Michael Moses AO4

Unit 30 - Design for Games AO4 - Game Story and Character Summary Chart

Complete all of the information on the chart. Unless otherwise stated, you are limited to fifty words for each entry. Produce additional writing (up to 500 words for each entry), designs and illustrations (as necessary) for each entry on the chart. Stories in other media and how they feed into your game story.

My story is influenced by the cultural obsession with the end of the world. There have been many books, films, TV series about the post-apocalyptic world and to be more specific, about a zombie infected post-apocalyptic world. The biggest influence on story to my game would be the films 28 days later, and 28 weeks later.

Mythic structure and how it effects your game stories

My game follows general mythical structure with its story line. Having equilibrium at the start (Normal everyday life on a farm) then having the disruption (Infected take over, family killed) then the hero comes into his own, becoming hardened and experienced and eventually succeeding in his tasks.

Interactivity in your game story

My game will be interactive in a way in which the player will be able to have freedom over what they want to do within the game, but to proceed must complete a number of missions in a set order. The interactivity in my game comes from the mini-quests or side quests in which the player has the option to do or miss. Completing these quests will give them a more rewarding feel when finishing the game.

The theme, genre and tone of your game

My games ‘theme’ will be that of independence and finding someone’s inner-self. The main character being played will progress as a person from a country type boy only used to mundane tasks evolving into a leader in charge of his fate and the people around him. The game will have a sombre tone to it as even at the end of the game nothing has been completed on a large scale – the game will contain slightly amusing parts to break up other tones and themes.

The structure and pace of your game

The structure of my game will follow a micro-narrative in which each level will start a little bit more intense than the last, and end slightly more intense also. The pace will be a slow build up with small climatic sequences within each level. This then ending in the largest climax of the game.

The appearance of your main characters

The hero on the game will be a 6ft tall male with short dark hair. Charismatic, roguish and good looking he is a typical mythical hero. Physically fit with a personality to match. The heroin Anna will be your typical new age woman. Proud of herself and keen to show the world that she’s not just a pretty face, feisty and pretty, this petite blonde shares some rather amusing banter with our hero.

Michael Moses AO4

The back-story of your main characters

Jack’s back-story will be that of a young boy from a broken home, moving to a new place to try and settle down. Being taught how to farm and live by his uncle he gains key skills which help him in the games narrative. As he left his parents due to conflict he has a personal goal to be able to stand on his feet, this helps him with the independence needed to survive within the game.

The roles in the game of your main characters

Jack will play the hero role. Relying on his charisma and skill, he is heavily influential on others. Having a weakness like all heroes he eventually overcomes it to complete his goal. Anna will be the ‘princess’ but instead of her being a passive prize for the hero to claim after defeating the villain, she’s a new age hero who’s more than capable of standing on her own two feet.

The ways your main characters move

My characters will usually run around the environment in a sort of jogging speed. The player gets to control the speed of the characters with the use of the analog stick and can optionally press the RB or R2 depending on the console in order to make the characters run in short sprints.

The abilities and strengths of your main characters

The abilities that my hero possesses are that of a stereotypical hero. Handy with a weapon and also with words. Due to his backstory he has experience with firearms which helps him significantly as opposed to Anna who is a city girl who prefers to resolve things in a more civilised manner. Jack also as stated before is charismatic and funny.

The weaknesses and vulnerabilities of your main characters

My hero grew up in a village out in the country, this obviously means that as soon as he is put in a built up city he is instantly at discomfort. This is an on-going underlying weakness running throughout the story in which he uses Anna’s help to deal with. He also has independence issues in which he must try to deal with.

The built in behaviors of your main characters

Jack will exhibit his behaviours regularly. He has a country type attitude, preferring open fields he finds that large sky scrapers are not to his taste. He is also more outgoing than most. Anna’s behaviours are that of being stubborn and always wanting to prove something – this often gets her into arguments. Anthony’s behaviours that of a typical grunt – using his muscle to solve most problems he is always getting stuck in the thick of it.

