Now the game and the documentation are complete, I thought I would post a final blog post.
Between last time I posted and now, I have done some final user testing on the game.
Below is my documentation video
Ex Libris Description
Within classic storytelling, archetypes exist that cross language barriers. An example of this is the three bowls of steaming porridge representing the story of Goldilocks and the Three Bears. Ex Libris is a computer game that looks at how environments can aid narrative. The game advances research into environmental storytelling aims to expand the understanding of how we as designers can hint and suggest at stories within a level design setting.
This description will take a brief overview of various aspects of Ex Libris, including background, story, aesthetics and game-play.
The origins of Ex Libris have its roots in the Tim Burton film, The Nightmare before Christmas and the computer game, American McGee’s Alice. In both of these examples there is a strong gothic atmosphere that has its base in children’s stories and fairy tales, creating its own world amongst established literary classics. In addition to a solid narrative both of these works incorporate their own distinctive aesthetic style. It was in considering these concepts and ideas, that Ex Libris was conceived.
Within this notion of a strong narrative the plot of Ex Libris’ harks back to the traditional themes. The story follows the journey of an unnamed character that finds a manor house deep within a forest. While exploring the manor the unnamed character comes to the realisation that the establishment is a retirement home for fairy tale characters. The unnamed character or player takes it upon themselves to save the imprisoned fairy tale characters from the decaying environment of the retirement institution. This is all done whilst attempting to avoid supernatural traps in the manor house.
As stated previously, the aesthetics of the game were strongly influenced by Tim Burton’s The Nightmare before Christmas and American McGee’s Alice. However other influences include The Elder Scrolls IV, Oblivion and Pan’s Labyrinth. All of these works have a strong emphasis on environment, atmosphere and history.
The visual aesthetics that Ex Libris portrays are that of gothic horror with a hint of Victorian styling. These elements are there to give Ex Libris a sense of history and mythology.
The intent of the visual components is to provide the feeling that the player is a small part of a larger mysterious world. The visuals having a solid foundation in children’s stories and fairy tales. It is important that this connection is re affirmed throughout the game to give clarity and consistency to the overriding concept, so avoiding fragmentation of ideas. One of the main ways Ex Libris achieves this is by giving the illusion that the visual athestics look like a drawing on a piece of old parchment. This was done to give the effect that the player was looking at an illustration from an old children’s fairy tale book. This was also achieved by the making the visuals detailed and relevant to the setting thereby keeping a strong level of continuity whilst maintaining a hand drawn antique look. In this context tone and atmospherics were used as key elements in Ex Libris, shaping the mood of the game to the past using sepia colouring. Lighting was also used as a key element in the game-play.
Another way the visual aesthetics imbues Ex Libris with history is by using worn furniture and dusty cobwebs. By having various pieces of clutter in the level we are provided with a semblance that the manor was once inhabited but is now abandoned.
Above all the visual aesthetics enhance the atmosphere of the game, while giving it a unique feel and identity of its own.
The game-play is a mix of knowledge and puzzles that test the players understanding of children’s stories and fairy tales. The way Ex Libris undertakes this is by a simple question and answer method. After finding a damaged story book, the player must repair it by correctly matching well known fairy tale objects to the stories. After repairing the three books the player can exit the manor and win the game. If the player gets the wrong answer the player will be tortured and sent back to the last save point. However the player is given clues to help them solve the puzzles of the books at hand. An entry level of some basic European folk, fairy tale knowledge is required to play this game. In essence the game-play combines adventure based puzzles with a dash of general knowledge and a smattering of survival horror.
In conclusion Ex Libris is a mature adventure horror game which tests the players knowledge of traditional European based fairy tales. It provides the player with a mysterious yet achievable quest in an unusual and visually intriguing setting.
Since my last post I have the game almost complete. However there are some small issued I have to deal with before hand in on Thursday.
Also I have added in two new features to the game.
A quit button to get you back to the main menu while in game-play.
A ladder to get you up to the higher book shelves .
Also On Monday I need to talk to my lecturer about credits.
In addition I have cut the three little pigs content the reason for this was to insure a consistent quality in this project. As I don’t think the present content is working in the game.
Below is more general list of things to
Introduction
prologue
Controls Introduction
Credits
An opening animated book
Updated bookcases.
Tighten up controls.
Suitcase object script: A script that allows a suitcase contains all three books.
Texture swapping script: For prologue
New voice acting.
ladder for the library
New portraits.
