This week in class, we went over the dramatic elements in games. There are many aspects that contribute to it such as the characters, story, progression, music, environment and mechanics. They all make games have a tension or challenge to it and adds more depth to the story. To me, characters felt the most important in that list because they make up the most of any narrative story. It’s important to give them personalities, make them relatable, and show development as the story progresses. Without characters, games won’t be able to tell the whole story in an entertaining or interactive way.

Going off that, we were assigned to bring in cards and create a story using them. My group had Pokémon cards, and by looking at the character traits and color we quickly created a story from it. After, we discussed that it’s easy to create a story in your mind, and just slot the given characters into the narrative structure. We all share the same value of a hero saving the day, so we add the friendly/popular looking one as the protagonist, and the ugly/scary one as antagonist. To flesh it out, we add more dramatic elements like history, personality traits and relationships between the characters.

Another interesting example we had was our next playthrough with the game Virginia (2016). From what we played, it’s a linear story about an agent working with her partner on a case. Unlike other narrative games, the visuals and graphics were cartoony and blocky, there’s no dialogue, slow gameplay, and we’re limited to just what the story provides, no exploring or finding secrets. All these contribute to making the game feel mysterious and unsettling, but also unique and beautiful. As players, all we can focus on are the characters and the environments, without the worry of obstacles or mechanics. We noticed that a majority of the other characters are white males, so it gives a feeling of loneliness and singularity. This overall is another reason why characters are important to the dramatic element. There’s no dialogue or objectives in this game, so we had to look to other characters for help through their actions, facial expressions, and personalities. We also follow the main character we play as if we’re living her life too. We see her morning routine, flashbacks of her getting the job as an agent and share her concerns about other characters. We can even look back at previous games like Half Life or Firewatch. It’s the characters that explains what’s happening in the game, helps players identify/recognize, and what’s their personal situation in the story.

There are a wide variety of formal elements in video games. One element that resonates the most with me is characters and the difference between 2D and 3D characters. Many times I find myself stuck with 2D characters, like in multiplayer games, where the player’s actions matter more than the story of the character. The character might have a background, but nothing adapts in the game play to change the character. However, games like Assassin’s Creed have plenty of character development, where we go on an emotional journey as we discover unknown pieces of our life that drastically alters our perspective. That is the beauty of the 3D character. Unfortunately, 2D and 3D protagonists with a linear story line don’t allow much for the player to affect what the outcomes are for the character and their development. So, we are left with just many variations of the regular model, which have some positive aspects. Other types of characters can be more than just an emotional reflection of what the player should feel. As mentioned by Fullerton, The protagonist can be, symbolic for larger ideas, representative of a group of people, or be a historical figure.

Importantly, when developing this persona, there are two pieces to focus on, which is agency and empathy. Agency is when the character is a representation of the player, while empathy is the emotional attachment between the two. As I described before, a character doesn’t always have to be an emotional reflection. Multiplayer games are greatly influenced by agency, but it is not possible to never have any emotional pieces with a character. There is always something relatable. The character could be human or go through impactful events, where it’s hard not to relate to that.

The many elements of a character can drastically rework a game. With 2D, there might be less empathy and more agency, while with 3D there can be more empathy. A character can be plainly just a representation of yourself, where you have complete agency. Without them, we might find a game being less engaging because we have difficulty finding some sort of connection. However, even games like Tetris, have immersion without a protagonist to follow.

Works Cited

Fullerton, Tracy. Game Design Workshop: a Playcentric Approach to Creating Innovative Games. CRC Press, 2019.

               This week’s exercise of working with cards to construct a story was something that was putting Fullerton’s Working with Dramatic Elements into practice in sorts. My group started off with only the white cards of Cards Against Humanity and turning that into a narrative, which was easy enough since the cards already had words on them and spinning them into a semi-coherent story wasn’t too taxing. Things got harder once we switched to a standard deck of cards, because it’s just like how Fullerton describes checkers.

               “The game of checkers is very abstract: There is no story, no                characters, and no compelling reason why you would want to                capture all of your opponent’s pieces, except for the fact that it’s the                objective of the game.”

               This is something that applies to a deck of cards as well, to a slightly lesser extent, since the cards do have symbols and values to them. But the usage of the cards still varies, making it abstract. It’s that abstraction that allows for the for the wide variety of different games that use a standard deck of cards to exist. But turning that into a story was somewhat more difficult, especially since my group opted to try to incorporate each person, card type, and card value into the story. Our stories were closer to short stories that didn’t really go anywhere, so there wasn’t any chance to get invested in them. There was no character development, no story progression, and no attachment, and ended being like something you would see out of a writing prompt that goes ‘make a horror story in three sentences.’

