Week Five Gaming Post

How does morality influence the choices you make in the game?

This week I played The Wolf Among Us, I have known about this game for quite a long time, so I was very excited to be able to get the chance to play it for myself.

First let’s look at what Morality is, Morality is the idea that some forms of behaviour are right and others are wrong.

I feel The Wolf Among Us use’s morality influence well in the major questions it asks of the player, this can be seen in one of the chapters when you are asked to pick between two people who are in trouble, One is a friend of yours and the other is a stranger and you don’t exactly know how much danger they are each are in, So who do you help first? And what are the consequences of that choice.

Another thing I liked about the questions in The Wolf Among Us is that even though it felt like it was my own morality that was being questioned, and I did go for the answer that felt like the ‘nice guy’ way of doing things, it didn’t always come across that way in the game because unlike other games where when you as the player are faced with moral questions and you answer them as yourself because you are living as yourself through the character, In The Wolf Among Us you are playing as Bigby Wolf who has a very developed character with a bit of an attitude and most of the characters in Fable town do not get along well with Bigby because of his past with them, an example if this from my play through of The Wolf Among Us is when I had Bigby reach out to try and comfort a young child because in my mind this was a nice thing to do, only to have the child recoil away from Bigby in fear. This was an interesting to me because while other people could complain that it took them out of the game experience when it feels like the question is saying one thing and when you choose it, it is acted out in a completely different way. I really enjoyed this factor though (most times) because it help me get a better feeling for Bigby’s character, for me this factor made it feel there was a little less moral influence of the questions that directly related to me but it was more like I was the angel (or devil) on Bigby’s shoulder giving suggestions.

Overall I did feel there was a lot of morality influence in the questions, even if they did not always play out in the way I expected them. I found The Wolf Among Us to be a great game to play especially with friends because they felt like the devils on my shoulder.  

Week 5 Bug Process

Here is what the bug looks like this week after taking the feedback of my group-mates

^ With Green overlay. (lighting)

When I showed these to my team the feedback I got back was to see what the lower bug group would look like with the lighter eyes.

They liked this much better,

And after talking with all of the group they like the top bug group better so far because of the green tone you get when you add the overlay.

This is most likely our final bug, there could just be minor changes from here on.

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Week 4 Textual Analysis Questions

Fahrenheit/Indigo Prophecy

Do the choices made in the game result in branching narrative paths? If so, how? If not, how are the choices meaningful?

This week I played Fahrenheit/Indigo Prophecy the murder mystery aspect of the game intrigued and frightened me at the same time because I’m not great with horror.
As I played through Fahrenheit/Indigo Prophecy I found that there were options for branching narrative paths like right at the beginning after I left the bathroom (after I had killed an old man TT-TT) I could either go out the backdoor and be seen by the hobo or leave through the front door and be caught by the waitress, these different paths would slightly change how the next part of my story plays out. While these do not feel like major game changing choices they make Fahrenheit/Indigo Prophecy feel more meaningful to each of the induvial players because they can act out/play through the game the way they feel would be best. Another aspect of Fahrenheit/Indigo Prophecy I like was that throughout the game there was four main characters that you got to play as, it was interesting to see how their paths through the story overlapped as well as that each characters personality means that the way they can interact with people and their surroundings is different and this also can create small branching narratives itself because some players would discover things that others would not, an example of this is that while I was searching the bathroom as Tyler who has a very laid-back kind of vibe to him . . . I may have made him use the urinal in the crime scene (which at the time was hilarious)
A quote that I feel works well with this is about type two choices:
"Type two choices are created by the desire to prevent the
state of the gameworld from becoming worse – to ensure the safety and continued
existence of the player character, and possibly to prevent the destruction of
the gameworld."
Storyplaying
Choice and Narrative in Video Games
Sebastian Domsch

The only choices in Fahrenheit/Indigo Prophecy I found that did not have many branching narrative quality’s was the quick time events that happened when you were talking to other characters, because in the end it didn’t really matter what you picked in most cases you would end up get all the information at the end of the conversation anyway, the only parts where I found this to be different was when the character you were playing as had an emotional investment in the character you were talking too, so of these choices could be meaningful to each player.
In the end I did really enjoy playing Fahrenheit/Indigo Prophecy while the choices that were presented to you throughout the game did not have huge story changing quality’s for the most part they felt meaningful to me because I could get invested in parts of my character and try and play out the story how I would if I was in their situation.

Bug Photo-shoot

Photo-shoot tests

I need to play round with changing the lighting colour, but the darker blue bug and the green bug fit the best in these pictures,
With the darker bug i need to change the eye colour so they stand out from the bug more because Dora has brought up that the eyes look closed because they are hard to see against the bug, 

and when i play with lighting more the bug is going to end up looking more green anyway.

Bug Update

After taking the advice my team mates gave me last time over the colour and pattern, this is what I ended up with.

With the patterns the last two are defiantly out because the pattern on the back draws to much attention away from the bug itself, but most of the group enjoy the second and third pattern. But when I asked what pattern they like most out of the 2nd, 3rd and the original camo pattern, the favorite was the 2nd one but try to darken up the pattern itself so it stands out more but not to much.

