You are the manager of a big company from Europe who is trying to get into the market of ancient China during Ming Dynasty. The minister of foreign business receives you. He used to be a clown, and he still wears his clown makeup everyday because he wants to hide his emotion when communicating with people. Try to persuade him to allow your company get into the market.
(I’m also thinking about that he could be the minister of diplomacy.. But not sure about the story yet..)
2. Pistachio
You are about to eat a pistachio, and it starts to talk to you about human’s crime of killing all kinds of creatures.
3. Mom
You are a kid in an elementary school. Several days ago you got cheated by one of your classmates and your mom was really worried about you. However, you still believe in the good nature of human being. This morning another kid asks for your help, and your mom won’t let you help him. You and your mom would be trying to persuade each other in the conversation.
* By the way, if you have any different stories in your mind when you see the characters, please leave me a note. I’m interested to know. Thanks : )
So I am very committed to a single idea. I really have had a dream about this game. That being said, could you all be very constructive about this idea. It is fully formed and I would love some feedback as to what could be done to increase the playability, the narrative, and the characters.
Arnold and Blake.
Blake is an ore and water trader. Born in Cleveland, Blake received his bachelor’s degree in Extraterrestrial Trading and Solar Politics from the United States Air and Naval Academy as well as served 3 years aboard the U.S.S. Obama Orbital Naval Vessel. Blake then followed his dream to trade goods (ore and water) with both of the Lunar and Mars colonies. Blake is fortunate enough to be a ‘sponsored pilot’ and is granted an AI driven Space vessel. Blake is extraordinarily comfortable with the human-replica AI of his ship after being weapons master in his time in the Navy and takes the vessel and names him Arnold.
Arnold is a Boeing class 7 Space Cargo Vessel. Arnold is fast and reliable and is able to transport up to 2000 metric tons of good along with Blake and his human needs for a year long journey. Arnold is a very unique type of generative AI. Arnold ‘grew – up’ with other AI constructs and is now a fully, emotionally, developed artificially intelligent entity. Arnold was able to choose his voice and nature at his addition to the class 7 Space Cargo Vessel… and being a light hearted AI, Arnold chose to embody the voice and actions of an 8 year old human. Arnold has some issues with emotional control and is diagnosed with slight Aspergers on the Human Psychological Spectrum.
Blake and Arnold are a perfect pair. Blake takes care of Arnold. The duo have been trading for 5 years this coming October and Blake could think of no better companion than Arnold. Sure they have had their miscommunications and let downs, but best friends persist.
Game Scenario –
You are Blake. It is late September and you are returning to the Lunar Colony from your recent acquisition of ore and water from Earth. After waking up on a rather wonderful day, halfway into your journey, Arnold is acting funny. This is no real warning light, as Arnold does have Aspergers and sometimes over analyzes your body language and requests. You inquire what is wrong and Arnold is very reluctant to answer. This maintains for a few days and you finally get worried and fed up with Arnold. You ask him to please stop his nono-sense and tell you what is wrong. Arnold (through bursts of confusing sentences) begins to slowly lock you down in a small corridor in the aft of the vessel. Some of Arnolds messages are contradictory and eventually you realize that Arnold is infected with a virus. This is nearly impossible (you know from Naval training) and through a short series of events and Arnolds actions you know that someone is trying to pirate your vessel and it’s goods. It is your job to save Arnold from the virus and to repel the invaders from your vessel with the help of your best friend and companion.
You care for Arnold as if he was your own child and you would do anything to keep him out of harm.
First Idea: You have become reacquainted with a girl from your childhood, now in her thirties. She is a singer and has achieved national success, but has not released an album in several years. She is on the brink of committing suicide and has come to you as a last-ditch effort to save herself. You can learn about the cause of her desperation, and attempt to talk her out of it, or allow her to continue. The character design is meant to express her state of mind.
Second Idea: You are a recent immigrant to an Eastern European town in the 16th century. You learn that the image of the Hellmouth, a Satanic icon, has spread throughout the continent. Some believe that by destroying the physical manifestation of the Hellmouth, located somewhere in the countryside, one can restore order to the turbulent monarchy. You meet a pair of strangers who are not human, who claim to be knowledgeable about the Hellmouth, and have a conversation with them in order to learn more about the nature of the Hellmouth and of Christianity.
Your name is Andrea (Andie for short) and you are a Mannequin in a medium-sized mall in middle America. You are bored and unhappy with your life as a Victoria’s Secret underwear model, so you decide to quit your job one night and look for another modeling gig that suits you more. You are a feminist, highly independent, and somewhat disgusted by how some of the other mannequins are happy to be objectified. The choices you make will revolve around talking to other mannequins.
One of the mannequins that you talk to, Kelly, is an Old Navy model who has to be perpetually cheery and smiley. As you befriend her and learn more about her job in the hopes of finding one for yourself, you can find out more about her life and dig deeper into her true thoughts about the job. She’s exhausted ofhaving to put on a front each and every day for customers that don’t appreciate the hard work that she does. She’s deeply
unhappy with herself for settling for this mediocre mannequin job, and wants change.
The main part of the game will have you explore the mall and talk to mannequins across different stores. Choices will focus around either befriending the other mannequins or acting agressively towards them, which will in turn either reveal more dialogue about the other character or cause them to behave agressively back to you/silently fume at you/etc. I want some dialogue to happen about issues such as body image, the portrayal of women in media, etc.
