Creating Coherent Worlds

Fairy Tale Games

We have been told to look at games that have been inspired or are related to fairy tales. To begin with I thought this would of been a peice of cake, however the more I thought about it I realised that not many games I play are actually Fairy tales.

I began thinking of the basics that actually makes a fairy tale, so it's usually beginning with once upon a time, containing a hero/villian/damsel in distress etc. Then ending with a happily ever after.

One of the first games that came to my mind was Mario. The story of Mario is that his girlfriend (the Princess) is kidnapped by the villian (Bowser) and Mario has to go on an epic adventure to defeat him and save the Princess.

This is such a simple goal and mission that as a game mechanic it gets the player more envolved into the story aswell as helping the player understand the hero's motivation for his actions.

Another game that came to mind was Klonoa: Door to Phantomile. This fairy tale story is about a world fueled by dreams which comes under threat from a dark mysterious character called Ghadius and his minion Joka, these dark characters kidnap a songstress named Lephise and Klonoa and his friend Huepow decide to to go after them to rescue her. Along the way you battle creatures contolled by Ghadius and you learn you must stop him before he unleashes a destructive Nightmare upon the dream world. It does on the other hand have sad moments, as midway through the game the Joka goes back to your home town and kills your grandfather. I found this a much more dwelling and personal adventure than mario because of the personal bond you create with Klonoa and his friend Huepow, this personal bond you get is then broken at the end of the game as you learn Huepow is a prince of moon kingdom and you don't belong in the dream world so Lephise sings her "renew" song to heal the world sending Klonoa back to his world.

Story Worlds: An Exploration of what works

Today we had a lecture on how the narrative is important to any form of media whether it be a film, comic, game or graphic novel. The world can be overlooked or underestimated if the story works well.
We went through a list of examples to show how an opening of a story is important, as it has to immerse us and make us beleive in this world.
The first example was "The once was an old woman who lived in a wood..." This beginning shows us a small amount of knowledge for the world, as we know that it is in a wood. We can also learn from this that it is the traditional way of telling a story, making it a fairy tale.
The second example had some changes "There once was a very ancient woman, who lived in a wild and ancient forest..." This opening has narrowed the story and this means a narrowed veiw of the story and a far less imagination is needed as most of the description for the character and the environment for the character has been described in alot of detail.
When describing or developing a story driven media you have to be careful not to lose the targeted audience and then they will lose connection to what we are trying to make them imagine.

Vladimir Propp (1895 -1970)


Today we learnt about the author Propp who wrote 'Morphology of the folktale' this was published in 1928 however this was later a very important and influential throughout the world once it had been translated into english in 1958.
He quotes 'The word 'morphology' means the study of forms. In botan, the term 'morphology' means the study of component parts of a plant, of their relationship to each other and to the whole world - in other words, the study of a plants structure.
But what about a 'morphology of the folktale?' Scarcely anyone has thought about the possiblity of such a concept.'
When looking into what makes the story world connect with the character is how the environments are broken down and how the main character is given aid or some form side quest to help them gain there main goal. It is also shown in a change of structure in the main plot.
The examples that Propp uses are
1. A tsar gives an eagle to a hero. The eagle carries the hero away to another kingdom.
2. An old man gives Sucenko a horse. The horse carries Sucenko away to another kingdom.
3. A sorcerer give Ivan a little boat. The boat takes Ivan to another kingdom
4. A princess gives Ivan a ring. The young men appearing from out of the ring carry Ivan to another kingdom....etc

Propp defines 31 functions. He maintains that in the folktale, the order in which the

functions appear does not change. Here are some in which Propp lists them.

II An interdiction is addressed to the hero. (Someone tells the hero not to do something)

III The interdiction is violated. (The hero disobeys)

XII The hero is tested, interrogated, attacked etc. which prepares the way for his

receiving either a magical agent or helper.

XV The hero is transferred, delivered or led to the whereabouts of an object of search.

