University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses

Egregore: de-mystifying the adventure game

(USC Thesis Other)

Egregore: de-mystifying the adventure game

PDF

Download a page range

Download transcript

Copy asset link

Request this asset

Transcript (if available)

Content Egregore
De-mystifying the Adventure Game
by
Michael Wahba
A Thesis Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE USC SCHOOL OF CINEMATIC ARTS
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
MASTER OF FINE ARTS
(INTERACTIVE MEDIA)
May 2024
Copyright © 2024 Michael Wahba

Acknowledgements
I am eternally grateful to many people that made this possible.
All the incredible advisors, teachers and mentors that I have had throughout my
time at USC.
The incredible Egregore dev team who worked hard, saw the vision and believed in
this project and themselves.
My family and loved ones who supported me throughout the last three years and
enabled me to go for broke.
ii

Table of Contents
Acknowledgments………………….……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….ii
List of Figures……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………iv
Abstract………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..v
Chapter One: Background…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….1
1.1 Introduction………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………1
1.2 Narrative Need for Temporal Discontinuity…………………………………………………………………..2
1.3 Game Grammars……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..3
Chapter Two: Implementation……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………7
2.1 Graph Terminology………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….7
2.2 Graph Implementation………………………………………………………………………………………………………….9
2.3 Dynamic Actors……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….9
2.4 Graph Rules……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..11
2.5 UI/UX of In-Game Graphs………………………………………………………………………………………………….12
Chapter Three: Discussion………………………….…………………………………………………………………………………………….13
3.1 Original Intention for Graph Mechanic………………………………………………………………………….13
3.2 Design Considerations……………………………………………………………………………..………………………..14
3.2.1 Representing World……………………………………………………………………………………………….14
3.2.2 Providing Player Feedback…...……………………………………………………………………………16
3.2.3 Modular and Non-Linear Narrative…………………………………………………………………..16
3.2.4 Player Onboarding………………………………………………………………………………………………….17
3.2.2 Middle Eastern Representation…………………………………………………………………………18
3.3 Further Applications and Uses………………………………………………………………………………………..19
Chapter Four: Conclusion…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………20
Bibliography……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..22
iv

List of Figures
1 Screenshot from Secret of Monkey Island - Verb based grammar…………………………. 4
2 Screenshot from Return of the Obra Dinn - Fill in the blanks…………………………………… 5
3 Screenshot from Chants of Sennar - Learning new languages……………………………… 5
4 Screenshot from Baba is You - Visual grammars………………………………………………………… 6
5 Visualization of Graph Vertices……………………………………………………………………………………………. 7
6 Visualization of graph vertices and edges………………………………………………………………………. 8
7 Visualization of a graph with vertices and edges…………………………………………………………. 8
8 Interaction diagram detailing flow of information………………………………………………………… 9
9 Visualization of dynamic actor events………………………………………………………………………………10
10 Screenshot of in-engine graphing rules tool………………………………………………………………….11
11 Screenshot of Egregore’s in-game graph interface……………………………………………………. 12
12 Screenshot of Egregore’s title screen……………………………………………………………………………….17
13 Screenshot from Assassin’s Creed: Origins…………………………………………………………………….19
iv

Abstract
The magical-realist narrative of Egregore puts forward a protagonist who
simultaneously experiences the many possibilities of their subjective reality. This
necessitates a temporally-discontinuous game world composed of discrete states where
multiple interpretations of a scene can be simultaneously valid. Egregore allows the player
to instantaneously transition between world states via a novel graph-based representation
of the world state. This allows the player full control over the discretized state of the game
while maintaining the temporally-discontinuous nature of the narrative. In this paper, we
discuss the implementation and demonstration of this mechanic through the game
Egregore.
v

