Excercise 1 3/18/2011

Game writers often find themselves asked to write content with very limited
information, and they have to make it up as best they can. This is an exercise about
writing dialog in such a situation. Assume the following scenario: An adventurer
arrives at an old ruin. The main entry gate is guarded by a huge stone golem that
has to be convinced to let the adventurer pass through. The player might take three
different approaches to the conversation at hand: intimidation, admiration, or subterfuge.

TASK

Write a scripted conversation for this situation in which, at each menu, the
player has a choice of three options corresponding to each of the three approaches.
Your conversation must include no fewer than four exchanges, counting introducing and parting dialog lines. If the player chooses a consistent approach
throughout the conversation, the golem opens the gate; if the player does not, the
golem refuses and the conversation ends.

Post your completed set of menus plus the conversations that stem from each as separate branches as a diagram to your blog. You may use freemind (on the applications folder of the macs in room 474) or some other tool such as google draw or photoshop or illustrator - any tool that lets you create a diagram of possible branching path options - a flowchart, basically.

Click Here For MindMap

Today's in class exercises - based on Chapter 5 of Ernest Adams

Today's workshop

part 1:

Go to:

Hero Machine - make your own hero

In class exercise number 1 - create three different kinds of hero for an imaginary videogame - e.g. RPG, MMORPG, FPS, etc. Consider scale, gender, body type for each of the three and try to vary them as much as possible.

RPG - Zaibatsu

     Zaibatsu is a Japanese term that refers to the businesses in the Empire Of Japan that controlled a significant share of the national economy before the end of World War II. A newly created street gang has taken the title Zaibatsu to warn rivals of their power and their destined future. This RPG places you into the shoes of a up and coming member as you climb the gang's ranks and make your name known in the criminal underworld.

Source Code: http://www.ugo.com/games/heromachine-ordinary-joe-edition?txtName=Kai&varLoadString=CEA66B,d,F7EBE7,b,FF0000,m,00B2F0,b,FFFFFF,0,AC8ABC,n,FFFFFF,0,FFFFFF,d,00B2F0,0,FFFFFF,v,FFFFFF,d,333333,0,333333,a,00B2F0,a,000000,h,AAAAAA,m,

Kai: Kai has several meanings in Japanese: change, the action to correct, taker and receiver. Kai lost her family to a tragic building fire. With no other family she was picked off the streets and raised by Zaibatsu members. As the game's story starts she is given her first assignment to prove her loyalty to the gang and their cause.

Cosmetic Attributes: Shirt
Functional Attributes: Shoes (modifies movement speed), skirt (modifies agility), coat (modifies defense), bandanna (modifies stealth), sword (modifies melee damage)

Players can modify the character through her cloths and choice of weaponry.

• Shoes mainly determine player movement speed in the game. The player might pickup different types of shoes to use in the game. Heavy boots provide a defense boost, but also restrict speed. Wearing high-heeled shoes boost kick damage during combat. Players might find special shoes that allow silent movement that draw less attention to the player during assignments.
• Bottoms mainly effect the agility of the player, the allowable amount of actions per turn in combat. Choosing a skirt instead of pants allows more actions per turn, but reduce defense compared to pants.
• Outerwear mainly determines defense stats and inventory. Wearing a large trench coat allows for more hidden weapons to beat carried, but having too many weapons encumbers the player and effects movement speed. Leather jackets greatly effect defense in combat.
• Bandannas are used to modify stealth. Wearing a bandanna during assignments reduces the chance that rival gang members will recognize the player out of combat and start a fight on the streets. On the other hand, wearing a bandanna out on the street will attract the attention of police.
• The choices of weaponry are numerous and modify the amount of damage dealt. Players can chose different martial arts styles. There are several types of katanas and knives. Shurikens are available for more distance stealth kills. For more modern geared players there are various guns, some with silencers or some without for times when damage is preferable over stealth.
• Tattoos later play an important customizable aspect in the game. As the player rises the ranks in the Zaibatsu organization they are given their own crew. The markings that you chose to wear identify your crew within the organization furthers player choice and creativity.

In-Class Exercise Friday March 4th 2011

Game Concept

Ariel, Christian, Jeff, John
Game 100 - Exploring Game Worlds
Instructor Cox
F 12-4
03.04.2011

Game Concept

What if you were given the power to change the world what would you do? The codename for this game is Project Agera. Agera is Swedish for “ to take action” and that this the basic premise for the game. Agera is a single player action role-playing game set in the modern world with a twist on expectations and is for the PC, Microsoft Xbox 360 and Sony Playstation 3. The game takes inspirations from many different sources including Japanese RPG’s, anime and the video game culture in general.

The player controls the game through a first year high school student as he progresses from year to year to eventually graduating. The student is a part of the video game subculture and a geek in general trying to get through the gauntlet that is the high school social scene. On the other hand he also has stumbled into a secret war between different factions for the control of the world and has to choose which side to align himself with. As the story unfolds the player becomes more powerful and gains new skills, but the final outcome of the story is determined by player choice.
Though the tone of the story is grand and world altering, the tone of the actual story-telling is light hearted, unexpected and even referential to the culture of video games. The story starts off in a simple narrative structure, but as the game progresses there will be different branching paths presented through the choices that the player makes. For example as you complete missions for your faction and learn more about what they stand for another faction will try to tell you their perspective on the situation and try to persuade the player to change sides. Another way that the narrative changes is by how the player chooses to act or respond when presented certain situations. For example the player could choose whether or not to be nice to a specific character and, depending on how the player acts, that character would either help you in a time of need or completely change allegiances and become your enemy later down the line.

    The story takes place within a modern city that is an amalgam of a fictional

metropolitan area mixed with various elements of real world locations. The most important location and where a good part of the story takes place is at the high school where the player goes. The story of the game starts during the modern time and progresses into the near future. The game is an open-world game, so there is a non-linear path of how and when to do things. There are overarching missions for the player to complete, which contain smaller mission type experiences. In addition to the persistent story mission there are missions that are activated by several triggers which include, starting missions from non-player characters, passing -by when certain events occur, random encounters and starting mini-games. The typical win condition would be to get the task done, for example get to this place before it’s too late or fight off all the enemies in this area. There is no game over state, and if the player fails a mission the story is modified to reflect the mission outcome, but the persistent story’s mission can not be failed or the game will revert to an earlier checkpoint. The persistent story is broken-up into the four years of high school, which is further divided-up into chapters.
      The player’s interaction model is through directly controlling the main character in the story. The game’s primary camera model is third-person auto-follow with player controlled options to pan the camera around when necessary. There are other camera models that will be present in the game. For example the camera will go into a zoomed-in over the shoulder view when the player needs to aim at a specific target. Another example is that the game might go into an overhead view during a particular mission as a homage to another game. 
     Project Agera is aimed particularly at players who play a lot of video games and will appreciate the various references and in-jokes to other games. It is a project that is made as a love letter to the collective of video game fans. There is also a broader audience that the game will appeal to with the game’s Anime art style and story telling tone, so anime fans or people who enjoy crazy stories should find something to look forward to in this game. In fact everyone should play this game. Project Agera is a different type of game that deviates from the standard hoard of first person shooters or by the books role playing games. It is a game that is not strictly categorized into a particular genre but rather it takes elements from various types of video games to create something fresh and enhance the player experience. It is a game that doesn’t follow a linear story but instead does what only a game can do in that it allows the player to totally immerse themselves in a fully realized universe and decide how the story will unfold.