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Project update: The Hourglass method - a slight change in outlook

Recently, I watched a video by an experienced game developer, Mark Darrah, called “The Hourglass”. (link here)

In his video, Mark talks about ways to approach project development, particularly game development. He discusses an approach called ‘The Hourglass’, in which instead of working on everything at the same time and trying to bring things forward consistently, the approach is to choose the single most important thing as the center of your ‘pile of sand’ and then use that center to drive all the other work on your project.

Working on all parts of the project at the same time is also referred to as the ‘swimming pool’ method, as everything steadily rises. The negatives of this approach are that nothing is ever showable because everything is at the same completion level; the final aspects of your project come very late in the process; if you’re cutting things, you’re cutting elements that are ‘pretty done’; and by working on too many parts at the same time, alignment goes away and you end up with a bunch of things aiming in different directions.

However, in the hourglass method, the primary goal is to drive that central goal to completion, and as you move away from the center, the required level of doneness decreases. 

I found this theory to be particularly useful for the development of my project because I noticed in my pitching process that there were some issues with people misunderstanding the central concept of the project. So now as part of developing my proposal, I am looking into strengthening that core concept so that it becomes very clear that it is the driving force of my game. 

In the case of ‘Duchess’, the title pretty much points towards what is the most important aspect - CHARACTER. While the game is a visual novel which is obviously presented as a story, the story is very much focused on showing and emphasizing character. This is done in two ways: 

1. The player gets to characterize the protagonist through the choices they make. 

2. The narrative explores the main cast of characters surrounding the protagonist, their personalities and their personal stories. 

A big change that came out of this - at least at the concept level because I’m not sure I could feasibly make a more complex game on my own at this moment - is that I am making 3 main romance paths instead of 1. Duchess’ romance is already planned, and as part of it the protagonist gets to help her prepare her new fashion show. The other 2 romance options would be Amadi and Alice - this way, the player gets an option to romance a woman, a man, and a nonbinary person. I have ideas for what could happen as part of those romance side plots for the other two characters, though obviously not as in depth as the Duchess romance that I have already planned out. However, I will include a few notes on these two other paths in my proposal, as it’s important to showcase the focus and effort that is needed to go into the characterization of these characters.

In my opinion, this was a very positive change that came out of viewing a video about project development, and I think it will enhance the quality of my proposal greatly.

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Fun Duchess development facts

Someone thought my project is similar to Prince of Persia! However, the ONLY similarity I could find relating my game to Prince of Persia is the fact that they both include a character with brown skin. 

Apparently, my project has a “dark, mystical antique hunt for treasure, keys, etc.” and it includes “mythical characters”. None of this is true 😂 my project is a romance visual novel that has very soft mystery elements in the fact that it investigates a case of CORPORATE ESPIONAGE. Not treasure, keys, or anything mystical or antique or dark. I can only assume that the ‘mythical characters’ mentioned was the VERY LOOSE inspiration from Alice in Wonderland (which as far as I’m aware is not a myth, but a fiction novel for children). 

Not only did the person make an immense mess out of understanding my game’s concept, but they also said that the LGBT audience is “fickle” and that I should not bother making content for them. According to other people who have clearly not been on the receiving end of homophobic or transphobic comments, this is an acceptable criticism at the expense of an entire minority community. 

The conclusion I would draw if I were to actually take any of this person’s feedback in mind is that my project should be renamed into “Homophobic Alice in Persia” and the story should also completely be redone to be about a “dark, mystical antique hunt for treasure, keys, and etcetera”. 

But since that would be a completely different project that stands against all my values, I will not be doing that :)

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Duchess update - heading into demo development

After working on the main plot, setting, characters, and other details of the game and discussing them with my mentor to make everything as solid of a foundation as possible, I am now heading into actual development of the little demo I want to produce as an additional part of my assignment.

I wrote a few scenes as prose experiments and learned from my mentor tips about how to make the writing more concise, as well as how to keep the style and register consistent and fitting of the setting. 

