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a•part•ment

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a•part•ment

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Content Gray 1 a•part•ment Robyn Gray Interactive Media Thesis Spring 2014 Gray 2 Table of Contents Introduction 3 Project Background 3 Story 5 Gameplay Experience 6 Project Goals 8 Introspective Gameplay: Passive vs. Active Mechanics 8 Interactive Text 10 Fall 2013 to Spring 2014 Production Changes 11 Feedback 13 Response 14 Conclusion 16 Works Cited 17 Gray 3 Interactive Media Thesis: a•part•ment Robyn Gray Spring 2014 Introduction a•part•ment is a PC/Mac game created in the Unity game engine. It consists of a series of small vignettes that explore ways to convey empathetic text interactively. The vignettes revolve around the theme of an “autopsy of a relationship,” providing a unified focus and direction while allowing for exploration and experimentation in execution. a•part•ment will ultimately consist of a suite of seven to nine vignettes wrapped within a larger narrative about the end of a romantic relationship. Players will explore a dreamlike semblance of an apartment complex, uncovering the stories of the neighbors residing in it (via these vignettes) in order to understand the player character’s relationship and breakup with his significant other. The gameplay will focus on conveying narrative through text and creating introspective play experiences. Project Background a•part•ment has been in development since late Spring 2012, first as an Advanced Games pitch, then as a project in Professor Lemarchand’s CTIN-‐532, then finally last semester (Spring 2013) as a directed research project. In Fall 2012, a•part•ment was a point-‐and-‐click adventure filled with dialogue trees and combinatorial explosions of writing. In Spring 2013 we realized that approach was Gray 4 not working; the gameplay was not interesting because it relied heavily on very basic mechanics without a source of challenge or player motivation. The story, around which the project revolved, was hard to find in all of the many lines of dialogue. In trying to create the feel of a living, breathing apartment complex, we ended up with something much to mundane and too close to real life. Towards the middle of Spring 2013 we scrapped our original gameplay, retaining the core story and refocusing the theme. The original intention had always been to create a story-‐centric game that discussed interpersonal relationships. Our focus narrowed after the first year of the project and from it emerged the concept of focusing on story via text. Spring 2013 gave us time to explore and create short prototypes from which emerged the idea of creating a collection of varied interactive vignettes rather than a longer, more uniform experience. a•part•ment has existed for over two years as a concept and then as an actual game. Production officially began in Richard Lemarchand’s World Building class, Fall 2012. It continued in Spring 2013 as a directed research project. Spring 2013 saw it change most dramatically. Because of this extra pre-‐production and production time, thesis year has been spent primarily on execution and polish. No dramatic changes have occurred since the beginning of the 2013 -‐ 2014 academic year although it has continued to evolve and become more focused in response to playtesting feedback. Gray 5 Story a•part•ment is a game about relationships. The player character, Charlie, is left reeling from a breakup and seeking closure. The space the player explores is occupied by a variety of neighbors, all of whom are metaphorical representations of different aspects of relationships—a widow, still mourning the loss of her husband, an estranged father and daughter, a struggling pair of newlyweds, and a man who feels detached from society. As the player uncovers and explores each of these neighbors’ stories, she will learn more about the player character’s relationship. a•part•ment is not about trying to fix this ended relationship, but rather is about discovering and savoring the good and the bad and about accepting what has come to pass. The goal behind using this particular topic (relationships) is to achieve a level of connection with players right off the bat. Relationships are fundamental to all of our lives and a•part•ment is about the relationships these characters have and the universal problems within those relationships (communication, differing values, loss, etc.). Although the primary story thread describes an ended romantic relationship, the six neighbor characters revolve around familial, platonic, and romantic relationships, both present and past. We found great success getting playtesters to empathize with the previous incarnations of a•part•ment based solely on our subject matter. Gray 6 Gameplay Experience The game begins with the breakup of the main character, Charlie, and his girlfriend of four years, Madison. The breakup is illustrated with the sound of a door shutting, and the presentation of Madison’s last words to Charlie: ‘Charlie, my decision is final. I’m leaving.’ From there the player enters the mental headspace of the Charlie, the player character: a replica of Charlie and Madison’s apartment. Players can explore this apartment and exit it to enter the apartment complex courtyard. From the courtyard player have access to the apartments of Charlie’s neighbors. Entering other apartments grants access to vignettes relating to that respective neighbor. Fig. 1. A view of the apartment courtyard, showing some of the neighbors’ front doors. For example, entering the door of the father and daughter’s apartment will bring the player into the daughter’s vignette. Each neighbor has up to three Gray 7 interactive vignettes that will convey that character’s story. Each of these experiences comprises 5 to 15 minutes of playtime. The neighbors represent different facets of relationships. The father, for example, is struggling to find a balance between his daughter and his work. He represents priorities — which does he value more, his relationship with his daughter or his career? Each neighbor unlocks portions of Charlie’s story relating to their respective facet. The interactive vignettes will be developed with three ideas in mind: 1. Creating an introspective play experience. This could be created purely by the writing or based on a mechanic, but players should end a vignette with an understanding of the story and Charlie’s mindset. 2. Conveying a specific emotional tone. If each vignette has a particular emotional theme they will be more focused and more impactful. Our first two prototypes, for example, illustrated depression and frustration respectively and attempted to convey these feelings as quickly as possible. 