Chapter One: Background
1.1 Introduction
The original motivation for Egregore was an attempt to answer the question: Is it
possible to create a mystery game where there is no consensus of the ground truth?
The gameplay presents the player with various conflicting characters and clues and
lets the player decide which they consider as “truth”. Egregore accepts any valid
interpretation as the player’s truth, rather than correcting them when the answer is
“incorrect”. The detective genre is formulated around understanding “how the world works,
what is valuable, and how to live successfully. They are stories about what is true” (Truby).
This literary genre translates well to interactive media as there is an expectation of “game
rule structure” (Delamater and Prigozy) where the detective reveals everything they know
to the reader, so they can play along, lends itself well to a video game.
Real life, however, is not so neat and tidy.
In the era of misinformation, disinformation and “fake news, there is increased risk
of the population being manipulated and becoming incapable of distinguishing true
information from false” (Misinformation about Fake News: A Systematic Critical Review of
Empirical Studies on the Phenomenon and Its Status as a ‘Threat’ - Fernando
Miró-Llinares, Jesús C. Aguerri, 2023). Egregore looks at this idea through the lens of social
constructionism wherein the way “we collectively think and communicate about the world
affects the way that the world is” (Elder-Vass). If the way we perceive the world is affected
by how we think about the world, and there is an abundance of misinformation then it is
possible to have an incorrect construction of reality.
How is it possible to have a detective uncover the truth, when the truth itself is up
for debate?
1

That contradiction is pervasive throughout postmodern detective fiction, where the
“grounding in epistemological inquiry” that pervades traditional literary mysteries clashes
with the “ontological pursuits” of postmodernism (Delamater and Prigozy). The twisting
pervasiveness of truth is rife in two of Egregore’s main literary inspirations, Umberto Eco’s
Foucault’s Pendulum and Thomas Pynchon’s The Crying of Lot 49.
Egregore is designed to invoke a similar feeling of uncertainty and paranoia within
the player.
Although this ambitious goal may not have been fully realized, an interesting
by-product of this approach was creating a narrative where the player can experience
multiple interpretations of the same reality all happening simultaneously. It is up to the
player to move between the different world states and decide which one they decide is
representative of their in-game reality.
1.2 Narrative Need for Temporal Discontinuity
The game world is the player-character’s subjective interpretation of the world.
There are contradictions both in the game world, and in the information told to the player.
There are many interpretations of the game world, such as who is in which room, which
item is accompanying them, and each of them are valid. For this reason, it was necessary
that the game world of Egregore be composed of discrete world states that the player can
instantaneously switch between. Each world state is valid for the sake of the mystery at
the core of Egregore and offers the player secrets to uncover. It is important for the
narrative of Egregore that each world state is happening simultaneously and not
sequentially. For example, the player can place the character Salim in the Lounge or the
2

Dining Room. If the player places Salim first in the lounge, then in the dining room, it is not
that Salim traveled over to the dining room, but that the player-character reoriented their
perception of the game world and themselves traveled to an interpretation of the world
where Salim is in the dining room.
Ato Quayson, in their chapter Space, Time and Magical Realism, describes two
different representations of space and time. The indexical, which is “what we normally
associate with realism and everyday expectations of space and time in the quotidian world”
and “The iconic [which] ascribes symbolic significance to ordinary spatiotemporal
categories, inviting us to see them as signifying something more than what we experience
through our senses. Quayson also points out that the point is not to see the iconic as a
suspension of the indexical, but rather as inextricably intertwined with it” (Quayson).
The iconic spatiotemporal world of Egregore is conveyed through still images.
Reminiscent of classic adventure games like Myst (Myst) and Riven (Riven), Egregore uses
fixed camera frames and transitions the player between them in order to emulate
movement through a space. Myst and Riven used this method to immerse the player in
realistic, pre-rendered worlds despite the technical limitations of their time while Egregore
has no such constraints. This deliberate choice was to further intertwine the iconic with
the indexical and reinforce the discrete nature of Egregore’s game world.
1.3 Game Grammars
Egregore uses an experimental graph grammar to let the player alter the state of the
game world. Adventure games throughout the years have had different mechanisms for
letting the player represent the knowledge they accumulate. There are three core traits of
grammars to focus on for the purpose of this paper: 1) Expressibility, 2) Ease of
3