Now that I have a better knowledge of what kind of writing is required for visual novels, I am going to write the first few scenes with their various little branches based on player choice. 

Ideally, I want to have the following scenes in the demo:

1. Protagonist introduction and leaving home for the Duchess interview

2. Accidentally bumping into one of the twins (short conversation)

3. Talking to the receptionist (Alice) before being directed to Duchess’ office

4. short conversation with Duchess’ assistant (Amadi)

5. The “interview” with Duchess that gets interrupted by the shocking news of RQ stealing her designs. Duchess asks the protagonist to help her figure out who the traitor who sold the designs is in exchange for writing everything as an exclusive story for their fashion magazine. 

- whether player chooses yes or no, this is where the demo ends, with a message saying “Thank you for playing the Duchess demo!” or something similar. The demo shouldn’t take more than an hour to play through at the very most (for a very slow reader), but since I don’t have all the scenes written out yet, I can’t approximate a more exact play time.

I already have most of the background art necessary for the demo other than two locations (protagonist’s home + outside the office - street). However, by the time of the assignment deadline the artist (my partner) will have made these so I can easily add them to the scene in question. Until then, I will use a placeholder image in Ren’Py just so that it’s not a black screen in the background.

I have the complete character art for Duchess - her various outfits, poses, and emotions. However, I do not have art for the secondary characters, and since that is more complex to make than just one piece of background art, for the demo I will likely only have one piece of art depicting each character instead of multiple pieces. If character art for a secondary character cannot be finished on time, a stock image will be used as a placeholder. Though I do not expect this to be an issue, since there are only three secondary characters (twin, Alice, Amadi) who appear in the demo.

As of right now, I have not developed the music for the game because I am still trying to figure out what type of music would suit the project best. I think the demo can be enjoyable enough without music in the background, so I will not put any placeholder music unless I find it necessary when I test the demo.

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Duchess - story update after mentoring

This week in my final mentoring session for the trimester, I discussed more details about Duchess with my mentor. Her feedback has been invaluable so far, and I think the direction I am now going in is solid.

Most importantly, we discussed an earlier idea I had about the protagonist, which was that they should actually be a fashion journalist who ends up in this situation to help Duchess figure out who the traitor is by “being in the wrong place at the wrong time”. After comparing the more professional sleuth (private investigator) to the amateur sleuth (fashion journalist), I concluded that the amateur is indeed the better choice for the game. Due to the mystery being more of a secondary element that props up the characters and the romance, having the protagonist be a private investigator would give the wrong impression to the player. It would make the player think the game was more focused on the actual solving of the mystery rather than getting to know a cast of interesting characters and the romance option. Also, if the protagonist is a fashion journalist, there is also the added pressure of them needing to solve the mystery in order to be able to publish a more interesting story for the fashion magazine/website.

We also discussed the idea of adding romantic scenes with two other characters (Amadi and Alice), but at this moment I am unsure how I would restrict the player from having romantic interactions with other characters once they already had them with one, and indeed IF I should restrict this or let players make their own choices about how they approach these moments. For now, the Duchess is the main and only real romance that I have planned for the game. I am trying to keep the game from being too complicated so that it I can feasibly complete it in a reasonable amount of time (6 months-1 year, depending on how much I’m working on other projects).

Lastly, I asked my mentor for feedback on a few scenes that I have written. As I noticed that visual novels tend to have shorter sentences and paragraphs, my mentor gave me some advice on how to not waste words and rephrase things to make them more concise while still retaining the same idea and feeling. There were a few moments where the character register of the protagonist slipped into words that weren’t quite “modern”, and since the setting is a modern, futuristic multicultural city, this should be reflected in the vocabulary of the protagonist (unless it’s a deliberate choice to have the protagonist be different – but this is not the case).

Overall, I am happy with the work I have achieved on the game’s story this week. Everything is clearer in my head and it’s beginning to come together nicely. I look forward to complete writing a few scenes so I can add them in Ren’Py and see what it all looks like in the game engine.

