Contextual Studies: Coherent Worlds

What exactly is a coherent world? Was the first thing which popped into my mind after choosing the title! While it may sound worrying, it is important to fully consider what a coherent world is and what effect they have in relation to Skyrim.

To start I decided to look up the definition of coherent and world, it seems a good place to start!

Coherent

adjective

1. logically connected; consistent: a coherent argument.

2. cohering;  sticking together: a coherent mass of sticky candies.

3. having a natural or due agreement of parts; harmonious: a coherent design.

 

World 

noun

1. The earth, together with all of its countries, peoples, and natural features.

2. All of the people, societies, and institutions on the earth.

While possibly seeming slightly illiterate and ignorant I felt it made sense to explore the meanings behind both words as best I could. Both seem to be relating to an object, environment or society, being all encompassing and logically connected.

Making sense of the world around you is something humans generally find important. The reason science and religions exist is partly due to people seeking answers to the mysteries of the environment they live in. To make sense of things they often are required to be coherent, otherwise we cannot really understand them. Although both views are constantly changing and are often contradicting, they strive to explain the unexplained and aim to make people happier.

Surely that is what any game developer would strive to achieve. It would make no sense to create a disjointed world with no logical reason why. Even something at first seemingly incoherent such as a series of events which the player is yet to understand will later make sense. 

Often the search the coherency can drive gameplay, for example The Portal series. The player is given limited information about their surrounding as well as why they are in a cell. After competing puzzles they are given hints through cutscenes with audio and visual clues to show what the world around them is like. Portal is even within the game world of the Half Life series, which reveals what happened outside of the testing laboratories, but only if you have played them. In some sense the player is rewarded for playing both series by having a greater understanding of the world they are playing in.

http://store.steampowered.com/app/620/

Contextual Studies: Narrative

Narrative plays an important part of all game experience, even simple games such as Tetris. Why is this? It is explained very well within Rules of Play.

"... we use narratives to make sense of our lives, to process information, and to tell stories about a game we have played. Therefore, no genre or cultural form (including games) falls outside the idea of narrative." (1. Salen & Zimmerman, 379)

The point of the argument is that humans love to create narrative out of almost anything, helping them make sense of an otherwise chaotic series of events. For example legends surrounding natural formations such as the Giant's Causeway, or The Giant Chocolate Hills in the Philippines. Both have legends of giants attached to them. When a player first enter a game world so much is unknown to them, and will often be keen to seek out more about their game environment in order to give themselves a greater meaning for being there.

Next comes Marc LeBlanc's talk in the 1999 Games Developers Conference. He posed the idea that there are two distinct types of narrative, "embedded" and "emergent".

"Embedded narrative is pre-generated narrative content that exists prior to a player's interaction with the game. Designed to provide motivation for the events and actions of the game, players experience embedded narrative as the story context." (2. Salen & Zimmerman, 383)

"It is experienced through player interaction but exists formally apart from it. It is the embedded narrative that gives Jak a reason for collecting Precursor Orbs and Power Cells; without the pre-generated storyline the game would feel like an abstract fetch-the-next-item quest. The embedded narrative also provides the major story arc for the game, structuring a player's interaction and movement through the game world in a meaningful way." (3. Salen & Zimmerman, 383)

Emergent narrative "... arises from the set of rules governing interaction with the game system. Unlike embedded narrative, emergent narrative elements arise during play from the complex system of the game, often in unexpected ways. Most moment-to-moment narrative play in a game is emergent, as player choice leads to unpredictable narrative experiences. ... The exact narrative experience of a particular game, whether it is Jak easily dispatching the Lurkers, or whether it is a series of defeats that leads to an eventual victory, depends on player interaction." (4. Salen & Zimmerman, 383)

"Emergent narrative approaches emphasize the ways that players interact with a game system to produce a narrative experience unique to each player." (5. Salen & Zimmerman, 384)

While narrative may be easily recognisable within most games some at first seem to lack flow and coherency. One of the best examples for this I found was WarioWare. It involves a short series of incoherent games, with the previous game being totally unrelated to the next. Even with a seemingly chaotic series of events there is some narrative. If the player fails the task they lose a life, and if all lives are lost they lose the game. Tasks get fast and faster as the player progresses, with a number showing what task they are on. At the end is a boss battle, the final showdown between game and player. The game is full of emergent narrative, the player is constantly tested to see what their outcome may be.

 

Skyrim on the other hand contains both embedded and emergent narrative. At the start of the game the player is told where they are and why they are being executed, narrative embedded into the game. As well as the dragon coming down to cause chaos and let the player escape. Reacting to the dragon is something emergent, you could either chose to stand there admiring its beauty while it breaths fire at you, or run away to try escape its rage.

Bibliography.

