Levels What is a level Why do we use them How do you distinguish them Should there be a final level Games that use them well Questions Way to break up a game For developers Development simplification ID: 461886
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Slide1
Levels and narrativeSlide2
LevelsSlide3
What is a level?
Why do we use them?
How do you distinguish them?
Should there be a final level?
Games that use them well?
QuestionsSlide4
Way to break up a game
For developers
Development simplification
How different should they be?
How important is progressive difficulty?
Benefits to players
AccomplishmentLearning
LevelsSlide5
Transitions
Cut scenes
Travel
Consistency and differentiation
Includes all world aspects
Levels in world gamesSlide6
Making it harder
Ability to start at any level
Serious games
Content
Gameplay
Levels in casual gamesSlide7
narrativeSlide8
why stories in computer Games?
Reach emotion, not just adrenaline
Key in all well-crafted entertainment
More specifically
Add to entertainment value
Wider audience
Keep interest
MarketingSlide9
stories in computer Games
Are these the first interactive stories?
NO. Audience participation!
What does the player want?
New experience
New place
New person
New activity
Recommendation: learn good storytelling rulesSlide10
How much story do you need?
genre
Considerations
Arcade games
Strategy games
First person shooter
RPG, adventure
Length
Characters
Realism
Emotional richnessSlide11
Game relationships
Triggers
Narrative Events
In-Game Events
Player EventsSlide12
Story Models
Linear
Branching
Foldback
EmergentSlide13
Linear stories
Aesthetically
Greater emotional capability
Deny dramatic freedom
Practically
Require less content
Engine simpler
Less prone to bugs (absurdities)Slide14
branching stories
Aesthetically
Replayable
Harder to create specific emotions
Event influence
Advise player of significance
Deferred or cumulative
Practically
Expensive and complex
Merging
Number of endingsSlide15
Foldback stories
Inevitable events that create the story arc
Every play comes through them
Compromise between complexity and dramatic freedomSlide16
emergent stories
No storytelling engine
Story evolves strictly from player actions
MUDs
LambdaMOO
:
A Rape in CyberspaceSlide17
considerations
Endings
Dramatic and premature
Multiplicity
Narrative granularitySlide18
Advancing the plot
Mechanisms
Challenges
Choices
Drama (time)
Journey
ToolsCut scenes
DialogueSlide19
Three Act Play
Set up
Confrontation
ResolutionSlide20
hero’s journey (campbell
1949)
A hero ventures forth from the world of common day into a region of supernatural wonder: fabulous forces are there encountered and a decisive victory is won: the hero comes back from this mysterious adventure with the power to bestow boons on his fellow man.
Call to adventure
Road of trials
Boon
Return to the ordinary world
Application of the boon
Vogler’s
versionSlide21
Resources
Interactive Fiction
Tony
Hirst’s
Digital Worlds
Lee Sheldon, Character Development and Storytelling for Games
(2004)
Today’s MMORPGs