Scripting Evaluation - D1.

Evaluation

My Idea.

My idea changed throughout the writing of the script. If I plan the script too much beforehand, I’d be sat there for hours. So, I decided to get a plan for the first part of the script with the Hydra. From this I started writing the script. Anything beyond the part when the character picks up the Hydra tooth, I thought about moments before I wrote it. This was a good strategy because it allowed me to keep track of characters and the story. It also allowed me to experiment with the style that I would be working with. So, the main idea was how the story would adapt. I kept thinking back to the games I took inspiration from; this is shown by the random encounter with the Mysterious Stranger who kicks the character down by the roots of the world tree, the inspiration from this is from the encounters you get from Dark Souls. Some of the characters there are not trustworthy characters but are also vital to continue through the game.

I took the character of the Hydra from Dark Souls and decided to expand this into Greek mythology because this ties in the ideas I have from God of War. This means that I was able to have a story that could mix parts for two games instantly. I thought this was good because it allowed me to expand on the idea of gods in the game and bring in both Norse and Egyptian gods. This then gave me the sudden idea of who the villains can be and how the plot can work. I did this by making the villains unknown until you either see them from a death or you don’t see them until much later. The idea of the race against time for the player to get to the temple was taken from Batman Arkham Knights races against time where he must travel across the map within a small amount of time. This would soon be followed by a quick time event cutscene which I took from both Arkham Knight and God of War.

The idea for the Egyptian gods being the villains was a good idea because due to me already including Norse and Greek gods, I felt it’d be right for an entire group of gods to be against these, Egyptian and Aztec gods were my first ideas and Egyptian were gods I knew a large amount of already, therefore this gave me the idea to try and incorporate them into the story.

My Requirements.

The requirements from the client brief was for a single-player, story-driven game. This part was achieved instantly here because I only referenced one player in the game and the story is action packed too. They wished for existing popular games to be inspiration, which is true with the uses of the games of Dark Souls, God of War and Arkham Knight. This, therefore, means that I me this client requirement too. It’s fresh in this manner though because it’s incorporating two different groups of gods fighting another. This is an interesting story because it means that the characters are aware of the others existence which has never occurred in games, yet slightly hinted at in the new God of War.

My game also includes a wide variety of dialogue options, different choices that the character can make and different outcomes. Since I did include inspiration from three different games, I couldn’t use any direct references. The closest reference would be the Hydra which I took from Dark Souls. But this character is in Greek mythology and therefore, isn’t clear that it’s taken from Dark Souls.

Key Elements of a Video Game Script.

Due to their being a limited amount of video game scripts being out to the public, it took me a wide range of digging to find anything necessarily important. This means that I had to search for a viable script for a long time, luckily, I found a website which had about four old video game scripts for the early 2000s, the script I used was for Call of Juarez. This is because it’s a game I have played and can have all the information I need. First, I analysed the script and took note of what I needed, then I got to work.

The script started their scenes stating where the specific setting is. This was done like how I used in my script “EXT. Jötunheimr – Day.” This was a good thing I used to say where the characters were and to state that the story is taking place somewhere else now.

Another thing that was used was the style at which the characters were used and how they speak, this is much different to normal scripts and much tighter too.  I had to spend a long time trying to indent here because if one line is messed up, the entire script would probably be too. Finally, thanks to this specific script having different options that can happen throughout the script, I had a style already set for my script thanks to the example I followed.

How Did I Gather Feedback?

I gathered feedback by giving a group of friends a questionnaire about my script, the script asked an assortment of questions of:

1)     What story would you say the script portrays?

2)      What impression do you get of the characters?
3)      What was your opinion of the script?
4)      What kind of genre do you think my script portrays?
5)      Would you say that the script is easy to follow? If not, what's a way to improve it?

What Feedback Did I Get?

I got feedback from three people, I decided to test the range of who this could appeal to by asking an American friend about the script so that I can have different points of view too.

Reece’s Feedback:

1) The Egyptian gods are trying to kill the Greek and Norse gods, so they are trying to awaken Ra because he's the only God strong enough to stop the other Egyptian gods.

2) The Norse and Greek gods know that they have no chance of winning unless they work together, and they have already lost people to the army of the dead so they are even more desperate to win.

3) Tis good. I'm excited to find out what happens.

4) Action-adventure hack and slash that uses mythology to tell the story.

5) It's easy to follow, and provides multiple paths for the player to take.

Tom E’s Feedback:

1) The script is clear and coherent and helps to show what each of the characters is experiencing.

2) The characters seem to be well portrayed as Apollo seems to be the clear-headed decision maker.

3) The script was really well written and has no grammatical errors that I can identify

4) Definitely a fantasy and mythology script genre

5) yes, it is very clear and coherent.

American Friend’s Feedback:

1) I see it as a story of multiple mythologies being combined into a post-apocalyptic setting with the evil god’s combining forces while the good try to stop them. It also seems like a single player RPG like God of War but with different themes and such. 

2) I got that the player is an important mortal who is tasked to assist the gods and is possibly more than meets the eye. The God’s seemed to be rather interesting but would need more information on their personalities and such further. 

3) It was okay, a little messy but honestly not bad. I liked the idea and would like to see more backstory and plot going on. 

4) I think it would fit as a DnD campaign, but mainly I see it as a Single player game with mythological themes and RPG elements. 

5) It was a little difficult in places but could be easily fixed by having brackets or parentheses around the actions or descriptions and quotations around the spoken words. Overall, it was an okay script that can be easily fixed and added onto for deeper descriptions and such. 

How Have I Used This Feedback?

I used this feedback as a way to look at how my script works. From the feedback, I can see that the scripts work as I planned, and all of the scripts are meeting the client brief. If I had more time to work on my script, I would work from the feedback and expand on both the plot and backstory, this would be good because it means that my script would make more sense to people. Also, I would work on the feedback for improving how the script is to read, this would make more script better to people working on this and therefore, make a better finished product.

Evaluation.

In conclusion, I believe that my script is exactly what the brief requires. I have also made a script for a video game that I found enjoyable to make.