New consequence
Polished up existing consequences.
Below Are screenshots
The Three bears
Rumpelstiltskin
Also I have started my documentation today. below is a list of things I need to do before Thursday.
600- 800 word description of the game. started today.
1-2 minute video of my assignment.
Authored DVD with my video.
Data DVD with all my final working ,standalone games and documentation.
3 – 4 high rez Images.
A read me file for the game.
DVD packaging for the Authored DVD and the Data DVD.
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, Is an interesting read. I liked this book because of its juxtaposition between humanity and a totalitarian government.
Also I enjoyed Aldous Huxleys description of the world, compelling characters and imaginative story. However I found the end of the book quite depressing.
This book looks like it inspired the film Equilibrium as well as one of the first modern post-apocalyptic stories out there. This book was definitely worth my time to read as it provides allot of inspiration for future game projects. As well as all this It was great to have a chance to read some old school science fiction that gets you to think differently about how the world could have been.
The Rise and Fall of the Third Chimpanzee by Jared Diamond, talks allot about sustainability as well as evolution. This book takes a good third of the book introducing you to various problems faced today and compares them to problems of the past. I think this book needs a Sequel because the last few chapters are great, and it seems like Jared Diamond comes more of advocate of the environment.
What is interesting about this book is that it shows humans are slow learners, when it comes to the taking care of the planet. Also I was intrigued to learn about art and what context it had to evolution, especially in relation to the bowerbird.
This book is good introduction to evolution if you have not read Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species. This book also makes me realise on how much we still have to do to save the planet.
After well revived alpha presentation on Monday, I had a talk to my lecturer about what I could do next to improve the game. Together we came up with these points
Finish up the art work
Intuitive game-play: i.e. guiding the player down a set path with clues.
User testing to refine game-play.
No characters.
Consequences for the player for making a wrong move.
Introduction and prologue and credits .
So with this in mind I will break down each point
Finish up the art work
Below is a list of thing I want to model up
An opening animated book
A ripped page from a book
A satchel to take the books of the library
a retirement home sign for the out side of the house.
Re-texture: Straw bookcase
Re-texture: Sticks bookcase
Re-texture: Brick bookcace
A blocked up cave.
More dense forest.
Intuitive game-play: i.e. guiding the player down a set path with clues.
Below is list of possible of way the I could use as clues.
Matching Sounds to together e.g. Two objects would emit the same sound.
Tanking portraits that would relay hints.
Different lighting on significant objects.
User testing to refine game-play.
Some time Before Beta Presentation I want to show my game to some other students who have no knowledge of this game in order to get some feed back.
No characters.
The reason why I am not going to have any characters is to make the game more creepy.
Consequences for the player for making a wrong move.
Below is list of possible of ways the player could be punished for making the wrong decision.
Turned into frog
Turned into a woof
Turned in a book.
Eaten by books.
Poisoned by the spinning wheel
Distorted gravity.
Introduction and prologue and credits .
This is so I can give my game more context. At the moment I want to make some text based opening.
I thought I would take this opportunity to plan for the next coming weeks. At the moment I am on track with my assignment however I have realised that I need to model up a couple of new items up after Beta presentations.
Here is a list of objects that still need to be done.
An opening animated book
A satchel to take the books of the library
a retirement home sign for the out side of the house.
Re-texture: Straw bookcase
Re-texture: Sticks bookcase
Re-texture: Brick bookcace
At the moment I have altered the game-play slightly. The game-play will consist of the player repairing broken books by touching books with fairy tale Characters, books, ect. Then the player must but them in to a satchel and take the satchel out of the library in order to finish the game.
With alpha presentation tomorrow (September 28th) I went over my Gantt chart. below is a link to this modified and up dated Gantt chart.
As this next week is going to be primary about Character design I thought I would draw some concept sketches.
One of the three little pigs
Little Red riding Hood
In ythe game these characters will be asleep in the library. With the three little pigs I will make one model and then re-texture the character In order to save time. I still need to draw a concept for Rumpelstiltskin but for the time being I have enough to be getting on with.
I Hope to have these characters done by the end of this week.
Thanks to Steven Lam and some tutorials I have now finished all my coding. there may be small bits and pieces towards the final Hand-In But for the moment the main game-play coding is done.
So now I have a dynamic filter on the camera. In addition to that an object switching script that has a particle transition.
This week has been devoted to make some code to get some game-play in to my level.
