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Sentenced an interactive exploration of compassionate communication through a black lens

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Sentenced an interactive exploration of compassionate communication through a black lens

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Content Sentenced
An Interactive Exploration of Compassionate Communication Through a Black Lens
by
Taylor Dinwiddie
A Thesis Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE USC SCHOOL OF CINEMATIC ARTS
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
MASTER OF FINE ARTS
(INTERACTIVE MEDIA)
May 2022
Copyright 2022 Taylor Dinwiddie
Dedication
For the Black community and those who wish to aid us.
ii
Acknowledgements
I want to thank my parents for helping me survive the microaggressions that
plagued the production process of this thesis project. I’ve learned a lot about some
of the pitfalls surrounding Black representation within our industry, and my parents
were always there for me when I needed to vent and helped me process how to
channel my feelings of frustration or exhaustion. I also want to thank my cohort for
their patience and understanding during all of our classes and critique sessions. I’ve
grown so much as a developer because of their kindness and brilliance and I’m glad
that this is just the beginning of our journeys with one another.
I would like to thank my team, my thesis advisors and the faculty at USC
Games for their wisdom and guidance during this experience as well. During my
three years in the Interactive Media and Games program, I’ve felt so much love and
support from them that have truly boosted my confidence and encouraged me to
pursue my passion in interactive narrative storytelling. I’m grateful that this project
is yet another expression of my interests and it was made better due to all of their
insights.
Lastly, I have to thank my brother. We still struggle to see each other’s
perspectives, but the care that we share for each other has been a driving force for
me throughout this year. And I know that no matter what, we have each other’s
backs. We aren’t where we want to be yet.
But we’ll get there… eventually.
iii
Table of Contents
Dedication................................................................................................................................................ ii
Acknowledgments ............................................................................................................................ iii
Table of Contents .............................................................................................................................. iv
List of Figures ........................................................................................................................................ v
Abstract .............................................................................................................................................. vi
Chapter 1: Introduction, An Interactive Exploration of Communicative Nuance .......... 1
Chapter 2: Understanding How People Think And Representing It Through Games ..... 3
2.1 Prior Work: Communication Based Games 3
2.2 What I’m Doing Di erently 6
Chapter 3: Using Mystery Tropes To Frame A Communication Based Narrative ............ 7
3.1 The Strength of Tropes 8
3.2 Incorporating Marginalized Voices Into A Well-Known Genre 9
Chapter 4: Production .......................................................................................................................10
4.1 Confidence As A Director And Developer 10
4.2 Narrative And Balancing The Workload 11
4.3 Experience Goals 12
4.4 Gameplay Overview and User Interface 13
4.5 Sound 14
4.6 Art 15
Chapter 5: The Black Tax, Scope Creep Induced By Creating An Authentically Black
Experience ............................................................................................................................................ 17
5.1 The Impact Of Anti-Black Racism In Game Development 17
5.2 How Can We Mitigate The “Black Tax”? 19
Chapter 6: Next Steps ....................................................................................................................... 20
Chapter 7: Conclusion ....................................................................................................................... 21
Bibliography ......................................................................................................................................... 22
iv
List of Figures
1 Signs of the Sojourner, deck gameplay ............................................................................ 4
2 We Should Talk Mechanic Gameplay ................................................................................. 5
3 The UI growth of Setenced’s main mechanic .................................................................. 6
4 Sentenced Conversation Layout ........................................................................................ 13
5 Father’s Home in Sentenced ............................................................................................... 15
6 David’s Oce in Sentenced ................................................................................................. 16
v
Abstract
My thesis, Sentenced, is a 2D visual novel about a skilled detective who’s
forced to balance his wit and his heart to solve mysteries and misunderstandings.
His normally cold demeanor is challenged when his younger brother shares that
he’s concerned that their Father is missing. In order to discover the cause of the
disappearance, the two are tasked with balancing their perspectives in order to ask
the right questions and find the correct clues. This experience has two primary
design goals:
1. Demonstrate the nuance in the way we speak through an engaging sentence
construction mechanic where players are able to mix and match di erent
phrases.
2. As a Black developer myself, I wanted to expand representation of a familiar
mystery, detective genre by placing Black voices at the center of this
narrative.
This project aims to showcase how compassionate interpersonal
communication can repair relationships and help solve problems, which is