               We also watched and played through a little of Virginia, which was one of the most linear games I have seen in a long while. Linearity isn’t something that is bad, because far from what EA thinks, linear games aren’t dead. It’s something that works for the game, as it’s supposed to a game that retells and recreates real life events. Despite being a game that doesn’t seem to hold much stake, and essentially is just a story that you go through at your own pace, there is suspense and the subverting of expectations. If I had to compare it to something, it’s like a game of DnD where we don’t get to roll for initiative and the DM is just going through the campaign like they’re telling a story.

                Sources

Fullerton, Tracy. Game Design Workshop: A Playcentric Approach to Creating Innovative Games; Third Volume

In her conclusion of the chapter we discussed in class this week, Fullerton wrote an interesting paragraph on the future of dramatic elements in games, saying “Although the media palette of game design has grown to rival film and television, in general the emotional impact of games still has not achieved the depths it is capable of and that will make it recognized as an important dramatic art form.  We are only now seeing game designers reach for more sophisticated goals in terms of their narrative tone, significance of theme, character depth, and overall dramatic intent” (Fullerton pg 122). I find this particularly interesting considering the seemingly large array of emotional, dramatic games that already exist. It leaves me to wonder what types of depth and emotional impact she was picturing when writing this conclusion. Personally, it is difficult to picture something with more emotional impact than some of the narrative driven games I have played. This list includes The Walking Dead, Detroit: Become Human, The Last of Us, and many other tear jerkers that exist in the gaming space. 

I thought the game we played in class, Virginia, was a particularly interesting example of a dramatic game. It was intriguing because with narrative games that have mechanics and storylines similar to Virginia, there are very detailed and realistic (and expensive) graphics to portray the story, sometimes making it feel more like a movie. However, in Virginia, there were very simplistic graphics we might expect from a mobile or online game. Regardless, the game still provided a very beautiful scene and an intriguing story despite its differences from similarly story-driven games. On top of this, the lack of dialogue was a very brave and artful decision in the development of the game because it adds elements that make its simple yet not-so-simple style work in many different ways. The way the game is set up leaves the perfect amount of confusion for a layer, creating a trail to follow on a journey to find out what is going on, even without the use of fancy graphics and dialogue. 

Works Cited:

Fullerton, Tracy. Game Design Workshop: A Playcentric Approach to Creating Innovative Games, 4th Edition. 2019.

Virginia. Variable State. Published by 505 Games. 2016. 

In class on Tuesday, we were told to bring a deck of cards and tell a story somehow with them.  This really got me thinking of how you could possibly tell a story with playing cards; after all, they’re just numbers and symbols.  However, after thinking about it, my group was able to come up with an entire story about a king and a queen who had a certain number of children who ended up dying, and the story’s components all somehow related to the images on the cards.  I thought this to be interesting because we were able to add meaning to something that didn’t seem like it truly meant anything. Although our stories were rather randomly generated and often quite strange, we created something interesting out of a mere object, and I found this to be symbolic of modern-day games in which people use symbolism and environmental images to tell stories.

After we performed the exercise, we played a little bit through the game Virginia.  Upon immediately watching the gameplay, I could tell it was very movie-esque.  Different games tell stories in different ways, and Virginia was definitely taking a less “choice-impacted” route. The beginning had credits saying it was a true story, and all of the people who worked on the game were listed behind beautiful landscapes and colorful screens accompanied by intro music.  We talked about what dramatizes a game, and the music and lighting definitely did this for Virginia, as did the random cutscenes and dreaming sequences.  The red lighting when the main character goes to show the lady her FBI badge before walking across stage gave us an unsettling feeling, as did the other random dream with a Buffalo being in the missing child, Lucas’s, room.  The fact that the game has no talking adds to this feeling – the creators want to create an environment in which the viewer experiences what is happening and can interpret it for themself. Voice acting often has a strong impact, like in the animated Uno video, but a lack of voice also has a very strong impact.  We can focus better on what’s happening for ourselves and listen to every little sound queue like the music. It adds more of an unsettling feeling, almost like we ourselves are watching everything unfold and don’t quite get a say in what happens.

Virginia.  505 Games, 2016.