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Duchess update: platform considerations

This past week, I’ve been looking into details regarding the business and marketing aspect of developing my project. 

In my research on how much it costs to publish games/apps on Steam, Play Store, and Appstore, I found out an important piece of information that changed the way I am approaching the idea of publishing the game.

On Steam, there is a one-time fee of $100 to publish a game. I was already aware of this information and I think it’s not too much of an investment, considering how huge of a platform Steam is. 

On Play Store, there is a one-time fee of $25 when you publish your first game or app, after which all the apps you publish are cost-free. This is something I had no knowledge of before researching, and I think it makes Play Store even more attractive than before, as the cost to publish is low and it also comes with being able to publish other apps or games for free in the future.

However, one platform that I am reconsidering is iOS due to the $99 per YEAR required for an Individual Developer Account. I feel like unless a game or app has in-app purchases or otherwise is expected to become very popular, paying for an Individual Developer Account when I would only have one game for a potentially long time is a waste.

As my project is a fairly short visual novel that has no in-app purchases whatsoever, I am not planning on publishing it on the Appstore. If at some point I feel like I have enough different games and a strong enough following to justify the $99/year, then I will also release my games on the Appstore. This will be fairly easy to do if I continue developing projects in the Ren’Py engine, as it supports PC/Mac/Linux, Android, and iOS. 

Other than the $125 to publish the game on Steam and Play Store, I am also considering the fact that in order for a game to be successful, I need to market/advertise it to people. I am currently undertaking an online course about being an online content creator which includes information about how to create a following and succeed on platforms such as Patreon, so that is most likely the route that I will explore in terms of making people aware of my game.

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Reflection on game writing exercise

During the weeks when we discussed writing in games, we had an individual exercise to describe a room/interior location in order to hint at a larger world without actually describing the outer world much (though the location could have a window or something through which to see a bit of the outside world). I found this exercise very useful, as the finished document can be used as a writing sample in our portfolios, especially if we want to work in writing or narrative design for video games. I also thought it was an interesting approach to worldbuilding to try to hint at a world through describing one single location. This is not only helpful when creating games, but narratives in general, as you have to figure out what details you should emphasize in order to hint elements of worldbuilding without overwhelming the reader/viewer/player.

However, an aspect that was less than ideal in this exercise was the second part in which we had to re-write our location descriptions in the style of another writer. While this may be necessary sometimes in the industry, it’s certainly not difficult to do and I feel that as an exercise it takes away from our creativity and individual style. I enjoyed reading through other people’s submissions exactly because they were all different from each other – and that was a good thing. If everyone wrote in the same way, the creative industry would be a boring field, indeed.

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Duchess progress post - mentorship discussion

In my mentorship meeting last week, I submitted the basic game details about Duchess and the outline of the first act of the game (coincidentally also Day One). We discussed the project and I learned both things that can improve the project itself as well as more generally applicable advice, like having a clear idea of the setting in my head even though it’s not specified in the narrative.

These are some things that I discussed with my mentor:

-       The setting inspiration (futuristic multicultural city with cool fashion): a good real-world city to look at is Singapore

-       1st person narrative seems like it would work well, and case notes at the end of each day are a good idea

-       Why is Alice the receptionist if they’re so socially anxious? – it was the only way into an industry they’re very passionate about

-       Ideas for items from home: all the items could be decorated with the white rabbit (adding another Alice in Wonderland reference)

-       Fashion inspiration: could look at the anime Carole & Tuesday

-       Plot: the next day after act 1 ends, the cleaning company could clean out workspaces and some things could go missing

-       Idea for red herring: pamphlet for RQ on Alice’s desk

-       Advice when writing clues/red herrings: just write “they find clue x” + what the clue needs to do for the story in the first draft, then come back later to add in specific details

-       Useful to look at Murder Most Unladylike to analyze plot, clues, red herrings, etc.