Learning/Use, 3) Timing of Feedback. Expressibility refers to the range of expression that is
afforded to the player by the grammar. Ease of learning/use refers to how easy it is to learn
the grammar and use it. Timing of feedback refers to how long it takes for the player to
know if they have correctly used the grammar or not.
Classic adventure games like The Secret of Monkey Island (The Secret of
Monkey Island) have a verb-based grammar that is easy to understand as it uses verbs
from our natural language, and are given immediate feedback as to whether or not it is
correct. However, these verb based grammars are very limited in expressibility and confines
the players to only expressing themselves in the bespoke ways that the developers
intended.
Fig 1: The Secret of Monkey Island uses a verb-based grammar.
Recent adventure games, Return of the Obra Dinn (Pope) and The Case of the
Golden Idol (The Case of the Golden Idol), both have similar systems of letting players
choose words from lists to fill-in-the-blanks. Expressibility is only as large as there are
words in the word bank, the system is easy to learn and use, but timing of feedback is
4

delayed. In both games, there is a delayed response from when players enter their answers
and when they are informed whether they are correct or not.
Fig 2: Return of the Obra Dinn provides players with a word list.
It may seem that grammars should always be easy to learn and use, but Chants of
Sennar (Chants of Sennar) provides a counterexample to that idea. Chants of Sennar
presents the player with the challenge to learn several new languages over the course of its
runtime. In this game, the fact that the languages are not easy to learn is a part of the core
game loop.
5

Fig 3: Chants of Sennar challenges the player to learn new languages.
Egregore’s graph-based grammar falls under a category of visual language. Baba is
You (Baba Is You) also uses a visually based grammar consisting of physical blocks that the
player pushes around to alter the in-game rules. Visual language can also encompass
visual programming languages such as Unreal Engine’s Blueprints.
Fig 4: Baba is You uses a visual grammar to represent game rules.
6

Chapter Two: Implementation
2.1 Graph Terminology
It is necessary to define the terms that will be used to describe the graph data
structures used in Egregore.
A vertex is a single point in 2D space. In Egregore, a vertex represents a piece of
information that the player has obtained.
Fig 5: Visualization of vertices.
An edge is a linkage or relationship between two vertices. In the case of Egregore,
edges can be created between two unique vertices. Vertices cannot create an edge with
themselves.
7

Fig 6: Visual representation of vertices with edges connecting them.
A graph is a set of vertices and the edges that connect them. The graphs in
Egregore are undirected, meaning they do not have directional relationships between
nodes and the graphs are cyclic, meaning they can contain closed loops.
8

Fig 7: Visual representation of a graph containing vertices with edges between
them.
2.2 Graph Implementation
The backend of Egregore’s graphing system is mostly keeping track of the state of
the player’s graph and therefore the state of the game world. A data-oriented approach
allows designers to quickly iterate and change how certain graph states affect the game
world. The backend data structures were written in C++ in Unreal Engine 5 and then
implemented in-engine using a child blueprint class which is available to the design team.
The player then interfaces with this backend through a Graphical User Interface
(GUI) that wraps around these data structures. When the player interacts with the graph
GUI, it updates the backend data structures.
Fig 8: Interaction diagram detailing flow of information in graph system.
Whenever the player updates the Graph GUI, the graph widget is also broadcasting
an event to subscribed actors, called Dynamic Actors.
2.3 Dynamic Actors
Dynamic Actors are the atomic unit which gives Egregore’s world the ability to
dynamically change according to the state of the graph. Every time the graph is updated,
9

each dynamic actor will receive a message from the graph and, based on a set of rules laid
out by the design team, react accordingly. These reactions could include the actor
changing shape, changing pose, or changing the dialogue responses of a given character.
Fig 9: Visual representation of dynamic actors subscribing to graph change events.
Dynamic actors are placed throughout the in-game scenes and comprise the
in-game environment. A common design pattern is to have NPCs occupy certain spaces in
the world depending on the state of the graph. This allows the player to selectively
re-organize the game world via the graph-based representation of the world state.
Dynamic actors are containers for logical graph rules which dictate how an actor
responds to a particular graph state. Dynamic actors can recursively contain other dynamic
actors with their own separate rules creating a hierarchical relationship between actors.
Although this wasn’t fully explored in Egregore, it is certainly an area for future exploration.
10

