University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses

My friend and me

(USC Thesis Other)

My friend and me

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Content

Chris Muriel

Conferred Degree: Master of Fine Arts in Interactive Media and Game Design

Faculty Advisors of the Interactive Media and Game Design Division: Richard
Lemarchand, Maureen McHugh

University of Southern California

May 2015

My Friend and Me

A Thesis by Chris Muriel

Table
of
Contents

1.
The
original
concept
and
goals
of
the
thesis
project
.............................................................
3

2.
What
I
learned
from
What
went
right
..................................................................................
4

•

Mechanics
worked
according
to
what
I
wanted
to
achieve
..............................................................
5

•

Communication
...............................................................................................................................
7

•

Re-‐scoping
midway
through
production
..........................................................................................
8

•

I
became
my
own
team
...................................................................................................................
9

•

I
learned
to
trust
myself
and
my
creative
voice
.............................................................................
10

3.
What
went
wrong:
Changes
that
occurred
during
Production
................................................
11

•

Fall
Open:
......................................................................................................................................
12

•

Winteractive
.................................................................................................................................
14

•

Playtest
Sessions:
..........................................................................................................................
16

•

The
Technical
Aspect:
....................................................................................................................
16

A.

The
Camera:
.......................................................................................................................................
17

B.

Character
controllers
and
Mechanics
.................................................................................................
19

C.
Level
Design
........................................................................................................................................
23

D.
Character
Design
................................................................................................................................
25

4.
Conclusions
...........................................................................................................................
28

1.
The
original
concept
and
goals
of
the
thesis
project

My Friend and Me is a game about growing up, finding yourself and developing a
relationship. It’s a puzzle adventure game where each room or level presents a
challenge that must be solved in order to move forward to the next room. It starts with
one of the characters – a small boy – who is in a room where the player sees a creature
in a cage. The goal of the game is for both characters to form a bond as the game
progresses. In the beginning, the relationship is based on the boy's need for help. Since
he is very small, it is difficult for him to complete each puzzle without help. The catch is
that they both need each other. Each of them has abilities that the other one lacks.

As humans, we all have the need to form relationships as these help us define
ourselves in a social context. In my thesis, I started off by thinking I wanted to explore
the effect of having two people play simultaneously and build a relationship through the
game. After playtesting some prototypes and understanding the technical requirements,
I revised this model and changed it so it would be two characters controlled by one
player. The main objective was to communicate the relationship between the characters
through the narrative and to understand what each one brings to the table.

As the game moves forward, the player sees the creature grow old, shrink and
get weaker, while the opposite happens to the boy. In the end, they are both stuck in a
maze and unless the characters bond, the player will not be able to find the exit. The
key is for the player to feel both characters need each other and to explore what
happens once the child grows up and becomes independent.

My Friend and Me is a concept that I have been interested in since the beginning
of the program and that I would have pursued regardless as I believe there is something
special to it. It has taken several shapes and forms until evolving into the 2-character
game it is now. The main idea stems from my interest in relationships and their impact
on people.

One of the most important and meaningful relationships I've ever had was with
my dog Rex, who passed away from distemper when I was 7 years old. It may sound
strange to think I had a relationship with my pet; he was my best friend who was there
for me unconditionally. Since I was a very shy boy, this was one of the first relationships
I had with someone who was not a family member. The experience of having him and
loving him as a part of my family and then losing him unexpectedly to distemper was
soul-crushing but enlightening at the same time.

2. What
I
learned
from
What
went
right

I want to start off by giving some context on my experience with this Thesis project.
It has been one of the scariest, most exciting and life-changing experiences I’ve ever
had. I have felt everything through this process – from happiness, inspiration, and
excitement to loneliness, desperation and frustration. It’s been a rainbow of feelings and
learnings that have helped me grow as a Game Designer and find my voice. Below is a
quick list of the things that went extremely well during this process.