3. Revealing narrative to the player via text/words. Each vignette is supposed to convey a portion of an NPC’s story. The narrative can be told actively (such as through a gameplay mechanic) or passively (through the environment and tone). Either way it should be done with an emphasis on text as a vehicle to convey it. Gray 8 Project Goals Introspective Gameplay: Passive vs. Active Mechanics One of the goals of a•part•ment that has remained throughout its development is the desire to create an introspective play experience. I hypothesize that creating a story about a universal subject such as relationships will inherently provoke self-‐reflection in our players, particularly on the subject of their own romantic relationships. I have already noticed that the topic matter has been helpful to designers on the team—they feel a connection to the issues and this has helped us come up with interesting mechanics based on personal experiences with similar situations. The way that we, as humans, respond emotionally to events is often derived from our own experiences. I want to explore the idea that, by choosing the subject of relationships as the core of our story, players will use their own relationship experiences as a basis to respond to the game in different, personal ways. I hope that players will come to their own emotional conclusions and that their game playing experience will cause them to reflect on their own relationships during and after the game. In order to accomplish this goal I will be exploring game mechanics. Novels and movies have proven that great storytelling and relatable characters can provoke introspection in their readers and viewers. Games have the unique ability to allow a participant to actively engage with the story via game mechanics. What kind of mechanics help promote introspection? For Dennis Wixon’s User Research course (Spring 2013) I did a qualitative study using the two prototypes the a•part•ment team created that semester. The Gray 9 purpose of this qualitative study was to examine how players responded to the prototypes. Did they understand the story we were trying to tell? Could they relate to any of the characters? One of the things I discovered from the study was that the representation of “self” is important to a player’s understanding of the story and to how they play the game. In our first prototype players were often thrown for a loop when their understanding of self was destroyed by an in-‐game event. This question of self became almost more important than the story itself. In our second prototype players had a very strong understanding of self and this understanding helped bolster the gameplay mechanics. Because the players knew exactly who they were they understood exactly the feelings we were conveying through our mechanics. In the first prototype players sympathized with Jim, the character featured in the experience. In the second prototype players didn’t care about the characters featured in the written story but became highly invested in the player character and the NPC interacting with the player character. The method of interacting with the story was fairly passive in the first experience; players explored an environment and read text as it appeared. In the second experience it was more active—players typed out the story and although they had no more affect on it than they did in the first, several of our testers said that they felt they had more agency. Both prototypes produced a lot of positive feedback and both seemed to promote introspection in players. I would like to continue exploring a mixture of passive storytelling mechanics and active storytelling mechanics in order to achieve introspective play. Gray 10 Fig. 2. One of the a•part•ment vignettes, illustrating a passive text-‐conveying mechanic. Interactive Text One other aspect of a•part•ment has remained constant during the project: the desire to tell a strong narrative and to do it not only through visuals, but also through text. There are many ways to convey narrative; in games we most commonly use animated cutscenes. The creation of cutscenes, however, is time consuming and labor intensive. Cutscenes are also limited in their rigidity: the audience sees exactly what the cutscene’s author intends them to see, and nothing more. Books allow a reader’s imagination to fill in gaps and that, in turn, connects a reader more closely to a story. A book may only describe half of what the environment looks like, but a reader’s imagination will fill in the other half. Kotaro Uchikoshi, the designer behind several visual novel games, describes the power of text perfectly: “… I feel like the strength of the visual novel is that there’s text. A Gray 11 book is made up of text, and text is a form of symbols. As a writer, I write something, and the player receives it – they decode it. Let’s say if I write about an apple. What I think about an apple might be different from how you would interpret what an apple is. There’s a lot of power behind that, the use of text… Players can experience things they’ve never experienced before, because their minds can extend the power of my writing, of those symbols.” (Drake). I want to tell narratives in each of the interactive vignettes in a•part•ment and I want all of them to involve the conveyance of text to tell story. My goal is to find mechanics that are not only introspective but also keep players wanting to read more. Many games suffer from text heaviness—with a game revolving around vignettes there is an opportunity to use a lot of text but use it in different ways, keeping it fresh and keeping people reading. Fall 2013 to Spring 2014 Production Changes Scope was decreased over the course of Fall 2013. To keep things manageable, we went from a potential of twelve interactive vignettes to somewhere between seven and nine. The biggest change was on the main area. At the beginning of Fall 2012 most of my focus was on designing different vignettes. Towards the end of the semester and over the course of Spring 2013 my focus has been on the hub world (main area). It has been designed to match the specific characters. The story in the hub is being conveyed through motion graphic style comics, allowing me to convey a fairly large amount of text with the aid of fairly low cost art assets. Additionally, to emphasize Gray 12 the surreal nature of the hub and as a practical way to inform players of their goals, a “focus mode” has been implemented. Fig. 3. Normal mode (left) vs. focus mode (right). The text is one of Charlie’s thoughts, visible only when in focus mode. Focus mode represents the player character reflecting on his environment, revealing thoughts to the player as well as important objects or areas. It came into being primarily as a way to provide guidance and secondarily as a way to frame the story in a semi-‐diegetic manner (by showing the player character’s thoughts about objects in his apartment or about his neighbors). The second biggest