Color study:

The main comment I got back from group members and the tutors was that if we are not going to use the orange eyes that do look the best (because of contrast) I need to make they eyes on these bugs now have that contrast i don;t need to change the color completely just darken and lighten them.

The 1st to 3rd bugs are the most liked i just need to play with saturation and contrast a bit more to get what my team wants.

Bug Colour and Pattern Concepts

After Getting Ethan's final design (which was a variation of Sams)  for the bug on Friday, I looked at what colour and pattern the bug could have without it being to hard to constantly re draw when we animate.

Here is the bug I worked off:

And here our the colour/pattern concepts that I made:

1)

2)

3)

When I showed these to my team mates Ethan and Lauren liked the third one on the third page but would like me to darken it up and change the eye to a blue but maybe have the orange eyes after it drinks , Sam likes the the first one on the second page and Dora like the same one as Ethan and Lauren but thinks it fine without changing it and also the second one on the first page. 

I will be trying their suggestions tonight.

As well as changing the pattern on the 3rd bug.

After that Keat suggests that we try dropping the bug onto test shots of our background. Sam will be getting those test shots soon.

What Happening

 In the end our production schedule has not changed. Lauren will continue on as the director.

Today we discussed what we have been doing with the teachers, i talked about how i have been doing more bug concepts off of some of Sams designs, i have now moved onto colour and pattern as well as some poses that the bug will have.



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Interactive Narrative - Week 3

Prince of Persia – Sands of Time

Do the story nodes in your chosen game(s) work well to support gameplay and gameplay objectives? Why or Why not.
Nodes: A games cues a player into imagining a fictional world and participating in a story. (First person storytelling.)
Games can do this in a number of ways:

• Graphics
• Sound
• Text
• Cut scenes
• The game title, Box, Manual
• Rules

In the game Prince of Persia – Sands of Time it was easy to tell what game nodes I felt worked and others that were going to annoy me very quickly.

The graphics of Prince of Persia – Sands of Time seems pretty good for the time it was released
(2003) and worked fine to support the gameplay and the cut scenes in the game, It was later pointed out to me that the graphics in the cut scenes are of a higher quality than the gameplay but this did not bother me because It did not take anything away from the gameplay itself.

Sound was another aspect that supported both the gameplay and the cut scenes well, because at the start of the game you are dropped in the middle of a war and the sounds that you are surrounded with only help show that, the only this that I felt could be changed was that the sound volume was a little inconsistent between the cut scenes and the gameplay but this a more personal issue for me.
The was little to no text shown in Prince of Persia – Sands of Time, The only text that was present in the game was the help tips that showed you how to progress.

Cut Scenes, this is the node that annoyed me the most about Prince of Persia – Sands of Time, while in the beginning they were informative and helped to progress the gameplay along with the added bonus that MOST were skippable after you had watched them the first time, there were just a few that were completely unneeded and did nothing to support or enhance the gameplay. The major one for me was the little cut scenes I got after every time I finished a battle, it was of the Prince putting away his sword . . . and that was it, the first time is was ok because I had just won my first fight in the game and was feeling pretty good and that little cut scene just made me feel pretty badass but after it began to happed after I finished each battle even ones I had to re do because I had died it just began to be a pain cause I just wanted to complete my next mission not watch some dude put his sword away for the twentieth time.

In the end I felt there where aspect and nodes that Prince of Persia – Sands of Time did pretty well with and other parts that did not work well to support the gameplay.
 I don’t think I would go back and play Prince of Persia – Sands of Time again because the nodes that did not work made me not enjoy the experience of playing, Prince of Persia – Sands of Time is a very Ludus narrative game meaning
 “In a narrative game, the player plays to win, to beat the game, and story is mostly a lure into the game world.”  I did not feel the urge to win the game and I don’t think the story itself was strong enough to hold me attention.

Final Schedule

On Friday the tutors had a look at our schedule and made a couple of changes. I will post a picture of the final one one Monday as well as my concept art for our bug. (Internet why)

Week 2 Games

Week 2 Gaming Questions

Does your chosen game(s) make user input feel meaningful in terms of story direction and progression? Why or why not?

User input is a necessity in Her Story because without it the story would not progress, i do not believe user interactivity changes the final out come of the story because the narrative is Embedded,
"Embedded - pre-generated narrative components such as video clips and scripted scenes" Rules of play: Salen and Zimmerman

The only thing that would change is the order of how you hear and see the story because of this you can miss out on other information that is not deemed important by the game system because it will shoe the ending if you find enough important information . This makes Her Story feel meaningful to the player because you are completely in control of the 'Phrases" that you input into the game database that is set up into the games, they give you the starting phrase of Murder that gives you the intro of the story which sets you up to be immersed into a believable role of being a detective.
The Game Space of Her Story is set up really well to look like an computer search engine,
"Games create 'possibility spaces' spaces the provide compelling problems within an overarching narrative, afford creative opportunities for dealing with meaningful consequences." Warren Spector 

Production Schedule

Our group got together in class on Monday and we went over each others scripts, in the end we decided to go with Ethan's story idea which was about a spider and a Funta bottle.

After this was decided this we worked on the Production Schedule we all had input into this end result.