accomplished through in-game conversations using the main mechanic. However,
during production, I encountered multiple roadblocks while trying to achieve my
second design goal of authentically representing Black voices. This paper depicts
my process and findings regarding my main mechanic, and seeks to address the
subtle racism that a ects those who are working to incorporate more Black voices
into their interactive experiences.
vi
Chapter 1:
Introduction, An Interactive Exploration of Communicative Nuance
Sentenced features two brothers: Justin, a detective who tends to be
analytical, and David, a therapist who interacts with others more empathetically.
The two are forced to reconcile and learn how to balance their perspectives when
they need to work together to solve the mystery of their father’s sudden
disappearance.
Taking inspiration from my relationship with my own brother, I decided that
the sibling dynamic would be a strong foundation for two people that deeply care
about each other, but who are genuinely unable to agree on how to approach
situations or solve problems. For the protagonists of Sentenced, their professions
also heavily influence how they view the world and treat people. The detective,
who’s surrounded by constant lies and trained to challenge every fact, is
determined to be more practical, while the therapist has learned how to process
and identify other people’s trauma and is much more emotional. I wanted to
demonstrate through this project that both perspectives have value and that
identifying which approach to use is a skill that can be developed and adapted.
All of these factors helped shape my thesis question: can we use interactivity
to help players identify di erent communication styles and adapt their word
choices to promote mutual understanding? Although many of us realize it only
subconsciously, slight sentence variations can completely change the tonality, and
therefore the reception, of any comment. For instance, asking a friend “I think you
1
went to the store, right?” as opposed to stating, “You went to the store, didn’t you?”
suggest two completely di erent connotations despite being nearly identical
sentences. Sentenced explores this dynamic through its main mechanic, where the
player is able to mix and match di erent phrases in order to create new complete
sentences. This encourages players to think carefully when constructing what
they’d like to say, so their tone is e ectively conveyed and they can get the
information they need from the characters they interact with.
What I want people to take away from this experience is how to be more
compassionate. When I originally concepted this idea, I believed the only option was
to attempt to evoke empathy, but that proved to be too vague to accurately assess.
While empathy is a goal, as I do want players to understand the emotions of the
characters they’re interacting with, I want them to take that extra step of action to
help, which in this game is demonstrated by adjusting their language and extending
compassion to the characters.
Although there are many di erent ways that we perceive intent during
interpersonal communication (body language, eye contact, pacing, etc.), the scope
of this project is focused purely on language.
2
Chapter 2:
Understanding The Way People Think And Representing It In Games
2.1 Prior Work: Communication Based Games
Compassionate play is an underexplored genre within the games space as
the field is still learning how to establish the distinction between its conventions,
essentially what we “should” do with games and the opportunity space of the
medium, which is what we “can” do with them. Two references in particular, Signs
of the Sojourner and We Should Talk, helped drive the initial direction of Sentenced
more clearly.
Signs of the Sojourner (SOTS) gamifies communication by giving the player a
deck of cards, where each card is assigned a symbol that represents a specific tone
(these range from logical, or industrious to empathetic, or distressed, among
others). Throughout the experience, players will explore di erent areas around the
world and attempt to converse with NPCs in order to rebuild the protagonists’ shop
after their mother passes away. As the player visits new locations they are able to
grab a new card (communication style), in exchange for one of their old cards. The
goal of each conversation is to match the player’s card symbol with the NPCs who
each have their own unique decks.
3
Figure 1: Signs of the Sojourner, deck gameplay
One of the most impactful moments in SOTS is the gameplay instance where
the player’s deck isn’t compatible with the NPC, so the player is physically incapable
of e ectively communicating with the other character, no matter what they do
during that round (e.g their hand is full of circle cards, but the NPC plays a lot of
triangle cards). This mechanical subversion demonstrates how challenging it can be
to phrase our thoughts and connect with others. Sometimes our vocabulary doesn’t
synergize well with another person’s and learning to accept that and being willing
to grow are mechanical takeaways that I wanted to transfer to Sentenced.
The second comparable, We Should Talk, became a main reference due to its
similar sentence construction mechanic to my thesis. Most traditional visual novels
stick to more generic branching options where players pick a response from a few
4
predetermined options, but this game provided a lot of variation and genuine
meaningful choice.
Figure 2: We Should Talk Mechanic Gameplay
This experience takes advantage of this mechanic to create a story with
numerous di erent endings and helps encourage replayability in a genre that often
only receives a single playthrough (which is a large narrative design hurdle for
visual novels as well). We Should Talk manages to turn a one night trip to a bar into
a narrative journey with multiple tricky decisions that can dramatically alter the
protagonist’s relationship and friendships, and evoke feelings of complicity in the
player, which is one of the greatest strengths of this medium and of branching
narrative storylines.
5
2.2 What I’m Doing Dierently
The largest distinction that I’m aiming to create through Sentenced as
