Paralect: an example of transition focused design

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Content
i

Paralect

AN EXAMPLE OF TRANSITION FOCUSED DESIGN
by
Loan Verneau

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)

August 2013

Copyright 2013 Loan Verneau

ii

Acknowledgments

Thanks to my committee for helping me finding my voice.
Thanks to everyone in my team for their amazing work, in particular Andrea Benavides,
Avimaan Syam and Natasha Cirisano without whom this project could not have existed.
Thanks to my family and friends for their never-ending support.

iii

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments...................................................................................................................ii

List
of
Figures...........................................................................................................................iv

List
of
Tables.............................................................................................................................v

Abstract......................................................................................................................................vi

Introduction..............................................................................................................................1

Objectives............................................................................................................................................1

I.
Shifting
perspectives.............................................................................................................................1

II.
Telling
a
story..........................................................................................................................................2

III.
Killing
Truth...........................................................................................................................................3

Experience
Arc...................................................................................................................................4

IV.
Why?..........................................................................................................................................................4

V.
What?..........................................................................................................................................................6

VI.
How?..........................................................................................................................................................9

Chapters....................................................................................................................................11

The
First
Transition......................................................................................................................11

The
Cobblepot.................................................................................................................................16

The
Second
Transition.................................................................................................................25

Conclusion................................................................................................................................34

Foreword..........................................................................................................................................34

The
Disadvantages.........................................................................................................................34

The
Advantages..............................................................................................................................35

Bibliography............................................................................................................................36

iv

List of Figures
Figure
1
Screenshot
of
the
end
of
first
prototype,
with
initial
world
sinking..............13

Figure
2
screenshot
of
the
iteration
on
prototype
with
a
more
complex
World
2....15

Figure
3
Concept
art
of
the
initial
vision
for
the
Cobblepot.................................................17

Figure
4
Iteration
on
Cobblepot's
concept
art...........................................................................18

Figure
5
Screenshot
of
Cobblepot's
alpha
with
dialogs.........................................................20

Figure
6
Visual
concept
for
a
new
dialog
system......................................................................22

Figure
7
Screenshot
of
Holden
Handle's
monologue
during
alpha...................................23

Figure
8
Screenshot
of
dialog
with
Sloppy
Marge
during
alpha.........................................23

Figure
9
Screenshot
of
Cobblepot's
Beta......................................................................................24

Figure
10
Screenshot
of
first
prototype
for
the
second
transition....................................27

Figure
11
Screenshot
of
the
start
of
second
prototype
for
the
second
transition......29

Figure
12
Screenshot
of
the
ascent
to
the
world
of
colors
in
second
prototype.........29

Figure
13
Screenshot
of
the
treasure
room
in
second
prototype......................................30

Figure
14
Screenshot
of
a
player
reaching
a
character's
rotating
house
in
the
Alpha

of
Clockipelago...............................................................................................................................31

Figure
15
Screenshot
of
dialog
in
Clockipelago,
with
the
arrival
of
colors...................32

Figure
16
Screenshot
of
hinting
at
colors
as
player
is
about
to
arrive
in
World
3.....32

Figure
17
Screenshot
of
the
alpha
of
the
arrival
in
World
3................................................33

v

List of Tables

Table
0-‐A:
Simplified
emotional
arc
of
Journey
created
by
its
chapters...........................5

Table
0-‐B
:
Original
whiteboard
drawing
of
story
arc
..............................................................8

Table
0-‐C
:
Initial
game
structure
with
its
four
transitions.....................................................8

Table
0-‐D
:
Graph
of
the
evolution
of
the
visual
elements
over
the
game
arc..............10

vi

Abstract

Paralect is a long-format video game, playable on Mac and Windows, exploring
the paradigm shifts one experiences when living in another culture. The game arc is
based on my personal experience and uses surrealist aesthetics and narrative to
communicate cultural plurality on multiple levels.
The game uses platforming mechanics, surrealist aesthetics, and a five-chapter
narrative to tell a personal story of cultural uprooting. While not depicting that story
literally, the game universe is an allegory for the exploration of the paradigm shifts
caused by culture shock and adaptation. It investigates how those transformations affect
one’s vision of people, environment, the place you initially came from and, most
importantly, the place you wish to call home.
The game is divided into a sequence of experiences. At first glance, the main
world is a very typical platformer, presenting the player with environmental obstacles and
puzzles. However the narrative delivery system allows the player to spatially explore the
monologue of other characters and discover clues about how these people and their world
works. Finally, upon the player’s death, a short stint in “limbo” grounds the concept of
failure and strengthens the presence of obstacles within the world.
As the game progresses and the player explores new civilizations, each of these
“frames” evolve and shift the player’s initial understanding. As it challenges
preconceptions within its surreal universe, the game ideally becomes a metaphor of very
real paradigm shifts in cultural adaptation.

