I also received some test lines from our hired voice actor who goes by the name 'Mug'. The lines he submitted express the emotions we wanted from the script much better, albeit he wants to redo his lines to meet recording standards as the sound quality isn't too great so far. Here is the preview of the test lines: http://puu.sh/nYIMG/20e67a2e04.mp3
Wednesday 30 March 2016
Cinematic Production: Animatic Remake + VO Lines
Upon getting feedback for the first animatic, I redrew and edited the animatic to expand on the variation of shots and to better express the emotions necessary. The opening sequence has been fairly reduced to only 3-4 shots to more clearly establish the setting and situation. There are more close-ups for the key lines said by Butter to better highlight the comedic faces he pulls off, as well as a variety of angles that will better accentuate the gradual desperation he experiences in the scene.
Thursday 24 March 2016
Interactive Narrative Wk5: Deus Ex
2. Are the “choice situations” in the game obvious or subtle? Do
you know the outcomes of your choice prior to making a
decision?
Deus Ex is a game where you play as JC Denton to execute missions as a UN Anti-Terrorist operative. Deus Ex was a very risky yet innovative game for its time because it attempted to combine four different video game genres: the apparent first-person shooter and adventure, as well as role-playing and simulation. What established this game as a classic and the best game for its year was the fact that it managed to combine these genres effectively, allowing for great use of player choice within the game. However, the question to ask now is: Were the prompts for choice situations appropriate and were they effective for the player?
Deux Ex's gameplay is like a double-edged sword. Having been dropped into its world, the game clearly established that it would not be holding my hand like in more recent games. Game progression entirely relied upon my choices in how I approached a situation: where I went, how I tackled an obstacle and also my dialogue choices. The positive side of this choice of system is that the player explores the options set within the world on their own, rather than having it laid out for them to progress the narrative in only a linear fashion. This would become the charm of the game in which players are rewarded with surpassing difficulties of their own accord. However, not having a polished establishment on how to progress the game may have its steep downfalls. "In the case of no information, the choice will be completely arbitrary and cannot therefore be made rationally. Also, there cannot be any desire attached to the choice, as there can be no reasonable expectation connected to it, other than those constructed by the agent without any rational basis. Such a choice would hardly be experienced by the agent as a choice at all." With no information being given beforehand, choices will only seem experimental and at times random. This makes the choice situations very subtle in terms of both direct gameplay and dialogue options in which you have no idea what to expect of this world and its NPCs.
With a game such as Deus Ex, its beauty is experienced through discovery with exploration and experiencing everything that the world has to offer on your own, rather than being pulled along by gameplay they guide you through.
References:
- Ion Storm (Developer). (2000). Deus Ex [Video Game]. United States of America: Eidos Interactive
- S. Domsch (Author). (2013). Storyplaying: Agency and Narrative in Video Games [Article]. De Gruyter
Deus Ex is a game where you play as JC Denton to execute missions as a UN Anti-Terrorist operative. Deus Ex was a very risky yet innovative game for its time because it attempted to combine four different video game genres: the apparent first-person shooter and adventure, as well as role-playing and simulation. What established this game as a classic and the best game for its year was the fact that it managed to combine these genres effectively, allowing for great use of player choice within the game. However, the question to ask now is: Were the prompts for choice situations appropriate and were they effective for the player?
Deux Ex's gameplay is like a double-edged sword. Having been dropped into its world, the game clearly established that it would not be holding my hand like in more recent games. Game progression entirely relied upon my choices in how I approached a situation: where I went, how I tackled an obstacle and also my dialogue choices. The positive side of this choice of system is that the player explores the options set within the world on their own, rather than having it laid out for them to progress the narrative in only a linear fashion. This would become the charm of the game in which players are rewarded with surpassing difficulties of their own accord. However, not having a polished establishment on how to progress the game may have its steep downfalls. "In the case of no information, the choice will be completely arbitrary and cannot therefore be made rationally. Also, there cannot be any desire attached to the choice, as there can be no reasonable expectation connected to it, other than those constructed by the agent without any rational basis. Such a choice would hardly be experienced by the agent as a choice at all." With no information being given beforehand, choices will only seem experimental and at times random. This makes the choice situations very subtle in terms of both direct gameplay and dialogue options in which you have no idea what to expect of this world and its NPCs.
With a game such as Deus Ex, its beauty is experienced through discovery with exploration and experiencing everything that the world has to offer on your own, rather than being pulled along by gameplay they guide you through.