opposed to my comparables is encouraging players to focus more on the NPCs,
rather than their own immediate circumstances and rewarding them for doing so.
This has naturally proved to be a contentious process because games as a medium
are usually designed to be for the player because they’re investing their time (and
often money) into the piece of media, so they need to be compelled by the designer
to remain invested. However, I’m leaning more heavily into this direction to
emphasize the conversations and the communicative nuance that I wanted to
explore through my thesis question.
Figure 3: The UI growth for S e n t e n c e d’s main mechanic
My mechanic’s User Interface (UI) has changed a lot to accommodate this
NPC centered design goal - shifting from a style replicating Signs of the Sojourner
into much more of a blend between both that game and We Should Talk. The
biggest challenge surrounding this feature was establishing and reinforcing the
stakes. Players seemed to struggle to anticipate what the consequences of their
constructed sentence would be, which minimized one of my design goals of
6
meaningful choice. For instance, early in the experience, the protagonist’s younger
brother asks how he thinks they should begin their investigation. When the player is
prompted to reply, there are a few sentence construction options. One route is
more kind and patient and the other a bit more aggressive and direct, but players
didn’t fully understand what the impact of either choice would be until after they
had already picked (the kinder option unlocked additional information for the next
step of the investigation). This lack of clarity was an oversight in the initial narrative
design.
7
Chapter 3:
Using Mystery Tropes To Frame A Communication Based Narrative
3.1 The Strength of Tropes
Previously in this paper, I discussed my decision behind using siblings as
protagonists for a story about rekindling a fragmented relationship. The other
framework that has helped establish the stakes of Sentenced is the overarching
mystery plot that the player is attempting to solve while guiding the older brother
detective along his journey.
I found that utilizing this genre made a lot of the narrative setup simple.
Players were able to become immediately immersed in the setting using familiar
film techniques. Namely, a few plot framing tools like a “lone wolf” detective, who’s
removed from the field, but pressured to save a family member (in the plot of
Sentenced, it’s the protagonist's father), so he has to sneakily disobey his boss’
orders anyway. Along with many purposeful music choices, like using the
saxophone and piano to convey the Noir aesthetic. These strategies are
transferable to the games space despite interactive media being a relatively new
field. This allowed for me to shift some of my production focus from world building
and instead focusing back on the core of my thesis, which was encouraging two
Black protagonists to learn how to balance their perspectives and learn how to
more e ectively communicate with each other.
8
3.2 Incorporating Marginalized Voices Into A Well-Known Genre
One of the main issues that people encounter when using tropes, is finding a
way to keep the content feeling “di erent” enough to retain a player’s attention.
However, my second core goal with my thesis of authentically representing Black
voices in my project, helped massage this potential issue. Having a full cast of Black
characters and adapting a lot of the conventions of the genre to include Black
influences, allowed for my overall content to explore a new perspective. These
details ranged from the objects placed within the environment art of each location
(even down to decorative wall paintings that were slight nods to my grandparents),
the clothing and hair choices we iterated on for our character designs, and the
dialogue choices that we drafted in order for this experience to feel natural for
Black audiences. These decisions allowed for me to take advantage of the majority
of the genre’s strengths while narrowly avoiding many of the pitfalls.
9
Chapter 4:
Production
Production for this project consisted of an eleven person team: two
engineers, one writer, one producer, one sound designer, one composer, one
character artist, two environment artists, one UI designer, and this author as the
creative director. It is designed for PC and Mac using Unity and the visual novel
features are supported by the Fungus plug in.
4.1 Confidence As A Director And Developer
Prior to this year, I dreaded thesis. Although I eventually managed to recruit
ten other talented students to join me, when I started my team was tiny: a
producer, a sound designer and myself. The general lack of interest from other
people during the summer and even the first few weeks of this school year had
shaken my confidence further. There were obvious scope issues that I was aware of
narratively, but I kept ignoring them out of fear, while placing the excuse on
“needing a team.” It’s true that I needed help to accomplish even a fraction of what
I’d been envisioning, but there were so many aspects of this process that I could’ve
simplified for myself (and my eventual team), which would’ve made the completely
unexpected roadblocks less disruptive. A key element was my Macro. If I had
established a well-documented and easily accessible roadmap earlier in the
process, even if changes needed to be made along the way, I would've solved quite
a few planning pains for every discipline. It also would’ve made directing my artists
and scope much simpler. The most frustrating aspect, though, is that these were
10
steps that I subconsciously already knew due to previous courses and warnings
from professors and advisors, and yet I tried to side step them anyway. I think the
biggest takeaway from this experience so far, is that I need to be more confident in
myself.
4.2 Narrative And Balancing The Workload
One of the biggest surprises throughout this thesis process has been how
draining it can be, even regarding skills that I would normally consider myself to be
proficient in. This revelation was especially true for the narrative of my project.
Despite my experiences as a writer over my time at USC (I’m especially grateful to