1

Introduction
Objectives
Before I talk of the game's structure and main design decision that this paper is
about, I would like to first introduce my thesis' objectives. This chapter should hopefully
set up the starting conditions which generated the game's design and inform many of the
decisions made. The objectives of this project were divided into three layers, each more
ambitious and requiring the previous one to support it. It was my hope to achieve at least
our primary goal and touch at the second one, while aspiring to find potential for future
works realizing the last objective.

I. Shifting perspectives

It is my primary goal to bring the players to think about the world that surrounds
them differently. Have you ever looked at a table and imagined what would it feel like to
breathe the wood of the table and to walk on the air that surrounds it? That simple idea
can open a realm of fantastical possibilities, but it also can help you reflect on how you
look at other beings who live so differently and act so “alien” that you cannot understand
them without shifting your perspective.
The reaction I hope to receive from the players could be summarized as, “Oh, I
never thought about this in such a way”. To be more precise, I hope to create new
perspectives on systems or ideas the player thought s/he knew about. Shifting the player's
vision within the game world has been explored in detail by many video games. To cite a

2

few examples, Shadow of the Colossus and pOnd offers strong paradigm shifts within
their experience arc. In one, the slow realization of your action's consequences, in the
other the shift in what the game seems to be about. But to trigger similar thoughts for the
player when he looks at the real world after the experience is a more challenging
objective. My approach is to use a more metaphorical perspective and surrealism, as it
allows the use of reality and twists it in a way that is so unfamiliar you need to rethink its
intrinsic meaning.

II. Telling a story

My second objective is to tell a specific story: the psychological trauma behind
leaving your own culture and entering a new one in order to live there. While I believe
traveling to be an amazing experience, a true journey implies sacrifice and dealing with
these sacrifices. When leaving your country to live in a new one, there are many things
you gain and lose in the process. To be able to accept the loss and the gain, one needs to
have the courage to actually step out of one's comfort zone. While the subject is a
complex one, I decided to approach it from my own perspective by using my own
journey to create the arc of the game.
I hope to communicate some of the paradigm shifts I had to personally go through
as I moved to live into new cultures by telling a specific story. This story starts in your
hometown and sees you destroy it by leaving it. The metaphor ends with you finding it
again at the end of the story, in many ways changed: “We shall not cease from

3

exploration, and the end of all our exploring, will be to arrive where we started and know
the place for the first time.”
1

This goal builds upon the previous one, as it requires the player to be able to see
things differently over the course of the game.

III. Killing Truth

The final objective is a more esoteric one and is not something I hope to achieve
within the scope of the game, but it seems pertinent to mention it as it did influence many
of my decisions. If anything, working on this thesis would help me understand this goal
and its importance in my future work.
It can be summarized as the wish to “kill truth”. A less polemical way of phrasing
it would be from the point of view of theoretical mathematics: the analysis of logic
allows us to prove that wrong is wrong, and as such prove our logic does not disprove
itself. But it also allows us to prove that “true is true” is unprovable. This implies that
within the realm of accepted standard logic, no theory can prove itself and will always
rely on a set of axioms. As a result, there is technically a possible infinite number of
models through which to see the universe that surrounds us.
Within that logic, I wish to open the player to the possibility there might be no
single answer, no single explanation. Such concepts have been explored in philosophy
and anthropology as Ethical and Moral relativity. Edward Westermarck, a philosopher
and sociologist whose work exemplifies some of these theories, would say, “I am not

1. T. S. Eliot, Four Quartets, taken from the “Little Gidding” 1942

4

aware of any moral principle that could be said to be truly self-evident.”
2
One can accept
another point of view as neither better nor worse but simply as different. As a result, the
game lacks “villains” of any sort, and even dangerous elements shift over time to be
potentially positive in another state.

