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There You Are: an exploration of storytelling methods using in video games
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Content
There You Are: An Exploration of Storytelling Methods Using in Video Games
by
Rong Deng
A Thesis Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE SCHOOL OF CINEMATIC ARTS
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
MASTER OF FINE ARTS
(INTERACTIVE MEDIA)
May 2021
Copyright 2021 Rong Deng
ii
Acknowledgments
Creating There You Are was more challenging than I thought and more rewarding than I
could have ever imagined. I would like to express my sincere appreciation to my thesis
committee team Richard Lemarchand, Tracy Fullerton, Maureen McHugh Yeager, and Erin
Reynolds, for their help in bringing this project to life. Richard Lemarchand, my thesis
chair, and his dynamism, vision, sincerity, and motivation have deeply inspired me. He
broadened my horizons with his insight into the game experience's details and kept me on track
with the production process. Tracy Fullerton, without her help, this project wouldn't exist. Her
wisdom and advice on story, storytelling, and game design have directed me and the
development of this project. Maureen McHugh Yeager taught me her unique insight and
expertise in the story, guided me by optimizing the structure, and exploring characters' needs and
wants. Erin Reynolds, my industry advisor, has the magic of coming up with creative ideas. Her
attitude about games for good and her generosity and creativity inspired me a lot. In addition to
my committee, I would like to extend my sincere gratitude to my thesis class advisors: Laird
Malamed, Danny Bilson, Carl Schnurr, and Jane Pinckard, for keeping our thesis development
on track, sharing your wisdom about games and life, and inviting visiting professors for us to
improve our thesis quality. Special thanks to Scott Easley, Marientina Gotsis, and Andreas
Kratky for your advice and help. I also would like to thank the faculty and staff of the Interactive
Media and Games Department. During this arduous year, the support they have shown me
equipped me with the necessary skills and confidence to overcome this project's challenge.
I was so grateful to have Elizabeth Gill Brauer from Animation Department help Rui and
me figure out our family story during the summer. Her generous, patient, and professional
attitude inspired us and provided us the confidence to keep working on the project.
iii
Finally, I want to thank my talented partner Rui Huang from Animation Department. She
is earnest, rigorous, productive, and yet imaginative at the same time. She can foresee the 3D
world we will create based on the concept and amaze everyone in the end. Thank my family and
friends, I wouldn't have such a memorable experience at USC without your support.
iv
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments........................................................................................................................... ii
List of Tables .................................................................................................................................. v
List of Figures ................................................................................................................................ vi
Abstract .......................................................................................................................................... ix
Chapter 1: Introduction ................................................................................................................... 1
Overview ................................................................................................................. 2
Chapter 2: The Design Process ....................................................................................................... 3
Research .................................................................................................................. 3
Prior Art .................................................................................................................. 5
Narrative Design ................................................................................................... 12
Visual Design ........................................................................................................ 17
Mechanic Design .................................................................................................. 23
Chapter 3: Evaluation of the Game Experience ............................................................................ 34
The RITE Method ................................................................................................. 34
Chapter 4: Conclusion................................................................................................................... 35
Bibliography ................................................................................................................................. 36
v
List of Tables
Table 1: The Final Structure of There You Are ........................................................................................... 33
vi
List of Figures
Figure 1: Interactive choice in The Awesome Adventures of Captain Spirit .................................. 5
Figure 2: Branch dialog in Detroit .................................................................................................. 7
Figure 3: Last scene of Ordinary People ........................................................................................ 8
Figure 4: Screenshot of Cocoon - Finding .................................................................................... 10
Figure 5: Screenshot of Vincent - Lost ......................................................................................... 10
Figure 6: Bear Story's real-world and mechanic equipment world............................................... 11
Figure 7: Character Coraline ......................................................................................................... 11
Figure 8: The Pixar story format structure .................................................................................... 13
Figure 9: Dan Harmon Story Circle structure ............................................................................... 14
Figure 10: Latest emotional arc .................................................................................................... 16
Figure 11: Family change concept ................................................................................................ 18