Maureen McHugh’s lessons in CTWR 526 Advanced Interactive Storytelling for
Games and my internship at Riot Games as a Narrative Writer during the summer of
2021 for providing me helpful tools and strategies), I found myself struggling to find
the time or energy to craft the story I originally envisioned on my own. Thankfully I
had a great writing team and advice to seek out, but between the multiple
discipline meetings with my 11 person team, (where most of which were part-time
volunteers), advisor meetings, other classes, and work obligations, everything
proved to be even more exhausting than I’d imagined. And, since no one is more
invested in this project than myself, it placed a lot of pressure on my shoulders to
keep the energy up and to foster a healthy environment for my team. If I were to
repeat this process, I’d reevaluate the toll that planning the story would take on me.
Despite this normally being an easier task for me because of my background in
11
narrative, the other situational factors caused the story beats to become a heavy
burden to finalize.
4.3 Experience Goals
Although there have been many revisiones and scoping, I’m proud of
Sentenced’s core concept. Communication, empathy and compassion have always
been key elements of the way that I interact with others as a collaborator, friend
and human being. I’m grateful that I’ve managed to work towards developing an
experience with that in mind. To imagine ways that we can encourage ourselves to
think about other people first, to carefully ponder the communicative nuance that’s
involved with language and to understand that balance is necessary to reach a
compromise, have all been incredibly fun design challenges to figure out how to
express within a game. In doing so, and with some guidance from Frenchie
Palamara who designed a similar game last year, I’ve narrowed in on my experience
goals more concretely as well. She helped me realize that “empathy” was a little too
vague and that I needed to pursue something more tangible because empathy
would naturally follow afterwards. I’ve currently settled on Concern, Frustration,
and Mastery as opposed to Empathy, Loss, and Mastery. They’re still similarly
themed, so it’s not a large departure, but these have helped me revise the
branching narrative elements of my project to ensure that these emotions are
reflected in the conversations that people have in-game.
12
4.4 Gameplay Overview and User Interface
Sentenced is roughly a 20 minute, side scrolling 2D visual novel where the
player is able to click and drag to explore locations, point and click to interact with
objects and have conversations with NPCs where the player can mix and match
phrases in order to create complete sentences.
Since these conversations were the core to this project, my design team and
I iterated frequently on how to present that information to the player.
Figure 4 Sentenced Conversation Layout
We settled on a format akin to a split screen to better demonstrate the divide
between the characters’ perspectives. As players click on the highlighted dialogue
box with the ellipses at the center, the next comment will appear as a dialogue
bubble near the speaking character, and the previous comments will shift upwards,
until they’re o screen. This decision was made to help limit the number of
13
distractions players might have while playing the game (even the locations
themselves, or extraneous npcs) and allow for them to focus concretely on how
their words are being received by the character they’re speaking with. This layout
received positive feedback from playtesters, as it was a unique presentation of
dialogue compared to more traditional visual novels and it resonated well
thematically, which kept players engaged.
4.5 Sound
One of our primary sound design goals for our composer was to utilize the
mystery and noir tropes that were supporting our narrative, but also create
innovative ways to have the tracks feel authentically Black. Our solution for this was
to incorporate a saxophone into every piece. However, this proved to be a challenge
on occasion because it raised questions like:
● “How do we use a saxophone, a normally relaxing and soothing instrument,
to evoke feelings of tension, or distress?”
● “Is it possible to use the saxophone in an intentionally dissonant way that still
feels organic?”
● “Do we need to broaden our range of instruments, or will that detract our
experience from feeling Black enough?”
Fortunately, working within constraints is familiar for a game developer and
this project’s composer found engaging ways to weave a sax into every piece of
music, while still adapting its purpose to fit the tone of the scene. Sometimes, this
meant partnering it with other instruments like strings, drums and piano when
14
necessary to better tell the story musically, but emphasizing the importance of the
sax when possible.
4.6 Art
Character art for this project had to be iterated on and cut often due to
scope reasons that Section 5 of this paper will cover in more detail.
We wanted to ensure that we were accurately depicting Black features for
our characters, so we decided to stick with silhouettes. This approach allowed for
us to prioritize clothing, poses and, most importantly, Black hair styles for each
character. Regarding the environment art within the game, we stuck with modern
references and emphasized item placement within each scene to give better
insight into the characters’ habits.
Figure 5 Father’s Home in S e n t e n c e d
15
Figure 6 David’s Office in S e n t e n c e d
The investigation gameplay for Sentenced needed to feel compelling, so we
frequently discussed how our locations can better reward players who are
investigating carefully. Hints are hidden within certain interactables which will
make the sentence construction gameplay even more impactful. By proceeding
with this modern aesthetic, we aimed to make the game feel grounded in reality
and humanize the spaces our characters were residing in.
16
Chapter 5: The Black Tax
5.1 The Impacts Of Anti-Black Racism In Game Development
During recent years, the topic of racism within the games space has begun
to surface. Many developers and players alike have started utilizing social media,