•

Mechanics
worked
according
to
what
I
wanted
to
achieve

This project has been very challenging. In the beginning and when pitching my
idea to anyone who would hear, there were a lot of questions and some skepticism
about how I would convey the relationship and how I would translate the narrative into
mechanics that made sense. There are a couple of games out there that have explored
this type of gameplay, yet none have taken it as deep in regards of the development of
this relationship and how it affects the characters. I wanted to make a game that made
people feel and that broke the natural game experience and brought some emotions to
the table. I wanted people to care about the creature and not just have it be a tool.

Fortunately, the mechanics have always given good playtest results and the
message about the relationship and the connection between the boy and creature is
always there. None of the people who have played it have wanted to leave the creature
behind and there is always surprise and melancholy when something happens to the
creature, which is exactly what I wanted. One of the ways I was able to communicate
the connection between the characters was through having them always need each
other to complete the puzzles. It is always a collaboration of both and the use of their
personal abilities that will help the player progress in the game.

Photo of Original Prototype presented during Thesis Pitch

• Planning

I had a very ambitious project to begin with and what I quickly learned was an
impossible scope. However, we had a plan from the very beginning. We had some
goals we had to achieve on a weekly basis and we stuck to that schedule as our
guideline for everything. We had weekly meetings for which attendance was always
high and if someone couldn’t make it, they would let us all know in advance so we could
plan how to make up for that.

We also had a good idea from the beginning what was needed for each of the rooms
to be possible. Our mistake was to underestimate how hard and complex the
programming would turn out to be and start designing the levels based on these

mechanics and not the two characters as was my first idea. Fortunately, every time we
re-scoped or had a team meeting, we made sure that there were action items for
everyone and that the workload was distributed as evenly as possible. Another positive
aspect was that the mechanics we’ve had for the game have always been interesting to
the players and have invited them to continue going despite them not being avid gamers
and these being a bit difficult for them to master. The interest is refreshing and
encouraging, especially if they finish playing and say ‘that was pretty cool!’

•

Communication

One of the biggest challenges for me and one of the skills I have focused on since I
started this program has been communication. I am good at communicating on a
personal level, but when it comes to groups I tend to be quiet and more observant. I
may make few comments or contributions but I try for these to be of higher quality than
quantity. It’s just the way I am and I can’t change it, which has been hard for me to
accept because I would like to be more outgoing. However, being quiet does not mean
you can’t be a good communicator. It does translate, in my case, into excellent listening
skills, which was a huge asset during the development of my thesis’ main character
ideas. If the main objective is for the message to be conveyed, I definitely learned that
through my thesis.

No matter how well you know someone, you can’t really expect for people to read
your mind. I made it a point to be clear and communicative with all my team members
and always be conscious and aware of how they felt and how things were progressing.
It is challenging to work with a team that is doing things for free or without compensation

other than portfolio building, so I worked on constantly motivating them and thanking
them for all their effort. In doing this, I found how rewarding it is to lead a team. You can
see how people grow, learn and develop skills through what you’re doing and then your
thesis becomes so much more than just a project. It’s a collaboration of great ideas, an
opportunity to learn and a challenge that you set for yourself and others follow out of
passion.

•

Re-‐scoping
midway
through
production

It sounds counterintuitive and many consider it a bad thing. I, on the other hand,
consider this the best decision I could have made. We were aiming for such complex
mechanics and trying to get the perfect code to work exactly as we needed it to and lost
so much time. I also started thinking of puzzles and mechanics in terms of how these
worked and not why I wanted them there or what they were actually doing. They
sounded very cool and I went with that but I should have been thinking why I wanted
them and how that tied back to the story. I should have remembered to use the
characters’ abilities and properties instead of the environment as this was the original
idea.

