Contents:
This article covers design details on the story delivery mechanics for my Swords, Shields, & Sorcery mobile game project.
- Overview
- Story Screen
- Controls
- Dialogue
- Audio
- Animations
1. Overview:
Goal: Create entertaining and immersive stories that blend seamlessly with the other game mechanics to help portray a whimsical, memorable, living world.
Story in Swords, Shields, & Sorcery is delivered to the player through combat, cinematic narrative and the implied narrative of the world visuals and locations. Cinematic narrative takes the form of scripted dialogue and animations that are displayed in the Combat Screen (called the Story Screen hereafter for Story Events).
Story in Swords, Shields, & Sorcery is delivered to the player through combat, cinematic narrative and the implied narrative of the world visuals and locations. Cinematic narrative takes the form of scripted dialogue and animations that are displayed in the Combat Screen (called the Story Screen hereafter for Story Events).
2. Story Screen:
Story Events take place on the Story Screen. These Events can be triggered on the World Map and Location Maps via Event Nodes, as well as occasionally through Random Encounters.
When the player activates an Event Node, they will be taken to the Story Screen, where animations, dialogue and occasional context based buttons are available. During Story Events, Combat Controls and Combat UI are deactivated. If a Story Event transitions into combat, the Combat Controls and UI can be re-enabled.
When the player activates an Event Node, they will be taken to the Story Screen, where animations, dialogue and occasional context based buttons are available. During Story Events, Combat Controls and Combat UI are deactivated. If a Story Event transitions into combat, the Combat Controls and UI can be re-enabled.
3. Controls:
During Story Events, player controls will be predominantly used for cycling through the scripted character animations and dialogue.
3.1 - Story Event Controls:
3.2 - Combat Controls in Story Events:
Under specific situations, the normal combat controls may become available. These combat controls can be used for puzzle solving, opening treasure chests, and generally help provide extra immersion to Story Events.
When the player chooses a combat action, humerous dialogue and/or audio/visual feedback should play to inform the player of the outcome of their action. Not choosing the most logical option should not be overly penalizing to the player. Story Events with contextual combat can generally be repeated until the required outcome is reached.
Note: Depending on the complexity of Story Events in the future, branching paths can be used based on combat decisions (eg. Choose 1 of 3 doors to go through. Each door has a combat symbol above it to denote what action chooses which door).
3.1 - Story Event Controls:
- Tap (When a dialogue string is finished) - Continues to the next animation event or piece of dialogue.
- Tap & Hold - Increases the speed at which dialogue text is displayed.
- Tap Right Arrow - Transitions to the next section of the Story Screen. This button is only displayed when character movement is possible (eg. Moving between rooms of a house).
- Tap Left Arrow - Transitions to the previous part of the Story Screen. Generally used for leaving one-way Story Screens (eg. leaving a house).
Note: Depending on how involved the 'movement' mechanic becomes, it may be best to include an up and down arrow button.
Under specific situations, the normal combat controls may become available. These combat controls can be used for puzzle solving, opening treasure chests, and generally help provide extra immersion to Story Events.
When the player chooses a combat action, humerous dialogue and/or audio/visual feedback should play to inform the player of the outcome of their action. Not choosing the most logical option should not be overly penalizing to the player. Story Events with contextual combat can generally be repeated until the required outcome is reached.
Note: Depending on the complexity of Story Events in the future, branching paths can be used based on combat decisions (eg. Choose 1 of 3 doors to go through. Each door has a combat symbol above it to denote what action chooses which door).
4. Dialogue:
Character dialogue is displayed in a custom style of speech bubbles. Each letter of the dialogue string will appear on screen one after another at a set text speed, which can be sped up by tapping and holding.
Character dialogue should generally be short and snappy to prevent players from getting bored and skipping the dialogue out of habit. Players should WANT to read the dialogue.
Text size and Text color changes should also be utilized to help draw attention to important points, as well as providing an emphasis on character emotions.
Text animation can also be used for situations where someone might exclaim something loudly, or be shuddering in fear.
Character dialogue should generally be short and snappy to prevent players from getting bored and skipping the dialogue out of habit. Players should WANT to read the dialogue.
Text size and Text color changes should also be utilized to help draw attention to important points, as well as providing an emphasis on character emotions.
Text animation can also be used for situations where someone might exclaim something loudly, or be shuddering in fear.
5. Audio:
Sound Effects will play a major role in Story Events. While Swords, Shields, & Sorcery will not have voice overs for dialogue, it will have mock-speech SFX that plays along side the dialogue. Golden Sun (GBA) is a good example of this psuedo-speech with dialogue.
Mock-speech SFX should have tunable pitch and frequency in order to fit the audio to the character In the event that this cannot be done in Unity, a variety of pre-made mock-speech audio files can be made.
Additional SFX support will be needed for character actions during the Story Events.
Mock-speech SFX should have tunable pitch and frequency in order to fit the audio to the character In the event that this cannot be done in Unity, a variety of pre-made mock-speech audio files can be made.
Additional SFX support will be needed for character actions during the Story Events.
6. Animations:
Much like the Sound Effects, Animations will play an enormous role in bringing Story Events to life. Most characters in Story Events will be human-like, any pre-made human animations can be utilized. This will not allow for a reduction in the amount of custom animations, but will also provide a wider variety of animations to all human characters.
© Scott Balmer - Game Design - 2014
© Scott Balmer - Game Design - 2014
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