Consequence Tree/Flow Chart
After I had developed the first concept of the game along with the general story (being the start and end) I made a simple progression path showing what would happen. After this was created I soon created the developed version, which also made use of a newer concept. The main change that was made was that mini bosses were taken out of the concept, as originally we had planned to make the whole game and we knew creating and coding the bosses would take too much time, and therefore the level objectives were changed to solving a puzzle.
Basic first concept shown below:
Creating the developed Flowchart for the new (and more finalised) concept
Before developing my story any further, I decided that creating a consequence tree would be a good idea.
However, a consequence tree, as the name suggests, portrays the different routes a story can take depending on the different story options or routes that the player decides to take throughout the game. The problems with this is that the story I have developed is more linear, with no player options. Because of this my consequence tree will be more comparable to that of a flowchart.
Upon carrying out a section of real world research (Shown under my research/V&A post) I had the idea to use cards to plan my story (and show where different event would occur and when different important characters would be introduced). However, upon creating my own, I ended up going into a bit more detail in terms of the events occurring, which I decided to do so I had a bit more of an idea of the general story occurring at each section/level of the game.
The current flow chart follows the story outline/concept for my most recent story concept. Although there are a few levels/sections of story that I will likely end up editing or changing completely, as I feel some of the current concepts (especially aspects of levels 4 and 5) are rather weak and ineffective. Thankfully, me changing the story for any levels other than level 1 or 2 shouldn't cause a problem for my group, as their focus in terms of production is the creation of the first two levels.
My Story outline 'flowchart' is shown below:
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Decision Making
While developing the stories for each level, there was a number of decisions that I was required to make.
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The first decision was what level would be what. I already had the concepts for the levels but now was when I decided the order.
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When ordering the levels, I attempted to use the levels with the more basic themes towards the beginning of the game.
Originally, my idea was to have Cascade island (Island 4) as island 3. However, I felt that this might be weird, as that would be Glacies island (the frozen island) would be next to Ignis island (a volcano island). It was then that I decided that the order would be Litore Island, Sandvine Island, Glacies Island, Cascade Island, Ignis Island, and then the Mecha Shark.
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I felt as though this was fitting, as the themes changed significantly from one island to the next, which I felt would reflect well in gameplay (even though we aren't creating the whole game), and the conditions of the island would vary.
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Problem Solving/Research Influence
There was one main problem that I encountered while carrying out this task. This problem was that I struggled to think of a unique story/event to occur for island 4, and then I also struggled to think of how to introduce the final crew member into the game./story.
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Thankfully I was able to solve these problems somewhat simply.
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My first problem was that I couldn't think of something unique to do for the story of level 4, and then when I did, I wasn't sure whether they were acceptable for PEGI 7. I left level 4s concept somewhat open, and then came back to decide on the concept at a later point once I had carried out some research. This research was into violence in PEGI 7 games, and I found that quite a few actually include quite a bit of violence. Becasue of this, I was able to settle on the concept of the protagonist stealing a ship from pirates after fighting them (but I was
only able to decide on this after finding out this sort of violence would be acceptable.
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Reflection
I feel as though the stories I have developed for each of my levels are all somewhat unique, and ould link to the gameplay rather well. Some of the later levels could do with some improvement a little later on in the project, but for now, at least, I believe that they are fine.
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In addition to this, I was able to somewhat make the story reflect that of the 3 act structure, as the first three levels would consist of the set up/incident, levels 4 and 5 would consist of the confrontation (with the antagonists, Mecha Shark), and then the final level would consist of resolution.
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Becasue of this, I feel as though the story for the levels that I have developed isn't too bad, and will be effective for our game, as well as being appealing to the audience (especially as the happy ending is being used, which was stated to be the most popular type of ending from my questionnaire.