The story of us.

• Main Author: Ooi, Samantha Chen Na.
• Other Authors: Kenneth Feinstein
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: 2013
• Subjects: DRNTU::Visual arts and music::Media
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10356/52366
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

The primary inspiration of the game is the visual style and history of Paleolithic cave paintings (Figure 1). These cave paintings represent one of the earliest known forms of human artistic expression, and attempts at recording and replicating the life around them. Although without a narrative structure, these cave paintings attempt to tell a story of their lives, as they knew it. They were the first attempts by humankind to graphically keep a visual record of their lives, and thus one of the first forms of artistic expression by humankind. Inspired by the graphic style of these original cave paintings, I wanted to introduce a narrative structure with the visual style. Rather than presenting an animated story however, I wanted to make a video game, as this was most appealing to my major of interest as well presenting more opportunity in using the art style in a medium it is not commonly seen. Hence, my project was to create a 2-dimensional video game, conveying the visuals that were my primary inspiration, as well as allowing interactivity for players of the story. The game contains the elements of an interactive narrative. The premise of the game was that it is a story retold, and an omniscient narrator narrates the player’s actions as well as being a way for in-game hints and instructions were communicated to the player when required. Furthermore, the player had the ability and opportunity to affect certain story elements during gameplay. These range from cosmetic or esoteric changes such as the narrator prompted to comment differently; to game-changing effects that may affect the level’s layout, the attributes of certain creatures and so on. In this way, players find the gameplay and narrative more organic as it responds to their individual actions. It makes each player’s play through unique to them, as well as adding replay value as they try to find different ways to overcome the levels. Thus, each player’s complete ‘story’ became different from another player. This was a way to personalize the playing experience to the player.