Year 3-Week 12-11.12.21- writing making, and thinking
Production and Process
It's interesting to think that a designer can sometimes test out a theory by devoting time to a project that has the possibility to fail. "can one do this?" working on the production side design I glee in that process. I'm excited to fail in all honesty because it means that my solution to a big problem isn't the right one. "it's not as simple as I thought." With that said I have no intention to fail at making. the failure will be in theory but by the end of this, I'll have a fun game that tests out that thought.
even then I'm pretty confident in my exploration in level designs connection with the interactive narrative. from my current reading, there's a lot of writing devoted to both practices on their own but very little on their connection.
my cynical side states that this is because it's obvious and does not need to be stated. but there are books on how one should clean their homes you know, things that we see as obvious might not be obvious for everyone.
Production notes
While working on my game I slowly melded a previous project with it, in hopes to mitigate my workload and also scope out my production. this original design was intended to teach players the mechanics of the wold
dashing
shooting
enemies
checkpoints
and
character interactions
it is also a space where the player will be introduced to the narrative of the story. introducing the player to the kind of story they will be participating in.
and I've decided to take a bit of inspiration from my last big game Triste. Not so much the level design, but the storytelling. opting not to have the character learn about the world through inferences but through interactions with characters.
While looking this over however I wanted to focus mostly on the paths the players have to be taught to navigate, then I will implement an AI character that will inform the player what exactly they can do. it's my hope that this version of onboarding
makes the player know they can rely on characters in the world
learn to look out for help in the world
the good thing is I can always have this blatantly stated that the player can look for help via NPC dialogue, but I'm HOPING that this can be done with things like lighting and level format. surrounding good NPCs with flowers and soft lighting.
Thesis writing
this is just the current format of my thesis. what I want I'd love to know is how level design can make a game fun but I'm content in finding out the benefits it brings to different styles of game design.
Main points
The story, Choice, and Level design.
Games that have a narrative linear or not require levels to be formatted in such a way that both facilitates a player's growth (learning mechanic) as well as the flow of the narrative.
Not focusing on teaching players mechanics, but worth noting as it displays the dispersal of information through an audio and visual queue that are utilized already.
In games where the narrative is a main focus of the overall experience level, design is integral to propper storytelling.
Flow
Engagement
legibility
There are delineations in design flow when considering a linear narrative as opposed to a nonlinear narrative. Is there one?
There aren't necessarily strengths but are there benefits to one over the other based on the same story?
What queue can you give a player following a story to leave the main path?
How can a level be formatted in a way the informs players they have access to more than one path and those paths.