change was the deletion of a feature that had been in consideration for the duration of the project, the ability of the player to select gender, sexual orientation, names of the player character and the significant other. After discussing the feature with my thesis advisors, playtesters, and peers and I decided to get rid of this feature. The primary reason was story specificity. A specific story about specific characters is easier to tell. With non-‐specific characters there was the danger that the story would end up feeling too generic making it Gray 13 harder for players to empathize with the involved characters. Going forward, a•part•ment will be about Charlie, the player character, and Madison, the significant other — a hetero couple featuring a male lead. Feedback The production focus for first semester was on the individual vignettes, because of this testing on a•part•ment has been done primarily on the vignettes. Without the main area in place, I have been unable to test the full experience. Over the course of the year and part of the preceding year, I have been able to casually playtest a•part•ment on peers, advisors, and a variety of others (visitors in thesis space, friends, and visitors attending our winter thesis show). This is in addition to my Spring 2013 formal qualitative study performed on two of the early vignettes. Most of the drastic feedback for a•part•ment was on its early renditions in 2012 – 2013. This year most of the feedback I’ve received has been specifics concerning things like camera angles, minor control issues, readability, and environmental polish. In turn, fixes arising from feedback have been minor but steady. Gray 14 Response Winter show and recent testing have provided feedback on the cohesiveness of a•part•ment as a single experience. Because the hub world area was nonexistent, most of the feedback focused on lack of cohesion. This semester has been focused on the hub first and foremost. Hub production has consisted of the following: environmental development, story development, and mechanic development. Environmental development consists of bringing aesthetics from the vignettes in to create visual cohesion such as trees, weather effects, etc. It also means fleshing out the environment to create the right atmosphere. Testers notice when an environment feels too sterile and this disrupts the experience — a•part•ment is an intimate story experience; therefore the environment must feel intimate. I want the player to feel as if they are intruding on a private space. At the same time, this is an apartment. Players know what an apartment should look like and have certain expectations that must be met in order to make the space believable. Details like baseboards, uneven ceilings, and electrical sockets are some examples that create this sense of realism. A•part•ment’s story has remained the same but this past year has involved polishing and detailing it. Because a•part•ment is, in many ways, a novel turned game, its effectiveness in reaching players lies in the writing of its main story. As with the environment, players have to find the characters and story believable and relatable. At the same time we have been working on brevity — I want players to read text and read an unusually large amount of text, but brevity is still key to the success of this experience. Testing has shown that players don’t remember fine Gray 15 details. I believe this is true not just of text in games, but also of other forms of reading. People simply do not remember literature word for word. They do, however, grasp the overall emotional atmosphere and will remember key moments such as a death, a break up, a fight, etc. In the case of one a•part•ment vignette, players knew something was wrong, that the subject of the vignette, Jim, was sad and lonely, and that there was a woman involved in his story (a brief mention of his sister). Players could not recount any of the passages they read word for word, but could describe the overall emotional tone and problem. Finally, mechanics are important for accessibility and atmosphere. The aim has always been to keep mechanics simple to avoid distracting the player from content. Across vignettes and in the hub there are different control schemes, but all use a small selection of keys (WASD, spacebar, and mouse). So far control instruction has been unnecessary. The hub area shares many similarities with adventure games, but I wanted mechanics that would prevent “pixel hunting,” the need to scour an area with a fine-‐tooth comb in order to find the exact item needed to continue the experience. I also wanted a way to enforce a firmer game and story framework for players that felt at least semi-‐diegetic. As much as possible I have avoided outright directions and heads-‐up displays. I feel both of these pull the player out of the story and environment I’m trying to build and undermine believability. “Focus mode” was created a way to fix several of these issues while doing so in a simple way. Focus mode is a way to see what the player character is thinking, this gives us another excuse to feed the player small amounts of text and this text is Gray 16 used to bolster the main story. Focus mode also reveals points of interest, preventing the need to pixel hunt in order to continue the story. The biggest challenge with focus mode was training the players to use it. A suggestion from one of my advisors led me to create an interactive title screen that uses the focus mode mechanic. So far this has led to most testers to correctly make use of the mechanic but further testing is required. Conclusion Over the course of this year, a•part•ment has slowly evolved into a more polished and cohesive experience. The most dramatic changes this year occurred in the hub area with the erasure of a feature (gender and name character customization) and the creation of focus mode. These were created in response to feedback, which has been primarily positive. As individual components I believe that a•part•ment is already very successful. Players pick up on appropriate emotions and are generally involved and invested in the stories they are presented with. In the next few weeks a•part•ment will be in a place where it can be playtested as a single, cohesive experience. The remainder of the year will be spent responding to feedback in order to make that cohesive experience as good as it possibly can be. We expect there will be no dramatic changes to the structure of the game, although some restructuring of existing pieces and mechanics may occur as we aim for a tighter, stronger experience. Gray 17 Works Cited Drake, Audrey. “Down the Rabbit Hole: The Narrative Genius Behind Virtue’s Last Reward.” IGN. N.p., 22 April, 2013. Web. 27 February 2013. <http://www.ign.com/articles/2013/04/22/down-‐the-‐rabbit-‐hole-‐the-‐narrative-‐ genius-‐of-‐virtues-‐last-‐reward>