Working on the camera alone for the vertical slice I presented at Winteractive took
us well over 8 weeks of work. It was so glitchy and confusing that it was definitely not
worth the time because it didn’t help us accomplish what we wanted from the level. To
give a bit more context, we initially wanted to have a level that had water reflecting light
so vines could grow. These vines were climbable and allowed the boy to go from one
level to the other. There were also leaves that grew with the water and sunlight. None of

this had a purpose or was explainable through the story. It was all just there because it
sounded cool and we thought we could make it happen.

Original Sketch of Level Design for Winteractive

After Winteractive, we went back to the drawing board and compared what we had
thus far versus what we originally thought we would have at that point. It was not a huge
surprise to see that we were very behind. There was no way to achieve my original
scope with the amount of technical difficulties we had and elements that had no
relationship to the narrative or the characters or even the game. Things were there just
because and they made absolutely no sense.

I learned the beauty of rescoping through this experience and decided to scrap a lot
of things. It was scary, but it was a relief to sit down and rethink why I wanted to do this
thesis project and how I could work with what I had to make it right. I redesigned the
way the levels would be built, the characters, the mechanics we would use, and the
narrative around it. This was one of the best decisions I could have made because as
soon as it was put in motion, the feedback I got from anyone who playtested was
overwhelmingly positive and completely aligned with my original goals and ideas. It was
a great learning experience of how to avoid saying ‘yes’ to too many priorities and
maximizing the number of ‘no’s’ used. There is still a long way to go and things are not
yet perfect, but the game does what it was meant to do – communicate the relationship
between characters and use them as a way to solve puzzles.

•

I
became
my
own
team

The scariest thing that happened to me is that right after Winteractive I lost several
team members. The people who were helping me got really busy and could no longer
commit to what we had to do. This was a big surprise that I hadn’t expected and it made
me feel really bad. I felt it had been my fault at not managing them correctly or not being
a good team leader. On their last meeting with us, I asked them for feedback on my
team leadership skills and what they thought of their experience. I was pleasantly
surprised to hear positive things as I truly expected to hear how terrible I was at this.
They said I was a good leader and felt heard, motivated and inspired by the project. The
only complaint they had was that the technical difficulties we faced in trying to figure out
the complex mechanics had been stressful and exhausting. At some point we were all

working crazy hours and they felt it was not the best use of our time. I completely
agreed. They also mentioned that they didn’t understand why we had chosen that level
for Winteractive or what it had to do with My Friend and Me.

Losing my team meant finding and teaching myself how to trust that I could do it.
This is a project I believe in and have wanted to do for such a long time it didn’t really
matter who was or stopped being a part of my team. I wanted to make a game that
made people feel great about the two characters and how they bonded with each other.
After a lot of changes, I finally was able to make this happen and every time someone
plays my game and understands this basic mechanic, I feel like I’ve accomplished my
goal.

•

I
learned
to
trust
myself
and
my
creative
voice

Some of original team had very strong personalities. Their ideas needed to be heard
and produced. This was very difficult for me to handle in the beginning. I gave into them,
accepting ideas that were good but not for the game I was making or had envisioned. I
was scared to hurt their feelings and tell them this would not work. I worried that saying
something would mean I was not open to other people participating and helping me
make the game. The difference between being stubborn and being a team player is in
the quality of the idea and what it brings to the game. If it is achieving the original idea
and goal and you decide to reject it, the problem is you. If it is not doing anything good
to build the game, then the idea is the problem.

After Winteractive, it was clear I had heard everyone ideas but my own and that their
ideas were not communicating what I needed for the game to succeed. It was hard, but
I had to sit down on my own, accept the mistake I had made, receive the worst
feedback and learn from it. I went back to the drawing board and weighed everything I
had against my original idea. If things did not make sense, then they did not need to be
in the game and were deleted. This was frustrating because of all the effort put into
them. However, the feeling of liberation and a weight lifted off my shoulders was
definitely worth it. Thanks to this experience the game took the original shape I intended
it to have. With very simple mechanics using the character abilities, feedback improved
and the message started to be communicated by the game.

