Final Project Description:
Looking back at the original project proposal, the original intended work has developed into an immense project in its own right.
I intended to create an experimental project that combines the narrative style of a graphic novel and using that to drive gameplay, in a sense to make a visual novel game. At the moment, due to the nature of the project I felt that I was not able to fully exploit the narrative aspects to what I had intended as the majority of time spent was on programming and game testing. I found that it was difficult to experience the narrative side when there was little gaming to do, which makes it non-enjoyable to play and that without a narrative, playing the game would also lack enjoyment. In the end, the programming for the first puzzled had to be completed as well as tested before all the narrative content, visual and audio assets could be applied to it.
After the original proposal, a large proportion of time spent on the project was on planning and pre-production which would be prototyping almost all aspects of using Flash and incorporating all the mediums that I needed within it. Getting the functionality right was the hardest element to overcome, especially the small technical hurdles (like nesting buttons within a movie clip when there was script already attached to it) and if a solution or no solution is found, a work-around solution had to be researched, implemented, tested and the whole cycle starts again depending on the success and failure.
On the other hand, creating the assets needed for the project such as the design concepts, art, design work and music composition were easy to change and implement once I had a clear idea on what I wanted to achieve. There were times when I found that I was unsure of when and where to focus on the narrative side of the project or the game design side but the majority of the project in general holds a heavy reliant on the testing, testing over time and testing with different users.
Contextual Reflection:
The final project sits in an odd world which exists on a specific cultural aspect that is not very well known particularly in North America and Western Europe. The visual novel game genre is very specific to Japan due its visual aesthetics and cultural roots of the Japanese manga comic style.
For a more detailed account on visual novels, I have written two entries about what it is technically and culturally:
In terms of the ever growing commercial computer games industry, the underground community of independent game designers and artists grows day by day. Game accessibility has also increased due to technological advances in home computers, gadgets and gaming consoles, so do interest, and so do the amount of independent games becoming available. This devised project like various other independent game maker(s), is a contribution to the growing stream and popularity of non commercially made visual novel games.
In comparison to several key artistic works:
Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney (2001, Capcom)
The Phoenix Wright games is an example of a Japanese visual novel game that due to its popularity has been re-released on the Nintendo DS and published in America,, Europe and Australia. Compared to the devised project, there is an obvious leap in professional quality such as artwork, animation, gameplay, design, programming and production. However, I have followed in its footsteps of a similar visual design and game flow yet attempted to incorporate a more comic visual aesthetic that branches off the main game play.
Phoenix Wright is simple enough in gameplay that allows a player to be immersed with the narrative and characters which can be seen as a feature of the game itself. I had intended to extend the narrative of my project however due to time constraints and technical difficulties I was not able to achieve the ending animation to end the story I had intended.
Hotel Dusk: Room 215 (2007, Cing)
Hotel Dusk is another example of a visual novel game which has a slightly more impressive visual style to that of Phoenix Wright. The quality of the animation and visual style is a prominent feature of the game and in a way and has managed to be cinematic in a simplistic style. Compared to the devised project, I tried to imitate some of its 'minimal' animation techniques by working with static images and focus on the pacing of the text.
Compared to the examples above, both being DS games has a impact on the audio. Memory is a large issue for the DS console, audio is no exception in having a limited memory space. For that, I used that as a limit for the project by using the internet as the main medium in which it is to be hosted on. Originally, I had planned to incorporate more sound effect samples for the project yet I found that it sometimes unnecessary in the narrative as well as increasing the project's file size; a problem especially when it was designed to be primarily played online.
Project Summary:
Overall, I believe that my project has been a huge task and significant insight to a game developer/designer. The project has succeeded and is in a playable form and hosted online.
The hardest aspects of the project was the programming and the amount of time spent dedicated to testing. However, once everything works and everything start coming together, the step taken to the end product is highly rewarding. Time was mostly spent in learning the action-script 2 code as well as understanding it to achieve the effects I wanted in the project. At times, it was also a large challenge to find a specific solution to some of the problems I have encountered in the programming over the internet as well as grasping the theory enough to implement it correctly within a Flash project On a personal level, it is highly satisfying to be able to master and start writing the action-script code without the need to reference it and for it to work perfectly.
Other areas which took a considerable amount of time work on was implementing the artwork itself into Flash (and again testing it). Once a workflow was sorted, implementing the various assets needed became easier which again becomes increasingly satisfying when the whole project started to come together. Like learning and understanding how to use action-script, I took a Flash's drawing and design capabilities as a challenge to adapt to. Again, like with action-script it was demanding to understand under time constraints but once a workflow was established, most of everything slotted into place.
On the other hand, I found that once I had planned the script and applied it to a table format, it became easy and very clear to which parts of the script that I needed to focus on and to plan ahead. Due to the nature of the project which juggles many different roles and responsibilities in one go, it became a valuable planning and management asset which without it, the whole project would be less complete.
The project has succeeded in the programming yet I feel that if time was not a factor, the quality as a whole would be at a much higher standard as well as fully completed as I had intended. The process itself proved to be a valuable learning experience in learning Flash's capabilities, music composition for games and in my personal interest in art, design and animation.
Due to the time spent on prototyping and testing, I am a bit disappointed in in the amount of the narrative that has developed as I intended in expanding the game world and its characters a little bit more and had asked several people to donate their music to ease the workload and pressure off the audio side.
In conclusion, the project did not stray far from the original project proposal. I however believe that due to the nature of the project, a larger time frame is needed for it to be successful when compared to other games in the field. While it is available to be played online and has the ability to be downloaded and played offline, a large part of it falls under marketing the project as an end product to gain recognition.
Valve's Steam client is an excellent example of the importance of the internet and gaming culture. Steam is a game distributing program that supports games made by small and larger game companies and offers gaming content and media readily over the client/internet. Users are able to download demo content, various media and for a price full versioned games. Independently made games like Braid and Machinarium are available over Stream along with more notable titles like Left 4 Dead. I have noticed a slight increase in activity and interest by submitting several prototypes online and posting them onto specific sites frequented by the target audience in mind. In relation to Steam, I believe that the interest is there and I feel that it can only broaden over time when it is available over the internet, much like how Steam works. It is difficult to assess the success-ability of the project in general due to its reliance on time, but since it is viewed as an independent project, I do not see why it should not be successful when full developed like Jonathan Blow's Braid or Jakub Dvorksy's Machinarium and Samorost series.
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