When we started producing our own indie videogame one of our team members shakingly told us this: "Uhm, I don't mean to spoil anything for you guys, but I think the character needs more personality... Snake from Metal Gear used to smoke cigarrettes..." This along with Scott Steinberg's Video on Interactive Fiction and Jesse Schell's Book ART OF GAME DESIGN, made us stop on our tracks and evaluate the story we were telling, and the character gamers would have to use.
MORE STORY = NEW CHALLENGES
All teams have strengths and weaknesses, in our case, we have more people in the artistic department than in the programming department. Gameplay was our main concern at the beggining stages of production, power-ups, the whole gaming aspect. As gamers we recalled what things were gratifying about games similar to DENSO, but when it came to story there was a lot of work left to do.
BEFRIEND A WRITER
Ok, so I started as a comic book artist, not as a writer. It's easier for me to direct something by conceiving the storyboard first and then developing the story around it. I could easily say: "I'm an ASPIRING WRITER and will do a great job with absolutely no help" but that woul be falling into a trick by my ego. Writers are Writers, you CAN learn how to write by studying, but when it comes to doing things right, you need a Writer's perspective on your story AT LEAST, that way one can use the feedback to create something more interesting.
In the past, I have attended a couple of screenwriting classes as well as reading Syd Field's Screenplay: The Foundations for Screenwriting. An old employer also is pretty good with scripts and he helps out by giving us some feedback too. He always gave me tips on story, on character traits and motives as well as changes experienced by the character. However I have to admit... I was going to tell the story through cut scenes, more or less how Ninja Gaiden used to do on the NES, but changed my mind to a more dynamic approach:
TELL THE STORY THROUGH PLAY
BY ALLOWING THE PLAYER TO USE A MEMORABLE CHARACTER
Memorable (if not iconic) Characters have to relate with your player, that way they will keep on playing so they can have new experiences (all made through play), these experiences or this activity of PLAY is the way in which the narrative develops. The mind of our player is a creative jewel, I will paraphrase something Scott McCloud said in Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art (watch image at the top to see the original).
1. "Closure in Games, is FAR from Continuous and ANYTHING BUT INVOLUNTARY".
2. "Every Act created in your GAME is PROGRAMMED for a SILENT PARTICIPANT TO PLAY OUT"
In our case, we are opting for a linear approach to presenting the main character of our videogame. The last game we played that had a mostly linear approach BESIDES USING INTERACTIVE FICTION was Uncharted 2. What can we, as indie game developers with absolutely no budget do to make to help the Industry? the industry is pretty much alive, even though it's not stable at the moment.
We believe that as indies, what we can do for the industry s is provide a PLATFORM for writers of interactive fiction to experiment on. We will humbly try to do so in at least one of our projects. We are still working on the way we will mix cutscenes with gameplay to never stop the action, we are also still working in our gameplay environment so we can ensure fun and engaging gameplay. I'll post some info we consider relevant and helpful for our venture, I hope this proves helpful for people out there too.
CREATING CHARACTER PROFILES
SCOTT MC CLOUD'S TALK ON TED
EXPLORE INTERACTIVE FICTION
STAN LEE ON MEMORABLE CHARACTERS (HALO WAYPOINT)
STAN LEE'S MESSAGE TO HIDEO KOJIMA
There is a previous article on Interactive Fiction I wrote, you can read it here.