Experience Arc

IV. Why?

As games like Journey or Shadow of the Colossus have demonstrated, an
experience arc can be a very powerful tool to communicate the kind of experience
described with our second goal, the telling of a story, within the field of interactivity. Not
only can that arc communicate the trauma, paradigm shifts, and resolution, it could also
help us keep the player's attention long enough to create preconceptions and then break
them to achieve our primary objective.
But these games have been built around the concept of chapters, and the contrast
between the chapters was planed to create the experience arc. In an interview at the
University of Southern California, Jenova Chen, Game Director on Journey and Flower,
described the structure of both games as a classical three act structure inspired by cinema.
Unfortunately, that narrative structure imposes a strong positive or negative connotation
to the different chapters to allow for the rise of a catharsis. For example, he described the
“mountain” level as the biggest “dip” in the story's narrative, a dark and difficult moment

2

Ethics are Relative, Edward Westermarck, New York: Littlefield, Adams & Company, 1932

5

within the story which supports the ending by providing qualitative and emotional
contrast.

Table 0-A: Simplified emotional arc of Journey created by its chapters

Each chapter was carefully built to provide contrast with the others, similar to the
way that shots contrast and inform each other in the Kuleshov effect. As it was clear each
chapter of my game would happen in a unique culture while reflecting my own
experience, using such a structure implied these civilizations would have a positive or
negative connotation to them. This conflicted with both my goal of murdering truth but
also would put me in the impossible situation of putting a value on my experience in each
culture.
As a result I decided to push forward the idea of constructing the experience arc not
by defining the chapters, but by building around the transitions between those chapters.
This paper will describe how I used that design methodology to build the experience arc
and the game universe. Hopefully, it can offer insight into the advantages and weaknesses
such a technique offers when creating a metaphorical experience.

6

V. What?

From very early on in my design, I decided to accept that I would use my own life
as a reference and accept the experience might not necessarily cater to everyone. This
decision allowed me to quickly focus on the paradigm shifts I experienced and the
“civilizations” I traversed. From there, I divided the experience arc into 5 cultures and 4
paradigm shifts, though the transitions did not necessarily happen exactly between each
of them. From there, I decided to adapt these into 5 “worlds” and 4 “transitions” within
the game universe.
While each transition needed to be strong, the issue of removing positive and
negative connotation from the worlds meant I needed to explore an ambivalent set of
positive and negative reactions for each.

Paradigm Shift/Transition:

1. Leaving: The trauma of leaving one's hometown and culture versus the
excitement of discovering the size of the outside world.
2. Understanding Difference: The process of understanding difference by
comparison, allowing both an increase in player freedom but also the realization
something is wrong with his/her “self” within the game world and the feeling of
being lost.
3. The Need to Go Back: Fragmentation of selves and the need to define one's
origin, yet the return of an objective and the knowledge that your “hometown”
was not destroyed.

7

4. Finding Peace: Resolving the initial trauma of the first transition grants you the
freedom of exploring as you wish. Open-ended.

As a result, each world could be associated with both a positive and negative emotion,
sometimes at different points in the journey. For example, the first world would start
associated with the initial trauma of its destruction but would also provide you with the
denouement. From there, I divided the levels of the game according to my own journey.

Cultures/Worlds:

1. France => Cobblepot
2. Switzerland => Clockipelago
3. Japan => Continuum Forest
4. China => World 4
5. India or US => World 5

8

One could argue that from these elements, you could create a more traditional narrative
arc:

Table 0-B : Original whiteboard drawing of story arc

Table 0-C : Initial game structure with its four transitions

9

This graph, while built around the transitions, can be viewed as a traditional 5 act
story. While I do not contest that interpretation, not even the fact that the final result can
be analyzed as a 5 act story, the design and production process we went through followed
a very different path. First, I prototyped every transition. Then, using the feedback, the
team built the chapters around these transitions to serve them. That is why I will describe
how we built the first and second transitions before describing World 2 and hopefully
show some of the advantages and disadvantages of this process.

VI. How?

This arc would not only allow us to define the experience and narrative but would
also serve as basis for a visual and gameplay structure. It was very important to me and
the project team I recruited to ensure that every element in the game would be thought of
as individually telling a similar story in its own way, mirroring each other to
communicate a relatively complex message. As a result, we built a very strict plan for the
aesthetics of each world around that arc.
The visual structure was built using Bruce Block's
3
visual theory and defined very
clearly the use of camera movement, color, shapes and visual depth.