Below are a list of components that I have done in code.
Door script code/load level code – done.
Repair book script – done.
Filter script – to do.
My main problem at the moment is that I am trying to get two C# scripts to communicate with each other but I cant find out how to do it. in unity 3D I hope that tomorrow I can talk to my lecture and get some help on this.
Last week I was building my library. The reason for the long wait between posts was because I Was having scaling and texturing problems in my library. However at this current time I feel that the Library is well developed enough to show some screenshots.
Also I Have got some physics elements working in the game. Now it is possible to pick-up Certain objects.
Also I have Modelled up some more models.
Lamp
Spinning wheel
An arm chair
Mouse tails
Carving knife
Straw Bale
Gold bars
Carpet
What I still need to Model Up
Modified bookcace
Red Hood
Rose in glass cace
Apple
Straw bookcase
Sticks bookcase
Brick bookcace
Dammaged book
Windows
Mouse
Spider
Spider web
Stool
At this stage I am layering the library with Fairy tale references. I hope to finish this by the next Monday. Next week Hope to get some more game-play functionality
Today I had a crack at making making more textures of my books and had a go at making my library. However I think the library needs some more work before I show it on this blog.
Below is a piece of concept art and a floor plan of the library. I was thinking that the player could not see the roof of the library and that the pillars could simply disappear in to the roof as well.
Note: you my notice inside of the mansion is broken up in to 2 stages library and house. The purpose of this is that the library is more critical to the success of this project than the house part. It is easy to integrate the elements of the house into the library. With this in mind if I run out of time I can cut out the house part in favour of the library.
After getting my idea signed off by my lecturer. I got started making my game. However I realised today that I have not done any blogging this week. So this blog will hopefully show how far I have come.
I have done a lot of work on modelling up and making the out side of the mansion so munch so that I Now have some screenshots to show
This is my concept art for the mansion. I was thinking that the central window above the main door would guide the player to the house
This was the first version of my mansion. You may have noticed that the tower at the top has gone the reason for this was that I feelt that the tower was not enhancing the building in any way.
Blender01 This was the second version of my mansion. I disfigured the walls to give the building a more dilapidated look, as well as twisting the building slightly
This is what the mansion looks like in the game engine.
This is a screenshot with a filter on the main camera. The reason for doing this was to make the game look more like my original drawing as I possibly could.
I made this wall in this picture to clealy lead the payer to the mansion at the top of the hill.
Above is another screenshot with a different filter on the main camera. this is getting alot closer to my original drawing.
I need to tweek some small things at the moment.
Filter need some more work on the
The road leading the the mansion
Some code that load the next level in game.
Also thanks to Steven lam for helping me implement my lightning code.
The next level I want to work on is a is the library level.
In this game the player is an unnamed visitor. The visitor is lost on a country road. The night is foggy and the weather bad. Through the fog the player sees a light along a driveway. Following the road a rundown old mansion is seen. The player drives up and enters through the front door. At this point the player should feel the sensation that something is wrong.
The scene is set as the visitor or player enters the house. They are met by the housekeeper a Miss Hood who is wearing red of course. Infact the inhabitants of the house seem to be mature human versions of Fairy Tale Characters. For example the butler is a short withered old man called Mr R Skin. Three brothers who are servants look rather piggy and are called Mr Hocks, Mr Rind and Mr Squealer. The player asks to for a room for the night and the request is granted. The player finds themselves being shown to an upstairs room. An opportunity to explore the house presents itself.
When exploring the old mansion the player can find a number of different scenes that relate to Fairy Tales/Nursery Rhymes. e.g. player goes into the kitchen and finds three mouse tails on the chopping block with a carving knife.
As the player moves through the mansion, the player also encounters a variety of different rooms. That reveals to the player that the old mansion is a retirement home for forgotten Fairy Tales Characters.
In one of the rooms of the house there is a mysterious bookcase. This bookcase is a door to a vast library full of old volumes of decaying books. When touching the books on the library’s bookcases, they momentarily transfigure in to various representations of the story contained inside. The floor is dusty with disintegrated elements of books it is however possible to read the spines and covers of them an it is apparent that they are volumes of old Fairy Tales. While in the library the player should see a book disintegrate and out of the ashes appear a newly escaped Fairy Tale Character. This scenario lends itself to create many puzzles and mysteries that can unfold during the game.