3.
What
went
wrong:
Changes
that
occurred
during

Production

As we started production, I encountered several challenges that changed My
Friend and Me a lot. In the beginning we had a lot of mechanics involving vines, water,
light reflection and using these elements to solve puzzles. At the same time, we had
complex 3D models of a quadruped and a human. Once we started programming and
implementing everything, we realized that the level did not make sense. A lot of things
were just there to fill the blank but served no true purpose. Instead of going back and re-
scoping, we just committed to our mistake, hoping that throwing more resources at the
problem would fix it.

One of the quick solutions was to add more team members. Unfortunately, those
who were available were interested and very committed to the project and to learning
something new, but didn’t have the skills I needed. There were people who were eager

to learn Unity, but I needed people who already had that skill. The same thing happened
with modeling and 3D animating. The scope was reduced several times and was
trimmed in order to make sure the essence of the game was intact while the technical
aspect was still covered and was communicating the overall relationship between the
characters. We also ensured that the mechanics were based on the characters and not
environment.

As we continued working, it became obvious that the characters needed to change
to something simpler and that the animations needed would have to be very basic.
During thesis year, time is of the essence and one can’t afford to spend too much on
one aspect of your project or everything else will fail. Here is a list of what went wrong at
each stage.

•

Fall
Open:

During Fall Open I did not have much to show as we were still in the planning and
prototyping phase. I showed the prototypes I had worked on with the team that had a lot
of environmental elements to solve puzzles. I had prototypes that were flashy and did
cool things like grow vines, move light, generated plants and sand you could draw on.
However, none of these communicated the relationship between the boy and the
creature. While I received some good feedback on these puzzles looking good, I only
kept the wind puzzle as it was the only one where the ability each character has helps
the player solve it and continue.

One of the things that could have gone better in this phase was to have something
put together and ready to show, not a lot of pieces on their own. This would have
revealed a lot earlier that what I had was not communicating what I wanted. Everyone
questioned me, but having the pieces all on their own didn’t make it obvious that it was
not working. I still had hope that I could do something to have everything make sense.
At that point we had spent so much time planning and trying to figure out what would
look good that I should have realized how much it would throw us off schedule. This
later turned into us trying to have ‘something’ ready and not following the original idea,
which resulted in a very complex level that no one really understood.

Original Prototypes shown during Fall Open

Summon Spirits Mechanic

Music Room

Light Reflection Mechanic

Sand Room

•

Winteractive

Before Winteractive, I struggled a lot to find the right team members who could bring
the skills I needed and who were interested in learning what my Thesis had to offer.
This led to some technical difficulties and to us working long hours to learn how to
program some of the mechanics and implement them correctly.

At the same time, I had a very involved team who participated actively in the creation
of what would be the vertical slice I was going to show during Winteractive.
Unfortunately, as happens sometimes when you get too involved in the details of a
project, we got into the weeds and lost track of the scope. We got caught up in having
cool mechanics that sounded great on paper. As we continued programming, designing
and implementing a level that was very complex in the way puzzles were solved, we
continued to lose the initial idea we had.

Experience was also a key factor to the vertical slice not having the high quality I
would have wanted. A great lesson I learned is that sometimes letting people be and
trusting blindly that they know what they are doing is not always good. My 3D Artist
created a level that did not match the blockout, which resulted in us not being able to
implement the cool level he had created. Had I checked in with him and made him show
me progress in advance, I would have seen the problem and addressed it sooner. We
had great music, but once we started implementing the mechanics, we found so many
errors we had to scrap that part in order to have something playable. The list continues,
but the point is that by the time we had to present it, we were all exhausted and not
proud of what we had achieved.

Some of the best feedback, though the toughest, has definitely been what happened
at Winteractive. Everyone who playtested it thought it was a cool idea. However, the
relationship with the characters completely got lost because of how hard the camera
was to manage. The use of the mechanics was not intuitive and the overall design of
the level did not allow people to get from point A to point B in an effective way. Actually,
people questioned why water reflected light in a spotlight and why the light was there to
begin with. It was harsh to hear, but I needed to remember why I had chosen this idea
and this definitely helped. After this, I went back to the drawing board and revamped
everything.