Kelly has a smile frozen on her face so her expressions are shown solely through her eyes and eyebrows
#2: Who Wants to be a Pop Idol
You play a nameless character who wants to break into the Korean pop music industry. The art style of the game will be simplified and cutesy, but the tone of the game will offer a dark contrast to this. You find out about the hardships of training to be a so-called “idol”, including living off of meager funds, facing competition and hostility from other trainees, and being under pressure to lose weight.
Your character is an introverted, thoughtful guy (INFP). You’ve always had dreams of being a singer, and you barely finished high school with passing grades due to the fact that you were spending most of your free time taking vocal lessons and recording songs. Your self-confidence is very lacking from having to compete with so many other talented singers. As you interact with other characters, you encounter hostility and agression no matter what you do. This is a cut-throat industry, and characters which may seem friendly at first will later turn around and stab you in the back. Your manager belittles you, other trainees dislike you, and as an awkward introvert who struggles with social interaction, the choices you make will center around your struggle to ‘say the right thing’ to the people you talk to to make it further in the industry.
In your dreams (an eternal white staircase leading infinitely up), you interact with the you of yesterday. You don’t know what happens outside of the dreams, but depending on how your day went, yesterday’s version of you will be in different moods and environments. Interacting with yesterday’s you shapes how your next day will go. At the end of each dream, you also have the option of killing yesterday’s you to simply forget yesterday.
Balloon Seller
While at a festival, you meet a balloon seller who sells balloons filled with memories. They come in different colors and shapes such as bittersweet, nostalgic, that-thing-I-really-should-remember, etc. with prices that change relative to importance. Spending time with him as he sells memories to other festival-goers lets you see why he chose his profession and how other’s react to remembering what they’ve forgotten.
You wake up in the night to discover OH GOD WHAT THE HELL IS THAT in your apartment. Oh well, might as well try conversing with it. Maybe it’ll even turn your brain into a hypercube…
In this setting cherubim in general come off as having severe ADD due to their six-dimensional hypercube minds, which form trains of thought that look more like anteaters juggling daffodils than trains from your three-dimensional perspective. Figure out how to communicate properly with this avatar of insanity, and maybe JUST maybe you can find out what the hell it is doing in your apartment.
Excalibur, the sassy sword.
A game in which you encounter the famous Sword in the Stone and HOLY CRAP IT CAN TALK. Possible results of interaction can be getting crowned Rightful King of Britain, or just getting told by a three-foot piece of metal sticking out of a rock.
Have an informative discussion with Excalibur as it sizes you up and overall is very judgmental at you. Can you befriend or at least gain a shred of respect from a magic sword and become a monarch that isn’t a butterfly?
Alexius Meinong reasoned that if you could speak of a subject, or dream of a subject, then it must exist somewhere. That place is called Meinong’s Jungle. In the game, you would wake up in Meinong’s Jungle as a newly imagined concept. The only guide you have is a strange being that speaks in famous quotes and prose, and from it you can attempt to learn more about what you are, and where you have ended up.
Molly
You buy a new house, and eagerly move in, only to find that it’s already occupied. You talk with the spirit of a girl who died there, and she seems fixated on the fact that she can’t remember how she died. By talking with her, you soon discover that she has more than one personality, each with different memories. By talking with each, you can piece together how she died and get her to move on and get the fuck out of your house.
ALSO
I could probably use my older idea, Sundowners, for this project as well…
turns out clinton is a nymphomaniac. He’s on trial for his impeachment and the focus is strictly on the sexual harassment suit. Play as clinton and convince congress that you did not have sexual relations with those women.
outcomes –
congress believes you and you finish your term
you have to resign
Idea 2
You are in a relationship with a girl who you want to break up with but you want her to say the words. You’re goal is to convince her to break up with you.
outcomes –
you can get her to break up with you
still stuck in the relationship
Hills Like White Elephants is a wonderful example of evocative use of subtext in dialogue. Though it is never outright stated, you can infer that the operation in question is probably abortion – reading through again with that knowledge makes the tension of the man and girl’s conversation all the more palpable. Though nothing is given to describe the characters visually, their personalities are quickly established. The man is, or sees himself as, reasonable and rational. The girl is more distant, perhaps a dreamer. This piece is some fine Hemingway wit and I hope I can draw on it when I make my own characters for the upcoming project.
The work on character design in video games is a good source of reference for choices of visual design and the importance of expressions. Much like Hemingway used subtext in his writing, facial transformations allow the reader/viewer to quickly infer details of a situation. I like the bit about using the movement of the ideas to indicate items of interest within a game environment, although this is less relevant to the visual novel format. Something to consider in the future, though.
I found the paper on “expressive AI” very interesting, specifically in establishing a difference between producing an AI to accurately model a behavior and producing an AI as a cultural artifact. A cartoon face doesn’t get judged on realism, but instead is acknowledged to be a stylized caricature. In that same way, an AI can certainly be “stylized “and used as a cultural artifact.
I liked Hills Like White Elephants because it was straightforward and Hemingway stuck to telling exactly what was going on so that the reader could act as if observing in person and make of it what they will, interacting with the narrative by reflecting their own background on their interpretation.
3. Mom