After play test the game I design for the individual project, this Monday me and my friend is talking about how can we improve this game, make it more playable, balance and enjoyable. Last week on Thursday we play test our game with classmates, the feedback I got from them is, the concept of the game is good, in my game there are action cards which can play the player switch allegiance. One example is that if you are a wolf someone can use an action card called “repent” and you will turn to sheep and become on God’s side now no longer on Devil’s side. One thing that people in the class bring up when play testing the game is that there are two many action cards, people can just abuse it, keep changing a players allegiance, and later on the player will get confuse about which side should I fight for.

There are two new things I discuss about with my friend, first one is we can borrow the concept from UNO, instead of having too much action cards, in UNO the number of wild cards, reverse and skip is limited that’s what make them special and powerful, because not everyone have the access to it.

The other concept I get is similar to one thing we learn from playing “Virginia” the past Tuesday. In the game the player is being guided with the story line. Can not explore the things around if it is not meant to be shown. The concept I get from discuss with my friend is that we come up with a new play style, we increase the number of wolf and decrease the number of sheep. And with the limited number of action cards. The amount of wolf is double the amount of sheep. So when the game goes on it forces the wolf to do actions. As the Game Designer we forces the game to go this way, this is another approach when designing the game.

Last week in class we talked about storytelling through setting and environment. The first game that we talked about is “Half Life 2.” The start of this game takes place in a run down city where the Combine are asserting their power. The game doesn’t tell this to the player, but shows it through the way the NPCs interact with the player. The player is constantly being escorted by the Combine in the opening scene. There was even a time where a soldier knocks a can on the ground and tells you to pick it up. If you don’t pick it up, the officer will hit you with his baton. The civilians also show how the Combine is asserting their power. There is a point in the game where the player has to go through an apartment complex. The people don’t have a lot of belongings; a couch, a TV, and maybe a chair or bed. The civilians’ lack of personal items shows the player that the Combine’s influence has spread to their homes. If they don’t answer the door, the Combine will break in.

The second game that we played through was “Firewatch.” The opening scene tells the story of the main character while also including small gameplay bits that teaches the player the basic movement controls. This opening scene sets the tone for the game and why Henry is taking this job. The back and forth between the complex, sad story and the calm, peaceful environments tells the player that Henry wants to escape from his life for the summer.

Another game that does a good job with environmental storytelling is “Fallout 3.” This game takes place in a wasteland after nuclear bombs have struck the earth. One of the first towns you go to after escaping your vault is a place called Megaton. In the center of town is an atomic bomb that didn’t detonate during the fallout, and townspeople have even started to worship the bomb and subject themselves to radiation. This town shows us how much life in the wasteland has changed people. 

The environment within games is often taken for granted. When playing a game, sometimes we forget about all the minor things that tell a story and make the play a better experience. A horror game without spooky wind, darkness, and small hallways might be less scary because its environment is lacking sufficient backup to the monster or jump scare that lies within it. With this in mind, surroundings provide an experience themselves. In “Game Design as Narrative Architecture”, it proposes that video games don’t inherently need a narrative. A game can speak just through its atmosphere. This has a lot to do with the type of media. Video games are interactive and don’t have to tell you every single detail in order to understand something. The player explores the world and processes the cryptic information. In a game like FireWatch, we are exploring a simple forest, but the appearance of the forest abstractly represents more than just what it appears. The forest is an escape from the protagonist’s past. It is tranquil and peaceful and we are trying to protect this calmness from fires breaking out. The forest is an environment that we travel through and decode like what was mentioned before. Even in multiplayer games, the ambience still exists. In dead by daylight, you play as either a survivor or a killer. When the killer moves closer to you, heartbeats can be heard. This sound cue is a game changer because without them, the killer is much harder to notice. On the same note, the killer can hear generator sounds, birds, and breathing, which all signify that a survivor is nearby. Sounds are atmospheric, but they add essential mechanics. 

It is through the atmosphere that we can also alter stories in unheard manners. The storyteller can do much more than create something original. Brought up by Jenkins, the concept of taking existing knowledge and repurposing it is a profound mode of producing a story. An existing folktale can be adjusted and altered in such a way that it creates a new experience. For example, Jenkins talked about American McGee’s Alice, which readapts Lewis Carol’s Alice in Wonderland. Wonderland becomes a much darker and grittier world. It contrasts with the previous conception of wonderland that is whimsical and lighthearted. It is through the tone and atmosphere that McGee reinterprets the story.