2.4 Graph Rules
Graph rules are what gives designers the ability to detail exactly how a dynamic
actor responds to a particular graph state. It would be impossible to consider every possible
graph state, as the number of graph states increases quadratically with each added node
to the graph. As a result, it was necessary to develop a system that allows dynamic actors
to only consider certain subgraphs of the larger graph.
For example, given a graph with nodes A, B, C, and D, we can set up a dynamic actor,
X, which only has the rule “If A is connected to B, then turn X into an apple”. Since X is only
interested in the states of nodes A and B, it drastically cuts down on the amount of
searching needed.
The graph rules can also be combined using logical operators to create statements
such as “If A is connected to B AND B is NOT connected to C, then turn X into an orange”.
Fig 10: Designers set graphing rules via an in-engine tool.
The data-oriented approach to designing Egregore’s graph rules gives the designers
a lot of freedom and power to quickly iterate over how the graph affects the game world.
11

2.5 UI/UX of In-Game Graphs
The in-game graph exists on a UI overlay on top of the game world, creating a
separation between the graph and the game world. When the in-game graph is toggled, an
animation is played and the graph background, a semi-transparent textured background,
covers the player’s current view. Nodes are represented as concentric circles with floating
arrow-like cursors indicating where the player can connect nodes together.
Fig 11: Screenshot of the Egregore’s in-game graph interface.
Nodes are color-coded to correspond with what that particular node represents.
People nodes are blue, place nodes are green, object nodes pink and concept nodes are
tan. Egregore doesn’t explicitly tell the player what these colors represent but the vast
majority of playtesters are able to figure it out relatively easily.
12

Chapter 3: Discussion
3.1 Original Intention for Graphing Mechanic
The motivation for Egregore’s graphing mechanic came about while experimenting
with alternative methods for players to input information into a game. The design pattern at
the heart of both mystery and adventure games involve the player acquiring knowledge
from the game world, inputting their understanding of the game world and then having the
game verify their understanding. Egregore’s graph mechanic was originally designed to
address these final two steps, input and verification of player knowledge, and broaden the
ways players can express what they know in a game.
It is common for mystery games to allow players to verify their knowledge by letting
them fill-in-the-blanks with a set of given choices. This is the case for both Return of the
Obra Dinn (Pope) and The Case of the Golden Idol (The Case of the Golden Idol). However, a
naive implementation of fill-in-the-blanks comes with a glaring problem: the player can
brute force the solution. Both Obra Dinn and Golden Idol have their own approaches to
solving this problem. Obra Dinn gives the player a very large set of options to choose from,
many of which are not included in any solutions, and only verifies the player’s
understanding after they have found five successive correct solutions. Golden Idol similarly
gives the player a set of options and then validates the player’s choices when they get the
solution partially correct and then fully correct.
There have been a few games that experiment with alternative ways for the player
to organize their knowledge. A Hand with Many Fingers (A Hand With Many Fingers) is a
conspiracy-mystery game where the player collects documents from a library and uses a
corkboard with string to connect pieces of evidence. The corkboard and string are only
used to help the player organize evidence, it is not used to actually validate the player’s
13

