Unit 3 - Writing in a New Genre - City Tech OpenLab
Unit 3 - Writing in a New Genre You’ve been looking at issues important to gaming and computing. So now for Unit 3, you’re going to be using that information to write in a new genre. And that new genre is… interactive fiction, also known as text-based adventure games. They’ve been around a long time, starting as really REALLY hard parser games like Zork. Now IF includes great games like Firewatch, Kentucky Route Zero, 80 Days, the Walking Dead series, Gone Home. Even The Last of Us could be considered IF even if you are killing zombies.For this Unit, you’re going to take the issue you dug into in Unit 2 and write an interactive text-based adventure game around it. You can address it through the storyline or the character or the world itself, but you’re creating something that shows us the issue in a new – video game – way. For example, if your issue was representation of women in video games, you might write a story with a strong but relatable woman as the MC who’s fighting for women to be taken seriously in some way. Of if you believe your own culture has been portrayed badly, you could write a game story that teaches us about that culture in some way. You might even write a game that deals with how someone gets involved with and works within the Black Lives Matter movement. At the heart of IF is choice. Also character. An ordinary person faces an extraordinary situation and changes (and/or changes the people around them) as they make the choices that will lead them to resolve that situation. In 80 Days, Passepartout has to decide whether he wants to help the steampunk automatons gain freedom or simply keep Phileas Fogg on schedule to win his bet with some other rich men. And every choice has consequences, either large or small, because they take the main character in different directions and onto different paths. You won’t be able to create a visual-rich game like most of the ones I listed – you’re just being introduced to Python in CST 1101, after all. So you’ll be writing a text-based game with no graphics at all, and we’ll examine what those games look like and how they work: Narrative: a way to make difficult issues personal and relatable.Storytelling archetypes: Aristotle’s structure, the Hero’s Journey.Character-creation: character archetypes, the character arc, building from the outside and the insideGreat story design: an ordinary person is faced with an extraordinary situation which forces them out of their comfort zone and sends them on a journey where they run out of easy choices and finally have to dig deep inside to decide what kind of person they want to be, and then act on it.Writing and playing text-based adventure games.Writing a branching narrative that gives your character choices.This is necessarily a cut-down version of what could be a very long game since you’re going to have to program it in CST1101 using Python. But at the heart of the game should be a serious issue, one your game in one way or another is making a statement about. It’s your way to join the issue conversation by way of the video game genre.Once you get your game story “written,” it will go to Professor Cunningham so you can learn how to program it in Python.You’ll also write an Artist’s Statement where you think back through the process of creating your game story and writing it as the basis of a text-based adventure game. A successful Artist’s Statement reflects your understanding of the genre, and of your specific rhetorical situation (your reasons for composing, your audience), and it takes us on a journey:As you began: what were you trying to accomplish? What audience were you trying to reach? How hard was it to think in terms of non-visual game-making? What were you most worried about?During the process: what problems did you have? Who, what, or where did you turn to get feedback and help? What was going through your mind as you wrote it?Now that it’s done: how well do you think it turned out? What would you do differently? Congratulate yourself!What you’ll be graded on: Genre: You already have your genre – interactive fiction/text-based adventure games. You’ll need to show that you understand the conventions of the genre and that what you’ve written is a good example of it. Narrative Awareness: Does your game story have a beginning, middle and end? Does the main character go through some change during the story? Did you create a world that’s appropriate for the story you’re telling? If you’re using the Hero’s Journey as a model, does it fit into at least the first part of the model? Did you make us care?Appropriateness for audience: You can target your game story to any audience, If you’re doing something for 4th grade students, it shouldn’t be full of graduate school words. Appropriate means word choice and approach to topic/issue – does the way you wrote your game fit what would work best for this audience? Effectiveness of message: We’ll share and workshop these in class so you’ll get a chance to see if you got your point across and that your game made sense. Did it fulfill your purpose? Can we see what issue you’re addressing?Length/Timeliness: This really depends on the CST instructor’s guidelines which may change as we get into the term. But the basic idea is that you end up creating a game that takes no more than 3-5 minutes to play. Artist Statement: Did you thoughtfully reflect on your process, even if things didn’t turn out quite how you wanted? -635096520Schedule Week of Nov 3 – Nov 9Class sessionsBegin Writing in a New Genre. Introduction to Interactive Fiction. What makes a good narrative: what good storytelling involves, what makes for good characters, what Aristotle and The Hero’s Journey have to do with it anyway. Introduction to Unit 3.Due by end of day Friday, Nov 6:There are two things due on Friday –First:PLAY: Choose one of the games on and play through the first chapter (it stops being free after that!). POST on Padlet: Write a short post to tell us about your experience playing your Choice Of game. What did you notice? What was hard about it? What was fun? What do you