This week we went over the the development of games, and Twine! Ooooo twinnneeee. What is twine you ask?
Twine is considered a video game, but not in the sense that we remember it. Twine is deigned to be sort of a “story mode” narration of what a typical game may hold. Think of the yourself talking with fellow NPC’s around the map and they give you an option of how you can respond, that is what twine likes to do.
Twine itself though isn’t the game, it’s the platform that you get to create on. If you want your game to involve a walk through of a jungle, you can do so. If you want it to be set in the mid 1700’s, you can do that as well. What twine’s biggest focus is thought, the roll that the character might want to play. When creating the game itself you have to consider your options, are they achievers, socializers, killers? What type of character are they?
By understanding what roll and audience the character are going to take, will help you understand how you want to build it. If you don’t give a clear path through the narrative, it isn’t going to come out so pretty. Those who want to achieve goals and “unlock” everything need to have the ability to do so. If you don’t offer them, then how can I happen?
Now, you might ask yourself, can’t there be multiple styles within the same game? And the answer is yes, there can be and there will more than likely be so as well. By including options for the player, this will provide ways to access all representations of what the player can be. This can add elements like suspense and risks.
Suspense in a game is always necessary, and without it, often a game can be boring. If there isn’t any stakes involved, why bother participating right? Maybe for the socializer this is fine, but for the others it won’t work out the way they are hoping for. Often, risk is what creates the suspense. Risk is where something can happen to said player based on choices they make. Let’s say they can choose to enter the creepy basement or simply close the door. Naturally suspense is now created because they might wonder “what is down there?” By choosing to go, they might die or find something scary. That suspense allows the player to think about their choices before they take the initial risk.
Comments
3 responses to “We’re Developing a game!… not really.”
You discuss Twine and how it can be used to create games. You mixed in the elements that will make a game successful, like audience, suspense, and game choices. One thing in particular that you said that stood out to me was the line “By including options for the player, this will provide ways to access all representations of what the player can be.” It is important for all players to find something they can enjoy in the game, and your statement talks about that. I like the phrasing of “representations” because that’s what the game really is, a simple representation of what the player can be rather than the player actually being something. You also mention suspense and how important it is. I will say suspenseful moments during games are the most enjoyable.
You emphasize suspense, which I think is a interesting perspective of choices. Usually I think of choices in video games being informed by the information you have, your perspective within the game, and what you are hoping to achieve. But reframing it with the idea of suspense makes me ask, what if the lack of information is what makes a choice interesting? It makes me rethink how I approach video games and how I would design one. Moreover, what does that make of Puzzle games? Puzzle games are all about giving the player a good amount of information then letting them put the pieces together. But what if we reframed it as though the fun comes from the lack of knowledge of how the pieces come together?
I do think this raises issue with the conception of Mastery. Mastery is no longer about suspense or risk, it is about demonstrating skill over the mechanics, it comes after the suspense.
Great post, you’ve given me a lot to think on!
Oh I love talking about games. I hesitate to call myself a ‘gamer’ just because of the hilarity of that sentiment, but I have thought long and hard about how games work and why they work the way they do. Twine might not be a game, but I would argue that the interactive nonfiction project that we are working on can be considered a game, albeit a small one. Some of the projects we’ve heard about in class sound so fun that I would play them if I encountered them out in the wild.
In some of my research for another one of my classes (I’m writing an essay about games, shocker, I know), I found that there’s actually a lot of debate about what constitutes a game and how interactivity plays into game development! Building something with a ‘player’ in mind is step one to that. I think we’re well on our way with your projects!