3

Bruce Block, The Visual Story

10

Table 0-D : Graph of the evolution of the visual elements over the game arc

Of course, as we progressed through the implementation, that arc slowly changed
and was reduced for scoping reasons. Among the changes was the fusion of World 4 and
World 5 into a single world, sacrificing part of the open exploration for simplicity. The
second change was the decision to move the third transition, as playtest showed that
falling into World 4 created a strong emotional reaction that would support the transition
more effectively. The game universe became limited to 4 worlds, the first one visited at
the beginning of the game and then inaccessible until the end of it. As the focus of the
game revolves around the paradigm shifts, simplifying transitions from one world to the
next became more natural and was adopted during production.

11

Nonetheless, none of these changes truly affected our structure, as we kept our
four transitions and the design work accomplished on them. The ability to change or
reduce the size of a chapter while not losing any of the narrative content was the first
interesting advantage of a transition-focused arc. In addition, failure at creating a chapter
would not force us to reconsider the narrative arc, as any chapter could be entirely erased
and replaced by a completely new one that would satisfy the requirements of the
transitions surrounding it.

Chapters

The First Transition

The first transition occurs between World 1 and World 2, between the Cobblepot
and Clockipelago. It represents the first step in any journey, one leaving his or her
hometown. As we will discuss later, that transition first requires a sense of being “from”
Cobblepot, and for Clockipelago to be surprising in some way.
While I based part of that transition on my own experience of leaving Northern
France for Switzerland, the narrative of that transition is quite common. The story of
leaving a familiar environment for the greater world is a common one. Joseph Campbell
considered it as an essential part of the hero's journey and argued it was at the basis of
every myth. While I did not necessarily agree with that theory, I knew the subject had
been explored thoroughly. I found many similarities in that experience with, for example,
the cultural impact of leaving one's hometown in the United States to attend college in a

12

large city. Thus, discovery of the “outside world” is often described as one of awe, or
more precisely, the sensation of sublime.
The sublime was defined quite early by Edmund Burke as “Astonishment; and
astonishment is that state of the soul, in which all its motions are suspended, with some
degree of horror. In this case the mind is so entirely filled with its object, that it cannot
entertain any other.”
4

The concept of horror, or at least a sense of fear and potential danger, is an
important concept within the sublime and corresponds well to the situation I was trying to
represent. We can find a similar analysis by Robert Plutchik where the emotion of “awe”
5

is described as in-between terror and amazement, or at least a combination of their lesser
nature (fear and surprise, apprehension and distraction).
From there, one can see how leaving his or her hometown to discover the world
creates a feeling of awe. On one hand, there is the surprise created from the new things
you discover and from the realization of the potential they hold. On the other hand, there
is the fear of being in a new place, with new rules, and unknown dangers.
My first prototype was an attempt at this transition and has the player simply run
and jump around with a fixed camera in a world until he reaches the top. When he does
so, the camera zooms out and reveals the initial world was a pot–bringing the definition
of that first world as the Cobblepot–in a sea of dangerous red liquid introduced earlier. As
soon as the camera finishes zooming out, the pot starts sinking, creating the necessary
sense of danger.

4

Edmund Burke, A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful,
1757

5

Robert Plutchik, The Nature of Emotions, 2001

13

Figure 1 Screenshot of first prototype

Figure 1 Screenshot of the end of first prototype, with initial world sinking

That first prototype provoked strong reactions towards two elements: the “fate” of
the characters within the Cobblepot and your responsibility in the event. But it also
showed the transition was lacking a vital element. Within Edmund Burke’s definition was

14

a concept I had not explored yet: filling the mind of the viewer so he could not focus on
anything else. This idea was explored further by Alexander Gerard:
“When a large object is presented, the mind expands itself to the extent of that
object, and is filled with one grand sensation, which totally possessing it, composes it
into a solemn sedateness and strikes it with deep silent wonder and admiration: it finds
such a difficulty in spreading itself to the dimensions of its object, as enlivens and
invigorates its frame: and having overcome the opposition which this occasions, it
sometimes imagines itself present in every part of the scene which it contemplates”
6

I found Gerard’s description quite similar to the feeling of truly comprehending
the dimension of the world. To recreate such feeling, I needed to improve my prototype
with a few elements. First, the exterior world needed a new element, something that
would challenge the actual understanding of the world presented to the player. My first
attempt was to introduce moving objects, or more precisely, rotating gears in the
environment. From there came the name of “Clockipelago”.