Michael Moses AO4

Stories in other media and how they feed into your game story My game story is influences by the cultural obsession with the end of the world. Over the years there have been many scares in which the mass population thought life as we know it would end. Obviously all being incorrect, an example of a pending theory is the 2012 scare. With movies being made about it and so on. This also made way for a new type of genre – Post-apocalyptic, although now about 40 years old this genre has had many fascinated with the idea of what would the world be like after the mass population disappeared leaving a few survivors – what would they do and so on. This also then led onto a new sub-genre in which two separate genres have been combined. Horror and post-apocalyptic to create the zombie idea. Films based upon this genre are films such as 28 days later, 28 weeks later and zombie land which is a light hearted take upon the whole idea. 28 days later is my biggest influence story wise and if the players have ever watched the film will instantly recognise similarities between the two. My story follows the generic structure of a story with a beginning middle and end. Mythic structure and how it effects your game stories The mythic structure of my game is rather clear mythic and narrative structure. This follows Todorov’s theory of narrative structure. Firstly having the ‘Equilibrium’ the state in which the hero is living in peace, with his uncle on a farm, learning from his uncle and basically living the quiet life. There is then the ‘disruption’, the infected take over and kill his uncle – his last remaining close family member. This then starts off a personal vengeance against the ‘villains’, he then leaves his home as there is nothing left for him here to find a safer haven. There is then the recognition of disruption – Jack goes out into the new infected world and realises he needs to learn to fend for himself. There is then the struggle – although in my game there is no main villain in which he wants to destroy, he accepts the fact that he cannot kill every single infected in vengeance as his uncle so the struggle then becomes that of being able to survive. It then all ends as he has a close call to death but finally achieves what he set out to do, to survive. Interactivity in the game story I will try to give the player of my game a great sense of freedom by act of interactivity. By providing a massive basis for interactivity it will give the player the sense that they can interact with almost everything. But by creating the impression of interactivity I can control the narrative and how the player navigates through the game, I will do this by rewarding the player for interacting with certain objects or people. For example in games such as ‘Oblivion’ players can search through chests and other storage furniture and can find valuables – this then encourages them to further search a room for clues on the mission or quest they are trying to complete. I will also make a great number of the NPC’s interactive, because of the setting my game is in it will be pretty rare to find a great deal of live un-infected NPC’s thus most of them will be in some way interactive by way of talking to them and selecting from a multiple choice menu of lists of sentences to say to them. Theme, genre and tone My game will be all about finding ones inner-self. To do this I take a rather self-centered roguish type character trying to prove that he is independent and then throughout the game it teaches him how to lead others and to eventually come to terms with the loss of his family and that he has a new life – the game will then follow the path he takes to find his inner-self and to prove to himself that he can actually look after himself and also lead others. The genre is a post-apocalyptic adventure survival, set in a post-apocalyptic world in which a virus has struck and everyone bar a number of survivors have turned into flesh-eating brainless zombies which I prefer to call ‘infected’. The genre would take from something like Dead Island or perhaps the game equivalent to 28 days later. But where the genre differs from most zombie survivals is that it focuses more on the character than it does on the zombies themselves, they are just the hindrance that the character has to become. This should advance the genre from not only being ‘look at the scary monster’ but instead look at the characters overcoming the scary monsters. The tone will take on a type of sombre downhearted tone, there will be slight parts of humour to break up the deep tones but will not be very frequent and have to be properly understood to actually understand the humour. Structure and Pace The structure of my game will set out into a number of acts, and within those acts a number of missions that have to be complete to advance to the next act. Overall there will be 4 acts, each act will take place in a new city. This helps structure the narrative as each act will coincide with the city the player is in – when they’re in London they know its act 4. In act the story will be broken down into 10-15 main missions that need to be complete, but there will be also side missions. Because of how the game is structured it is easy to control the pace of the game, at the start of each act the player will be finding their feet in the new environment so the pace will be rather slow – but as

Michael Moses AO4

the missions proceed the pace will start to pick up, all the way up to the climax of the act along with the cliff-hanger for the next act. This way the pace will build in each act to the climax, then drop a little for the next act and so on and so forth until the final act in which the pace picks up rapidly towards the end and the final climax. As the acts progress so does the difficulty, but as the player continues playing they learn new skills that help them survive – for example they might be able to shoot more accurately with a shotgun the further they get into the game by way of a weapon mod so this helps them deal with the heighten difficulty. Characters – appearance The main character, Jack will be a 6ft quite well built man, with tanned skin and short dark hair. He will wear dark dirty hoody along with jeans. This will give him the civilian effect and that he isn’t significant in the slightest. Perhaps having a slightly handsome yet worn face with stubble – I would compare him to perhaps jack from lost and Desmond from the assassins creed series. He will move in the way that the characters in assassins creed moves as I am basing my character design on the way assassins creed designs their characters – this means that he will run when the analog stick is pushed to full tilt or he can walk when it is pushed slightly. For this document and due to my lack of artistic skill I have inserted pictures of other characters that I think my game is familiar to, but with the Jack character I have added the weapons he is most likely to use. The heroin or sidekick to jack will be the female named Anna, an urban girl trained in the arts of law. She will be dressed as if she was from the big city, meaning a sensible suit when the main character first meets her but will eventually change into more suitable clothing – once again I’m using assassins creed as an example by using their character ‘Lucy’ to model my own, with long blonde hair, she is attractive and petite. Anthony will look rather battle-scarred and militarised, with a short jarhead haircut covered in tour tattoo’s and scars which all hold a different story – I would like to base him on a younger looking Stephen lang known for his colonel role in Avatar and Terranova.

