Treasure Chest

[ 15: Treasure Chest (Flash) ]

What is your journey in this scenario?
What caught your attention?
Could you complete it?

What would you add or change?

[Edited by - Wai on February 20, 2009 1:34:33 PM]

Quote: Original post by Wai
Story building in a nutshell.

There is an avatar.
There is an environment.

But there is no story.



What would you add to create a story,
if you can only add one thing?

Maybe you don't need to add anything? What if the antagonist is the environment itself, and you are the girl attempting to overcome it (ie Knytt)? What if the antagonist is the girl instead, and your goal is to protect yourself (being the natural environment) from her harming the environment (ie Dungeon Keeper)?

Re: Tangireon

Suppose a terminating threat is one that stops an interaction,
regardless whether the player agent is active:

Scenario 16:
Environment excerts a terminating threat to the player agent

Scenario 17:
An agent exerts a terminating threat to the player agent
(In this case, the player agent is the collective well-being,
or the woods).

Since [15] already features a terminal threat from the
environment, do you want to see [17]? Do you want to see
[16] in its pure form? Do you want to define what happens
in [16] or [17]?

[Edited by - Wai on February 20, 2009 6:07:54 PM]

Coherence and Context

I forgot that this thread isn't about level design
but the narrative voice. In general it means that
the scene needs to be coherent. The incoherence
of [15] suppresses the narrative voice. It is
really bad for story building.

The context is a strong assistant to evoke the
presence of a narration.

[17] would have a stronger voice simply because
its context is coherent. I think the voice of
[16] is weaker because the stuff on screen do
not explain why the character had to survive
in the woods, unless you give the character
a contextual role such as a hiker.

Quote: Original post by Wai
The incoherence of [15] suppresses the narrative voice. It is
really bad for story building.

On the other hand, many puzzle-adventure games (like the Myst series for instance) do such a thing - the game puts you in a strange environment with no information, and part of the challenge is that you have to find context (so to help you solve your puzzles). There is usually no explanation for anything, except for the clues that you pick up along the way that help you on your journey.

I don't think you can tell if a game has story just by showing a screen shot of a level, because I believe that story unfolds over time, as you slowly experience/explore/play the game. If you showed me a screen shot of a game and asked me what the story is just by a single glance, I don't think I could do it.

For instance, could you tell me the story of this, just by looking at one of its levels (pretend you haven't played the game if you have played the game):

The content in this screen is quite similar to your first picture - there is an environment, perhaps some natural features in the level, and a girl, but that is all. But yet we know that the game has a storyline if you go play it (Aquaria), it just can't be shown in a single snapshot.

Or this?

I'd be scratching my head if I saw this picture without ever knowing or played the game. Yet we know that story is definitely in Myst, and you just have to experience it to know it.

Re: Tangireon

This thread is about interaction telling a story, not
screenshot telling story. The screenshots are there
to summarize an interaction.

[ Expanded explanation ]

Scenario 18:

[ Scenario 18 - Treasure Chest (Flash) ]
Basic controls:
[ ARROWS ] To move
[ LEFT+RIGHT ] Pickup stuff
[ DOWN ] Tap to drop stuff
[ DOWN ] Hold to examine stuff

[Edited by - Wai on February 22, 2009 1:41:55 AM]

A pencil drawing the background.

It could also write the story if it got bored.

If you run ahead of the pencil, you fall forever.
If you lag behind the pencil lines slowly fade.
Catching the pencil is the objective.