References:
- Ion Storm (Developer). (2000). Deus Ex [Video Game]. United States of America: Eidos Interactive
- S. Domsch (Author). (2013). Storyplaying: Agency and Narrative in Video Games [Article]. De Gruyter
Wednesday 23 March 2016
Cinematic Production: Turn-Arounds & Expression Sheet
Turn-Around for Face(s)
Character Expression Sheet 1
Character Expression Sheet 2
Butter Turn-Around
Cinematic Production: Concept Design
This week we are finalizing some design decisions for Butter. We took the three best expressions from everyone's early designs and have decided to move forward with all three from my set of concepts. Here are some sketches of the faces drawn in context with the body.
Sunday 20 March 2016
Cinematic Production: Early Sound
With the voice over recorded, I finished editing an early sound test for the film. I tried to time everything properly within the 40 second duration limit, with an extra 5 seconds for credits. Once the animatic is finished, I'll be re-timing all VO and foley to fit the pacing more accurately.
VO
Butter - Jonathan Coronado
Apartment girl - Michelle Zhen
BGM
Laid Back Guitars - Kevin MacLeod
VO
Butter - Jonathan Coronado
Apartment girl - Michelle Zhen
BGM
Laid Back Guitars - Kevin MacLeod
Thursday 17 March 2016
Cinematic Production: Early voice-over (Animatic)
Early Sound (Voice Over)
Michelle Z. and I recorded the early voice-over for the animatic on 18 March alongside Jerwin and Mikayla for separate opinions on our recording process. I recorded Butter's lines first with Michelle giving some guidance on what could work better for my intonation to portray emotion, specifically on the lines where Butter was starting to get desperate.
We looked for some voice-acting references that could help us out during this recording process, such as:
Afterwards, Mikayla came in to help out with the rest of Michelle's lines to finish off the recording session.
Interactive Narrative Wk4: The Wolf Among Us
3. How does morality influence the choices you make in the game?
The Wolf Among Us
The Wolf Among Us is an interactive adventure video game that is separated into multiple episodes. It operates as a mystery drama that feels like a playable comic. While it works as a point-and-click adventure game, the core of the gameplay relies upon the player's decision-making. Knowing this, the player's morality is the most influential defining factor in the choice of prompts to progress through the game's narrative.
As I played the through the game with Sheriff Bigby Wolf, I was faced with both minor and major decisions in ensuring the safety of the residents of Fabletown. The minor decisions influenced how a scene folded out and also how I perceived all characters and the situation presented to them, while major decisions determined the fate of certain characters and what future events I could experience next. From reactions received from other characters to a shocking turnout of events, I felt that the decisions I made based upon what I thought was 'righteous' tailored the events to unfold onward.
Like Adam Bishop said, "If you want the player to actually feel as though they have agency, you need to provide them with more than just aesthetic differences between their options." While there aren't major mechanical gameplay changes influenced by your decision-making, there is heavy change in the development of the narrative and events to be experienced, which would then suffice as encouragement for player agency. Gameplay would change in the sense that you would be experiencing a different part of the story according to your morality and how it influenced you in picking your choices, compared to something such as getting upgrades or increasing the game's difficulty. This works well for a very narrative-driven game such as the Wolf Among Us and proved to be a wonderful experience.
References:
- Telltale Games (Developer). (1992). The Wolf Among Us [Video Game]. United States of America: San Rafael, California
- Bishop, A. (2009, 9th March). Gamasutra: The Art & Business of Making Video Games. [Weblog]. Retrieved 13 March 2016, from http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/AdamBishop/20090309/832/Morality_In_Video_Games.php
The Wolf Among Us
The Wolf Among Us is an interactive adventure video game that is separated into multiple episodes. It operates as a mystery drama that feels like a playable comic. While it works as a point-and-click adventure game, the core of the gameplay relies upon the player's decision-making. Knowing this, the player's morality is the most influential defining factor in the choice of prompts to progress through the game's narrative.
As I played the through the game with Sheriff Bigby Wolf, I was faced with both minor and major decisions in ensuring the safety of the residents of Fabletown. The minor decisions influenced how a scene folded out and also how I perceived all characters and the situation presented to them, while major decisions determined the fate of certain characters and what future events I could experience next. From reactions received from other characters to a shocking turnout of events, I felt that the decisions I made based upon what I thought was 'righteous' tailored the events to unfold onward.