1. Katie Salen & Eric Zimmerman (2004). Rules of Play. Cambridge,Massachusetts: The MIT Press. 379.

2. Katie Salen & Eric Zimmerman (2004). Rules of Play. Cambridge,Massachusetts: The MIT Press. 383.

3. Katie Salen & Eric Zimmerman (2004). Rules of Play. Cambridge,Massachusetts: The MIT Press. 383.

4. Katie Salen & Eric Zimmerman (2004). Rules of Play. Cambridge,Massachusetts: The MIT Press. 383. 

5. Katie Salen & Eric Zimmerman (2004). Rules of Play. Cambridge,Massachusetts: The MIT Press. 384. 

GDD Work

Overview:

Restoration is a single player educational game, used in museums to help children learn more about artwork by directly interacting with it. The player controls an element which is trying restore balance to a damaged painting.

Platforms:

The main component of the game would be on a touch screen instalment within a museum. Visitors could start playing at any time and complete as many levels as they wished. The game would automatically reset after a short duration of no activity so players would be able to learn the rules if they had not played before. The museum version of the game would contain example artworks of all four continents for players to enjoy.

Whilst the game is mainly played within museums, there would be an option to buy it for PC in the gift shop. Users would get all of the features available in the museum version, though will also contain well known artworks to play as well. Due to being on PC the mechanics would be slightly different, requiring users to click to control the element, unlike the other platforms which both rely on touch. The PC version of the game would be specific to the museum it is sold at. E.g. Tate Modern Edition.

The PC version uses a cursor to move the element around.

An IOS version would also be available for purchase on the app store. This version would have the ability to use QR codes to identify which paintings the user wishes to use in their game. This would then let the player use the artwork as the basis of the level.

Each painting would require pre-programmed data in able to use within the game. The use of the IOS is subject to photography rules within the participating museum, due to the use of cameras not being permitted within certain galleries.

Contextual Studies: Research Articles

Next I decided to check and back up the view that lore is important to Bethesda, due to a lot of the presentation being based on this fact! Fortunately with the release of the online version of the series there were many articles on such matters.

 http://elderscrollsonline.com/en/news/post/2012/10/18/reading-the-future-of-the-past-in-the-elder-scrolls

http://elderscrollsonline.com/en/game-guide/story

http://www.tgdaily.com/entertainment/67411-video-exploring-the-elder-scrolls-online

http://www.tgdaily.com/games-and-entertainment-features/66015-why-japanese-gamers-are-angry-about-halo-4

Contextual Studies Research: Skyrim books

To start researching the presentation I decided to begin by looking at the entire list of all books and notes within Skyrim. This was still quite daunting to fit into a ten minute time slot!

http://elderscrolls.wikia.com/wiki/Books_%28Skyrim%29

These provide a huge amount of narrative regarding both historical and present events and locations within the Skyrim game world, as well as the Elder Scrolls series in general. They often provide useful links between all areas of the game's world; Tamriel. It is through books that the player is provided with information which can aid them in their travels and future battles.

A good example of this is in "Biography of the Wolf Queen", in which an evil queen tries to take power over the kingdom, eventually using undead to do her bidding. This culminates in her death after a month long siege, although her spirit is rumoured to haunt the castle as shown here. "It is also said that her madness so infused Castle Solitude that it infected the next king to rule there." "Skyrim" (2011).

The book first appeared in Morrowind (2002), then Oblivion (2005) and finally Skyrim (2011). The book first appeared 9 years before the release of the area in question, being a far off land with little known about its history. However when in Skyrim the lore becomes much more relevant to the player and results in a quest to defeat the Wolf Queen. I personally had experience with this, previously knowing of the Queen and being fascinated by the events told by the book. When the time came to meet her all of the feelings and emotions from the book were recalled, resulting in a much more meaningful experience than if I previously knew nothing of her.

Bibliography.

Bethesda Softworks. (2011). Skyrim. [DISC]. PC. ZeniMax Europe Ltd.

Contextual Studies: Presentation Idea

Considering the lectures presented to us, I thought about what games contain strong narrative in order to use for the final presentation. I decided to choose the game I researched in a previous presentation, Skyrim. Currently my title for the lecture is:

Why is a coherent world so important within Skyrim, and how does Bethesda use narrative to achieve this?

Logo and QR update

Firstly the game logo, the group leader Jac liked the idea however found the logo colours to be too "muddy". She remade the logo with the same design however now with brighter colours.

I have finished the QR code concepts, detailing how a player would approach and interact with the code and its assigned content.

A player approaches a painting they like.

They open the app and scan the QR code.

They are given information about the painting as well as an option to scan more.

Clicking next takes them to the game using the painting.

QR Codes

Due to using Quick Response (QR) codes to identify and register paintings within galleries, to use as game backgrounds, I decided that I needed to have a better understanding of them.

This involved downloading a QR code reader and testing how effective they are, as if they are too difficult to use they would be of limited use to us.

After trying out a few I found them to be very quick to scan and I personally had few difficulties, bar some being a bit too small and therefore took longer. Generally a code would take around three seconds to scan, so not much hassle there!

A QR code to the home page of the NUCA website.

Next came testing to see how easy it was to create custom QR codes. There were many websites out there helping create them. After they have been generated they can be transferred easily to any location, or printed out of real world use.

A custom QR code I made to test how they worked.

Game Concept: Asia

Player is the water element consuming water droplets to grow larger.

