Interactive Narrative Design

29.4.2024 - 10.8.2024 (Week 2 - Week 15)
Elysa Wee Qi En / 0355060 / Bachelor of Design (Hons) in Creative Media / Taylor's University
Interactive Narrative Design

INSTRUCTIONS

Fig. 1. Module Information Booklet

For this module, it was basically one big project with one purpose: to make a game that encourages vapers to quit, and that shows non-addicts the struggles that addicts go through. 

I started by creating a proposal, detailing what I had in mind about the project so far:

Fig. 2. Game proposal (29/4/2024)

I had originally imagined making an RPG-style game, where the player actually gets to control a moving character, but my tutor suggested that I just make a visual novel as my writing was good and the focus of my game was the story. So in the end, I went with that idea. 

We were instructed to create a timeline to follow for our progress. I unfortunately was unable to stick to this timeline accurately, but I suppose it's useful to help me list down everything I needed to do so I didn't forget anything. 

Fig. 3. Spreadsheet with progress timeline and checklist (11/5/2024)

I decided to also use the spreadsheet to also create a checklist of all the assets I would need to draw or find online. I was luckily able to find all the backgrounds I needed on https://www.pexels.com/, so I only really needed to design and draw the sprites for the characters and the box and vape.

The first step was to finalise the story. I used an application called Twine to layout my storyline. Originally, since I planned it to be an RPG game, I included some notes for visual effects in the story. I got rid of these during coding. Additionally, after discussing with my tutor, we decided to have a story that included a time loop. There would be multiple endings, and in order to get the true ending, the player would have to pick the right options to get on the right path.

Here is the playable file for the Twine story:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1y_CYwk4E5Wh021mKPdQum3BirXymfSIt/view?usp=sharing

Next, I wrote the code for the game. I decided to use a program called Ren'Py, which is used for creating visual novels. The code was actually easy to learn, and coding went smoothly apart from a few mechanics I didn't quite know how to implement. However, with some tutorials on YouTube, it was doable. 

This was the code to define the characters and the values I needed to make the story loop possible"

Fig. 4.1. Example of code [1]

And this is the code for the first part of the story:

Fig. 4.2. Example of code [2]

The code ended up being 720 lines long in the end. Quite long, but since there are multiple hidden options due to the time loop aspect of the story, it makes sense. Since the coding language was easy to learn, it wasn't too hard to code everything. 

After that, I designed the characters. I started with sketches:

Fig. 5.1. Character design sketches 

There are only four spirtes here, but there only one of them can be considered a 'main character', apart from the player. That is 'The Man', the first character on the top left. The conversation the player has with him is one of the keys to the main ending. As for the other characters, they only really appear in one scene (per loop), and are minor characters. They were given designs to enhance immersion and add effect, but other than that the sprites didn't serve much purpose.

The illustration process was done on GIMP 2.0 since I wanted to make them pixelated. This was easier to draw and would not take as long as fully rendered work, in my opinion. For each sprite, I started with a sketch using a normal brush to get the shape down, then I would use a pencil tool to draw with single pixels. The game and canvas size was only 270px x 216px, so the pixelated artwork wouldn't look too blurry or low quality, without being too small. 

Fig. 5.2. Creating the original sprite (15/7/2024)

Fig. 5.3. Creating variants (15/7/2024)

I added everything to the game's 'images' folder for the code to reference: 

Fig. 6.1. The 'images' folder in the game files (2/8/2024)

And then I created an image for the main menu screen of the game: 

Fig. 6.2. Main menu screen image (2/8/2024)

And changed the game's icon to the vape sprite:

Fig. 6.3. Changed main menu screen image and game icon (2/8/2024)

And then the game was complete! 

Downloadable file (contains Windows and MAC versions):

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1ekFQfjH1FFXynfe_Xm8v0oZjXaZZvO--?usp=sharing

FEEDBACK

Week 2 
General Feedback
- Create a proper Google Slides proposal next week, maybe experiment with Twine but proposal is most important
Specific Feedback
- Remember the game serves two purposes, getting the smoker to quit and helping non-addicts to empathise with addicts and the difficulties of the recovery journey
- Maybe a more violent ending for someone who gives into the smoking urges? 

Week 3
General Feedback:
- Create a progress timeline/plan and use that to determine your work each work
- Make the timeline a pdf and share it in the WhatsApp group by this week
Specific Feedback:
- 'Relapse' idea is good, go for it
- Play more into the 'horror' aspect of it
- Try to really tackle the pull of addiction and the struggle of dealing with withdrawal symptoms
- Debating on whether or not to smoke or vape or buy more is like a war in your head
- Change the story from a focus of smoking to vaping
- Allowed to try out Gamemaker Studio instead of Unity and see how it goes

Week 5 
Specific Feedback:
- Writing in the beginning is good
- Maybe go with psychological horror, really lean in to the box being the 'culprit' 
- Maybe constantly give them the option to throw it away, but also constantly give them the option to take it back. Throwing it in non-permanent ways
- Can give more withdrawal symptoms
- Overall the idea is pretty good, can think about how the story is gonna branch out
- Think about the resolution, are you stuck in a loop? 
- Maybe after the park scene, you wake up again in your room, and you look to the bedside table again, and the box decision appears again, 'grab the box' 'leave it' and then the game ends. 
- Dramatise it, player can make decisions but there are many options and many chances to make better decisions. Maybe there can be a resolution somehow through a very specific combination of choices. Maybe some 'checkpoints' have no 'good' decision and it's the worst decision. The game can maybe reloop over and over and find their way out of their loop. 
- My writing is good, with good pacing

Week 12
Specific Feedback:
- Can continue with progress

REFLECTIONS

Experiences
I enjoyed this module. I'd never made a game before, so this was a new experience. I am someone who enjoys playing and watching others play video games, so creating a video game myself was not something I was against trying. I got to experience the difficulties of creating a game, but also the joy of completing it and sending it out for others to play. Not to mention that I got to learn how to use Ren'Py and its coding language, which may come in handy for my future, especially since my tutor thinks that I write well and I do enjoy writing.

Observations
My other two classmates, to my knowledge, came up with ideas for different games compared to me. They decided to make fighting games or something along those lines, but I ended up creating a visual novel. Though different, and one could argue that a visual novel takes less effort, I hope that it all helps to convey the message and purpose of the assignment. It just shows that different types or formats of games can serve the same purpose, just in different ways. That's one of the beauties of video games, that a creator can implement any message they want in any way. Of course, there are more effective ways to convey something in a certain way, but there can be exceptions and there are simply many ways to tell a story or serve a purpose with a game. 

Findings
Pixel art canvases are actually really small. It's not something I really thought about, though it makes sense since the pixels need to be rendered individually and a pixel is really small. If the image is too large, the image will simply turn out low quality. Though that is technically the purpose of the pixel art style, pixel art is meant to be clean-looking.Therefore, pixel art is actively drawn on smaller canvases.