I. Introduction:
This Semester, I have become increasingly interested in exploring different methods to both control and modify a gamer’s experience. In my last project for this class, I had proposed a way for a comic book experience to become interactive. Due to class discussion and collaboration, I decided to explore “text-based” gaming experiences. For my final project in both 532 and 534, I propose to create a game wherein the player explores graphical rooms using text input as the control interface. This project would essentially take a comic book story and convert it into a game where the user creates the action and divulges the story as the main character, instead of experiencing it as a passive viewer.
II. The Story (in a nutshell)
You, the player, have fallen asleep while reading a graphic novel not unlike Neil Gaiman’s: Sandman. The last page you read was explaining how a Faceless Nightmare has been unleashed upon the Dream Realm, a Nightmare, which if left unchecked, it would leave the Kingdom of Dreams in ruins. Having fallen prey to sleep, you have now fallen into the Dream Realm yourself and your job is to avoid the Nightmare, which will surely devour your very soul, while trying to find a way to take power from the King of Dreams, end the Nightmare’s rampage and learn how to wake your real self and escape.
III. The Interface
The interface is still evolving, but I believe it will be made up of two parts, digital and mechanical.
Digital: I would like to have an interface, which mimics that of a comic book insofar that it is panel based. The game will be first person and each panel when displayed would be your view of a room or area in the Dream Realm. In each panel, there will be objects or clues, which will help you as tools in your quest. In the bottom of the screen, is a text box, much like in a chat program. This is essentially your controller. Using text keywords, like ZORK or King’s Quest, you can move through the rooms and pick up objects and examine clues. To Do: 1. Build several rooms based on the above story, including objects and clues, motivating plot. 2. Write full story and database array of keywords to be used in Director authoring of Lingo code. 3. Author Lingo code and input graphics, clues etc…
Mechanical: As a part of the overall interface, I would like to have an external USB motivator/companion, which will serve to warn, alert or inform the player of danger, clues or other information about a specific room. I have toyed with the idea of having the player ask the external companion questions either about the interface or generally about the story, Dream Realm, Nightmare and so forth. They could be answered either audibly or as text—TBD. Right now, I think that this companion may come in the form of a Raven. Its eyes would light up, wings would flap (maybe) and it would make a sound to alert the player to one of several things. A sort of “spider-sense” if you were.
-I have also thought that this external companion could be built on top of a laser mouse and as some points in the game, it would alert the player and tell him to position it in the room somewhere—TBD.
To Do: 1. Build external companion. 2. Author commands on Basic Stamp. 3. Write accompanying code in Lingo for Director interfacing.
IV. Comments:
This would be closed objective game. With a non-linear feel. I will make objectives clear and priority based, i.e. you can’t wake up till you have taken power away from the King, and killed the Nightmare.
Story will draw influence from Piers Anthony, Neil Gaiman, Akira Kurosawa and others. I am not interested in taking blindly from these authors, but rather paying tribute to their ingenuity in trying to define the Dreamspace, while trying to come up with my own ideas about dreams and allowing the player to come up with their own, thus “Faceless Nightmare” and so forth.
V. Timeline:
Next 2-3 weeks:
-build rooms and graphical interface
-build external companion
-write story and assemble keywords, clue descriptions and help text.
Last few weeks:
-author Lingo code and input database, graphics, etc…
-test system, troubleshoot mechanical/digital interfacing…
Not quite sure how what you're describing relates to "a game where the user creates the action and divulges the story as the main character". All the user gets to do is enter keywords, right? Doesn't this put the user in more of an exploratory than a creative role? Anyway it all sounds like a fairly typical adventure game, with a quest, objects & clues to be acquired, etc.
The mechanical raven sounds more promising. But I can't picture it built on top of a mouse (wouldn't it fall over?) I'd put it on top of the monitor (closest thing at hand to a bust of Pallas), where it chimes in every now and then with a comment or movement.
My advice is that you should focus more on the raven and less on the game. I think a mechanical device as an external commentator for a screen-based experience is the more interesting idea, and the game itself sounds both too ambitious and too cliched.
Posted by: Perry at November 4, 2003 07:26 AM