[Interactive Narrative] Initial Ideas 2

Thinking further about my Interactive Narrative, I am continuing with the idea of following the journey of the plant rather than an individual character. I have also looked at various designs of exotic plants, as I really want to convey the unusual power it possesses.

I am thinking of the plant having a hard outer shell to offer protection from damage and once opened has a miniature sapling inside which is the real power of the plant. The outer shell will have a radiant glow to make it very distinctive from other flora in the narrative.

In the narrative everyone will have their own agenda for wanting the plant. There will be clearly evil and good characters wanting to acquire the plant, be it to make weapons to gain power or to ensure the forests protection. Additionally there will be neutral-aligned characters that want the plant for their own means. Because of this there will be several sub-narratives, and the player's actions will decide whether the forest is protected or destroyed.

[Interactive Narrative] Game Engines Research

Flash:-
Adobe Flash is a versatile program that revolves mainly around 2D vector animations, but in recent versions also has support for importing of 3D models. There are tools in Flash such as tweening that makes animations easier, but often with more simplistic details.

One thing Flash can be used for however is fake 3D parallax effects, where you layer 3 images on top of each other and move them at different speeds. For example, the first scene in my narrative where a young boy discovers the plant, the player's input is required to continue the story. While the player decides what to click on, I could do some parallax effects like have some out of focus grass in the foreground the moves at a moderate speed and a backdrop/skybox that moves at a slow speed, while leaving the mid-ground focal point the same. This will create the illusion of fluid movement when only 3-5 images are used. When there is time for a player input, time will freeze and several objects will be highlighted. Depending on the object selected, an action will happen with that object that causes the story to progress and the plant to get passed onto a different person.

I want this to be similar to the I Am Legend animated comic illustrated by Jason Chan; 'http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P92V1NWTwVs'

UDK:-
The Unreal Development Kit

After Effects:-


I Am Legend animated comics.

[Interactive Narrative] Initial Ideas

In the project, we have to decide whether to develop the interactive narrative for web or iOS. I have thought about what platform to use and am initially leaning toward a web based platform. I'm planning on doing a parallax style animation with no text but instead expressions and emotes similar to the early Final Fantasy and Golden Sun games.


The main story will be slightly abstract, but is based around the transfer of a small blue sapling-like plant between various people. Depending on the decisions of the player at certain points in the game, the plant will either leave or stay with a certain person. There will be several of these actions that dynamically cause the plant to end up with multiple people, hopefully around 6-10 each game, with maybe a possible total of around 15.

The game will begin with the 'main' character finding the plant in the middle of an opening in a forest in which all the recipients live. Depending on the actions the player takes, the plant will then be taken by another creature, for example a bird sweeping down to snatch the plant just as the main character digs it up from the ground.

I'm planning to have multiple routes, but for all routes to eventually lead back to the plant being in the original main character's possession.

The parallax style will allow the scene to appear stylistic and animated without having to render out every frame. For example, while the game is awaiting the first decision while the character is digging up the plant, the long foreground grass will be slowly moving to the right, along with slight adjustments in the scene to make it appear as if the camera is marginally rotating around the player. There will also be the distant view of birds moving in the sky, hinting at a possible outcome of a player's decision.

I am planning to animate in Flash using Adobe Flash Pro CS5. Flash is a very widely supported format with virtually all modern computers coming with Flash pre-installed. It is now also supported by most handheld and tablet platforms, including iOS.