conclusions. For knowledge validation, the player must walk through the shelves of the
in-game library to find the row of boxes they are looking for. It is effectively the same as
filling-in-the-blanks but with an immersive element. The idea of taking A Hand with Many
Fingers’ cork board and making it used for knowledge verification as well as representation
is what led to Egregore’s graphing mechanic.
During playtests, it became clear that players were not using the graph to
deliberately and consciously connect clues, but were combinatorially trying different
combinations to see the different ways the world was affected. A way to discourage this
type of play could be to introduce penalties for players who attempt brute-force solutions
to encourage more deliberate interactions with the graph. Nevertheless, the focus of
Egregore became less on using the graph as a mechanic for inputting information and
instead as a way of representing and altering the game world state.
3.2 Design Considerations
3.2.1 Representing World State
Following initial playtests, the focus of the graph-based interface shifted from
representing player knowledge, to instead representing world state. This seems like a
natural conclusion of the mechanic as with each new connection, the state of the world
updates to reflect the state of the graph. However, it quickly became clear that the size of
the graph had to be constrained, otherwise players would become overwhelmed with the
amount of possibilities. The nodes in Egregore can only have a maximum of two neighbors.
Certain nodes cannot be connected to each other (for example, a person cannot be in two
places at once). Not all objects and locations in the game are represented as nodes on the
graph.
14

Playtesting made it clear that the player does not need to have total and complete
control over the game world in order to feel empowered by the ability to alter it. As long as
the player is able to make connections between the relatively limited set of nodes they are
given, and be rewarded for experimentation, the player will be satisfied. Players were most
pleasantly surprised when they made a connection between two nodes, not expecting the
connection to do anything, and were rewarded for thinking outside the box. The
magical-realist nature of Egregore lets us create fantastical scenarios where objects take
on anthropomorphic qualities, letting the player be pleasantly surprised by the outcome of
their graph connections.
3.2.2 Providing Player Feedback
An important aspect of the graph mechanic is relaying to the player how they have
altered the world state. Some changes in the graph cause objects to appear in certain
locations, other changes cause changes in NPC interactions. Since these changes in the
world are often used to give the player a sense of progress, it is important to make sure the
player is always aware of the game world changes.
With every change to the game world, a sound cue will play indicating the player has
made a graph connection resulting in a change in world state. When NPCs have new
interactions, an icon will appear above their head. Once the player interacts with them, the
icon will disappear.
Graph states which result in the game world changing are tied to graph nodes
representing in-game locations. When the player causes a change related to a location,
they know that something will have changed at that location, even if they player is in a
different location.
15

3.2.3 Modular and Non-Linear Narrative
Egregore’s second act takes place non-linearly. The player has access to three
separate areas where they can mix and match people and objects within those areas to
create different configurations. Interactions with characters will change based on the
current configuration of the game world. As such, it was necessary to be able to modularly
deliver narrative through these interactions without having to account for every possible
configuration of the graph state.
The narrative system of Egregore also takes advantage of graph rules. Certain
dialogue options will only appear when certain graph conditions are met. Similar to the
dynamic actors mentioned above, dialogue options can be given logic for when they should
appear without having to consider the overall state of the graph. This was used alongside
global boolean flags to track the player’s progress through this portion of the game.
Egregore’s narrative during this portion of the game contains a few separate
narrative threads that the player can latch on to. Each thread, if followed to completion, will
lead the player to the final sequence of the game. However, while following one thread, the
player can latch on to another thread and jump between them. This approach to narrative
design is meant to keep the narrative as open as possible to let the player project their
assumptions into the narrative, reinforcing the goal of ambiguity.
Reflecting on these original goals, we were not able to attain complete narrative
ambiguity. There is a definitive truth and a definitive story being told in Egregore. Although
16

the player is able to reshape and reinterpret the game world, the narrative is pretty
unambiguous.
3.2.4 Player Onboarding
Since graph-based interfaces in games are relatively uncommon, it was necessary
for the UI/UX of Egregore’s graph to have a minimal number of interactions and be easy to
learn in a short amount of time. The nodes on the in-game graph only have two
affordances: 1) moving the node and 2) making a connection between nodes. The player
only needs a single button (the Left Mouse Button) to do either of these actions. Egregore’s
title screen acts as a mechanical tutorial for how to connect nodes to each other, ensuring
the player understands the base action of connecting nodes before the game even begins.
Fig 12: Screenshot of Egregore’s title screen which also acts as a mechanical tutorial.
17