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Asset Metadata

Creator Gray, Robyn Tong (author)

Core Title a•part•ment

School School of Cinematic Arts

Degree Master of Fine Arts

Degree Program Interactive Media

Publication Date 04/29/2014

Defense Date 04/28/2014

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

Tag atmosphere,breakup,emotional resonance,empathetic,familial relationship,game,gameplay,interactive,introspection,Mac,narrative,OAI-PMH Harvest,PC,platonic relationship,reflective,Relationships,romantic relationship,significant other,Storytelling,Surrealism,text,Unity,video game,Vignettes

Format application/pdf (imt)

Language English

Contributor Electronically uploaded by the author (provenance)

Advisor Malamed, Laird (committee chair), Lemarchand, Richard (committee member), McHugh, Maureen (committee member)

Creator Email robyn.tong.gray@gmail.com

Permanent Link (DOI) https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-c3-405313

Unique identifier UC11297511

Identifier etd-GrayRobynT-2439.pdf (filename),usctheses-c3-405313 (legacy record id)

Legacy Identifier etd-GrayRobynT-2439.pdf

Dmrecord 405313

Document Type Thesis

Format application/pdf (imt)

Rights Gray, Robyn Tong

Type texts

Source University of Southern California (contributing entity), University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses (collection)

Access Conditions The author retains rights to his/her dissertation, thesis or other graduate work according to U.S. copyright law. Electronic access is being provided by the USC Libraries in agreement with the a...

Repository Name University of Southern California Digital Library

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