-       Research other similar games and their openings

-       Bioshock 1 has a journal entry-like system that gives the player mission details (could be interesting to look at for the journal/case notes idea)

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Lessons learned from The Wayhaven Chronicles

Yesterday, I began playing Book One from The Wayhaven Chronicles because I wanted to see the differences between a visual novel and an interactive novel.

Knowing the game had over 400k words made me wary – I thought the experience would be too long and wouldn’t be as interactive and engaging. However, I realized the word count came from the many different choices the player could make about themselves as well as the characters in the story. The names and genders of the romantic interests were changed based on player preference, and the protagonist was also customizable (name, gender, hair color, eye color, height).

The game didn’t feel that long, and I was able to finish a playthrough of Book One in about 3.5 hours. The story and characters were compelling enough to make me buy and play through Book Two as well. Since I had already learned how the game worked and knew the characters and setting better, I finished Book Two in 2.5 hours.

I noticed the story had neutral, unobtrusive prose – almost bland, even. There wasn’t much characterization of the protagonist where the player wasn’t actively making choices, though that possibly changed later when the protagonist’s personality “stats” had been updated. I’m not certain whether the protagonist’s responses actually changed, or if at a certain point the player becomes more invested in the story so they stop noticing when the protagonist makes choices  that aren’t what the player would choose. Either way, the most important moments of characterization are left to the scenes when the player can actively choose how their protagonist reacts.

Lesson #1: write passages in which the player has no agency in neutral prose (especially the protagonist’s characterization) in order to highlight the moments when the player makes active choices.

I noticed that some options were quite similar to others when there were 5-6 to choose from, while only 2 or 3 were actually highly different from one another. This was more apparent in moments when the player could flirt with a particular character, as there were also options to be friendly, neutral, or antagonistic towards them.

However, though some choices felt little more than setting up the next scene without actually changing much about it, there were plenty of moments where the whole scene shifted in tone/theme/emotion based on that one choice the player made. The moments where the player felt like they changed a scene remained in the player’s mind as a pillar of their character’s personality and choices.

Lesson #2: make sure there are scenes that feel like they completely change based on player choice.

There was something strange in how the narrative perspective shifted from 1st person (the protagonist’s POV) into 3rd person. This was particularly grating when the 3rd person scenes showed the antagonist’s actions – or other things the protagonist couldn’t possibly see/know. This broke the immersion because the player ends up knowing things before the protagonist encounters them, so it can be hard to make in-character choices. It was basically impossible for me to act as my protagonist when I met the antagonist because I already knew his name and what he did to his other victims.

However, this change from 1st to 3rd person was also used to show some moments from the romantic interest’s perspective. This added more emotion and engagement with the romance – knowing that a character feels the same way about the protagonist makes the player invested. I think this version of the narrative perspective shift is good and adds to the story, rather than the first kind which takes away from the mystery and immersion.

Lesson #3: in a 1st person experience, don’t shift to 3rd person if it takes away from the story/experience – do so only if it adds engagement.

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A visual novel interesting to look at for inspiration - The Wayhaven Chronicles

I heard about The Wayhaven Chronicles in passing online as a very long (over 400k words) interactive novel in which the player takes the role of a detective in a small town in which there is a spike of supernatural activity. It’s a fantasy-romance story which is not exactly the genre that I am going for in my game, but nevertheless it includes mystery elements. 

The sheer length of it put me off from trying it until now, but I changed my mind while developing Duchess - it could be interesting to look at it for development purposes.

I am going to play through a part of Book One of the series this week (I don’t think I have the time to play through the whole game) and take notes on the story structure, characters, plot elements, and choices. I want to figure out what works and what doesn’t in an existing game of a similar genre (interactive fiction vs. visual novel) and apply my findings as I develop my project.

I think The Wayhaven Chronicles could be a useful comp title in my project proposal. I am also thinking about exploring titles developed in ChoiceScript (developed by Choice of Games), because while they don’t include the visual aspect, I can still learn a lot about how to create a compelling branching narrative from them.