6

Alexander Gerard, An Essay on Taste, 1759

15

Figure 2 screenshot of the iteration on prototype with a more complex World 2

The success of that prototype proved there might be more to those gears than I
first anticipated. First they were round, a new shape in the world creating a visual
contrast. Secondly, their coloring and texture were similar to the platforms the players
were used to and implied that they could jump on them and interact with them. The
understanding within the players’ minds of the consequences of platforming on moving
and rotating objects created strong reactions in the players who did not react strongly to
the destruction of the Cobblepot initially. Those who felt strongly about the characters or
the ethical responsibility still responded emotionally, possibly even more, during playtest.
As a result, I decided to keep the concept of having one strong new visual element
and one visually comprehensible gameplay change between the Cobblepot and
Clockipelago.

16

For the gameplay change, moving platforms and large rotating puzzle pieces were
strong elements that triggered reactions in the players as to both a new kind of danger and
an interesting challenge. The Cobblepot slowly sinking following your discovery of
Clockipelago would serve as an echo of that new element by providing both the rotation
and the danger.
For the visual elements, rotation naturally brought diagonal lines, movement, and
triangles. These new visual elements together would serve to create a peak in the visual
intensity to support this narrative and emotional moment.
While this transition proved to work well in prototypes, a few issues in terms of
symbolism started to emerge: first, the difficulty for the player to consider the Cobblepot
as a “hometown” or “birthplace” within this universe; and second, the need to deal, at
least partially, with the concept of having destroyed that world you started in. Both of
these issues had to be dealt with separately in the Cobblepot and Clockipelago.

The Cobblepot

The first World is the introduction of the game to the player, where the player
within this world is “born” and the slow introduction to his or her abilities unfolds. It also
pushes the player to leave it and destroy it in order to start the journey.
The sinking of this “hometown” within the game mirrors a more metaphorical
destruction of that place for a person who leaves it. That loss happens on two levels.
First, the image of that place is lost forever, as the person gains a bigger picture of the
world surrounding it and its dimensions. But it is also the loss of a simple future within
that initial world.

17

To adequately represent this, the player leaving the world needs to be the obvious
trigger of its destruction. In addition, I had to subtly push the player into making the
decision to leave the world while at the same time, as discussed above, create a sense of
“hometown”. These last two requirements would conflict each other throughout my
iterations of the Cobblepot, as the feeling of familiarity and “home-ness” would be
opposed by the need to push the player out of it.
Within the initial prototype of the first transition, the Cobbletpot was limited to a
couple of platforms and characters with very limited dialogs. The interactions were
limited to its inhabitants who warned you against leaving the world or simply challenged
the existence of an “exterior”. It failed entirely at creating a sense of belonging in the
player. Feedback indicated that the shortness of the experience was the main reason.
Another issue with the prototype was how inefficient the platforming was at filling
players with “pre-conceptions” which could be used narratively and be broken later on.

Figure 3 Concept art of the initial vision for the Cobblepot

18

In order to keep the visual integrity of the arc and the efficiency of the first
transition, the entire Cobblepot needed to fit within the limits of a single screen in order
for camera movements to be absent. I also aimed at greatly increasing the impact of the
red liquid on the player's gameplay to improve on the sense of fear when discovering you
are floating on a sea of that same material.
My first prototype featured many elements that would remain in the final design:
first, a giant “well” where dangerous red liquid would fall through. That well symbolizes
the exterior world, the hint at what might be outside as things come into and leave the
world, which would attract the player's attention to the exit situated at the top. The well
divides the level in two and challenged the player into using different mechanics and
platforming reflexes to traverse it. The horizontal main passage between the two further
divided the world into four quadrants.

Figure 4 Iteration on Cobblepot's concept art

19

Another new element was the presence of a new game mechanic, based on a
previously found bug with collision detection. With sufficient speed, the character could
fall through sufficiently thin platforms. That mechanic was integrated into the level
design, for it challenged the player to reconsider platforms as gates depending on his or
her speed. As a result, the concept of increasing one's weight, ironically increasing your
falling acceleration, was added. It was well received during playtest and seemed to
support our first overall goal to create new points of view, forcing us to actually integrate
a technical way to recreate the bug consistently.
The graphic and narrative style of the Cobblepot was our first attempt to grasp a
surrealist aesthetic for the game. The visual structure helped achieve this by providing
creative constraints. With only squares, straight lines, and shades of gray, our artists were
challenged to create props that would reflect a sense of vegetation and habitation for the
different parts of the world. This proved to be problematic to guide the player's attention,
and small concessions were made with short flashes of red–the strongest hue contrast–to
guide the player's attention without him or her noticing the color. Keeping the chapter
coherent to our visual structure created a lot of challenges in terms of flow and directing
the player and still proves, even after many iterations, sometimes problematic.

