{"id":7573,"date":"2017-12-13T23:22:55","date_gmt":"2017-12-13T23:22:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/astoryisnotatree.net\/?p=7573"},"modified":"2020-05-06T21:07:38","modified_gmt":"2020-05-06T21:07:38","slug":"nonlinear-design-city-watch-post-mortem","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/astoryisnotatree.net\/?p=7573","title":{"rendered":"Game Studio: Nonlinear Narratives: City Watch Post-Mortem"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Background<\/a><\/p>\n

My game is about a girl who has to decide her own path in life.\u00a0 She starts out in the City Watch, which is where she currently works as a knight for the city.\u00a0 She is supposed to prevent and stop crime from happening.\u00a0 She is assigned a major task, to find and take down the thieves’ guild in the city.\u00a0 A problem with that, however, is that she is a kleptomaniac.\u00a0 She has to infiltrate the thieves’ guild while struggling not to steal stuff.\u00a0 Or she can give in to temptation and steal a lot of stuff.\u00a0 It is the players choice to\u00a0decide whether they want Lena to stay true to the CIty Watch or steal things and truly become a member of the thieves’ guild.\u00a0 The characters in the game can also help influence her choice.\u00a0 The captain, Morgan is very kind and caring to all her\u00a0members; she treats them like family.\u00a0 And Rob, the person in charge of the thieves’ guild, isn’t all bad.\u00a0 He helps people who are in need and takes care of orphaned kids.\u00a0 He provides people with a family as well.\u00a0 So, the ultimate goal of the game is for Lena to decide whether she wants to stay with the City Watch and demolish the thieves’ guild, or leave her place at the City Watch and join the Thieves’ Guild.<\/p>\n

Lena can walk around and talk to people in each level of the game.\u00a0 There are many items to buy, pick up\/steal, interact with, and people to talk to.\u00a0 Depending on who is around, when Lena steals objects, dialogue options will change with Morgan and Rob.\u00a0 If a knight is around, Lena will lose favorability\u00a0with Morgan, but if a thief is around, Lena will gain more favorability\u00a0with Rob.\u00a0 To get closer with specific characters, their approval rating will have to be a certain level, so stealing items is a necessity, as well as doing heroic and just quests.\u00a0 Heroic quests will improve Morgan’s approval rating without necessarily decreasing Rob’s.<\/p>\n

The McGuffin in the game is the sword that Lena has.\u00a0 It was given to her by Morgan earlier on in her life and it serves as her connection to the City Watch.\u00a0 It changes\/ disappears\u00a0altogether depending on specific actions Lena takes throughout the game.<\/p>\n

The abstraction in my game is how there is not a set path to follow, there are different options on how to progress the story, and there are multiple things to do at once.\u00a0 This ties in with the nonlinearity of the game.\u00a0 There is not one way to play the game.\u00a0 Each playthrough\u00a0of the game would be different because there are different side quests to take, different things to steal, different outcomes of the game.\u00a0 Nothing in the game follows one path.\u00a0 The forward and backward loops also tie into the nonlinearity.\u00a0 The loops correlate to the approval ratings; doing a good thing will generally increase your approval with Morgan but decrease approval with Rob, and vice versa.\u00a0 Depending on how the player chooses to play the game doing a good\/bad thing will make one side of the game easier while making the other side harder.<\/p>\n

My game says a lot through a little by using environmental storytelling.\u00a0 The way places and characters look says a lot about them.\u00a0 The outfits I chose for\u00a0Henri and Morgan tie them together at the City Watch making them look like part of a team.\u00a0 Lena’s outfit has the same boots as Henri and Morgan, but Lena has a much more casual look about her to\u00a0make her blend into\u00a0an average person.\u00a0 The thieves don’t really where armor because they don’t need to.\u00a0 They have more casual clothing to help them blend in because they aren’t supposed to stand out.\u00a0 A thief that stands out is not a good thief.\u00a0 That’s why Lena starts out with basic clothing.\u00a0 She can get armor later in the game to help add to her defense, but her look should stay fairly basic.\u00a0 Items within the environment also help to\u00a0enhance the setting.\u00a0 The setting is a mix between fantasy-medieval and realistic-modern.\u00a0 There are items scattered around like smartphones and electronics.\u00a0 There are working lights, but there aren’t cars.\u00a0 There are typical RPG style vendors where Lena can buy and sell certain goods.\u00a0 And the factions- City Watch and Thieves’ Guild are inherently fantasy tropes.<\/p>\n

The nonlinearity of my game helps expand the theme and story because the purpose of the game is to choose your own path.\u00a0 The player should feel free to follow whatever\u00a0road they want to, and by not having a strict storyline, it allows the player to do what they want.\u00a0 The ability to be free may also change how the player feels throughout the game.\u00a0 By learning more about one person may affect how they want to play the game.\u00a0 Discovering different parts of the game builds onto the world and influences the player’s decision without forcing them to do anything.<\/p>\n

I think I have used the power of minimalism within my game.\u00a0 I tried to give life to the environments and character through how they look without having anything be too cluttering.\u00a0 The look of people and places should be simple but telling.<\/p>\n

In a way the player can see what is important.\u00a0 They know from the beginning what one option for the ultimate goal of the game is.\u00a0 And they can soon learn the importance of one side or the other side.<\/p>\n

\"HenriFace\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Henri’s face<\/p>\n

\"knight<\/a><\/p>\n

Henri’s sprite<\/p>\n

\"Lena<\/a><\/p>\n

Lena’s sprite<\/p>\n

\"Morgan<\/a><\/p>\n

Morgan’s Sprite<\/p>\n

\"Lena<\/a><\/p>\n

Lena’s Face<\/p>\n

\"Morgan<\/a><\/p>\n

Morgan’s Face<\/p>\n

\"FullSizeRender<\/a><\/p>\n

original sketch for Lena<\/p>\n

\"FullSizeRender\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Lena’s sword given to her by Morgan<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My game is about a girl who has to decide her own path in life.\u00a0 She starts out in the City Watch, which is where she currently works as a knight for the city.\u00a0 She is supposed to prevent and…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":137,"featured_media":7574,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"aside","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[404],"tags":[256,53,349],"class_list":["post-7573","post","type-post","status-publish","format-aside","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nonlinear-narrative","tag-nonlinear","tag-post-mortem","tag-nonlinear-design","post_format-post-format-aside","wpcat-404-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/astoryisnotatree.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7573","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/astoryisnotatree.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/astoryisnotatree.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/astoryisnotatree.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/137"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/astoryisnotatree.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7573"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"http:\/\/astoryisnotatree.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7573\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14083,"href":"http:\/\/astoryisnotatree.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7573\/revisions\/14083"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/astoryisnotatree.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/7574"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/astoryisnotatree.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7573"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/astoryisnotatree.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7573"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/astoryisnotatree.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7573"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}