Anthony

Anna Jack

Michael Moses AO4

Characters back story Jack’s backstory is that he comes from a broken home, following a conflict with his parents he decides to make a decision to move away from his family and live with his uncle in a small farming village just outside of Edinburgh. Living with his uncle for a couple of years he has grown fond of the small town lifestyle and treasures his uncle as the dad that was never there as his real dad was always working. So when the infected struck and took away his only friend he had to prove to himself that he can stand on his own two feet. He now uses his experience with his farm and adapts it to his situation, for example he is a lot handier with physical attributes in comparison with Anna – for example he is rather handy with a shotgun due to his farming history. Throughout the game Anna will try to bring up his past but Jack is reluctant until he finally gives out and leaks the story of the series of acts. Anna’s backstory is that she’s the complete opposite of Jack. A big city girl who uses her brains instead of her brawn to solve problems. Growing up in a large family she has set out to become a lawyer to differentiate herself from her other brothers and sisters – because she is attractive (and blonde) she is always misconceived as stupid but is dead set on proving others that she’s more than just a pretty face. After the infection struck she survived by her knowledge of the city and her wits, but lacked the real strength to get herself out of the city – this is where jack comes in. When visiting the city of Liverpool he meets Lucy and helps her escape. Unlike jack she is a lot more open about her past and will always reference back to when she ‘was at home’. Anthony’s backstory is that he spent a lot of time in the military, he had just finished his last tour of duty when the infection struck. Due to his lack of success at school he signed up for the military at 16 and war is all he knows. He uses his past experience with survival in order to survive in the city. His only downfall is that he lacks the ability to plan ahead and lives life by chance – never knowing where his next meal comes from. Character roles In my game it is really obvious about who plays which role. Jack is the hero, a typical mythical handsome roguish hero who always steps in to save the day. Although he does portray signs of an anti-hero in which he has to make the decisions no other person would – for example dispatching of a young infected girl. He fits into my story by playing the one that leads the group of people, well rounded skill-wise meaning he can take on a number of roles but not master all of them, a type of jack of all trades, master of none. He leads his other two companions to safety and usually has the final word on everything. Anna is the heroin, using her brain to solve the problems she helps jack out with strategy, as she is trying to prove her intelligence she is always the first to open her mouth when the group need to decide on something. Because she knows a lot about the city she acts as the guide to the city they’re currently in and is always there to answer questions that the group or player have. Anthony is the grunt type of the group, the muscle behind the trio he would rather shoot first and ask questions later, as this is in direct contradiction to Anna’s way of thinking they clash quite a bit which makes up for some amusing dialogue. Using his past experience he will provide the heavy support when under attack from infected or other NPC’s. Character movement As said previously I will base my character movement of that of assassin’s creed, minus the abnormal climbing skill. The default speed at which a character moves is at a jogging pace, this can be induced by pushing the analogue stick to full tilt, they can make the character walk by only moving it slightly. Furthermore they can make their character run short sprints by pulling the right trigger of their controller. The characters will also be able to jump as it is vital when trying to climb rubble of sorts, they will do this via a button on the right side of the controller perhaps the triangle or Y button. The speed of the movement will also depend on if the character is injured, this will not be a frequent problem but some parts of the story require that the main character is shot meaning that he perhaps cannot jump or cannot run but instead limp – this obviously slows his down quite a bit. The combat movement will be pretty standardised and will vary only slightly, this will be because of new weapons and the weights of each weapon – for example Jack will hold a pistol easily and move rather quickly as opposed to a light machine gun.

Michael Moses AO4

Character abilities Jacks abilities will be not be determined on any sort of points system. He will be a well-rounded character who is skilled slightly in most things but sometimes lacks the knowledge of other things. As there is no levelling up in the game the skills will not develop but instead he will gain knowledge of certain things for example of to make weapons or be able to source more water. Overall Jacks abilities are that of survival and leadership, he is able to make decisions and stick by them and has a knack of getting out of sticky situations. As said a number of times before he is handy with his shotgun and that is his weapon of choice. The other two characters abilities will be that of which I previously explained, Anna being a small but smart heroin that uses her wits to solve problems for example running around a horde of infected being unseen as opposed to Anthony being the opposite and running in all guns blazing. Characters weaknesses Although jacks weaknesses are not shown initially it soon becomes a realisation that he cannot survive on his own, he needs other people to help him achieve his goal. Because he fills in the jack of all trades type role he cannot truly master any of them thus needs a master of such a trade to be able to obtain things. For example although he is rather smart, he only knows of small town survival and wilderness survival whereas Anna knows more about the city. Over time it becomes more and more blatant that In order to successfully achieve the player must incorporate the entire group and use their different skills to combine them. To protect against his weakness players utilise the other characters traits in order to work together to achieve their goal. Character behaviour The behaviours of the main characters will be exhibited regularly to the groups advantage or even disadvantage. For example Jack is rather reclusive about his past thus very defensive when the subject is brought up – but is a great leader and will always try and make the right decisions for the good of the group. Anna’s stubborn behaviour always gets the group into arguments usually with Anthony over a difference of opinion on how to handle a certain situation – but on the other hand she uses her smarts to point out a better way of handling the situation. Anthony having a shoot first think later type behaviour will always get the group into trouble, usually trouble that involves a large horde of infected. This is usually disadvantageous to the group but his muscle and brutish attitude does come in handy when the group needs to get their hands dirty. The behaviours are overcome by combining the groups different behaviours and using the appropriate behaviour for the situation that they are in – for example if Jack is given the option to wade through the large amount of infected shooting and screaming as Anthony suggested or perhaps use Anna’s idea over going around the longer route but staying safe – this is the choice of the player.