20

Figure 5 Screenshot of Cobblepot's alpha with dialogs

As we started to mix narrative, visuals, and gameplay, a more formal method of
playtesting was put in place, thanks to Colleen Dimmer and Baldur Tangvald. Following
the playtesting methodology of Heather Desurvire, we started gathering more data from a
wide range of people, from gamers to people who did not think they ever played games.
With the experience not necessarily dependent on gameplay mastery, we attempted to
make this first level playable by anyone, yet discovered that more experienced
platforming game players needed an incentive, as they discovered the game became too
easy for them. We decided to implement that incentive within the dialog system by
rewarding players who did not suffer any damage during gameplay with congratulatory
comments by the characters.

21

The dialogs started to play a bigger role as a result, and this provided a wide
variety of reactions. The two main influences for the writing were “Master and
Margarita” and “Princess Brambilla”, both highly surrealist and fantastical novels,
although the setting for the Cobblepot was a rural one. To support the story, the
characters were portrayed as rustic, with a tint of absurd and a relative obliviousness to
anything else than their immediate surroundings. To me, this attitude what one had to
escape in order to start his or her “journey” within the game. Self-sufficiency and
comfort, while respectable qualities, often have to be pushed aside in order to adapt to a
new culture.
Quickly testing the game divided our audience into two separate groups: players
who responded enthusiastically to the platforming would respond badly to the dialogs and
vice versa.
Even
though
the
interface
was
not
well
received,
the
dialogs
helped
the

narrative
and
proved
very
enjoyable
for
some
players.
But
in
general,
the
text
was

described
as
too
wordy
and
most
people
could
not
focus
on
such
large
amount
of

text.
We
needed
to
create
a
new
and
far
more
interactive
way
of
playing
with
our

narrative.
As a result, we tried numerous different dialog systems. We explored a text-
adventure influenced system similar to a game like the Exile Trilogy by Spiderweb
Software, spatial text exploration like [xyz] by Mary Flanagan, and more classic Choose
Your Own Adventure physical book systems. As we tested different systems, we explored
the intrinsic meaning behind these systems, such as the relationship of the player/reader
with your avatar/main character. Thanks to our previous work on the first transition, we

22

already had good feedback on what we wanted the avatar to represent and therefore could
direct our choices of system over time.

Figure 6 Visual concept for a new dialog system

23

Figure 7 Screenshot of Holden Handle's monologue during alpha

Figure 8 Screenshot of dialog with Sloppy Marge during alpha

24

Our dialog system was not the only system we entirely destroyed and remade, as
both the Cobblepot level design and the environment went through complete reworking
more than once. While these new versions improved the flow for both of our groups of
players, it is interesting to note that the reaction to the first transition only changed once
in our playtests. The prototype which caused this change was still being worked on and,
as a result, only allowed you to play a third of the Cobblepot. This change caused the
players to not feel the change of worlds and the trauma of the scene. While this was a
random result from our production schedule, it seems to show that the length
requirements we had put on the Cobblepot were indeed required to keep the meaning of
the transition.

Figure 9 Screenshot of Cobblepot's Beta

25

The Second Transition

While the first transition was a traditional shift already explored in many media,
leaving Clockipelago for the Continuum Forest proved to be harder to associate with
common narrative tropes.
The transition itself was based on my own journey from Switzerland to Japan and
back. While discovering a new culture when arriving in Switzerland had a big impact on
me, going to Japan opened a completely new understanding not only of the new place,
but also of the places I came from.
Exploring this idea, I extended it to the rule of three: the concept that only with
three points you can you start mapping your environment. This concept is also interesting
because it touches on another objective of my thesis: to start disproving the existence of a
unique truth. Two points alone can create a very monolithic, one could argue even
Manichean, point of view. There is positive and negative, good and bad, true or false. But
with three points, like in geometry, one has to work with multiple dimensions, allowing
for an equation to have multiple answers.
This concept reflected on my own experience, and I discovered that my ability to
truly adapt and understand Swiss culture came from my journey to Japan. It made me
understand that even though Switzerland was quite similar in appearance to France, it
was still different. That uniqueness only became obvious once I had seen a third culture,
allowing me to compare and not simply judge positively or negatively. France stopped
being better for this and worse for that in comparison to Switzerland, and simply became
a unique entity with its own reasons and structures.