Figure 12: Father and girl's 3d models .......................................................................................... 19
Figure 13: House layout top-down view ....................................................................................... 19
Figure 14: Girl's room window-side ............................................................................................. 20
Figure 15: Girl's room desk-side ................................................................................................... 20
Figure 16: Girl's room gadgets - locking metaphor ...................................................................... 21
vii
Figure 17: Living room ................................................................................................................. 21
Figure 18: Scene One & Two 5 pm - 6 pm; Scene Three 8 pm – 9 pm....................................... 22
Figure 19: Scene Four psycho world; Scene Five memory (paper-cutting) ................................ 22
Figure 20: Scene Six midnight rainy ............................................................................................ 22
Figure 21: Paper prototype ............................................................................................................ 23
Figure 22: Non-interactable vs. interactable ................................................................................. 24
Figure 23: Connecting gameplay prototype in VR ....................................................................... 25
Figure 24: The Plutchik wheel of emotion ................................................................................... 25
Figure 25: Blue (surprise) hand trigger the purple (discussed) memory ...................................... 26
Figure 26: The design concept of diary gameplay ........................................................................ 26
Figure 27: Breath QTE – breath in ............................................................................................... 29
Figure 28: Clean up items on the floor ......................................................................................... 29
Figure 29: Emotional moment – put away her duffelbag and broken frame ................................ 30
Figure 30: The arc of Su's anger change ....................................................................................... 30
Figure 31: Everything collapses during Su walking up the staircase ........................................... 31
Figure 32: Collapse in her room ................................................................................................... 31
Figure 33: Su walking to her dad .................................................................................................. 32
viii
Figure 34: Mom's art disappearing ............................................................................................... 32
ix
Abstract
There You Are is an exploratory narrative game that features stop-motion-styled graphic
design and two endings from the player's choices and actions. In this game, the player will role-
play the girl, Su, to deal with her father's relationship to move away from the past and accept the
loss of her mom. While many games already touch on this type of topic to a certain extent, There
You Are uses both storytelling methods and game design principles to exquisitely craft each story
beat and depict an emotional bittersweet story within 15 minutes.
1
Chapter 1: Introduction
I hated growing up; maybe life was just a joke; I was scared and could not sleep at night.
It was 2015; my grandfather had just passed away. My family avoided talking about it. We
pretended everything was the same. But I couldn't escape the fear of the power of death and the
loss in my heart. The memory of my grandfather still filled me. Pretending to be assertive
couldn't change anything. After years of grieving, I finally realized: the memory we hold of each
other is where I can find you, and know, there you will always be in my world.
Not just for me but for most people, the loss of loved ones is inevitable, which means the
grief of loss is a required course in life. Prolonged grief makes a unique contribution to the
functional impairment and psychiatric morbidity of bereaved children and adolescents.
1
Those of
us who can remember our first encounter with death know that childhood experiences with death
can be frightening and lonely. However, if handled with warmth, understanding, and caring, our
early experience with death can be an opportunity to learn about life and living as well as death
and dying.
2
With this idea, I created a gift for young people. In There You Are, I wanted to let the
player go into Su's world, role-play as her. Understanding her situation, figuring out her problem,
emotions, and making branching dialog choices to deal with her relationship with her father. In
this game, the player might be Su, might be a viewer or might switch between the viewer's
perspective and Su. There are many games related to this topic, e.g., Rime, The Awesome
Adventures of Captain Spirit and Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons, etc.
There You Are is a story based on real-life drama, not genre-based. It is a small and
personal story from everyday life and builds on everyday conflicts. In There You Are, I
1
Nadine M. Melhem, PhD; Giovanna Porta, MS; Wael Shamseddeen, MD; Monica Walker Payne, MA; David A. Brent, MD.
2011. Grief in Children and Adolescents Bereaved by Sudden Parental Death. ARCH GEN PSYCHIATRY/VOL 68 (NO. 9), SEP
2011 WWW.ARCHGENPSYCHIATRY.COM
2
Alan Wolfelt, PhD. 1983. Helping Children Cope with Grief
2
focus more on the relationship between the player characters and the player, exploratory
narrative, and storytelling method used in gameplay in a short story. I hope this will help the
future of narrative games in which characters have their own emotions and background stories.
Overview
The idea of this game was born at the end of 2019. At that time, Rui Huang, an MFA
student in the Animation department, got involved. She wanted to collaborate on the story and
create a short animation of it for her thesis. In spring 2020, the idea became a project in Professor
Tracy Fullerton's directing class.
3
We built our experience goal: players will feel sympathy
initially, then have the responsibility to help the girl and finally get catharsis in the end. And
pillars: moving story, environmental exploration and puzzles, colorful imaginary art, and feels
authentic. In the following summer, we recreated our story with Elizabeth Gill Brauer's help. In
the 2020-21 academic year, we built this game on the PC platform with the Unreal engine.