think about this genre? Comment on each other’s games (and for once, a “that’s cool!” will be okay).: The Aristotelian model of story structure (it’s in the Resources area) and “What Makes a Hero?” (a short animated video about The Hero’s Journey)DO: Now you get the chance to create your own character for the game story you’re going to write for this unit and put them in a story that changes them. You’ll be creating a character and a story using the exercise on p.127-28 of Slay the Dragon The link is to the pages in the book, but ONLY DO EXERCISE #2. Here a couple of notes to help you:Ordinary Profession means ordinary. Seriously. Stories are always more interesting if they’re about regular people suddenly having to deal with extraordinary circumstances. If not a profession, then an ordinary life. Really. No sorcerer’s apprentices or time traveling Daleks, got it?Character Archetypes means the characters that have evolved over the centuries and that we recognize almost without anyone explaining them to us. For instance, a mentor archetype is a teacher but has come to mean somebody like Gandalf – a wizard with a tall hat and a long beard and a scary staff. But there are all kinds of teachers. Yoda’s a teacher, and he doesn’t have any of that. Well, the staff maybe, but it’s hardly scary. Google “Character Archetypes” and you’ll find a lot of list of archetypes! Look through them and pick the ten that jump out at you.Extraordinary Situations. That’s pretty clear. Not normal. Crazy. Not something that can ever happen irl. The aliens land. A time portal opens. A Krait dragon tears up your neighborhood. WRITE: So now you’ve got a bunch of stickies or cards or bullet points, right? (Ordinary person, archetypes, extraordinary situation.) Shuffle them around, think about the issue you want to address in the story… and tell us the story in a paragraph or two. Let us see who the main character is by setting up their ordinary world (who they are, details of things you see, hear, smell, touch, taste) and then get Aristotelian with it: now that you have the ordinary world, what’s the inciting incident (that thing that changes your character’s life forever and presents a problem they have to solve), is there a Hero’s Journey call to adventure (and does the main character ignore the call before deciding to go on the journey), obstacles, climax and resolution. At the end, tell us how the whole thing has made that character change – what they’ve learned about themselves, what they might do differently with their lives now, etc. And remember: this is the basis for your interactive fiction story, so have fun but think through it.POST on OpenLab: Title it “Dragon – your name” Category Unit 3. Tag “Dragon”Due by end of day Monday Nov 19:WRITE: Take that story you just wrote and prepare a “pitch document” that tells us about the game you’re going to write. The pitch doc should tell us: A reminder of your issue (what you got from Unit 2 that you want to show people by having them play your game).A 1-2 sentence statement of what you want to teach your audience (the most important thing you learned in Unit 2) The audience you are trying to reach (teens? Specific adults?)An Aristotelian summary of your game story (which you just wrote in the Dragon homework): ordinary world (including who the main character is), inciting incident, and on through to the end. If you want to do a Hero’s Journey structure, be sure to include the ordinary world, what the call to adventure is, if the character refuses it, what mentor shows up, and why they decide to go on the journey, then quickly through obstacles, climax and resolution. This doesn’t need to be more than 250-300 words, but it should take us through the whole game.Anything you might be worried about. What are your concerns about finishing this project? Feel free to add any images you think might give us a good feel for the world you’re creating in your head.POST to OpenLab: Title it “Pitch – your name” Category is Unit 3. Tag is “Pitch.”POST: Comment on a couple of people’s pitch docs. Give them some advice or questions or suggests. Or just tell them how cool it is (yes, you can also do that this time!).635087630Week of Nov 10 – Nov 16Class sessionsBranching narratives. Visual/Concept maps (examples are in the Resources Class Materials under Game Design Documents).Due by end of day Friday, Nov 13:CREATE: Prepare a visual map of your game story with its branches. Be sure to look at the examples for some help. There should be at least three branches for your story: a “best” ending, an “okay” ending, and a “really bad” ending for your main character. HINT: check out the examples on the Resources Class Materials page.There are a lot of mind or flow mapping programs online (like Bubbl.us or vue.tufts.edu), but feel free to just use Word if you want to. You can take a picture of it, or use a link to get to it.POST it on OpenLab: Title it “Visual Map – your name” Category – Unit 3. Tag “Visual Map.”WRITE: If you’re ready, start writing your game narrative. Again, look at the examples in the Resources area.Due by end of day Monday, Nov 16:POST it on OpenLab: Write the first 1/3 of your game story using Resurface as a model (Resources Class Materials). These will be going to Prof Cunningham for review.Title it “First section – your name” Category - Unit 3. Tag “First Section”-25400194310Week of Nov 17 – Nov 23Class sessionsGeneral feedback and help.Due by end of day Friday, Nov 20:POST it on OpenLab: Write the second 1/3 of your game story. This will be going to Professor Cunningham for review.Title it “Second section – your name” Category – Unit 3. Tag “Second Section”Due by end of day Monday, Nov 23:POST it in the Google Drive folder for Unit 3: Full game story. This will be going to Professor Cunningham and will be what you’ll be programming in Python.-2540073660Week of Nov 24 – Nov 30Class sessionsWriting the Artist’s Statement. THANKSGIVING BREAK NOV 26-29Due by end of day Monday, Nov 30:WRITE: Post your Artist’s Statement in the Google Drive – Unit 3. ................
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