Great care was taken to make sure the player would only learn one mechanic at a
time. The first tutorial section has the player staying in one location and only interacting
with the graph and objects. Following that, the player is put in a section where they are
only navigating. Only after that is the player then expected to do both mechanics. Every
player action can be completed using only the left mouse button, hopefully making friction
for new players as minimal as possible.
3.2.5 Middle Eastern Representation
One of the goals of Egregore is to provide a vibrant representation of Egypt and
provide a positive representation of the region. Representations of Egypt in the media often
fetishize Ancient Egyptian mythology and appropriate aspects of the culture.
Narratively, Egregore satirizes new age belief systems and their appropriation of
Egyptian iconography. The cult in Egregore do not truly understand the mythology they are
appropriating and are adopting it on a superficial level.
Visually, Egregore uses a vibrant color palette to recontextualize how players view
the Middle East in media. Typical representations of the Middle East in games consists of a
brownish/beige color filter and war torn streets. Media taking place in Egypt often take
place in Ancient Egypt and usually delve deep into the Ancient Egyptian pantheon.
Egregore uses a vibrant color palette and provides a slice-of-life look at what contemporary
Cairo looks like.
18

Fig 13: Screenshot from Assassins Creed: Origins which demonstrates the brown
color palette and fascination with Ancient Egypt.
3.3 Further Applications and Work
Egregore presents an experimental graph-based grammar to represent game world
state and let the player change the world state instantaneously. This graph-based method
of interaction holds potential for future applications.
Egregore’s graph mechanic was originally intended as a way to represent player
knowledge, and there is still much to explore in this area. The idea of using a
detective-style cork board to keep track of information has been used in many games.
Shadows of Doubt (Shadows of Doubt), Alan Wake II (Alan Wake 2), and A Hand with Many
Fingers (A Hand With Many Fingers) are just a few examples. However, in all of these cases
graphs are used merely as a way of keeping track of information and not inputting possible
19

solutions for verification. Changes to the underlying design of Egregore’s graph system
would be necessary to achieve this goal. Players would have to be discouraged from
attempting brute-force solutions and incentivized to deliberately set the graph state. There
would have to be a point in the game where the player locks-in their answer, receives
feedback on whether or not they are correct and then be given the chance to change their
answer.
In Egregore, only certain aspects of the game world can be affected by the in-game
graph. It is possible for this system to scale up and affect entire levels. This was not
pursued in Egregore due to usability issues, the player would be flooded with too many
nodes to keep track of. Future explorations of this mechanic could experiment with letting
the player construct the entirety of the game world through the graph mechanic. Other
changes would need to be made to the interface to facilitate this goal. Nodes would have to
be easier categorized and organized so as not to overwhelm the user. Taking ideas from
graph-based tools such as Unreal Engine’s Blueprints could hold the solution to some of
these usability issues.
Another improvement that can be made to Egregore’s graphing system would be to
better integrate it into the in-game environment. In the current iteration, the graph exists
on a superficial UI layer on top of the game world. While this works, it is not very elegant.
Bringing the graph UI into the game world as tangible game objects would better convey
the idea that the graph is the underlying blueprint for the game world. As well, it would
make the graph more tangible and engaging for the player.
20

Chapter Four: Conclusion
Egregore’s story revolves around a protagonist who can simultaneously experience
multiple valid interpretations of the same scene. This concept requires the game world to
be temporally discontinuous while still letting the player instantaneously travel between
these world states. A novel graph-based mechanic was designed to allow the player to
represent and affect game world state. Players found pleasure in manipulating the world
state and having unexpected outcomes. Future work in this area should explore how this
mechanic can be used to represent player knowledge.
21

