Hi,
Of course, I have a lot to say to all that ;)
And I don't have much time until tomorrow.
But I feel I have to share this vid asap:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eScDfYzMEEw
Write and Read you tomorrow
Michael
Le 19 août 10 à 15:10, david blanchard a écrit :
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
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_______________________________________________
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