Original Winteractive Level

•

Playtest
Sessions:

One of the mistakes I made during the development of the vertical slice was to skip
playtesting because we were busy trying to get the mechanics to work and to put
something together. Once we got feedback on the mechanics and we redesigned the
game, playtesting became my main priority. I asked different people to help me playtest
and took copious notes on their feedback, experience and how they felt about the
game, but most importantly, how they felt about the relationship between the
characters.

As we have continued working on the project and the more we playtested, the better
feedback got. I am happy to hear that now the main idea we had is clearly shining
through the levels and that the player’s frustration has significantly decreased due to
improvements to the camera and simpler design for each of the rooms or levels. There
is still a long way to go, but I am getting good results so far that are helping me design
the levels in a much simpler way.

•

The
Technical
Aspect:

The playtests conducted during Winteractive were very helpful in collecting feedback
from the players who approached my table and showed interest in playing the game.
While they sat down and started playing, I gave a small introduction and context to what
they were seeing to help them better understand what they had to do since everything
was unpolished. All of them played for approximately 20-30 minutes which helped me
see they were engaged and interested in what my thesis has to communicate. However,

the vertical slice was not as polished as I had planned because we had a huge scope
and went through lots of difficulties that resulted in a confusing level to decipher.

A.

The
Camera:

a. Feedback: the camera we were using was built to calculate the middle
point between the 2 characters to make sure both were always visible on
screen. Unfortunately, the way the level was designed made it very
difficult for the players to understand the perspective and be able to solve
the puzzles. The camera kept travelling through walls and since it
calculated the middle point between the 2 characters, if they were too far
apart the only thing you could see was the wall or the floor which confused
players on what to do. It also frustrated them to the point where some
could not continue playing. Since the players had an option to rotate the
camera to change focus, some of them got dizzy as they continued to
move it in order to be able to understand what the level was asking them
to do.
b. Changes: While the relationship between the two characters is definitely
one of the most relevant things about the game, it is important to note that
the camera is one of the elements that help them decipher the story and
live it. If the camera does not work, the game does not work. Since the
initial trial with the camera did not help my game translate the emotion and
relationship between the two people, I had to make several changes. I
went from having a vertical level design to adapting everything to a
horizontal layout.

The first level design we had involved an open space that the
characters could move through and leave one of the two characters
behind. Once we moved from a vertical level to a horizontal layout, I also
made rooms to keep them both in the same small space so the use of
both to solve puzzles was the only logical way in which they could move
through. Having a confined space also helped those less experienced with
gaming control the characters better. With this change, the camera walked
through an invisible rail and stopped at different corners depending on the
location of the characters. This helped ensure the perspective and angle
helped the player to understand what was happening at all times.

After some more playtesting, it became evident some tweaks
needed to be made because the players wanted to have more control of
the camera to see and refocus depending on where they were located.
Right now, I have a camera that moves and focuses on the player that is
moving or the last one you took control of. It also focuses on certain points
to make sure that if they activate something, the players can see what
happened and do not miss out on the action. For example, if they activate
a lever, the camera refocuses on the door that was opened by this
interaction which makes it clear and simple for the players to know where
to go next and why they do not need to explore more or poke around the
level unnecessarily.

Changes in Camera

Camera used for Winteractive Prototype

Camera modifications after Winteractive

B.

Character
controllers
and
Mechanics

a. Feedback: This was one of the most challenging things to program and we
probably spent way more time on it than we should have. The main concern I had
with these was that the interaction between the two characters did not feel natural
or organic. Controlling the characters was very difficult and I had the camera set in
a way where they could focus which did not work as I needed it to. The jump felt
very forced and the climbing also was very difficult because no one understood
they were climbing until they were noticeably far away from the ground, which
caused people to have to repeat the same thing over and over until they were able
to make it to the next puzzle. This is still a work in progress but it is in a much
better place than before.

