive detail to give the best atmosphere for the game.

*Pre-Beta Image of the starting landscape an update will come along soon.

Above is the first area of the game, all ready to have the additional Assets added and finished off for the BETA version of the game. (Missing Grannies house and Roses Assets.)

*The most recent update to the Starting Area, this will be used in the game.

*Above image is no longer the landscape chosen for 'The Hub', A different image will be posted shortly.

*A brief Update to 'The Hub' Landscape, it has a more detailed puzzled landscape, it has better textures, more pathways and a better landscape detail in the terrain heights.

Second area of the game currently in finalization of being completed, this is the hub area which will offer the first challenge in the game, it is also the second main Terrain to the character and will be more void of sensibility of Safety, It is only missing the 'Wolf Assets' and the back of 'Grannies House asset'.

Hopefully this will offer the first exciting development of fear in the game. With the open landscape, sneaking by and encountering the first Enemy.

*Above image is no longer the landscape used for 'Grannies House Interior' another image will be posted shortly.

*'Main Forest' Area for the game fairly linear pathway, will be inserting various assets to finalize this part of the project.

*'The Run' a long linear pathway which leads to the final area of the game, the player must sprint to the end within the time limit, the map has had the majority updated from the beginning, with further use of landscape script and the use of 'Crazybump' to add further detail to the textures.

*First shot of the 'Grannies interior' Level this is where you see the shocking development in the story.

A list of assets will be Built in this area, so you can see the detail whilst going slowly through the house.

*Second picture of 'Grannies Interior' detailing the more important assets, it looks, additional shading and projectors maybe added for effect. If that is true then a third picture will be uploaded.

*The above image is the first example of the Hunters Shack for the final zone, upon approaching this asset the game will end abruptly and the player will be rewarded for completing the game.

*The above image is the landscape created for the final area, containing the 'Hunters Shack' this will be where the Character escapes to the final location so they can finish the game.

This will be the darkest level of the development on landscapes, so the player will have to remain on path.

We hope you enjoy the presentation f this blog, and hope you enjoy the game when given chance to play it.

Yours sincerely,

White Wolf Studios.

Ruby New Design

RUBY Red

During development of the Ruby we sadly dropped the initial idea of Ruby having a red flowing cloak. This cloak was to be a main focus of the look of our game, so this was a decision that was not taken lightly.

The cloak presented many problems when imported into Unity, from disabling movement of the player, to constant tearing that was unacceptable for our game. We explored many different ways of implementing the cloth, from Unity's built in Interactive Cloth, to external add ons, but to no success. Because we could not create the desired realistic looking cloth that we were aiming for another team member and I made the decision to cut it, and begin redeveloping the character.

The above is the result of the redevelopment, the character has been remade, now entirely one mesh, the cloak was replaced with a hoody that moves freely and does not rely on cloth physic's.

This idea was thought of due to how popular hoodies are in todays society, this came from the idea of modernising the game and making our own adaption of red riding hood. We wanted to stick with the idea of the hood as if we changed it to much the whole game would be wrong. 

Other designs of this style include a piece of concept art for something called red riding hoody

Although this was a different style to our game, i decided to use this as basic idea for Ruby. With the pointed hood, converse style and long hoody, however i decided to get rid of the tights as they seemed unnecessary.

The blonde hair in the picture is also taken out as the non red parts of the model are desaturated, this means it would not have any colour on it anyway. 

This is a render for ruby, This has been composited and digitally painted onto.

This composition was created using photoshop and render. Using a render taken from maya I used the pen tool to cut out and blur the original image, Then using a layer mask i took out sections of the render to look worn. Then put in a background using the same method. 

The next stage was to put frost on the render seeing our game is in the snow I thought it would be a good idea.

Using the same method as before I put the wolf in the background to add effect.

WP (26th March)