3
In spring 2021 it was CTIN 480 Directing for Games and Interactive Media
3
Chapter 2: The Design Process
In There You Are, Rui and I wanted to create a story in which a girl who lost her mother a
couple of years ago is still sinking in unresolved grief, but her dad wants to move on in the
aftermath of traumatic loss. To create believable characters and environment, we referred to two
of our friends' experiences. One lost her father when she was very young, and another lost her
mother in her elementary school years. But those were not enough. To capture the
character's inner change, the lasting effects of the trauma, and possible resulting behaviors, we
needed to dig deep into grief research.
Research
The research was guided by three key questions: what is unresolved grief? What helps
people move from the grieving process? And how does childhood bereavement change the child
mentally and behaviorally? The last question was key in designing the main character.
What is Unresolved Grief?
The unresolved relationship means the person can't be open to new relationships, so they
have closed themselves down, still holding on to this other relationship. They're stuck in these
old bad feelings, complaints, and in one or more unmet needs. They needed validation and/or
they needed support. But they didn't get it because the person died, the relationship ended. They
are still looking for support, love, protection and are sad about what they missed/angry about
how the person mistreated them.
4
4
The Counselling Channel, “Unfinished business – unresolved grief”
4
How Can We Help Them Move on the Grief Process?
Help them fully express the anger in this sadness, and it's almost always anger and
sadness. Access the core pain: what's the part that hurts the most.
5
The girl's core pain in There You Are is revealed when she opens the wardrobe and
confronts the happy memory with her deceased mother.
How does Childhood Bereavement Change the Child Mentally and
Behaviorally?
"Everything changed...I mean, everything about my life completely did a 180 when my
mom died."
6
Colleen M. Scott's Childhood Bereavement: A Qualitative Study mentioned the
significant phenomenon is Immediate Personal Change. Scientists divided it into Internal
Changes and Behavioral Changes. For the Internal Changes, most participants said the changes
took place immediately following the death and continued to evolve over the weeks and months
after. And those changes were immediate and profound. Some of them experienced emotional
upheaval; anger was the emotion they reported the most often, and one respondent said she no
longer felt safe. For the Behavioral Changes, participants reported their behavior was affected by
their feelings. One of them said she quickly became old because she needed to take care of
herself as an adult. Some of them abused alcohol and, more concerning, exhibited suicidal
behavior. In addition to the personal changes, there were changes in family dynamics. Some
participants reported their surviving parents demonstrated mental problems, emotional distance
and escaped from home. Some of their surviving parents would actively avoid negative emotions
5
Ibid,. 3:00
6
Scott, Colleen M. “Childhood Bereavement: A Qualitative Study.” (2007), 38.
5
and refuse to talk about the death. Finally, some participants mentioned their close friends ended
their friendship.
From the research, we realized that we need to design the two characters' current status
and their future status, as well as changes in their personality, their relationship with each other,
and their friends before and after mom's death.
Prior Art
As mentioned above, There You Are is a story about daily life and requires deep
emotional expression. So the game draws on a wide range of prior art, video games, films,
music, and animations. I list the most important ones below.
Video Games
Video game references helped me establish both the structure of experience and our main
verbs used in different scenes.
The Awesome Adventure of Captain Spirit
Figure 1: Interactive choice in The Awesome Adventures of Captain Spirit
6
The Awesome Adventures of Captain Spirit is a narrative graphic adventure game. It is a
story about a 9-year-old imaginative boy, Chris, finding his superpower in a broken family.
We found the narrative graphic adventure game was the most suitable genre based on the
story we wanted to create. As for a reference game, Capital Spirit has the theme and tone we
wanted to make. So we used its world-building as a reference. On the production side, this game
provided a good model for camera control, branching dialog, and the UI/UX design of
interactable objects. On the story side, in both stories, the characters lost their mother, and they
are suffering from unresolved grief. Both games' locations are their houses. We determined that
the house was the best place to start because there were so many memories hiding there.