Another issue we had was that with the controllers being so complicated was that
none of the players understood or focused on the relationship between the
characters. They knew they needed to get both of them from point A to point B, but
this didn’t help communicate the relationship that during the initial prototypes was
so easily conveyed. This basically meant we had wasted a lot of time trying to
reinvent the wheel and we lost focus of what really mattered. One of my
professors said that I had lost the elegance and simplicity of the prototype and had
completely changed what was good about my game. This was hard to hear but I
needed it because it helped me understand what I needed to do next.

b. Changes: Once I got back to the drawing board, I simplified the levels and
mechanics to scrap everything that was not essential. I focused on fewer
mechanics since I realized that some of them made no sense.

We had water that would fill up spaces and would then make vines shrink, unless
these were hit by the sun beam/spotlight we had developed, in which case they
grew. If it sounds complicated to explain, it was even worse to program and make
work. Plus, the look of the vines was horrible and not polished at all, so it looked
like a grid stretched for no apparent reason, or at least no one understood those
were vines until we explained it to them. We kept the idea of the vines as polished
art, but removed the procedurally generated plants and growth because it was too
complicated and ultimately did not work.

Mechanics

Look and Feel of Mechanics for Winteractive Prototype

Look and Feel of modifications after Winteractive

C.
Level
Design

a. Feedback: As I have explained before, no one really understood the full
level, nor did they know where to move to next or how to do it. This
speaks to a huge area of opportunity in the design. This was honestly all
my fault. In the hopes of giving creative freedom to my team, I let them get
away with something I felt and knew was not right just because we felt
confident in being able to have it ready for Winteractive. I let stress get the
best of me and sacrificed my idea in benefit of having something to show.
While this is sometimes good because it makes your team members more
engaged, it also created a lot of frustration because we were looking at a
level that even when described on paper it took us 3 hours to wrap our
heads around. When we started to block it out, it took us a ridiculous
amount of time to decide how it should look because the design on paper
was clearly flawed. You can’t expect to have a level that works if it only
makes sense on paper. These prototypes should have been made sooner
but by the time we understood what we wanted on paper, there was no
time left.

It was really hard to have to scrap all of it. However, the toughest
thing was that several of my team members basically quit after
Winteractive. They were either too busy or not interested in what My
Friend and Me had to offer. In hindsight, I see that they were not a good fit
for the team anyway, but I wanted to believe I could make it all work and
was too stubborn when the red lights were flashing like mad. Being left

with only a couple of people was harsh but it helped me see that I could
make this happen. If there was one person who had the idea of what My
Friend and Me should look like, it was me.

The initial idea of this level was made of three parts. In the first one,
you had to move a rock to allow water to fill a ditch, which would later
reflect a beam of light. This light would feed the vines on the wall, which
would then grow and have leaves for the players to use as steps for the
creature to jump on and go on to the next part. The boy was to climb the
vines in order to go up as he cannot jump as high as the creature.

In the next part, a similar thing would happen with water and vines
growing after another beam of light hit them. Finally, you would ascend to
the third part where there would be a mobile that you had to move in order
to go from point A to point B and get to the exit of this level.

b. Changes: After a lot of the playtesters struggled with the mechanics and
understanding the overall level and what they had to do, I decided to
redesign everything and let the levels be square rooms with very simple
tasks to complete in order to continue playing. One of the main issues is
that players did not understand how the vines grew, they just saw it
happen and thought it was a timed action. They also struggled to jump on
leaves because they did not see these as platforms but decorations on the
wall. Once I changed the layout to something simple and the task at hand
was the only thing they could do in the room like jump, push a block, climb

or step on something, this allowed the players to understand what was
happening in the level at all times and solve the puzzles.