Like Adam Bishop said, "If you want the player to actually feel as though they have agency, you need to provide them with more than just aesthetic differences between their options." While there aren't major mechanical gameplay changes influenced by your decision-making, there is heavy change in the development of the narrative and events to be experienced, which would then suffice as encouragement for player agency. Gameplay would change in the sense that you would be experiencing a different part of the story according to your morality and how it influenced you in picking your choices, compared to something such as getting upgrades or increasing the game's difficulty. This works well for a very narrative-driven game such as the Wolf Among Us and proved to be a wonderful experience.
References:
- Telltale Games (Developer). (1992). The Wolf Among Us [Video Game]. United States of America: San Rafael, California
- Bishop, A. (2009, 9th March). Gamasutra: The Art & Business of Making Video Games. [Weblog]. Retrieved 13 March 2016, from http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/AdamBishop/20090309/832/Morality_In_Video_Games.php
Sunday 13 March 2016
Interactive Narrative Wk3: Sonic the Hedgehog 2
2. Do the story nodes in your chosen game(s) work well to support gameplay and gameplay objectives? Why or why not?
Sonic the Hedgehog 2
Sonic is a side-scrolling 2D platform game in which you play as Sonic the Hedgehog, dashing from the start of the stage to the finish. Diversity in the approach of how one would complete a level exists with both clearing with all rings collected and how quickly the level or 'act' is completed. The game controls well, although coordinating how you control Sonic as well as understanding how your interaction with the environment's obstacles work does take a good ounce of adaptation.
This game's structure is very 'ludus', in which the game is "strictly controlled by pre-existing rules accepted by the participants as a part of basic game construct." This means that with the accelerating running of Sonic while dodging/defeating enemies along the way, the game is set in a manner that you would test yourself to improvise during a run to avoid danger while moving as fast as you can. At the very end of every two to three Acts, however, you meet the boss Robotnik.
The story-telling for Sonic is simple yet effective. Story nodes are dedicated to the boss fights, in which cut-scenes are used to depict Robotnik's new death machine to intimidate the player. These short cut-scenes, in contrast to the fast gameplay of the majority of the level, emphasize the threat that is the Act's boss, and therefore works well to set the atmosphere for the most intense parts of the gameplay.
Sonic the Hedgehog 2 is a fun, fast-paced game to play that is easy to approach but can be difficult to achieve with flying colours.
References:
- Sonic Team (Developer). (1992). Sonic the Hedgehog 2 [Video Game]. Japan: Ōta, Tokyo
- P. Luban, J, Meziane (Authors). (2001). Turning a Linear Story into a Game: The Missing Link between Fiction and Interactive Entertainment [Article]. Gamasutra
Sonic the Hedgehog 2
Sonic is a side-scrolling 2D platform game in which you play as Sonic the Hedgehog, dashing from the start of the stage to the finish. Diversity in the approach of how one would complete a level exists with both clearing with all rings collected and how quickly the level or 'act' is completed. The game controls well, although coordinating how you control Sonic as well as understanding how your interaction with the environment's obstacles work does take a good ounce of adaptation.
This game's structure is very 'ludus', in which the game is "strictly controlled by pre-existing rules accepted by the participants as a part of basic game construct." This means that with the accelerating running of Sonic while dodging/defeating enemies along the way, the game is set in a manner that you would test yourself to improvise during a run to avoid danger while moving as fast as you can. At the very end of every two to three Acts, however, you meet the boss Robotnik.
The story-telling for Sonic is simple yet effective. Story nodes are dedicated to the boss fights, in which cut-scenes are used to depict Robotnik's new death machine to intimidate the player. These short cut-scenes, in contrast to the fast gameplay of the majority of the level, emphasize the threat that is the Act's boss, and therefore works well to set the atmosphere for the most intense parts of the gameplay.
Sonic the Hedgehog 2 is a fun, fast-paced game to play that is easy to approach but can be difficult to achieve with flying colours.
References:
- Sonic Team (Developer). (1992). Sonic the Hedgehog 2 [Video Game]. Japan: Ōta, Tokyo
- P. Luban, J, Meziane (Authors). (2001). Turning a Linear Story into a Game: The Missing Link between Fiction and Interactive Entertainment [Article]. Gamasutra
Wednesday 9 March 2016
Cinematic Production: Character Concepts
Character Concepts for Butter
Rough Overall Concepts
Hair Concepts
Face Concepts
Thursday 3 March 2016
Interactive Narrative Wk2: Never Alone
3. Does your chosen game(s) make user input feel
meaningful in terms of story direction and
progression? Why or why not?