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Some more details about Duchess

As I’m working on the details to send to my mentor about my project for the next mentoring meeting, I’ve compiled some basic information about the game world and the characters the player will interact with.

Setting

Set in an unspecified contemporary period in an unspecified multicultural city, the story spans over 5 days. The environments traversed by the player through the story are limited to a handful of locations closely linked to the main cast (offices, residence, fashion show, etc.). The environments are designed to emphasize the characters’ personalities and assist the player in understanding and possibly relating to the characters.

Character list

Duchess (she/her) – the CEO and creative director of the fashion company ‘Duchess’. The name of the company has become synonymous with the woman leading it, and thus most people refer to her as Duchess. She is an Indian woman who is poised, stern but compassionate, cold to outsiders but affectionate to her inner circle.

Amadi (he/him) – Duchess’ personal assistant. He is one of Duchess’ closest friends and trusted advisors. He is of African descent, he’s physically affectionate and loves to dress in colorful clothing, he can be overdramatic, but he keeps a positive outlook and a smile on his face even in difficult times.

Alice (they/them) – the newest higher at Duchess, Alice is the receptionist – even though they seem quite unsuited to the job of greeting strangers, as they are very shy and socially awkward. They are a white person with blonde hair that has a blue streak, and they look very much like they have their head in the clouds or in a different world.

The twins (he/him and she/her – names TBD) – the twins work at Duchess as the head of business (the woman) and the head of marketing (the guy). They are snooty, cold, and borderline disrespectful even to the CEO, though they can be surprisingly charismatic and pleasant if they desire to be. They openly disapprove of the more humanitarian/charitable decisions that Duchess makes for the company.

Hatter (he/they) – an eccentric designer of accessories, mainly headwear. He helps Duchess create hats and other accessories that complement her clothing designs.

Housekeeper (he/him – name TBD) – Duchess’ housekeeper-slash-roommate. A college dropout who is smart but in the “wrong” ways, so instead of struggling to fit into a system that didn’t want him, he found his calling being what he calls a “platonic househusband”. He is another close friend and confidant of Duchess. He’s strong and handy, kind and joyful, but can sometimes be oblivious (he’s basically a himbo).

Duchess’ personal chef (she/her – name TBD) – Duchess’ personal chef who comes to cook for her a few times a week and for special occasions. She cooks very spicy food which Duchess enjoys, but it can be difficult to stomach for people who aren’t used to it. She is the traitor who sold out Duchess and gave her designs to the rival company RQ.

 Notes: if you’re familiar with Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, you may figure out that some of the characters are based on characters from the book (Duchess, the cook, the housekeeper – dormouse, the hatter, Alice, and Amadi was originally inspired by the Knave).

Question: should I lean into the Alice in Wonderland inspiration more and actually market the game as inspired by it?

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Child of Light gifs [9/?]

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video game scenery: [5/∞] ↳ ruined temple ◁ dragon age: origins

“The Ruined Temple is the dilapidated remains of the Temple of Andraste. Sitting high atop the frigid Frostback Mountains, the temple’s interior is swathed with sheets of ice and snow. Nevertheless, considering the number of years since Andraste’s followers roamed its halls, the temple is remarkably intact”.

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When interactive media is exploited by corporations - Wonderland at Home

I took a peek at this link HERE which leads to a website where you can apparently order a DC-themed box of food, drink, and other things - augmented reality box? movie? The website is quite bad at providing information in a clear way, so other than the various ready-to-cook meals that would arrive in the box it’s uncertain what makes this such a good experience that marries “both the physical and digital worlds together”. 

The concept seems good - be able to order a box with certain foods/drinks that only appear in fictional universes (though the food is basically the same as something you can find IRL, the packaging is what makes it special, I guess?). However, I think the experience of actually going to one of those restaurants/bars from a fictional universe would be more compelling (think Disneyland and the Harry Potter World thing). Of course, during pandemic times this is practically impossible, so I can see the appeal somewhat.