workspaces, or friend groups to discuss how we can better represent marginalized
communities and create content that accurately reflects the experiences of the
people who play them. However, most users don’t discuss the overall lack of
awareness or preparedness for solving these issues that many game developers
currently have. The issue is highlighted by our representation within the industry
itself where only two percent of individuals self-reported as Black since 2005, and
in 2021 that number slightly ticked up to four percent (Michel, 2022).
This leads me to what I’ve lately been describing as the “Black Tax.” In its
simplest form, this means that just about every aspect of the game development
process will take longer if the subject is a Black character. And, seeing as how my
thesis project’s 7 character cast is all Black characters, this has naturally ballooned
my development time. My scripts from non-black developers often end up feeling
too out of character, art sketches come out looking a little too white, finding voice
actors becomes more dicult due to smaller networks and looking for Black
inspired sound references from games/movies/shows is nearly impossible due to
the limited well-known resources available.
What people also rarely consider is the emotional tax that it places on us, as
Black developers, to have these conversations repeatedly. Throughout this project, I
17
had to find a delicate balance of ensuring that I don’t think that my teammate is
doing something racist, while knowing that their lack of experience, or comfort in
creating Black characters is a by-product of a racist system. It’s frustrating for all
parties involved as we’re essentially reduced to three options due to the very
limited time frame of the project:
1. Let the microaggressions go and release characters that might be riddled
with slightly problematic stereotypes, or feel inauthentic
2. Go through more iterations, risk even more time on tasks and burnout from
teammates
3. Find a Black person with the proper skillset to do it instead.
All three options come with their own unique challenges, but one of my two primary
design goals directly conflicts with the first option because I was determined to
authentically represent my culture. Unfortunately, that meant that I lost a lot of
precious development time, constantly iterating on what would otherwise be simple
tasks, and having to sacrifice other elements of the game in order to finish on time. I
would’ve preferred to engage with option three, and find more Black people for my
team, but USC has an extremely limited student pool, leaving my only remaining
option to be spending my own money on professionals where applicable. I’d
estimate that I’ve easily lost over a month of development time due to this Black
Tax, which is frustrating at best, and demoralizing at worst.
18
5.2 How Can We Mitigate The “Black Tax”?
Even in dicult circumstances though, I strive to search for the positive.
Especially since my frustration isn’t necessarily with the individuals that are
struggling to depict Black features, create authentic sounds, write dialogue with
the correct voice, or find proper casting, but more so with the system itself that has
structurally excluded entire communities and groups of people so that we, as
artists, don’t need to learn about them unless they’re white. And the question that
swirled in my mind during the production of this project is: “How do we fix this?”
Unfortunately, the trickiest part of everything is that I still don’t really know
what I would’ve done di erently to avoid this. However, that doesn’t mean that
there isn’t a solution for other projects. I’m hopeful that by experiencing these
things now and documenting them, the future years will be better equipped to
anticipate and handle these problems. I was shocked to realize, upon bringing up
these issues with various advisors and professors, that they hadn’t considered this
“Black Tax” as a possibility and were only privy to it from my clear examples.
Although I was initially disappointed at their surprise, now I understand that it’s a
great learning opportunity for all of us. My project may have undergone a few
additional issues, but there’s space for us to grow. If we can continue to expand the
opportunity space and diversity within our program and within the industry, along
with publicizing more techniques to accurately reflect the voices that play games,
we can more e ectively address these problems going forward.
19
Chapter 6: Next Steps
I want to continue exploring the initial mechanic’s concept. Spending
additional physical and emotional energy on how to get the Black aspects of my
game correct limited my ability to explore the first (and arguably most important)
design goal, which was my thesis question: Can we use interactivity to help players
identify di erent communication styles and adapt their word choices to promote
mutual understanding?
The potential for the expansion of compassionate play and application to our
daily lives feels visceral, and I’ll continue searching for ways to iterate and improve
this mechanic, beyond the timing limitations of this thesis project within the
program. I want to use this project to show others that representation matters and
that taking the time to assist someone else can be a fulfilling, albeit sometimes
challenging, experience when done properly.
20
Chapter 7: Conclusion
Sentenced is a 2D visual novel about two Black brothers learning what it
means to extend compassion to one another. It demonstrates how common it can
be for two people to view the exact same situation completely di erently and
navigates how dicult that dynamic can be when attempting to reach a
compromise. This game also explores how tropes can be a strength while still
remaining new enough to retain a player’s attention.
Through prioritizing marginalized voices, Sentenced creates a fresh take on a
well known genre and widens the notion of compassionate play.
21
Bibliography
Michel, Jamal. “Perspective | Black Game Developers: Diversity Push Is Lots of Talk, Little
Progress.” The Washington Post, WP Company, 31 Jan. 2022,
https:/ /www.washingtonpost.com/video-games/2022/01/31/black-game-develope
rs-diversity-push-is-lots-talk-little-progress/.
22