26

The understanding of difference was a liberating experience for me: it allowed
voluntary exploration of another culture. I had obtained the ability to adapt to something
new, and I felt the player should feel similarly freed.
Because of the mental way I had to represent cultural difference, I decided to
explore the idea of using platforming mechanics, which are focused on the exploration of
space, to express this concept. My first prototype explored representing the ability to
accept difference by allowing the player to accept his environment as something
different. As you explored a level made of multiple-colored mediums, you would reach a
point where you could suddenly change your character and all of his relationships with
each medium: colors that were once solid would become liquid or gaseous, others would
now hurt you when they used to be harmless, and the reverse.
On the positive side, the prototype succeeded at proving interesting gameplay
could be created from such ability to change your “state”. Nonetheless, it also showed
that to the player, the mediums, and not the character, were changing because there was
no other point of reference. By introducing other elements, specifically rolling balls
behaving within each medium following their own state, I hoped to make the player
realize he or she was the one changing.

27

Figure 10 Screenshot of first prototype for the second transition

Unfortunately, while some players managed to conceptualize the role of the balls
at the end of the experience, this attempt failed at creating the intended experience. The
immediate feedback to the prototype was that a more complete “ecosystem” of creatures
and characters was required to induce a true feeling of your character adapting. But there
was something else missing emotionally from these prototypes to achieve the second
transition.
An interesting prior piece to this experiment is the trilogy of This is the only level
created by jmtb02. The games explore, with a single level explored multiple times,
dozens of different possibilities to complete a single level as the rules change and shift
with each play-through. In addition to playing with game culture and control scheme,

28

they also explore the player's preconceptions and toy with them as they challenge the
player to rethink the same environment over and over again.

One of the strong elements of This is the only level is the use of the title of each level as
both a clue and a revelation to the player. Sometimes the player can solve the level using
the title. But when the player solves the level through experimentation instead, the title
offers the pleasures of a riddle just solved, reinforcing the main game mechanic.

The emotion behind solving a riddle felt strikingly similar to what I wished to achieve
with the second transition, and my first “narrative” prototype for this transition was built
around a written riddle. It featured a seemingly black and white world filled with
characters whose dialogs were only partly readable, revealing to you the existence of a
treasure without giving you the location. As the player explored outside, he would
discover another world filled with colors and would then be granted the ability to read
colored words in the first world that used to be unreadable. Following that, the player
could use the information to fall into the “treasure room”.

The prototype also explored another element: a computer generated tint to the world that
would change as the player moved through that was not noticed until the player came
back from the world of color. Like the main mechanic, the role of this change was to
reveal to the player the existence of color that had always been present in the world. I
hoped to achieve the same impression I had when I discovered difference in Switzerland
when coming back from Japan.

29

Figure 11 Screenshot of the start of second prototype for the second transition

Figure 12 Screenshot of the ascent to the world of colors in second prototype

30

Figure 13 Screenshot of the treasure room in second prototype

This prototype was a complete failure and players reacted strongly only to the ending
sequence of falling into another world, which served as basis for our third transition.
Players would not feel like they achieved anything when asked about the experience,
stating the player avatar was the one gaining a new understanding of the world and not
themelves. The challenging platforming climb to the colored world did not help but
instead felt like tiresome grinding at a task that brought no intrinsic value.

My next attempt entirely reversed the concept and followed a model closer to This is the
only level. The textual riddle had to be more closely tied to the platforming challenge,
and the resolution of the riddle had to coincide with your exploration. I decided to
implement the colors into the dialog of the Clockipelago and only reveal their meaning
through the platforming within World 3. This decision was inspired by the reactions to

31

the platforming in the first prototype of this transition, where players’ feedback on how
they reacted to the environment was very descriptive of the “feel” and less the mechanics.

Players strongly reacted to this new attempt at the transition. The contrast of color within
World 2 easily created curiosity, and the arrival of colors in the Continuum Forest
platforms felt emotionally intense. We also received strong reactions to the understanding
of the meaning of the colors within the dialogs of Clockipelago.

