This week we had guest speaker Sarah Cole, she is a self described system and interaction designer. She has experience in a wide range of mediums.
The talk revolved around a more holistic approach to narrative design that is not just focused on the writing aspect.
Digital vs Analog Games
Video Games
- Variable flexibility
- Depends on tech and narrative design
- Game has limited control of player reactions and timing
Board Games
- Inflexible
- Players must self regulate
- Rules can’t easily accomodate different player cababilities
TTRPGs (table top roleplaying games)
- Very flexible
- GM can modify and tailor narrative
- Distilled narrative design
- Death of the author
The great detective problem!
Sherlock is too smart the average person would never be able to take the mental leaps that sherlock does. Detective games often struggle to strike a balance between actually letting the player deduce and telling them the story.
Sherlock Crimes and Punishments – An interesting entry in detective games you can come to completely the wrong conclusion and the game will let you convict the wrong person. A good narrative allows players freedom to mess up and be wrong.
Tips –
- Sometimes its better to work on paper
- Seek inspiration if your stuck – specially outside in the world
Tuesday –
At the meeting on Tuesday as my team members were absent I continued working on the animal designs. I also created a timeline in weeks and the main things I needed to do for our vertical slice.
On Thursday we had a visitor from the careers team delivering a talk about our next steps and how to stay up to date with the games industry.
Next Steps –
I now need to finish the animal designs over formative feedback week and animate them. I also intend to play around with shaders and effects in Unity to try and make the game more ethereal.
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