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Asset Metadata

Creator Dinwiddie, Taylor Matthew (author)

Core Title Sentenced an interactive exploration of compassionate communication through a black lens

School School of Cinematic Arts

Degree Master of Fine Arts

Degree Program Interactive Media

Degree Conferral Date 2022-05

Publication Date 04/11/2022

Defense Date 04/08/2022

Publisher University of Southern California (original), University of Southern California. Libraries (digital)

Tag Black culture,Communication,compassionate play,Empathy,Games,Interactive Media,OAI-PMH Harvest

Format application/pdf (imt)

Language English

Contributor Electronically uploaded by the author (provenance)

Advisor Bilson, Danny (committee chair), Nealen, Andrew (committee chair), Lemarchand, Richard (committee member)

Creator Email taylor.dinwiddie@gmail.com,tdinwidd@usc.edu

Permanent Link (DOI) https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-oUC110920051

Unique identifier UC110920051

Document Type Thesis

Format application/pdf (imt)

Rights Dinwiddie, Taylor Matthew

Type texts

Source 20220411-usctheses-batch-921 (batch), University of Southern California (contributing entity), University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses (collection)

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Repository Location USC Digital Library, University of Southern California, University Park Campus MC 2810, 3434 South Grand Avenue, 2nd Floor, Los Angeles, California 90089-2810, USA

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