However, I don’t enjoy it when big companies like Warner Bros sink their teeth into what could have been an intriguing concept to explore and frankly making it into a cash-cow. 

There is a Youtube series called Binging with Babish that explores recipes from all sorts of media (movies, tv shows, games, cartoons). The recipes the creator of the videos uses are free for anyone to read, so people can try to recreate recipes from their favorite pieces of media at home freely. 

I imagine that some who aren’t as inclined to cook from scratch would appreciate boxes with ingredients requiring less preparation. However, the large price of the boxes from Wonderland at Home excludes people who might only enjoy one or two dishes and are instead forced to buy an assorted box of goods. 

This sounds more like a rant than a clear blog post, but these were my thoughts on Wonderland at Home.

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ultimate dragon age meme - [3/5] warriors

aveline vallen

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Duchess - my mystery visual novel project

“Duchess” (working title) is the project that I’m focusing on in this Interactive Media module. It’s a mystery visual novel game with romance elements that has the player solve a mystery at a fashion company for the director and fashion designer known only as ‘Duchess’ to most. 

The protagonist is a private investigator who is contacted by Duchess about meeting up to discuss her concerns about the company. While discussing her suspicions about corporate spies from the rival fashion monolith RQ, Duchess receives shocking and terrible news that all the designs she was going to present during the fashion week have been shown on stage by RQ. This spurs the need for the player to figure out who the spy/traitor is while Duchess scrambles to make a whole new show in under a week. The suspect pool is also narrowed down to a handful of people who are the only ones who could have had access to Duchess’ design documents: her assistant, the director of sales and the director of marketing, and the newest hire in the company - the receptionist. Though the receptionist shouldn’t be able to access the top floor undetected, they have been acting suspicious and Duchess thinks they might know something they’re not letting on.

The intended platforms for “Duchess” are PC/Mac and mobile, as I plan on developing the game in the visual novel engine Ren’Py which is simple to use (simple scripting language that even someone inexperienced like me can figure out), and also free and open-source. I already have the main art assets completed by my partner and we will also have to figure out together a design for the UI and some other art assets that weren’t as vital so far. I am also considering enlisting the help of a friend to create at least one musical piece to function as the soundtrack to the demo. 

My main focus right now is the plot of the game, particularly the first act (”Day One” in-game), as I want to make a playable demo of it as part of my project proposal. To this end, I will discuss the plot outline with my mentor in Creative and Editorial Development to improve the quality of the story, and begin writing in earnest after that.

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Horizon Zero Dawn gifs (122/?)

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My favorite game - Dragon Age: Origins

My favorite video game is Dragon Age: Origins (2009), a fantasy RPG developed by Bioware. It changed the way I thought about games, particularly the potential of role-playing video games to tell character-driven stories that feel different based on the choices the player makes.

The main feature that sets Dragon Age: Origins apart from other RPGs is the background or “origin” that the player can choose during character creation.

When they start the game, the origin story acts as a prequel to the main story of the game and introduces the player to the world in a unique way. The player can choose one of six different origins for their character, and they truly make each character the player creates feel different from one another. 

For example, the human noble betrayed by a close family friend will seek revenge against the one who wronged their family, while a Dalish elf character lives in a forest with their elven clan and will most likely be suspicious of humans due to the violent history between the two races.

Not only do the origin stories add to the replayability of the game, but they also show different parts of the world to the player, making the world more immersive and helping the player learn bits of lore in a fun and engaging way.

Another aspect of the game that shines is the writing, especially in the context of the varied companions that can join the player character on their journey. Each character is complex and flawed, having their own conflicts separate from the external plot. Getting to know them adds more depth to the game world and can deepen the player’s connection to it.

Finally, there is the possibility of romance in the game for those inclined to try it out, which adds yet another point into the variety and replayability of Dragon Age: Origins. 

It is by no means a ‘dating simulator’ as the romance storylines are not very long, but it offers enough space for the player to be able to further imagine the different relationships their character might have with the companions.