Level Design of current game

After completely changing the layout of the levels and scope, the feedback
I got was refreshing and very encouraging. We took some of the ideas we
originally had and kept it simple. Anything that sounded way too complex
or that we could not figure out within a week meant it did not work and we
needed to move on. This definitely helped boost my team’s morale and
now that it’s only a few of us, the contributions they have made are a lot
more meaningful and impactful than what we had before.

The most important feedback I received was that now the center of
the game was actually the relationship between the characters. That is
now the main priority we go back to when bouncing off ideas. I honestly
have to say that I have done the bulk of the work after Winteractive. I have
received some help, but it has been a one man show and I am proud of it.

I learned how to manage a team during this experience and while the
feedback I got even from those who left was not bad at all, the biggest
learning was to never lose focus on what you are trying to achieve.

D.
Character
Design

a. Feedback: When I originally envisioned this project, I had the idea of
having a creature made of different body parts of different animals.
Something that looked friendly, yet menacing if needed. I wanted an
animal that was a quadruped and that had horns. To my dismay, I literally
got every animal in the book when playtesting except for what it was
supposed to be. They called the creature a deer, a dog with horns, a
horse, a reindeer, yet it was supposed to be the combination of so many
other things I felt sad the point had been completely missed. One could
blame the lack of textures – again, the scope was too big for a vertical
slice – but the truth is that if people don’t understand the model, you are
doing things very wrong.

Another huge issue we had was the difficulty in implementing the
mechanics, character controllers and animations to all work together
properly. It sounds simple like adding salt and pepper, but there was so
much going on it all clashed. Animating a quadruped turned out to be very
complicated because we needed to figure out the walking, running and
idle cycles for all models – the young, the adult and the elder versions of
each character would need to be different. Since each of them would

change over time, they needed to have slightly modified animations to
show the aging process which made the scope for this part alone a huge
task.

b. Changes: After some contemplation and spending time thinking about
this, I simplified the creature and the boy and made them into something
more Minecraft-looking in order to avoid overcomplicating the scope.
Adding in all of the animations and expressions for all of the models I
needed was insane and not truly feasible if I wanted it to look polished.
The original idea encompassed three models for each character with their
set of animations that had differences to show the evolution of their aging
process. The creature is now a biped and is made of stone. He only has
one walking cycle that will change in speed once he turns into his old
version, he will jump and be idle. This also means we will only have 2
models for each character, the young and the old. The boy is now very
square, and has few animations such as running, climbing, jumping and
idle. but the main message is easily conveyed – one is a boy, the other is
a creature and they are friends.

Character Design Evolution

Original Boy 3D Model Modified version of 3D Boy Model
Original Creature 3D Model Modified version of 3D Creature Model

The changes have been very helpful, but there’s still a long way to go. I haven’t
finished the art and I only have four completely finished rooms. This is a lot better than
where I expected to be, but still far from where I’d like to be. I still need to work on the
sound design and finish the art. The animations are going to be very simple and are still
a work in progress so my scope is reduced and more manageable. I have one more
room to finish and then implement everything else. We could say I’m a little bit behind
on schedule but I’m in a place where the main body of the game is finished.

4.
Conclusions

This project is by far the one that has taught me the most about myself, working
with others and Game Design in general. While it was an academic project, it’s a project
I’ve believed in since I was little and my dog died. I knew I wanted to explore this
because it’s an experience that changed me and, similarly, this thesis process has
changed me.

Every single thing that went wrong I had a gut feeling it wouldn’t work, but I
decided not to listen because I thought I was going to step on my team’s creativity and
that a good leader should encourage someone to build on their ideas. There’s a limit to
everything and this is not the exception. While it’s important for people to participate and
to be open to ideas, it’s also important to remember what the ultimate goal is. There are
some great ideas that should just not be a part of the project because they make little to
no sense and will end up costing more in time and effort.