There You Are also differs substantially from it. Capital Spirit uses a small open-world
structure, and the player goals are not mandatory. The player can go through the whole game
without completing a single goal on the "awesome things to do" list. Capital Spirit also has a
time-lapse system, where the dad starts to watch basketball. In There You Are, we intended to
make it goal-oriented, and every modular needed to combine tightly to show the whole story arc
because the experience goals are cumulative. Captain Spirit wants the player to explore the
house, dig into the underground memory, and get at the current relationship between the boy and
his dad. However, in There You Are, we want the player to explore what has happened to this
vulnerable family and help the girl and her dad's relationship.
7
Detroit: Become Human - Chapter One
Figure 2: Branch dialog in Detroit
Detroit: Become Human features its countless paths and endings. It is a story about a
future where humans became resentful of the androids because of the high unemployment. And
the sentient androids rebel at being servants by launching their rebellion at the same time.
Chapter one is an independent story, about 20 minutes long. The goal is evident and
apparent - save the hostage. The gameplay structure is straightforward: Setup with an intro
cutscene, then explore to find evidence, finally negotiate with the criminal using branch dialog.
This step-by-step game process is a better structure for pushing the story moving on. So
in There You Are, we planned to use three groups of step-by-step (Explore, then Branching
dialog) modules to tell the story. We changed the structure later on during the development, but
this was our fundamental.
The world-building, camera control, and the augmented vision in Detroit: Become
Human are very impressive. But we didn't use them in There You Are because Detroit's camera
does not always follow the main character. It sometimes cuts to the dome camera when the
player is walking in/out of a room. And the augmented vision is not suitable for the world setting
in our game.
8
I also referred to video games such as Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons, The Dragon,
Cancer, Dear Eather, Gone Home, What Remains of Edith Fench, etc.
Films
Film references helped Rui and me craft the characters, the environment, and the story
flow.
Ordinary People (1980)
Figure 3: Last scene of Ordinary People
Calvin "Cal" Jarrett: "We would've been all right if there hadn't been any… mess."
Ordinary People tells a story of dealing with grief after one child dies in an accident.
We have listed ten films about grief. This one had helped us the most. The dad in There
You Are based on the dad in this film. He is friendly, gentle, trying to balance everything, but he
accidentally creates conflict. We'll also refer to the storytelling method in this film, including
context delivery, character development, and the relationship between characters.
However, it is a film. Audiences are getting and analyzing information and emotion all
the time. But Games are different. It's based on interactivities, and the player has the natural
power to control more in the game environment.
9
Other Films
Booksmart
Booksmart is a story about two high school bookworms who want to join a party on their
graduation day.
This film has nothing to do with grief. But one of the protagonists, Amy Antsler, was an
important influence for Su's character. She is a conscientious, organized, and anxious girl. She
tends to stick to what she knows in her personal life. She prefers her safe, cozy routine and gets
nervous when she steps outside her comfort zone.
Stutterer
This is a well-structured and well-told 12 minute story about a stutterer's inner change.
We found this film is the best reference for the length, scope, and how many conflict and story
beats we need. So we analyzed this film multiple times and referred to its structure.
We also referred to films such as A Monster Calls, Manchester by the Sea, The Phone
Call, etc.
Animations
Animation references helped Rui and I create the visual component, including the
character and environment's design and the external and internal world's visual expression.
10
Cocoon – A Short Film about Grief & Loss
Figure 4: Screenshot of Cocoon - Finding
Cocoon is a short animation with a narrator reading a poem. It captures the inner feeling
of loss and grieving and beautifully describes them. Though it is not a story, it provided us a way
to tell and measure the internal emotional state.
Vincent by Tim Burton
Figure 5: Screenshot of Vincent - Lost
Vincent is a short stop-motion film about a boy switching between his imaginary world
and the real world.
11
We used some referred to the visual design techniques to show the inner emotional world
by making the world black and white and using a spotlight.
Bear Story
Figure 6: Bear Story's real-world and mechanic equipment world
Bear Story tells a story about a father who lost his family and told his story in hand-made
mechanic equipment. It has a beautiful memory scenario, and we referred to its transition.
Coraline
Figure 7: Character Coraline
Coraline is a well-known stop-motion film made by Laika. Rui is a big fan of Laika,
especially for their character and environment design. So we referred it to our character design.
12
We also referred to animations such as Daisy, Mr. Hublot, Inside Out, etc.
Music
Music references helped me dig into the emotional world with imagination.
Hent I and Pern by Yann Tiersen. It starts from unrest to memory influxes.
Energy Flow by Ryuichi Sakamoto. It provides a feeling of memory waves.