Figure 14 Screenshot of a player reaching a character's rotating house in the Alpha of Clockipelago

32

Figure 15 Screenshot of dialog in Clockipelago, with the arrival of colors

Figure 16 Screenshot of hinting at colors as player is about to arrive in World 3

33

Figure 17 Screenshot of the alpha of the arrival in World 3

34

Conclusion

Foreword

The conclusions I am drawing about the design methodology we followed for this project
are, in great part, pure conjunction. The nature of this project and of the people who
worked on it may have influenced our results. In general, a single project could hardly be
sufficient to justify an entire design methodology. As a result, the argument that follows
is nothing more than a suggestion. It tries to formulate how research on this design
methodology could be useful for future research.

The Disadvantages

As we designed the experience arc around the transitions and developed the chapters later
in the design process, an issue became quickly apparent: the lack of linearity of the
process. With the focus on lateral slices, the sequential experience of starting the game
and building up the player's skill-set will be absent for a long stretch of time. Not only
does that imply issues with the tutorial sections, it might also cause issues with the
overall game flow.

Achieving an equilibrium of challenge and mastery when the project's first linear piece
comes late into production is a difficult task. It is even harder when using experimental
mechanics and tones. We faced many challenges and did not always succeed at creating a
sense of flow. For some parts of the game, even after dozens of iterations, many players

35

remain frustrated or confused. This issue can be compensated by using well-documented
game mechanics, which in our case was platforming. But even then, only careful
playtesting and readiness to change entire levels can truly counteract this danger.

The Advantages

Video games are prone to suffer from scope changes. Not only does the production cycle
usually needs to adapt when facing the unpredictable, but any interactive work is subject
to the possibility of the design failing. Because it is difficult to predict how a piece will
be received until people actually interact with it, there is always a probability that a
certain chapter or a certain experience will simply fail in its actual form.

When the scope of a game changes, sacrifices have to be made and schedules need to be
changed. Often, the story or the underlying message will suffer from these changes. But
if the transitions have been set and polished first, redesigning a chapter or a level will be
a much less expensive process that might not hurt the meaning of the experience you are
creating.

In other words, this design methodology might be a powerful tool to help polish the
meaning of a video game.

36

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Asset Metadata

Creator Verneau, Loan (author)

Core Title Paralect: an example of transition focused design

Contributor Electronically uploaded by the author (provenance)

School School of Cinematic Arts

Degree Master of Fine Arts

Degree Program Interactive Media

Publication Date 06/27/2013

Defense Date 06/27/2013

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

Tag cultural relativism,experience arc,game design,narrative transitions,oai:digitallibrary.usc.edu:usctheses,OAI-PMH Harvest,paradigm shifts,platformer,video game

Format application/pdf (imt)

Language English

Advisor Brinson, Peter (committee chair), Bolas, Mark T. (committee member), Gibson, Jeremy (committee member), Kondo, Dorinne (committee member)

Creator Email loanvlg@gmail.com,loanvlg@hotmail.com

Permanent Link (DOI) https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-c3-282064

Unique identifier UC11293227

Identifier etd-VerneauLoa-1716.pdf (filename),usctheses-c3-282064 (legacy record id)

Legacy Identifier etd-VerneauLoa-1716.pdf

Dmrecord 282064

Document Type Thesis

Format application/pdf (imt)

Rights Verneau, Loan

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

Abstract (if available)

Abstract Paralect is a long-format video game, playable on Mac and Windows, exploring the paradigm shifts one experiences when living in another culture. The game arc is based on my personal experience and uses surrealist aesthetics and narrative to communicate cultural plurality on multiple levels. ❧ The game uses platforming mechanics, surrealist aesthetics, and a five-chapter narrative to tell a personal story of cultural uprooting. While not depicting that story literally, the game universe is an allegory for the exploration of the paradigm shifts caused by culture shock and adaptation. It investigates how those transformations affect one’s vision of people, environment, the place you initially came from and, most importantly, the place you wish to call home. ❧ The game is divided into a sequence of experiences. At first glance, the main world is a very typical platformer, presenting the player with environmental obstacles and puzzles. However the narrative delivery system allows the player to spatially explore the monologue of other characters and discover clues about how these people and their world works. Finally, upon the player’s death, a short stint in “limbo” grounds the concept of failure and strengthens the presence of obstacles within the world. ❧ As the game progresses and the player explores new civilizations, each of these “frames” evolve and shift the player’s initial understanding. As it challenges preconceptions within its surreal universe, the game ideally becomes a metaphor of very real paradigm shifts in cultural adaptation.