XVI The hero and the villain join in direct combat.

XVIII The villain is defeated.

XXIX The hero is given a new appearance.

XXX The villain is punished.
Propp’s dramatis personae are listed in terms of their ‘spheres of action’:

The villain

The donor

The helper

The princess, and her father

The dispatcher

The hero (seeker-hero, victim-hero)

The false hero

After looking at these we learnt that you could put them in almost every film,comic and game.

I looked at MGS and categorized the characters into the correct 'spheres of action' that suit them.

The Villain - Liquid

The Donor - Octacon
The Helper - Octacon/Meryl/Raiden
The Princess, and her Father - Meryl and The Colonel
The Dispatcher - The Colonel
The Hero - Snake
The False Hero - Raiden

Genre and Signs

We started looking at genre of games and what makes this work with the story.
We began looking at Ferdinand de Saussure (1857 -1913) he believed that a sign was defined as a meaningful unit interpreted as standing for something other than itself.

So we spoke about the signs and how some can mean nothing but some do. Such as them only being meaningful if the person actually uses them for there benefit.

A sign needs a signifier and a signified.
The signifier is the form that the sign takes.
And the signified is the concept represented by the signifier.
We then looked at examples of art work with melted clocks, meaning that time isn't relevent, in other words time is being signified by the clocks.

After we looked at these we were then shown aload of different games and we named all the images and what makes them work for that kind of genre. Then we were given the task of changing a games genre like L.A noire with Angry Birds or Red Dead Redeption with Resident Evil etc.

Characters in Games

This time we looked at how characters effect not just games but also how there character evolves. We looked at Fable and how you play a character named hero who is a young orphan. We spoke about how most characters in games are orphans due tothe fact that the player can easily connect to the character as there is no past history to worry about and the character has got a clean slate allowing the player to make up any story they want for them.
I noticed that with comic book characters that a high majority of them are orphans.
Also with superhero's they are one person who acts as two people. This is because they have characteristics such as height, IQ, sex, hair colour, personality etc. But at the same time the superhero that they play is there true character in how they perform under extreme pressure and on the spot situations.

Narrative in Storyworlds

With the Narrative storyworlds we were talking about how the story and narrative has to work with the gameplay otherwise the overall package of the game is lost. However you have to be careful with getting the right balancein gameplay and story as to not isolate any part of your audience.

Thats the problem with many games now is that they tend to be either one or the other, like the modern Call of Dutys are now more based around gameplay rather than the story, similar to the Creed genres.

We also looked at theme parks as they are like a real fantasy world like disney world which has got the pirates of the caribbean which later on became the now famous film with Jonny Depp.

Light

Refraction - Refraction of light is when there is a change in speed of a wave and is a surface phenomenon. It makes something look bent or deformed such as when you have a straw in water, the refracted light makes the straw look like it is broken.

Diffuse Reflection - Diffuse Reflection is the reflection of light from a surface such that an icident ray is reflected at many angles rather than just one as in the case of specular reflection.

A surface built from a non-absorbing powder such as plaster, or from fibres such as paper or from a polycrystalline material such as white marble.

Absorption of Light - The absorption of light makes an object dark or opaque to the wavelengths or colors of the incoming wave. Wood is opaque to visible light. Some materials are opaque to some wavelengths of light, but transparent to others. Glass and water are opaque to ultraviolet light, but transparent to visible light. By which wavelengths of light are absorbed by a material the material composition and properties can be understood

Analysing Composition

Iconic - This is when the picture has the main focus of the what the artists wants you to see and is perfectly positioned smack in the middle of the page with everything worshiping it. Something like the last supper with Jesus Christ and his disiples.

The Cross - This is where again the image is placed in the middle of the page and light changes to draw attention to that image. Such as warm colours down towards cold. Another way can be from plain black and white such as black on white or white on black.

The "L" shape - This draws the attention to the corner by using either darker tones than the environment or a lighter tone. It can also draw your attention depending on how much detail is in that corner.