I made some good progress on the overall story structure this week. Using diagrams.net (2021), I made a flowchart representing the top-level flow that the game will take, as well as giving a good impression of the narrative topology. As you can see, I have gone for a braided narrative, as I feel that will allow for a good amount of choice and player agency, while still funnelling the player through certain story beats. I also think that this model is realistically achievable with my skillset and time frame available to me.

(Above) Figure 1: Screenshot. The narrative topology for the game. I imagine much of this will be tweaked and moved around during development, but this serves as a good framework to work from.

I have also written a large amount of dialogue for the first character the player will meet: Ego. As well as this, I went into Aseprite (2016) and created a portrait for him (fig. 2). My goal is for each character to be a physical manifestation of how we regard each mental construct that  ‘resides’ within our mind, hence why Ego eyes the player with a condescending look. He also has devil horns, representing the general belief that egotism and vanity are bad and to be discouraged. I have implemented these features into a Unity project to see how the dialogue flows in-engine and I’m mostly happy with how it feels (fig. 3). Of course, I will update the UI to fit in more with the narrative and desired aesthetic of the game soon.

(Above, left) Figure 2: Screenshot. The portrait for my first character, Ego. Made in Aseprite, using a grayscale palette. (Above, right) Figure 3: Screenshot. The dialogue in-game, with Fungus’ default dialogue boxes.

This week’s theory lecture was all about UI and UX. It was helpful to consider the differences between the four main types of UI (diegetic, non-diegetic, spacial and meta). Each bring their own feel to a game, whether it’s increased immersion, or greater understanding of a game’s playspace. Whether intentional or not, their implementation and aesthetic also feeds into a game’s narrative, so it’s always important to carefully consider your UI. The information gained in this lecture will help me greatly when designing the UI for my assignment.

I have made some basic mock-ups for the UI in MS Paint. I think that my current goal is to keep in line with the grayscale colour pallet of the character portrait, to keep aesthetic cohesion, as well as bringing the character into the centre of the frame, as they are the focal point of each interaction. I think that next week I will try to make the dialogue boxes to be implemented in-engine and I can start to iterate and refine them to best serve the player experience.

(Above) Figure 4: Screenshot. My current mock-up for the look of the custom say dialog.

References:

Aseprite. 2016. David Capello, Igara Studios.

2021. ‘Flowchart Maker & Online Diagram Software’ [online]. Available at: app.diagrams.net/ [accessed 12 February 2021].