Interactive Story Draft

 

 

    Omega is aiming to be an unconventional single-player game experience, piloting on the backs of multiple genres in an eclectic way, which will simultaneously give both a distinctive, yet familiar undergoing. It will contain no particular narrative, as the player will carve out their own unique impression by observation of visual and auditory aesthetics of the game. After which the player will reflect and establish their own interpretation of the game’s theme. There are omni-present questions of “What is the meaning of this?/What am I doing and why?” for the player, and it is through exploration and the players own personal life experience as to where they will find answers to these questions.

    That was the pitch of Omega -- a game I prototyped this semester. I wanted to try my hand at something a bit more nontraditional. Not to necessarily stand out from the crowd, but for selfish reasons... to help get my mind off the reality of this year.

    The main focus of the game is to have the player explore various virtual worlds by taking them out of the real one. This is a brief escape into some new and exciting worlds that do not relate to each other. The player has no idea how they got here, and it is their perspective that will shape their answer. Ideally,  this game will give the player some time to reflect who they are and what they will become.

    As stated in that description of the gameplay, the experience of each player will determine their perception of the game. A big issue here would be to try to keep that perception within a reasonable frame, without pushing the player to think one thing or the other.  

    So how do I guide the player into feeling a certain emotion without bluntly telling them how they should be feeling via text? 

    Audio! It's unbelievable how often people underestimate how powerful the atmosphere can become through audio.

    Without actually playing the game and solely listening to the music, what emotions does that invoke? It was very important to choose an audio piece that did not have vocals or bold instruments distracting from the ambient mood. As stated "The music of the game should be as immersive/trance like as possible to help bring the player into the game’s worlds."

    Whenever possible, the game should pay close attention to real-world detail for maximum immersion. In the example image above, the outside of the room is raining, and you can see raindrops slowly slide down the glass of the sliding door/windows. 

What worked?

    People liked the game! They liked the fact that the game was difference and the concept of open-endedness. Note, I bold "concept" for reasons I will further explain below in what went wrong. 

    Omega was still a nice experience. Practically everyone who played the game stated that the music and sound effects absolutely nailed the experience for them. Some real feedback: 

"I like the visuals and the relaxing music is also really good. I did not understand the gameplay, but it was interesting waking around in the world."

"Such quality in the mood, much zen. Very respect."

"Hey man, tried this and yeah. Great sound and environment design!"

What went wrong?

    But in general, in this game Omega, I had to add some kind of game mechanics -- despite how much I really didn't want to. The overwhelming feedback from the playtesters was that they felt like they needed some kind of push, some kind of mechanic, anything, to feel like there is purpose to keep playing the game. 

   That's exactly what I was trying to escape. I didn't want to force anything in particular on the player, and by choosing to add a specific mechanic per request of the playtesters, Omega leaned back into that traditional direction. 

    I think the issue here was that the playtesters did not necessarily understand that the purpose of the game is to not have any particular purpose, and that the purpose was to be brought out by the player themselves. They are so used to traditional interactive experiences pushing them to "think" a certain conclusion. I can understand how confusing it must be to have an "open mind" to an experience that you feel should be hand-holding you through instead.