The player can be charged with the task of putting each appropriate story book under the pillow of the sleeping character so that it can return to its rightful place within the story book and live on forever for everyone as a character within a book.
Notes:
The reason why the player is unnamed is because I want the player to feel that he or she is the main character.
This game’s emphasis will as much about exploring the mansion as playing to solve the puzzles.
Rumpelstiltskin. -Finds straw smelling of werewolf
Mad scientist goes unconscious.
Three little pigs. – Finds blown down straw house.
Little Red riding hood. – Finally goes to Grandma’s house in hopes of catching the werewolf. Wolf gets killed by huntsman. While dying the mad scientist Finds out that the werewolf is the mad scientist.
Mitigating Adversaries: Designing stories through video game level design (Digital Aesthetic stories) or Narrative vs Environment
Within classic storytelling, archetypes exist to aid story telling that cross language barriers. An example of this are three bowls of steaming porridge representing the story of Goldilocks and the Three Bears. This project will look at how environments can aid narrative.
This project will also cover a selection of stories and convert them into a computer game environment where the player re-enacts the story within the environment from a first person perceptive. This research into environmental storytelling will aim to within expand the understanding how we as designers can hint and suggest stories within a level design setting.
Three fairy stories have been chosen by focus group research. The stories will be retold from a first person view. The player will be playing a mad scientist. The mad scientist will have to go on a quest of self discovery in order to find a werewolf. The player must leave the castle and venture into a fairy tale kingdom. Various objects from fairy stories will be used to progress the story. The gameplay genre the designer should use is “Story Adventures” in order to promote exploring through puzzles in the game world. In essence the character is trying to find out who they are by interaction with other fairy tales.
The goals within the environment will be dictated by the story so the player will become more immersed in story’s fantasy world.
Below are the stories fairy tales selected by focus group research.
Rumpelstiltskin.
Three little pigs.
Little Red riding hood.
Within these stories the main focus will be on
A spinning wheel
A basket
A ring; and
Straw.
Inspired by American McGee’s Alice and Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas, the aesthetic style or visual motif should look familiar yet twisted or distorted. In essence the visual style will be Gothic.
Locations that will be used are
Forest
Castle
Village
In order to give better scope to the level this assignment will be made in a 3D Game environment.
The assignment will consist of four stages of model making, coding level making and finalization.
ADVENTURE GAMES: More than any other type of game, adventure
games feature the strongest use of story. Typically, the player is sent on
a quest or has a clear-cut mission and must solve a number of riddles
or puzzles in order to succeed. Players also explore rich environments
and collect items for their inventories as they move about. These games
have a very old history, dating back to text-based games such as the
Colossal Cave Adventure. More recent adventure games include Beyond
Good and Evil and The Grim Fandango. A subgenre of the adventure
game is the mystery-adventure game, which includes the Nancy Drew
series. At the 2003 E3 show, the adventure game was the fifth most
popular genre.
In this section sounds more like what I want to do with my level to be like. So
when developing my game I must have
rich environments.
clear-cut mission.
the ability to collect items.
In this next section reads more like a check list.
People regard games as play, and expect the experience to be pleasurable.
Story and game need to be in balance with each other. Although games are
becoming more cinematic, with better-developed plots, characters, dialogue,
and sound tracks, they falter if they focus on the cinematic elements
at the expense of the gaming elements. Short-changing the games’ interactivity
may well lead to frustrated players.
Games are most effective when they give participants an opportunity to do
things—to actively engage in an experience.
To keep players involved, games use devices like ticking clocks, a rewards
system, an ever-escalating series of challenges, and a build-up of suspense
and tension.
A well-designed interface serves an important role in making for a
pleasurable experience. Players do not wish to struggle with an ungainly
control system or be baffled by how to navigate through the game. Players
appreciate a logical, convenient, well-organized interface.
Games should be challenging enough to be interesting, but not so difficult
that they become frustrating.
Many players are drawn to games for a variety of reasons, and they cannot
all be lumped together. By understanding what attracts your particular
audience, you will be better able to design a game that will please them.
In this section I learnt that when designing a game the designer should the game
Pleasurable.
Balanced
Well-designed interface
Challenging not frustrating.
I will keep these thing in mind when I make my level.
Three little pigs. – Finds blown down straw house.
Huntsman goes unconscious.
Little Red riding hood. – Finally goes to Grandma’s house in hopes of catching wolf. Huntsman turns into Wolf . Huntsman attacks Grandma. Huntsman turns back .