I also referred to music such as Eden Roc from Ludovico Einaudi, Gris Original
Soundtrack, Ori and the Blind Forest Original Soundtrack, etc.
Narrative Design
Story Structure
In summer 2020, Rui and I decided to figure out the story to provide a blueprint for both
her animation and our game. At that time, we had designed a first-person dream-like experience
based on the research. But we had trouble revealing the main character, Su's internal change.
Finally, we found that the dream-like Su's inner feeling was not a story. After that, we decided to
rewrite the story to build Su's real world, conflict, and changes.
Based on the Three-Act structure, we went through different formats to build our story
beats.
13
The Pixar Story Format
Figure 8: The Pixar story format structure
We tried the Pixar Story Format initially, and it helped us collect ideas and build the
structure. But the story flow was flat. We had to involve another story format to help us twist
plots. We thought about the Hero's Journey.
Hero's Journey by Joseph John Campbell
The Hero's Journey is a standard template of stories that involve a hero who goes on an
adventure and changes himself and the world in the end. It requires some characters such as
enemies, goddesses, the father, and women as the temptress. As we brought up new characters
and events to the story, it became too long. But we were constrained by the requirement that
Rui's animation should be less than five minutes. And the game we made needed to be less than
15 minutes, or the scope would be too large to finish in a year. We had to find a shorter structure.
Dan Harmon Story Circle
The Story Circle is an approach to plotting that Dan Harmon
7
adapted from the Hero's
Journey.
7
Dan Harmon is an American writer, producer, actor and comedian and is well-known by his Rick and Morty series.
14
Figure 9: Dan Harmon Story Circle structure
The Story Circle was a suitable structure for us. After analyzing some short films and
developing our story with this format, we figured out that we need one intense conflict and one
cathartic resolution. The unfamiliar situation (No. 3 in the circle) should be where the main
character got hurt the most. In the book Pixar Storytelling: Rules for Effective Storytelling Based
on Pixar's Greatest Films by Dean Movshovitz demonstrated: "This discomfort is more than just
bad luck or a worst-case scenario. It is a catalyst that forces our hero to react, and in the best
movies, to grow and change."
We followed most parts of the Story Circle. Except No. 5: our main character Su didn't
get what she wanted; instead, she got another strong punch.
Character(s) in Situation by Maureen McHugh Yeager
I learned this method in Maureen's Interactive Writing class. After practicing lots of
writing, I found "characters in situations" was the cornerstone of stories that kept the story
moving forward. This method became significant during the story development process in There
You Are. It could reveal characters' personalities, feelings, and relationships.
15
Professor Fullerton's Question
Why does this story need to happen today? What makes it unique today?
These questions occurred after Rui and I developed the rough story beats. They helped us
push two characters into a more intense situation. Base on that, our new setup became: tomorrow
is dad's birthday; the family tradition is going to camp on that day; they continued this tradition
after Su's mother passed away. But this year, dad wants to celebrate his birthday at home.
Latest Emotional Arc
With those explorations, we finally developed the emotional arc, and the story beats
overview.
16
Figure 10: Latest emotional arc
Story Beats Overview
1. Su prepares dad's birthday plan for their traditional camping. It is the first time she does
this, and it is her birthday gift to him.
2. Dad cancel the camping. Then Su quarrel with dad. Accidently, they break mom's paper-
cutting work.
17
3. Su is so sad and angry and rejects dad's attempt at reconciliation. With the player's help,
she feels better.
4. Su hears her father breaks up on the phone with his girlfriend of two-year. Su then finds a
message saved on the papercutting from her mother. She feels guilty. Su enters her
emotional world. With her mother's guidence, she understands Gina could not replace her
mom.
5. Su finally opens her memory.
6. Su compromises with dad/stays in unresolved grief
Visual Design
The visual design was the crucial part of There You Are. Rui responded to all of them,
and she did an outstanding job.
Character Design
Concept
We started the character concept design when we knew our main character was a girl. We
plan to make this story for teenagers, so we set up our main character, Su, a 16-year-old girl. Her
mother was an optimistic paper-cutting artist and always full of ideas and energy. Relatively, her
father was an equanimous imperturbable music professor. We also decided our story happened in
1990 because Rui and I are big fans of the retro style.
