Nintendoeat's prep for GDC --- Monday

In an attempt to motivate myself, I'll be reposting from my website (unfinished) about the portfolio work that I'm doing every day this week. Narrative design and writing are my thing, so  most of what I post here is in the form of "Valve Playthroughs"...but you can find out what that is (along with my schedule) here. In the meantime, below are the things I wrote today:

Train
Charlie
 
Go here for the NOT YET EDITED intro sequence, which should give you a grasp on most of the mechanics referenced later.

The goal for today was to get a whole bunch of sections of Onward written. I didn’t get quite as much done as I would have liked, but what I do have I am really happy with. Specifically, I wrote out a sequence where Elisa encounters a train that can be used to get to an alternate ending, and a big chunk of the “Charlie”section, which is critical to the game’s plot.

Since most people aren’t going to be interested in the specifics of Onward right now, I thought I would use this post as a place to write about the process that I have been using, involving the game where relevant.

My approach starts with an atmosphere or idea that I want the player to experience. Onward began as a take off on the “follow the train tracks” element of Jurassic Park Trespasser. I wanted the player to develop an affinity for the train tracks and feel like they were following them because they had no other choice. I expect that in Trespasser the idea was to have an open world that used the tracks as a reference point, but I didn’t want to work on an open world game. Instead I have tried to give the player the simultaneous feeling that there is a big scary world around them, but that they MUST stay on the tracks whenever possible.

The introduction of the light mechanics are my way of maintaining this. I’m allowing the player to interact with world off the tracks, but only in a way that is constructed to give them a sense that they are on the critical path.

In the documents posted above you can observe some other things that serve this end. Specifically, note how the outside world contains threats while Elisa is off the tracks, but helps her while she is on them. There are metaphors at play here, which run throughout the whole game, but in the end the point is to give the player the sense that the tracks are helping them and they should only ever leave them when it is necessary for progression.

Another thing that should be apparent is my very strict approach. Most games could not be written in the style that I am using. There are two reasons for this:

1. With no pressure to build around a mechanics heavy game, I am free to explore all kinds of fun avenues of narrative without worrying about random open world sections or overlong horde battles (though I have some ideas for slightly more free-form sections later on in the game). I am demonstrating narrative techniques, not game design ones.

2.In the end, this is the type of game that I like to play most. I love a good “game” game, but the experiences that stick with me most are pure narrative ones.

Anyway, I could go on for ages but I don’t want to ramble. Tomorrow I will be finishing a short story that I have been working on in various forms (including an incredibly abstract video game) for about 2 years, so I will be very excited to talk about that…provided that I can get the bloody characters to behave themselves and do as I say.

Rock the Casbah

Adrian Hall