The painting when the level is complete.

Logo Design

This is what I hope will be the Restoration logo. Will show the rest of the group tomorrow to discuss any improvements/ alterations.

Logo Concepts

I started thinking about the games logo, now most of the other work is complete and we know what the games art style is. I wanted to keep it simple, like most logos and to accurately reflect the game.

The group agreed that using the Yin-Yang symbol would visually work best for the logo. However which of the elements were used as the main part of the logo still needed to be tested.

After considering each element I decided fire and water would work best. Due to air being white and potentially difficult to see on some backgrounds. Also the earth element does not look as visually pleasing as the other elements.

Contextual Studies: Spheres of influence

Spheres of influence were proposed by Vladimir Propp. He looked at Russian folk tales, analysing them to reveal their most basic attributes. He concluded that each of the characters could be fit into one or more of seven character types. (Possible to separate princess and her father into two categories, creating a potential of eight.)

1. Hero: The main character in which the story often focuses on. Saves people and recieves rewards for doing so.
2. Villain:  Fights with the hero, trying to hinder their journey in some way.
3. The Dispatcher: Sets the hero off on their journey. Can be anything from an event to a person.
4. Princess and Father: The reward for the hero. Note this can be anything from treasure to the princess herself. The father is included as he is the one who gives the rewards.
5. The False Hero: This is someone who appears to be doing good in the world, possibly helping the hero. However in reality they are evil, trying to hinder the hero.
6. The Helper: This is someone or something which helps the hero in any way. Possible guide or companion.
7. The Donor: Someone who gives the hero something to help complete their quest. Note this requires the act of giving.

We were then told to pick two games and see if it was possible to relate these categories to a game world instead of characters. This was to be presented in a ten minute pitch. We chose Skyrim and Jurassic Park: Operation Genius as our games.

Here is a video to further demonstrate the use of traps to kill either hostile or non hostile NPCs. While designed to try to kill the player they also have a duel purpose to be used for good.

Game Concept: Europe

During the game.

After the player has restored the image.

Game Concepts: America

Here are some game mock ups of some paintings which may be used in the game. 

Before the player restores the painting.

While the player is restoring the painting.

After the player restores the painting.

A screen showing the grade the player received, as well as before and after shots.

Frame used: http://chulii-stock.deviantart.com/art/frame-07-106408149

Primary Research: Norwich Castle Museum

After one of the group tutor feedback sessions Matt suggested that we should visit a real life museum, either in London, or if that was not possible to go to the Norwich Castle Museum. We arranged to go there during the free study week.

While there we looked for similar digital games, or interactive media on display in the museum to help progress with our game idea. However we soon found that the interactive elements Jac remembered within the keep had gone, at least at the time of our visit.

Following the trip to the Castle Museum I shared Jac's disappointment about the lack of interactive digital games or displays. However I later contemplated the time at the museum, things which seemed unrelated to what we were looking for were actually more meaningful than first expected.

As soon as we stepped into the museum we spotted our target audience, there was a school group coming to see the exhibits and explore the castle. We soon found out that there were actually at least two school groups visiting on the day. It was useful to see what the children were interested in, mainly the taxidermy and the interactive parts of the exhibits.

The museum seemed to be really trying to get children interested about the exhibits, with all sorts of activities for the school parties that go there. During our visit of the castle we saw numerous staff or volunteers dressed up in Celtic and Roman attire, even getting the children to march like they were in a Legion! As well as a drawing and colouring exercise set up in the gallery, seemingly to inspire them to think artistically. 

The interactive elements included build-able bridges, to physically demonstrate the strength of an arch under the influence of gravity. Trebuchets to show the weaponry which was used to attack castles at the time. Sliding puzzle games to help children engage with certain pieces of artwork, as well as providing facts underneath the tiles which were revealed whilst completing the puzzles.

As the game we are creating focuses on artwork I considered the practicality of the puzzles for children. While there I attempted to complete one of the art puzzles, but did not finish due to time constraints. The problem I encountered with puzzle was that the tiles would often get stuck, and the person would spend more time trying to get them to move than figuring out how to complete it. While my limit was time constraints, a child would more likely to be affected by their attention span. The constant encountering of physical problems I would assume would likely put a younger person off completing the puzzle, therefore they would not fully engage with the only aspect of the art gallery designed for them.

Overall the museum seemed to be trying very hard to get the next generation interested in art and  history. However there were possible limitations with the current art puzzles being not too user friendly. An interactive art game directly using existing artwork at the museum to help engage with children seemed like it would fit in with current displays. Our target audience would find it approachable and hopefully take away the idea that artworks should be restored and not left to be damaged beyond repair.

Game concepts: Initial element icons

I decided to sketch a few ideas of what the elements would look like within the game. Focusing on the idea of flOw and the fluid game play it uses, as well as the simplicity factor.

A page of sketches trying to make each element stand out from the others.

Making the fire element's visual appearance change as it grows, making it feel more powerful.

Sketches of the air element's growth.

A visual of the earth element, focusing on the idea of nature being able to absorb the water elements.