18
Figure 11: Family change concept
As the family change concept shows in Figure 11, the original family (left) was more
colorful. Su(11-year-old) was an optimistic and cheerful girl. By contrast, the current
family(right) Su was anxious, rebellious, and considerate. The background story was her mom
died five years ago. Her dad wants to move the family forward. He has a girlfriend, Gina.
They've been together for two years, but Gina hasn't been to Su and the father's home because Su
is scared that Gina will replace her mom.
Latest 3D Characters
The character changed a bit, along with the development. Rui added cute beanies and
changed the father's cloth into a sweater because the story was located at home, and in the game,
it's the early spring (March 24
th
). She also added a pair of glasses to Su's father because we
wanted him to be more vulnerable.
19
Figure 12: Father and girl's 3d models
Environment Design
The story happened in the girl's house. There are three central locations: the girl's room,
the living room, and the hallway with a staircase.
Figure 13: House layout top-down view
20
We scoped to two main rooms because Rui did all the visual design, modeling, texturing,
and animation film.
Design Girl's Room
Rui wanted to keep the whimsical and vintage style for the girl's room, so she used the
wooden material and the retro-styled shape and added some gadgets.
Figure 14: Girl's room window-side
Figure 15: Girl's room desk-side
21
Figure 16: Girl's room gadgets - locking metaphor
Design Living Room
Rui said the living room's design was more straightforward – make it feel like a typical
1990's living room.
Figure 17: Living room
22
Variety in the House Follow the Girl's Mood
To deal with the art fatigue caused by space's limitation, we had different lighting for
different times of the day and for the inner emotional world. It also helped create the depth of the
girl's mood.
Figure 18: Scene One & Two 5 pm - 6 pm; Scene Three 8 pm – 9 pm
Figure 19: Scene Four psycho world; Scene Five memory (paper-cutting)
Figure 20: Scene Six midnight rainy
23
Mechanic Design
Experience Goal
Players will feel sympathy initially, then feel the responsibility to help the girl and finally
get catharsis in the end.
Early Stage Exploration
At the beginning of this project, I only planned to create a first-person VR experience and
use its immersive power. I didn't realize how much the difference between first-person and third-
person would impact There You Are. Here is the early-stage exploration.
Paper Prototype
Figure 21: Paper prototype
I started with a paper prototype. The setting was Su (the player) is sitting in front of her
desk, and she heard a woman's singing coming from a drawer, but it was locked and required
24
three numbers to unlock. Also, there was a minor puzzle that was reordering Su's letter to her
mother.
My hypothesis was to build an idea for the player that Su's weird behavior was related to
her mom. However, players focused on finding the clue to unlocking the drawer and didn't notice
the mother and daughter relationship.
After this failure, I noticed that the player was not Su, and he/she might not behave the
same as Su. However I didn't recognize how important it was, as I thought the main problem was
we weren't using the "right" verb to tell this story.
Connecting the Gameplay Prototype
After discussing the problem with Rui, we used "connect" as a key verb throughout the
game. Because Su likes drawing, the player needs to draw connections. Players could make
objects interactable by connecting them in VR. The target object would change to saturated after
drawing a connecting line.
Figure 22: Non-interactable vs. interactable
25
Figure 23: Connecting gameplay prototype in VR
This mechanic worked in the playtest, and everybody knew to draw a connection. It
seemed everything worked well, but the players still failed to understand Su and behave like her.
Emotional Gameplay Prototype
To make the player feel close to Su, I tried to use puzzle gameplay to deliver the girl's
memory.
Figure 24: The Plutchik wheel of emotion
26
This design referred to the Plutchik wheel of emotion
8
. When the player touched an
object, it would recall a memory type and bring back an emotion. The feeling would change the
character's hand color. The goal was to find the green emotion (fear).
Figure 25: Blue (surprise) hand trigger the purple (discussed) memory
Most people completed the puzzle, and they understood the memory contents but didn't
feel that they got close to the character and could behave like the character.
Diary Gameplay Prototype
Figure 26: The design concept of diary gameplay
In my last prototype, I designed connecting interactivity to deliver the feeling that the
main character was writing a diary. The mechanic was simply drawing a line to link icon one
(T1) to icon two (T2), then to icon three (T3). After that, the diary would fade in on the paper.
However, in the playtest, players said they wanted to scribble as they liked and didn't understand
8
Created by Psycologist Robert Plutchik
27
why texts were shown. It felt like decoding a puzzle more than writing a diary. Players didn't
recognize they were Su.
