Session 9 - 28/11/12 - More Ideas 3

In todays lesson i hit a bit of a mental block, meaning i don't have much to show for my time. I simply came up with my storys dramatic premise (a very short summary of a stories plot), a couple more ideas, and a short summary of my 'Courage' mechanic. The most notable thing about todays notes is that my idea for the arrival of the citadel does not fit with what i later understood to be the agreed procession of events after the first Half-Life game. Simply put, the Combine did not arrive on earth for some time after the Black Mesa Incident, even after the population had been moved into the cities. A story spanning a few days would not allow this to happen, and i want mine to be as coherent with the Half-Life storyline as it can be.

Dramatic Premise: A coward learns to find courage in a world under attack.

Ideas:
Player is moved into city by government, player has to escape to reach home
Player reaches home, kills zombie family member, on return, witnesses the arrival of a combine citadel.

Mechanic:

-          Player starts game with a small ‘Courage’ stat. This stat increases throughout the story.

-          Events will give the player multiple options, some are brave, others are cowardly

-          You will always have the ability to choose from every option

-          However, choosing a brave act will require a dice roll which when multiplied by your Courage stat will determine whether you are successful in performing the brave act

-          The brave option is not always the best option to make, and could result in death

Session 8 - 21/11/12 - Initial Plot Layout

In this lesson i made some good headway in plotting out my interactive narrative. I came up with an inciting incident that i was very happy with, however, the rest of the story proved to be far more of a challenge to flesh out. Whilst thinking of a way for the player to find out about the 'cure', i had to think of a way for the player to meet other people, this led me to the idea of a military convoy headed to the city, as the population was relocated to large cities for protection after the events of Half-Life 1.

Setting: Unknown Suburban/Urban Area.

Date: 16, May 200X

-          Setup

o   Introduce players normal life

o   Hint at avoidant personality/inability to face problems/fears

§  Urgent Bills

§  Unpleastant Neighbour

§  Cheating Girlfriend

-          Inciting Incident

o   Portal storm shakes house

o   Power goes down

o   Green flash in room

o   Something jumps on family members head

o   Family member is suffocating

o   Player is too scared to do anything

o   Flees house

o   Smoke-veiled creature in outside street/nearby torching houses

o   Player runs from it

-          Plot Point 1

o   Discovery of cure

//

o   Player travels around by foot, directionless

o   Eventually runs in to people who tell him they’ve heard rumour of a cure

Alternative:

o   Player tries to flee civilised area along highway

o   Is picked up by military convoy and taken back and into city

-          Mid-Point

o   Player learns there is no cure

o   Near-death experience?

-          Plot Point 2

o   Player decides to visit home

-          Climax

o   Combine arrival/beginning of seven hour war?

o   Character death?

Notes:

-     It is known in the Half-Life series that shortly after the black mesa incident, the population was moved into cities to protect people from the alien wildlife that was being scattered throughout the world by the portal storms.

Session 7 - 14/11/12 - More Ideas 2

In this session i thought focussed on my 'Courage' mechanic and tried to think of some kind of situations the player might face that might require them to be courageous, i listed a few ideas then made a list of all the enemies found in Half-Life 1 that coudl come into play during these 'events'.

Encounters:

·         Military encounter with alien grunts/other xenian species

o   Player must cross through a battlefield?

o   To save someone?

§  Cowardly outcome could lead to an alternative being discovered i.e. sewer cover leading under the battle

·        Witnessing an encounter between xenian and non xenian wildlife

·         Portal storms, causing teleportation of xen wildlife, as well as causing structural damage.

Enemies from half-life:

·         Headcrab

·         Headcrab Zombie

·         Barnacle

·         Houndeye

·         Bullsquid

·         Tentacle/Hydra

·         Gargantua

·         Ichthyosaur

·         Water Leeches

I then went spent some more time thinking about the actual plot for my story. I liked the idea of the main character being an average joe in a an average job having his uncourageous ways brought to light by the events of the Black Mesa incident. This meant the main character being a victim of the portal storms and the worldwide influx of Xenian wildlife that ravaged the earth soon after. To make the players cowardice come to light early, i had the idea of them allowing a family member to die or suffer due to their inability to step in and help. I also inadvertantly picked one of the 7 Narrative types that my story would fit into, 'Voyage and Return'.

Trivia suggests that after the black mesa incident portal storms began to spread around the planet, an interesting precedent could be a civilian witnessing the events happening through the news then encountering them themselves.

Combat system?

Is the character going to be adventuring alone?

