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.

Script Planning - Inspiration, Planning and ideas - P2 + P3.

Video Game.

Influential Video games:

Dark Souls.

Dark Souls is the main inspiration because it has the difficulty, short information and direction from the game and a wide range of complex characters at which dialogue is optional. This is shown by as soon as the tutorial is complete, you have about three places you can go, two of which are really dangerous but have massive rewards. I wish for my game to allow the user to be free to do what they want and still have a narrative.

God of War.

The inspiration I will take from God of War will be the historical ideas and the character development. In God of War, the characters are developed soon after one of them is already dead and we find out more about them as the game progresses. I’m also going to try and juggle some mythology into my game for character development. This will be taken into the dialogue sections of the game at which the historical aspects will all be implied until the ending when everything is revealed.

Batman Arkham Knight.

The way I’m going to involve the Arkham Knight’s method of talking to other characters sometimes. This will happen by after any important event in the game, a bird will deliver a message to the main character that they will walk while reading, this both helps with loading screens and is similar to in the Arkham Knight where the Batman will call Alfred, Robin, Joker or Oracle after an important event.

My Video Game.

The video game will be based off dark souls at which you get the opening video and some dialogue with characters. The game would include short pieces of dialogue, but the opening scene will be lengthy, and the dialogue will be covered by characters you talk to within the game. My game will include all information above about the choice on how to play the game, free will, dialogue with after important events for loading screens and mythology. This will also include controls similar to Dark Souls’s and God of War’s. The target audience is for players who enjoy the Souls and God of War franchises. This is because the games have clear plots and are different to stereotypical games these days this can also be targeted at teenagers because the following games also follow this age range too.

Feedback.

Courtney

Is there a specific age group you are aiming for?

What genre is this?

Nice use of stating inspirations

Reece

Do you have a general idea of how the story will work, you’re focussing on the gameplay a lot in this description.

T.H : you know where you want to take you game and its story, you mention very little about the world and characters, what will they be like.  

How I will make my scripts.

After research, I found scripts for a few video games that were uploaded by their script writers, one of which called ‘Call of Juarez’ I knew this game and did thorough research to make sure the script is real. Then I decided to use it as a template for my script.

Idea 1:

If character leaves, the player says to himself that he is yet to finish a task.

(forces the player to stay in the area until he flips a switch or something and then reads a note from a raven)

Therefore, this repeats until:

If the character flips a switch or something and then reads a note from a raven.

Idea 2: 

This is a time based idea where the player has a specific amount of time to react an end point. If the end point is not met in a specific amount of time, a cutscene will begin and the mission will restart.

Therefore, this repeats until:
The player is able to get to the end of the area within a set of time.

Idea 3: 

This is an idea where if the player is to pick up a piece of paper written by someone, a cutscene will occur showing us what has been happening to them characters during this time. This give the player lore and detail that they wouldn't have been able to find out until later in the game.

Mind Map on ideas.

Mood Board.

My video game questionnaire - P3.

Link to questionnaire:    https://forms.office.com/Pages/ResponsePage.aspx?id=cemLcDIM00yoqHH45e5DyJOC-lL0iadNqrXMZZ542-VUN08xVTMzVk1KNUEwWkozRVZQWlZTVE41NS4u

Responses:

My first question asked if the users were gamers, all of my responses were yes, meaning that all of my future answers will fit perfectly.

The second question asked the user for their age, I got two 17 year olds and three 18 year olds. This is good because it means that I know what my target audience like.

This response didn't affect me too much but it showed me what the main demographic for video games is and therefore, who I should target my game towards.

The fourth question was about how long the users spend playing games in total every week. I had times ranging from three hours to fifteen hours. This shows that some responders are more dedicated to the games than others.

This fifth question shows me what people play, although I am aware that two people forgot that this question was multiple choice and also play on the Nintendo Switch, and Phone. Also, another plays on the computer. This allows me to know what demographic of gamer to target once more because all platforms have a different variety of games.

The sixth question is about what genre of game all of these users play. I got two responses of RPG (One including the note of it being an open world RPG). Another response of Open world, an action/single player story games and a response of the user having no preference on genre. This shows me that I should aim to have the game be open world and in an RPG style. Similar to Dark Souls and God of War which I already am taking inspiration from.

The seventh question was how long does it take to play one game for it to get boring so that you must switch games for a while. I got Similar responses of it generally depending on the game, but usually three hours.

My eighth question was about the users favourite games, I got two Skyrim's, one God of War, one Prey and one person who has no specific choice. This shows that the idea for a medieval game is a good choice.

My ninth question was about asking if the users like open world games or constricted games. I got all responses for open world games and therefore, my game will definitely have aspects of an open world game.

My final question was about if the users prefer male or female protagonists and if they prefer them alone or in a group. I got people who didn't mind on the gender at all, therefore, I believe adding an option to make your character like in the Bethesda games would be a good idea. Also people didn't mind about having the protagonist in a group. Therefore, my game will have the character be assisted by the Greek and Norse gods at time too.

Overall, these results will have an effect on my game because some of these show me what people care about in their video games. It's made me see that I should make my game more free roam for the players as that seems to be a major point that I've gotten from this. Most other points that I can pull from this are points that my video game already uses, as a result my script would work perfectly.