> > So, let's try for example to take the Gaia Theory very literally, > although in its most poetic way - ie seeing the Earth as a living > being, > maybe even sentient in a way that is beyond us. [David] For me the Gaia theme (not necessarily only the Gaia theory but rather all the environmental/ecologic/sustainability context) is very interesting to dig. It can be related to many events that occur around us, it can be approached through many ways (politics, economics, daily behavior of everyone, conspiracy plots between radical ecological sects vs big corporations for instance, etc). Given that the game still evolves about what is happening on the web (with necessarily a little tech touch), it's well adapted for a niche of the players 1) who are interested by what is happening around us 2) with a taste for innovations brought by the web and 3) who want an 'intelligent' (in the sense that the game must imply a bit of thinking, though not necessarily strategic) game that revolves around that - and I think this is the kind of niche we're looking for. I've got a few comments after reading the various mails:
For me Gaia is an interesting background, but we should hook the player with a story that is directly related to his daily life and not too abstract, and that builds some curiosity from the player. I'll try to explain : if a spirit on the internet contacts me and bluntly asks me to perform tasks related to my environment, I'm not sure I'll be hooked - first, finding this nature spirit on the web like that will seem a bit weird, and second if I want to really act towards environment, I'd rather join an NGO. It's too direct for me, I'm not sure I can be hooked as a player. There is a purpose but I'm not sure of the added value brought by the game. But if a) I can feel that on the web there is a fight that goes on around this theme, and I'm contacted by someone who brings me into this game - but maybe not directly a spirit, maybe someone who will talk to me about these spirits (and provide me with a mysterious entity that will replace the current AI and help me but I can chose to believe the speech about spirits or not), and b) the tasks I accomplish (the missions) require a bit of brain tease and are self-satisfying (this is another subject but for me it's related, I try to explain it below), then yes I think I can be hooked. The a) aspect is related to the way we'll unfold the story. I guess we should not prepare as of now a very complicated plot with many changes of paradigm (such as for instance two factions corporations and humans representatives of Gaia who have secret agendas and are not what they seem etc...), because if we do this we might never unfold the story and it will take too much time to provide a clear purpose to the player. But at the same time, in order to hook the player at the beginning, I think there is a need for some mystery, the way you enter a story in a movie in a book, it's never too obvious. Or if it is, it's a trap and things are not what they seem. I like Michael's approach of different factions and creating a dilemma for the player, but it might be something we want to create a little bit later in the game, in order to keep it simple to start with. So, with only one 'faction' at the beginning of the game which will talk to the player/give him an entity that will provide missions, how can we hook the player ? I don't know but I think it's an important part of the work for the script writer. To sum up this part, I agree with Xav that there should be a purpose for the player since the first minute he plays; and I agree with the fact that the environmental context with a glimpse of technology (the web) is interesting. But I think the purpose could be moved from 'help the planet by doing this and that task' to rather something about the discovery of what is currently happening on the web with the raise of this new powerful environmental group -or whatever-, that seems to have ways of impacting the world and that for some reason needs my help. The b) aspect is that in the missions we provide, I see two important things, the brain teasing and the fact of keeping it coherent with the story. Because we have our game happening on the real web, we must avoid to give to the player the impression that he is doing random stuff on the web that he could do without playing the game, that's a risk I see. As an example, in our previous hackit game, the fact of hacking website as an excuse to discover new web sites I don't know yet (like stumble open, and it was a part of our promise) was not working imho because it was not related to the game given that we could not impact the web sites. To avoid this impression of 'gratuity', I think most missions should have a little brain effort (that gives an added value to the fact of just doing something on the web) and a reward that either unfolds the story or give new abilities to the player but that in every case reinforces the bond with the player by making him want to experience more. The mail is already long, sorry for that (though I have the impression of having said very little :)), so I'll start with these two points only. D _______________________________________________ Hackit Bar mailing list - [email protected] Wiki: http://community.hackit.cx/ List: http://community.hackit.cx/ml/ Forum: http://community.hackit.cx/forum/ Ideas: http://community.hackit.cx/ideas/ IRC: irc://irc.freenode.net/#politis