This week's game is 'Kisima Inŋitchuŋa' also known as Never Alone - a puzzle-platformer by Upper One Games. In this game you play as two characters: the Iñupiaq girl Nuna with her newly found companion, the Arctic fox, going through many different obstacles and chases in a very hazardous winter environment. In this blog post we will question whether or not user input has any meaningful impact towards story direction and progression.
The gist of the game is fairly simple for Never Alone. You control either of the two characters - Nuna and the fox to traverse the many different chapters of the game. You can only play one of them at a time if played by yourself, but co-operative gameplay can be implemented locally via PC or Xbox. Both characters can run through the levels and jump the platforms, but each one have their own unique game-play qualities that would require you to switch between them.
The core game-play goes quite well with the progression of the story. The idea of escaping and avoiding all danger works effectively in a platformer where you're running and jumping from one point to another, with that very imminent danger looming behind you. But having to use both the characters to overcome specific obstacles within the game reinforces this idea that Nuna, the protagonist of this game, would not make it through any of this without the help and guidance of the Arctic fox, hence the name 'Never Alone'. This game-play lends to the cultural insights of the game where these spirits guide and prevent mankind from dying and works wonders in furthering the depth of the puzzles within the game.
The controls of this game, however, make the game-play frustrating for some players. Playing this game alone forces you into a somewhat start-and-stop progression throughout the game, in which I would feel as if playing this with a friend would make the progression a lot smoother and that this sense of co-operation would become more prominent if the other character were in another player's hands.
While the narrator does offer some insight during the game-play's fantastic scrimshaw cut-scenes, the biggest issue I have with this game is that the abundance of context is placed within these videos that you can access, essentially just being parts of a documentary. Although it is educational and good insight to the culture of these indigenous Alaskan people, having to consume the interesting information through videos that may as well be DVD extras undoubtedly breaks away from the immersion the player could be experiencing with the game-play at the time. None of these ideas are incorporated into the game mechanics and are just there purely for aesthetics.
While the foundations of the game-play's co-operative aspect does drive the progression throughout the puzzles, there are drastic faults in the default maneuverability of the game with the single-player pacing as well as the AI, not to mention ideas seemingly wasted in documentary-style videos thrown into the game as fodder for additional insight.
This week's game is 'Kisima Inŋitchuŋa' also known as Never Alone - a puzzle-platformer by Upper One Games. In this game you play as two characters: the Iñupiaq girl Nuna with her newly found companion, the Arctic fox, going through many different obstacles and chases in a very hazardous winter environment. In this blog post we will question whether or not user input has any meaningful impact towards story direction and progression.
The gist of the game is fairly simple for Never Alone. You control either of the two characters - Nuna and the fox to traverse the many different chapters of the game. You can only play one of them at a time if played by yourself, but co-operative gameplay can be implemented locally via PC or Xbox. Both characters can run through the levels and jump the platforms, but each one have their own unique game-play qualities that would require you to switch between them.
The core game-play goes quite well with the progression of the story. The idea of escaping and avoiding all danger works effectively in a platformer where you're running and jumping from one point to another, with that very imminent danger looming behind you. But having to use both the characters to overcome specific obstacles within the game reinforces this idea that Nuna, the protagonist of this game, would not make it through any of this without the help and guidance of the Arctic fox, hence the name 'Never Alone'. This game-play lends to the cultural insights of the game where these spirits guide and prevent mankind from dying and works wonders in furthering the depth of the puzzles within the game.
The controls of this game, however, make the game-play frustrating for some players. Playing this game alone forces you into a somewhat start-and-stop progression throughout the game, in which I would feel as if playing this with a friend would make the progression a lot smoother and that this sense of co-operation would become more prominent if the other character were in another player's hands.
While the narrator does offer some insight during the game-play's fantastic scrimshaw cut-scenes, the biggest issue I have with this game is that the abundance of context is placed within these videos that you can access, essentially just being parts of a documentary. Although it is educational and good insight to the culture of these indigenous Alaskan people, having to consume the interesting information through videos that may as well be DVD extras undoubtedly breaks away from the immersion the player could be experiencing with the game-play at the time. None of these ideas are incorporated into the game mechanics and are just there purely for aesthetics.
While the foundations of the game-play's co-operative aspect does drive the progression throughout the puzzles, there are drastic faults in the default maneuverability of the game with the single-player pacing as well as the AI, not to mention ideas seemingly wasted in documentary-style videos thrown into the game as fodder for additional insight.
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