Bibliography
A Hand With Many Fingers. Colestia, 2020.
Alan Wake 2. Remedy Entertainment, 2023.
Baba Is You. Hempuli, 2019.
Chants of Sennar. Rundisc, 2023.
Delamater, Jerome H., and Ruth Prigozy. Theory and Practice of Classic Detective Fiction.
Bloomsbury Publishing USA, 1997.
Elder-Vass, Dave. The Reality of Social Construction. Cambridge University Press, 2012.
Misinformation about Fake News: A Systematic Critical Review of Empirical Studies on the
Phenomenon and Its Status as a ‘Threat’ - Fernando Miró-Llinares, Jesús C. Aguerri,
2023.
https://journals-sagepub-com.libproxy2.usc.edu/doi/full/10.1177/147737082199405
9. Accessed 14 Mar. 2024.
Myst. Cyan, 1993.
Pope, Lucas. Return of the Obra Dinn. 2018.
Quayson, Ato. “Space, Time and Magical Realism.” Magical Realism and Literature, edited by
Christopher Warnes and Kim Anderson Sasser, Cambridge University Press, 2020,
pp. 80–98. Cambridge University Press, https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108551601.007.
Riven. Cyan, 1997.
Shadows of Doubt. ColePowered Games, 2023.
The Case of the Golden Idol. Color Gray Games, 2022.
The Secret of Monkey Island. Lucasfilm Games, 1990.
Truby, John. The Anatomy of Genres: How Story Forms Explain the Way the World Works.
Picador, 2022.
22

Abstract (if available)

Linked assets

University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses

Conceptually similar

PDF

The Cleaner: recreating censorship in video games

PDF

Last broadcast: making meaning out of the mundane

PDF

Working through death and grief with a video game: the design and development of Where the sea meets the sky

PDF

Cards of Heart: a cozy role-playing card game for promoting mental health

PDF

Courier: Dragons Within, a video game. An exploration into the magic circle as healing circle: restorative game design for a masculine framework free from the template of domination [document]

PDF

Free Will: a video game

PDF

Iterating adaptation in Morte Arthure: a perspective on adapting literature to interactive media

PDF

Shepherds - cooperating from divergent path: a design exploration

PDF

The Darkest Plague: insights on the development of an action adventure game

PDF

A game called Paako: the challenge of an autobiographical video game

PDF

The art of Cervus blade

PDF

Brinkmanship and the process of narrative design

PDF

Montage of interaction: conceptual exploration and creative practice

PDF

BONDS: an asymmetrical collaborative adventure game on exploring the player's emotional connection and emergent gameplay

PDF

Exploring space literally & figuratively in Eight Moons to Eternity

PDF

Lake Minnewaska | uplifting a Black narrative in an underrepresented industry | exploring grief themes in a fishing video game

PDF

Within a fold: an exploration of alternative controllers and childhood storytelling

PDF

The Glitch Witch

PDF

Mechanics as metaphor: representing physical disability and aging in video game mechanics

PDF

Grandma Green: kindness in bloom

Asset Metadata

Creator Wahba, Michael (author)

Core Title Egregore: de-mystifying the adventure game

School School of Cinematic Arts

Degree Master of Fine Arts

Degree Program Interactive Media

Degree Conferral Date 2024-05

Publication Date 04/18/2024

Defense Date 04/18/2024

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

Tag adventure,Cool,Egregore,game,graph,guy,michael,MYST,OAI-PMH Harvest

Format theses (aat)

Language English

Contributor Electronically uploaded by the author (provenance)

Advisor Bolas, Mark (committee member), Nealen, Andy (committee member)

Creator Email mrswahba13@gmail.com,wahbam@usc.edu

Permanent Link (DOI) https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-oUC113889908

Unique identifier UC113889908

Identifier etd-WahbaMicha-12837.pdf (filename)

Legacy Identifier etd-WahbaMicha-12837

Document Type Thesis

Format theses (aat)

Rights Wahba, Michael

Internet Media Type application/pdf

Type texts

Source 20240422-usctheses-batch-1143 (batch), 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 author, as the original true and official version of the work, but does not grant the reader permission to use the work if the desired use is covered by copyright. It is the author, as rights holder, who must provide use permission if such use is covered by copyright.

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

Repository Email cisadmin@lib.usc.edu