From First Person VR to 3
rd
Person PC
After going through all the prototypes and playtests, I finally went back to the most
critical question: what was the relationship between the character, Su, and the VR player?
The answer was the player was not identifying themselves as Su. They didn't role-play as
Su without understanding her by knowing her through her appearance, emotions, and
background story.
As a designer, we have a principle that the player should make critical decisions in the
game. But this is based on the interactive mechanisms, not the narrative. For example, it would
be another story if Abby didn't kill Joel in Last of Us Part Two.
9
It's hard to introduce the main
character in first-person VR if I wanted the player to show empathy to her and help her. Because
without the character's facial expressions and voice, it's hard to build the empathy bridge
between the player and the character in a short narrative game. Professor Richard Lemarchand
told me that our brains are trying to read facial muscles and eyes to get emotional information
upon which to get empathy. Showing the character became the only solution. Then there was the
following question: should I still keep the game in VR? If the player is an invisible VR spectator
in this story with a 3rd-person view, it doesn't use the most vital part of this platform, presence.
After struggling for a long time, I asked for Professor Fullerton's advice. With her suggestion, I
decided to pivot to a 3rd person PC game.
9
Last of Us Part 2 is a video game created by Naughty Dog.
28
3
rd
Person Design Process
After the shift to the 3rd person PC, everything started to move forward smoothly.
Followed the emotional arc, I decided not to put the player in the flow state
10
because there was
rare emotion during the flow state. I tried to use a different way to deliver content and used
empathy and sympathy to bring players into this game. It was easier to show empathy to the
characters if they have animations and voices. So I put character animations and casting on my
list. The big picture of There You Are started to take shape.
Thanks to the VR exploration and the work with Rui, the ideas of Scene One, Scene Two,
Scene Five, and Scene Six came out very fast. Design Scene Three and Scene Four became two
challenges.
Design Scene Three
I wanted the player to feel sorry for Su and help her to find calm. How does Su feel?
What verbs support the relationship between Su and players? The keyword here is help. Could
the player understand this setup?
Deep Breathing
My first idea was deep breathing. It is a common way to release anger. I used a holding
and releasing QTE(Quick Time Event) to mimic the rhythm of breath-in and breath-out.
The button was initially "W", but in playtest, people reported it felt as it should mean
"up," and after discussion with Professor Lemarchand, we changed it to the left mouse button.
10
Flow state named by Mihaly Csikszentihalyi in 1975. It is a mental state in which a person performing some activities is fully
immersed in a feeling of energized focus.
29
Figure 27: Breath QTE – breath in
There was no tutorial for this QTE. We were worried that the player wouldn't figure it
out. But in the playtest, everybody figured it out in less than a minute.
Clean Up
Let the player help Su put away her items for camping to enforce the sad feeling. On the
gameplay side, it's a memory puzzle. Players should find items' original place in Scene One.
Figure 28: Clean up items on the floor
30
Some items have a short cutscene to show their emotional content.
Figure 29: Emotional moment – put away her duffel bag and broken frame
The Arc of Su's anger change in Scene 3
Figure 30: The arc of Su's anger change
However, though we used various gameplay methods, we didn't make the goal crystal
clear. We will keep developing on this.
Design Scene Four
Scene four is the most complex. It needed to have a reliable reason for the girl's change
and deliver the game's hidden message.
Su heard her father break up with Gina and witnessed him heartbroken. Then she got the
mother's leaving message asking her to watch out for her father and blamed herself.
31
"Horror Movie" Prototype
At first, I focused on internal emotion design, created different scenarios to show how
depressed the girl was. For example, everything falls apart when Su comes nearby.
Figure 31: Everything collapses during Su walking up the staircase
And showing her loneliness through isolation and camera angle.
Figure 32: Collapse in her room
However, they didn't work in the playtest. Nobody understood it, and some testers
reported that it felt like a horror movie. They complained that there weren't enough interactions.
A New Idea from Rui – Vincent
The previous prototype failed, but we benefited from the feedback. We had a clear goal –
to show Su's inernal world, and reveal she needs to do something there. The problem was how
32
could we let the player know it was Su's inner world. Rui introduced me to an animation,
Vincent. It used a spotlight to transit between the real world and the boy Vincent's psycho world.