Scope is key. Dreaming big is easy and getting lost in wanting to reinvent life is a
dangerous problem to have. I think my scope has been reduced to 1/5 of what it

originally was and, in some of my peers’ opinions, it’s still too big. I didn’t want to
sacrifice quality, so even though I had some really great ideas and the team came up
with cool concepts, we couldn’t do everything. Making choices is hard but so necessary.

The best thing that happened to me was also the scariest. After Winteractive I felt
sad and unmotivated to work on my project. However, I had an idea I believed in and
had to figure out how to make it all work. What I did was take a break. I took a few
weeks to decompress, relax and rethink everything with a fresh perspective. I was so
entrenched in making something that was an inherently flawed work, that I could not
untangle my own mess. I needed to take a step back and make the tough decision to
eliminate what did not work and recreate things based on the characters. The good
thing is I was able to keep several mechanics and just change the way they were
focused.

It was very scary to know I had to change the game and not know if it was truly
the right decision. This felt like throwing away six months of work and starting over.
What I did to avoid this, was look at everything I had and think how I could make that
piece communicate the relationship between the characters to bring meaning to the
game. It was a long process that took over my winter break but it helped me see where I
needed to take the game next. I knew some people would not be joining us in the New
Year to continue working on the project and I was completely terrified to have to do
most of it on my own because I didn’t think I could do it. Fortunately, I was brave
enough to take the leap and change everything. This has helped me see that I can trust

myself, I can trust my creative voice and I have a good feel of how to follow a goal and
achieve it.

My favorite learning has been that communicating gameplay through narrative is
no easy task. Using puzzles to communicate narrative is the most difficult challenge I
have embarked upon as a Game Designer. It sounds so easy when you play a game
that has this narrative component. However, when you actually sit down and try to make
this happen, you quickly realize it is so much easier to get lost in cool mechanics and
things that look flashy and can be called awesome, than it is to communicate the
narrative without cheating with cut scenes.

Having the interaction become the story has been the coolest experience I have
had so far and I know for a fact that this is what I want my career focus to be. It is very
fulfilling and motivating to see that people understand by playing and don’t need a cut
scene to tell them what they need to learn from your game. My thesis is not at all perfect
and I don’t think everyone gets it, but as long as one person in the world understands
what I tried to communicate and what I wanted them to feel, it’s a great start.

Finally, listening to people who are your advisors, friends, playtesters and use
the feedback often is also extremely important. Since we got caught up in the technical
aspect of things, I was not able to playtest much before Winteractive, and that definitely
hurt my project’s progress. I also wasn’t able to present much during Fall Open because
we were still trying to come up with ideas that worked. I am glad I didn’t listen, because I
needed to learn that lesson and apply it later in the process.

Some think it’s a painful experience, but I think it’s the most rewarding because I
can see the difference in feedback and quality, which means a lot more than some
rough but much needed comments. I hope the final product reflects all the time, effort
and passion I have put into it. This has definitely become my baby and I hope that later I
can go back and make it the big project I originally dreamt of.

Abstract (if available)

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Asset Metadata

Creator Muriel Pinto, Carlos (author), Muriel, Chris (author)

Core Title My friend and me

School School of Cinematic Arts

Degree Master of Fine Arts

Degree Program Interactive Media

Publication Date 04/22/2015

Defense Date 04/08/2015

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

Tag connection,emotion,identity,narrative,OAI-PMH Harvest,Relationship,videogames

Format application/pdf (imt)

Language English

Contributor Electronically uploaded by the author (provenance)

Advisor Lemarchand, Richard (committee chair), Margenau, Kurt (committee member), McHugh, Maureen (committee member)

Creator Email chris.muriel@gmail.com,murielpi@usc.edu

Permanent Link (DOI) https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-c3-556499

Unique identifier UC11300468

Identifier etd-MurielChri-3366.pdf (filename),usctheses-c3-556499 (legacy record id)

Legacy Identifier etd-MurielChri-3366.pdf

Dmrecord 556499

Document Type Thesis

Format application/pdf (imt)

Rights Muriel, Chris; Muriel Pinto, Carlos

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