Design Process: Photos

The design process is a pretty complex process. The amount of work integrated in my work is enormous. But there is still hunders of decision to be taken before the end of my master program and only two month left.

Here is a small dive in the process:

First playtest with my colleagues for ZHdK

Analizing classic point`n`click interaction system (Gemini Rue)

Working on the story

Hard decision on the graphic part of the project

Riging the character

Evolution of the game posters

All started with this concept

Positive and Negative Design Rules

Rules of PlayBook by Eric Zimmerman and Katie Salen

A small task from the university side was to define the positive and negative design rules of my project. Here is a short list of rules:

Positive:

1. Non-linear puzzle solving (Some puzzle can be solved in different ways).
2. Intuitive puzzle solving (Most of the puzzles use the same solving mechanism and as soon as you solve the first one you understand how to solve the others).
3. Explicit Environment (you see same puzzles mechanism and you clearly understand “This is a puzzle”).
4. Interactivity (The player can Hold/Move/Rotate all the small objects in the game).
5. No dead-ends (If you missed something you always can go back).

Negative:

1. No Inventory (You can take only two items simultaneously).
2. Game linearity (You can`t move to a new location till you don`t solve the puzzle).
3. Story is forced (Players are forced to read logs to find solution to some puzzles).
4. Limited actions (Almost all the gameplay is based on the hands control interaction).
5. You cannot jump (In my attempt to limit the functionality areas of the game I had to limit this exploration action – this was done because you could stuck by jumping in some areas of the game).

Abstract : Deutsch

Diese These stellt eine Methodik dar, um Grafik -Adventures, bei denen man mit der Spielumgebung und Objekten mit einem Cursor auf dem Bildschirm interagiert, zu modernisieren. In den letzten Jahrzehnten haben sich grafische Abenteuerspiele nicht so entwickelt wie anderes Spielgenres. Die Such nach den Ursachen dafür könnte in der Genreverbesserung helfen.

Statt dem Spieler das gleiche klassische Spielerlebnis mit den alten Game­play-Mechaniken zu bieten legt diese Methodik den Fokus auf neue Tech­nologien, um dem Spieler die Möglichkeit einer Interaktion zu bieten, die er vorher noch nicht erlebt hat.

Interaktion könnte einer der wichtigsten Teile des Spielprozesses sein. Mit einem Virtual-Reality- Headset in Kombination mit motion-based Controllern, die die Position und die Rotation von Körperteilen der verschiedenen Spieler verfolgen können, bekommt der Spieler einen besseren räumlichen Eindruck.

Das Ergebnis dieser These wird für die Gestaltung und

Entwicklung eines frühen Prototyps zu einem fertigen Produkt verwendet werden. 

Defining graphic adventure games: Recapitulation

Shaping the Future of Gaming: Introduction to Virtual Reality

Defining graphic adventure games: Narration

Narration is considered to be the main advantage of the graphic adventure game. One of the most interesting game stories were retold by graphic ad­venture games, e.g. Grim Fandango, Syberia, Heavy Rain etc. The story is often the most essential part of the genre. For in­stance, Gabriel Knight presented us the story that could compete with many classic detective books.

Note that adventure games put different emphasis on these components. Some, like Myst, involve more puzzles than story, while others, such as The Legend of Lotus Spring, focus on the story almost to the exclusion of puzzles.

Defining graphic adventure games: Exploration

Graphic adventure games usually uses environment exploration as a part of the gameplay. In earlier text parser adventures, you had to navigate by typing in the direction, e.g., “GO SOUTH”. Nowadays, the game developers create more intuitive ways to move in the environment.  In Asunder: Earthbound the players‘ movements are limited by sitting on one single airplane seat. The player could rotate the head to explore both the environment and the story of the game.

To make all this movement exciting, graphic adventure games usually offer players a beautiful surrounding. The opportunity to explore both the world and the story behind it makes players more exited.

Defining graphic adventure games: Puzzles

In my attempt to give you a better understanding of this specific game genre I need to list one more time the main components of the graphic adventure game: Puzzles, Exploration and Narration. It doesn’t mean that all these component should be equally proportioned to produce the core of the game, but it does mean that at least all of them should participate in this production.