It solved the problem perfectly, and the following design worked out immediately – play with the
spotlight. It also helped us solve another problem, where could we involve the mom. The final
design became Su's mother leads her to find the answer in Su's interior emotional landscape.
Figure 33: Su walking to her dad
Figure 34: Mom's art disappearing
This time everybody in the playtest understood!
33
The Final Structure of There You Are
Table 1: The Final Structure of There You Are
Contents Player Goal/Design Goal Gameplay Design
Scene 1
Su prepares dad's birthday
plan
Familiar with the game world Exploratory Narrative
Scene 2 Dad cancels the plan
Understand what is happening/Su and dad's
conflict delivery
Branch Dialogue
Scene 3
Su rejects dad's reconciliation;
calms down
Help Su to calm down/Raise Su's guilty and sad;
let players help Su
QTE; Memory Puzzle(clean
room)
Scene 4
Dad breaks up; Su felt guilty,
enters the internal world
Help Su get out of the psycho world/Deliver the
message of this game
QTE; Finding Puzzle; stick
heart puzzle
Scene 5 Memory (paper cutting)
Understand what has happened/Let players know
why Su holds on to her mom so tight
-
Scene 6
Su compromises with
dad/stays in unresolved grief
Players' decision for Su Players make a decision
34
Chapter 3: Evaluation of the Game Experience
The RITE Method
RITE (Rapid Iterative Test and Evaluation) is an iterative usability method that I learned
from Dennis Wixon. The high-level process is first
• Decide how to measure the users' behavior,
• Construct a test script
• Ask the users to think aloud.
Once the team collected the participant's data, they decide if they will make changes to
the prototype before the next participant. If they do, the remaining users will test with the
changed interface.
During the COVID, I used a simple version of RITE on Zoom. My process was
playtesting, iterate, finding another player playtest again. If the mechanic worked, putting it into
the game, and dropping it if not. For every prototype, I have playtested at least one player. For
the game build, I've playtested with three to seven players when there was a big update, e.g., new
scenes. The more time for playtesting, the stronger the game was.
35
Chapter 4: Conclusion
The production of There You Are was a big challenge for me. But it was also an
extremely worthwhile journey for Rui and me. In the beginning, we set up this goal without any
suitable references. We didn't know what would come up in the end. I started to see the game in
the fall semester of 2020.
We are keeping working on Scene Three and Four and trying to make story beats clearer.
And we are also working on the light and iterating the model and animation to improve the
visual effect.
36
Bibliography
Melhem, N. M., Porta, G., Shamseddeen, W., Walker Payne, M., & Brent, D. A. (2011). Grief in
children and adolescents bereaved by sudden parental death. Archives of general
psychiatry, 68(9), 911–919. https://doi.org/10.1001/archgenpsychiatry.2011.101
Wolfelt, Alan.(1983) Helping Children Cope with Grief Muncie, Ind: Accelerated Development
Scott, Colleen. (2007). Childhood Bereavement: A Qualitative Study.
Vogler, C. (1992). The writer's journey : mythic structures for screenwriters and storytellers . M.
Wiese Productions.
Dean Movshovitz.(2018). Pixar Storytelling: Rules for Effective Storytelling Based on Pixar's
Greatest Films.
Robert Plutchik. (2001) "The Nature of Emotions: Human Emotions Have Deep Evolutionary
Roots, a Fact That May Explain Their Complexity and Provide Tools for Clinical Practice."
American scientist 89, no. 4 (2001): 344–350.
Abstract (if available)
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Asset Metadata
Creator
Deng, Rong
(author)
Core Title
There You Are: an exploration of storytelling methods using in video games
School
School of Cinematic Arts
Degree
Master of Fine Arts
Degree Program
Interactive Media
Publication Date
04/15/2021
Defense Date
04/14/2021
Publisher
University of Southern California
(original),
University of Southern California. Libraries
(digital)
Tag
game design,game development,OAI-PMH Harvest,storytelling method,video game
Language
English
Contributor
Electronically uploaded by the author
(provenance)
Advisor
Lemarchand, Richard (
committee chair
), Fullerton, Tracy (
committee member
), Reynolds, Erin (
committee member
), Yeager, Maureen (
committee member
)
Creator Email
rongdeng@usc.edu,rongdengdesign@gmail.com
Permanent Link (DOI)
https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-c89-442887
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UC11666515
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442887
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Deng, Rong
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Tags
game design
game development
storytelling method
video game