In summary, a game’s background is not just something to look at. It is a game mechanic as well as a story component. Previously existing environments can have their tone adjusted to become a new space for the player to traverse with new found joy. The environment is not something to be underestimated and it can change the game for narratives in video games completely.

Works Cited

“Game Design as Narrative Architecture”, Electronic Book Review, July 10, 2004, .

In chapter 4: Working with Dramatic Elements, in the textbook, Game Design Workshop, by Tracy Fullerton, it talks about how dramatic elements can create an engaging experience for players. The chapter first talks about challenge in games. Most people will think challenge in games as of dealing with hard tasks or objectives. While that may be true, challenge in games can also mean how satisfied you feel when you complete certain tasks. A great example of this would be Call of Duty multiplayer challenges. Recently I have been playing Call of Duty Black Ops 4 and Call of Duty Modern Warfare. In these games, you can complete challenges to gain extra XP for your online rank. Every day there are different challenges that you can accomplish. Some challenges include getting 5 headshots in one game, get 10 kills without dying, defend an objective in an objective-based game mode. and many more. These challenges are not hard to complete but you still have to put some effort towards these goals. You do not want to make games too challenging that it would make players frustrated. An example of a frustrating game would be the Dark Souls games. While Dark Souls is a good game, it is extremely difficult for players. It is easy for players to die to the enemy, especially the bosses in these games. I tried to play Dark Souls, and I a frustrating experience.

What also caught my attention in the textbook, was the A Challenging Activity That Requires Skill section. It says that “flow occurs most often within activities that are ‘goal-directed and bounded by rules… that could not be done without the proper skills’… For a person who has skills but is not completely assured of the outcome”, means a task is challenging (Fullerton p. 99). An example of this is the game Fifa 20. In Fifa 20 I play the game mode, Pro Clubs, which is when you play with only one character. As a casual player I know how to do skill moves to get passed the enemy players, I know how to do short and long passes to my teammates, and I know when to shoot the ball. That being said, it took me a long time to get consistently good at the game. I remembered when I played Fifa 16 and I would make inconsistent passes that cost my teammates and me the game. Skill and consistency also play a factor in these kinds of games. Even though I have the skills to play Fifa 20, other players can be more skilled than me. Sometimes luck plays a factor in these kinds of games as well. Whether or not I win or lose I try my best to have fun.

Fullerton, Tracy. Game Design Workshop: A Playcentric Approach to Creating Innovative Games, 4th Edition. 2019.

On Tuesday, after reading Henry Jenkins’ article Game Design as Narrative Architecture, we discussed how games don’t have to tell a story to make it playable or interesting, that games “can be an abstract, expressive, and experiential form” (Jenkins). We listed examples such as Fallout, Minecraft, and Sims, explaining all those games are a form of spatial storytelling, where the environment explains more of the story than the narrative or progression. In Fallout, we’re thrown right in the middle of a post-apocalyptic world, and it’s up to the players to explore and feel the atmosphere of the game in order to be immersed. This can even apply to our previous playthrough with The Beginner’s Guide, where the creator tells a story by combining a variety of his friend’s unfinished levels, ideas, and background info instead of an intrinsic feature.

After the discussion, we delved more into spatial storytelling in our playthrough with Half-Life 2 and Firewatch. In both games, we start off in the middle of a story with some hints on how we got there. In Half Life 2, our only objective was to meet up another character, with little to no introduction about who you are and why you’re doing it. While progressing, we see a form of regime, enforcers abusing civilians in jumpsuits, a large tower looming over rundown buildings, and cameras/robots everywhere. We also interact with a handful of characters, and through the interactions or their personality we get a feel of who’s a friend or foe.

Moving on to the next game Firewatch, the dialogue between characters and flashbacks were the focus to tell the story. It felt as if we’re jumping between three different story paths at the same time. One moment we’re reading through the main character’s past, next becomes a walk in the woods and driving, then at a tower talking to another character. Though it was confusing, a story can still be found there, and through more interactions we’re able to piece the beginning, figuring that the main character was struggling with a past relationship and has taken the job as a fire watcher.

In both games, without an introduction or any storytelling, we had to consider everything the game provides to get a feel of the theme and plot, letting the environment tell the story. This shows that if there was only one clear story in the overall narrative of a game, then there’s no need for exploring, multiple characters with unique dialogues, or offering choices. 

Works cited

Jenkins, Henry. “Game Design as Narrative Architecture.” Electronic Book Review, July 10, 2004.