Inciting incident: family member or close friend attacked by headcrab and player is unable to help due to fear, resulting in this persons death and their eventual return as a zombie. With the player now being stalked by a zombie, they could have a choice as to whether to fight, but a severely low courage level means that this option always leads to the player fleeing.

-          Escape a building?

Setup:

-          Player is sat at home, shortly after the black mesa incident, your power supply has gone down, but not before you saw a report on the internet of bizarre incidents occurring in America. Being a cynical person, the player does not believe the stories.

-          Normally the player is a cynical person but they cannot deny the earthquake that rocked the house an hour before and knocked out the power.

Narrative type - Voyage and return:

-          Player flees from headcrabbed friend/family

-          Hears rumour of a cure

-          Eventually discovers there is no cure

-          Returns, as a different person, to put their friend/family member out of their misery.

What happens in the interim to change the player?

Session 6 - 07/11/12 - More Ideas

I used this session for more brainstorming, starting with a quick summary of two of my favourite films, and the journey of their main characters, they both have very cowardly or stereotypical protagonists who over the course of their films shake off their negative images.

District 9 – Temperamental yet cowardly bureaucrat becomes fugitive, literally representing his cowardice by running away, right to the end where he eventually overcomes his selfish nature to save a father and son.

Zombieland – Nerdy guy gets the girl, manages to fit in despite social awkwardness. Kills zombies on the way.

The rest of the time was spent trying to get the barebones of my story together. I settled on the idea of seeing the effects of the events of Half-Life 1 outside of Black-Mesa. 

For anyone unfamiliar with the Half-Life games, they tell the tale of a theoretical physicist called Gordon Freeman, a scientist employed in a secret scientific research facility in New Mexico called 'Black Mesa'. This facility was involved in various experiments, notably with teleportation technology that utilised a border-world (known as 'Xen') as a kind of 'slingshot' to make their technology work. Half-Life places you in an experiment with a sample of a Xenian substance it is believed will benefit the technology. This substance and some recklessness on the scientists part cause a catastrophic event called a 'Resonance Cascade' that causes sever structural damage throughout the facility as well as the teleportation of hundreds of Xenian creatures.The player, as Gordon Freeman, must fight their way through the facility, eventually going to the Xen borderworld himself to kill a being that has been teleporting its own alien soldiers into the facility. It is believed that killing this creature, called the 'Nihilanth' will cut the link between the two worlds for good, sadly this is not the case. In the sequel, players find out that their efforts were all for nought and that the entire world suffered the influx of Xen creatures and ultimately humanitys downfall to a greater threat called the Combine.

Below you can see my notes on potential ideas for my story, thinking about what my character will do, where the story would be set, and the threats that might face someone living in a post Half-Life world.

Narrative Ideas:

What is the main characters aim?

-          Main character has an objective, but it will require them to overcome their own cowardice

-          OR Main character has an objective that can be achieved, but tests players cowardice

About the main character:

-          Cushy lifestyle?

-          Comfortable job?

-          Retired?

Main character lives during portal storms and witnesses the arrival of the combine.

-          Travelling to city?

-          Lives just outside city but refuses to go there

-          Life in the wasteland?

Threats in the world post black mesa:

-          Xen wildlife

-          Portal storms

-          Remnants of Nihilanths army (lone grunts)

-          Bad guys

Looper -Setting.

I then went on to think about how i could combine this setting with the kinds of story i liked, most of which involved a cowardly  protagonist. I decided i had my setting, so i would make my the journey of the protagonist from cowardly to brave be the interactive element of my story. I began devising a 'Courage' mechanic that would allow the player to choose to be brave or cowardly. The ability to perform a brave act however, would depend on a 'Courage Stat', this stat would increase throughout the story meaning that the player had a better chance of performing the brave act. I had my doubts about it, but decided to go with it anyway.

Gameplay/Interactive Element:

Gameplay involves choosing a brave or a cowardly act. With a twist:

-   Bravery is not always the best option to take. Sometimes cowardice can lead to a better outcome

-   Whilst the option is always given to the player of whether to make a brave or a cowardly decision. A decision to be brave will require a dice roll that decides whether the character has the courage to achieve this brave act.

o   The story tells the tale of a cowardly character, so achieving a brave outcome will be very hard, at least in the early parts of the story. As the story progresses I would either like the player to gradually overcome their cowardice, or have a moment towards the end where the players cowardice is all but eradicated.

“Courage” mechanic to represent main characters cowardice?

Courage ‘level’ increases throughout or peaks at end of story?

Unsatisfying mechanic?

No fun to play a useless character.