Let`s take a closer look at all of these important components. 

Puzzles

Solving puzzles is mainly the most popular challenge and interaction in the graphic adventure games. Without this element the genre will give a feeling of watching a not-very-interactive movie, e.g., «Gone Home». Puzzles are stopping the players from a quick run through the game story. There a doz­ens of different puzzles, some are suited well to the story of the game, some are not. We could classify them in for big categories.

Inventory puzzles: Collecting items and using them to solve puzzle is one of the most famous puzzle methods, not only in the graphic adventure games, but also in some other game genres, such as platformers, action games and others. They could be as simple as using the item on another game object in the environment, or complex that forces you to collect multiple items and combine them before use.

Dialogue-based puzzles: Such puzzles use the interaction between the char­acters to accumulate clues about how to solve puzzles. Often the player needs to find the right way of getting this information, that´s why interroga­tion is a frequent guest in the graphic adventure games.

Environmental puzzles: Analyzing the information from the game environ­ment is also used in many graphic adventure games, especially point’n’click adventures. Usually this puzzle method leads to a “pixel hunting” (a process of clicking with mouse cursor all over the screen with the purpose to find the unnoticed objects).

Non-contextual logic puzzles: This method is usually not connected to the game story, serving mainly as a cerebral interlude. It could be a chess or Tic-Tac-Toe game. There are a lot of casual graphic adventure games that use this method as the basis for its gameplay.

Sometimes the puzzles are too unique to group them into those categories. «Loom» uses sound to produce clues for the players. 

Thesis: Introduction

INTRODUCTION

The subject of my research is the evolution of the graphic adventure games genre. You may ask: what is a graphic adventure game? But the answer is not easy to find. There is a huge diversity of graphic adventure games so it can be hard to find a specific definition.  

Many graphic adventure games push traditional genre boundaries in new area while still remaining graphic adventure games at their core. Gemini Rue includes some action sequences. Dreamfall, sequel to the point-and-click classic The Longest Journey, contains some stealth and fight scenes. Beyond Two Soul is a new type of interactive movie-style adventure.  Those games looks different and plays different but they still have the right to be called graphic adventure games.

So what is the graphic adventure game?

It is a game with for a strong narrative and visual presentation that is com­bined with the puzzle solving abilities and the environment exploration.

Now with a better understanding of the topic I raised, we are able to make the next step: discover the evolution of this game genre and predict the next step of its evolution. What I intend to do is a game concept that will show the possibilities of this genre, in terms of visual content, interactive content and storytelling. 

Virtual reality -- how the metaverse will change filmmaking

This talk was given at a local TEDx event, produced independently of the TED Conferences. In this talk, George introduces the concept of the “metaverse” and how it will change filmmaking in sets, crew, actors, and most importantly, the story.

George is an executive producer at CBS Digital the visual effects team responsible for movies and television series. He and his colleagues develop disruptive tools for production and custom content for the Oculus Rift.

About TEDx, x = independently organized event In the spirit of ideas worth spreading, TEDx is a program of local, self-organized events that bring people together to share a TED-like experience. At a TEDx event, TEDTalks video and live speakers combine to spark deep discussion and connection in a small group. These local, self-organized events are branded TEDx, where x = independently organized TED event. The TED Conference provides general guidance for the TEDx program, but individual TEDx events are self-organized.* (*Subject to certain rules and regulations)

Thesis: Abstract

My  thesis provides a game design methodology to modernize the graphic adventure game genre, where you interact with the game environment and objects using an on-screen cursor. In the last decades this evolved not so much as other game genre. Searching for the clues why that happened could help in genre improvement.

Rather than offering player the same classic game experience by using the old fashion gameplay mechanics, this methodology focus on using the new technologies to provide players with an interaction that they had not experienced before.

Interaction could be one of the most important parts of the game process. Using the virtual reality headset in combination with motion-based controllers, which tracks the position and rotation of the players’ body parts, will give player a better spatial immersion.

The thesis results will be used for designing and developing the early stage prototype into a finalized product.