Work-in-progress...

Figuring out development/production process

Twine source file

Secret-sauce-conversion

Assets store

The Problem With Gamebooks Trilogy - Part 5

Fixing Gamebook Plots

In the previous post in this series I suggested a potential solution to some of the relational issues between reader and character in interactive fiction.  But fixing characters is only half a solution. The other half requires us to address another gamebook problem area, plot.

I will avoid talking about plot in terms of creative writing, there are far better sources for that. Rather I will focus on how the gamebook's strict branching tree format needs to evolve to facilitate better interactive storytelling.

Gamebooks plots are a string of set-pieces.

Simple gamebook plots are often a sequence of interconnected set-pieces. The player moves from scene to scene, the designers assuming that ‘kill the wizard’  or ‘progress through the map’ is a robust enough premise to glue the narrative together.

Although fun, these simplistic romps lack genuine causality. They defy the definition of plot: a causal sequence of events that make up a story. As E.M. Forster explains instead of "The king died and then the queen died" it's better to create a causal relationship between the two events, for example "The king died and then the queen died of grief." Events need to unfold in a logical chain, to create narrative momentum, and pull the reader along with them.

The Problem with Gambooks Trilogy - Part 4

Fixing gamebook characters

This post is an overflow from Part 3: Can Gamebooks be fixed? You really should read that first. Better still start from Part 1: Gamebooks are broken. If none of this makes sense don't say I didn't warn you.

The protagonist and characterisation

Gamebook authors have commonly chosen one of two options regarding protagonist characterisation:

1. To anonymise the main character, creating an empty vessel which enables the reader to project their own persona on to the hero, or…

2. To give the main character an identity (with backstory, belief system, strengths, weaknesses, etc...)  in an attempt to create a hero more rooted in the events of the story world.

Both these approaches have flaws.

The Problem with Gamebooks Trilogy - Part 2

How are gamebooks broken?

In Part 1: Gamebooks are Broken I claimed games and books don't mix well. This post is going to attempt to explain the key incompatibilities between game and book.

Why are videogames such a useful comparison?
I use videogames as a primary focus for comparison, because they, more than any other medium, have attempted to address the narrative/interactivity divide.

In their infancy, limited by processing power, videogames were pure interactivity, Pong and Pacman ruled. Narrative was not an option. As the quality of audio/visual delivery grew, so did the aspirations of the game industry. Initially they borrowed heavily from film's storytelling toolkit, as immature mediums often do (like inceptive television broadcasts were merely radio with pictures). Players where now being asked to stop playing and start watching, and so the 'cut scene' was born.

But now more industry voices are joining the argument that games are not the place for traditional narrative. Nintendo's revered videogame innovator, Shigeru Miyamoto, advocates that game designers should forget characters and focus on experiences. Some are claiming narrative heavy adventure games deserved to die.  With the emergence of the indie game scene, a new breed of inventive developers are taking a fresh apporach. For example, The Journey enables players to enjoy an emergent narrative and The Unfinished Swan processes a fragmentary narrative, both a departure from traditional linear storytelling. Unfortunately the mainstream industry hasn't given up on clumsily spoon-feeding us story in attempt to make us 'feel' for their avatars, as the new Tomb Raider attests.

For me, games and linear narrative media are fundamentally different... and here's why:

The Problem with Gamebooks Trilogy - Part 1

Gamebooks are broken

The Mysterious Path project intends to revisit the gamebooks (CYOAs) of the 80's, to reinvigorate the format, to drag the experience into the touch screen age and try and make it relevant again. And lately it feels it's getting harder to drag. It's reluctant to join the 21st century. It's working against me.



An early Mysterious Path wireframe concept. A game comic thing.


I think I always knew something wasn't right, that something was holding me back from diving head first into the project... but I wasn't sure what it was (something other than lack of time and talent!)

I started with naive optimism on the possibilities of digital gamebooks.

Later came the angst ridden paralysis where game and narrative modes refused to gel.

Now it feels like the gamebook could be a fatally flawed construct, better left in the museum.

The projects honeymoon period is concluding and I am asking questions that are casting shadows over the direction of Mysterious Path. I know I'm not exactly inventing a new entertainment paradigm, and should just lighten up a bit, but as any meaningful next steps will require significant effort, and possibly expense, it would be nice to have some validation or robust logic to back up any design hypothesis.

So it's time to kick the tyres.

Who will play Mysterious Path?

When formulating a product strategy 'Who is your audience?' is one of the key questions you need to ask, but when it's a personal project... it's just not a factor (after all YOU are the audience!) If, however, you have aspirations to gain a large readership you really should consider it carefully. In the case of interactive fiction knowing your audience will influence the stories you tell, the interactions you design and the aesthetic you follow.

Which art style is right? If I understood my target audience it would inform everything from character design to plot & game mechanics.

Reader / Character separation in an interactive comic

Fighting Fantasy gamebooks traditionally adopt a second person narrative mode. You are the hero, and you choose what happens next. This has meant that we get information only from the protagonists point of view. What if we played with this established convention? Would we break the magic gamebook formula?

There has of course been exploration of the subject, but most of this examines the scope for text based interactive fiction and does not fully explore the potential for visual storytelling techniques.

The videogames industry has been debating the pros and cons of first person versus third person camera for years, and there are certainly insights we could glean from their discussions, but mostly this centers on game mechanics and playability which is only partially relevant to the Mysterious Path project.

Mysterious Path will employ a comic book format and so already separates the reader's experience of the game world from the characters, as the 'camera' looks in on the action rather than through the eyes of the main character (although possible, a first person only view would be difficult to sustain). Therefore, Mysterious Path should seek to exploit and celebrate this separation in perception of reader and character to create a unique experience.

Well, that's the dream.

First prototype nearing completion

I have nearly completed my first prototype of Mysterious Path (an interactive comic) and it will soon be available for you to play (it's in need of some final tweaks to make it acceptable for use).

It's been every informative process - flushing out all sorts of issues around my process, my skills & how the thing should actually work.

My process so far

Expectation setting! This iteration...
1) ... is not necessarily representative of the final story/characters (I'm thinking of it as test content)
2) ... contains only rough sketches/visualisations not final artwork (I will be looking at visual design and art direction as a separate process)
3) ... contains no interactivity beyond choosing your path. So no game elements yet (there are stubs for fights and skill tests but these will be developed later).
4) ... is only a rather short segment of around 30 strips.
5) ... BUT will give you a rather crude approximation of what the final experience might be like.

More soon

Twine - A useful tool for interactive narrative

Just discovered Twine by Chris Klimas (yes it's been out there a while!)

It's a free tool for writing interactive narrative with a shallow learning curve and wysiwyg interface.

It doesn't help with the 'comic' presentation or the game elements but has enabled me to actually start something instead of planning and theorising.

Here's the map of my first test sequence.

It's not exactly Firetop Mountain!

Next steps
Flesh out the text events - Where I think about the information and mood each scene contains.
Sketch out the sequences - Where I start to think about visual story telling and panel sequence.
Colour and ink artwork - Where I refine the character design, environment art and camera angles.


Learnings
At the end of this I will have sense of what the final experience might be like, developed the aesthetic, learned a bit about interactive story telling and have a better understanding of production time (from which I can extrapolate how long a full comic might take to make)

I aim to publish these steps so you can see progression.