The Beginning
For many years now I have been slowly forming a game in my mind. As with most of my ideas, it is daunting and epic. I started writing up the design document in 2001, and apart from some tweaking and polishing haven’t gone much further with it. Part of the problem is that while I have the groundwork, overall structure (including a huge cosmological arc), and beginning, the details inbetween are still only vaguely suggesting themselves to me. So I’ve decided to start posting the beginnings of the story here. If I have to follow up, it may force me to find the next pieces more quickly. It’s quite possible it may only ever be a story, which is fine too. In some ways it would be preferrable - creating a world with words is much easier than building and coding it. Plus I think publishing a novel serially via a website is a neat way of writing. Still, it’s a game I’ve always wanted to make.
Something was wrong. Paused at a crest in the road, sensing the life in and around him, Brej knew it surely. A cool evening wind was blowing from the west, ruffling the dark canopy of trees below him, and smelling of a far away ocean. He closed his eyes and held the understanding between breaths. The land beneath his feet, the vast and open sky above him, the private world within him - all spoke in unison of trouble.
The feeling was not new. He had struggled with it much of his life, without understanding. Like a subtle ache it had troubled his boisterous childhood with unreasonable shadow. During adolescence it had intensified, and he’d sought the counsel of a wise one. Many long evenings were spent staring into the fire trying to explain his anxiety. The elder had called it “bwer-na”, referring to the small sacks of grain tied around the ankles of lame children to strengthen weak limbs. There had been a smile of knowing and compassion on his face when he’d spoken it and a hand of comfort on his shoulder. It was both a loving and pointed metaphor. Yet it had only intensified the frustration, because by it he knew the elder didn’t quite understand. There had been tears too, shared quietly and without judgement, but no resolution.
Exhaling, he opened his eyes. The sun was sliding below the horizon, drawing an acute detail of silver latticing across the underside of high, wind blown clouds. Ahead of him the road ran down until it passed from view behind a turn of trees in the dim distance. Still broadened by epiphany, he felt the hum of strength in his body and the clarity of his own thought.
Years of doubt coalesced into certainty. It wasn’t just him. Something was horribly out of place. Even as he understood, he knew he was touching the edge of a great mystery. It was beyond him and had pressed against him; he could not have known it otherwise.
Then illusively, just as it had come, the feeling faded into the chill dusk leaving his senses sharp and clear. Another part of him, a much deeper part he could not name, stirred at the passing and was still again.
He shivered. A purr of crickets covered the new evening as he pulled the hood of his coat over his head, shrugged his pack between his shoulders, and with soft strides passed purposefully into the gathering night.
posted by monty · at 6:21 pm · filed under Uncategorized
Hmm. It sounds like the user needs to take on a lot of the characters emotions and traits at the start of this blurb.
I’ve been reading through “Creating Emotion in game”s by David Freeman. It has some interesting things to consider. At the same time not all design solutions are found inside a book. But it has inspired me in a gothic romantic adventure game design that I’ve been working on. Simply because I did not take into account that the gamer has to be able to take on the roll for the emotion and genre to work properly. And the design must allow you to have Empathy with the character, once you’ve done that you open a shitload of doors for the gamer to play and FEEL the game. Err I dunno. Freeman has a website.
http://www.freemangames.com/idea/
http://www2.beyondstructure.com/start.php
The book also really shows how different creating emotion in a game and a movie are. You need to do it in a more complex way. Freeman has worked in both industries (not that his movies are well known, http://us.imdb.com/name/nm0293351/ ).