Learning

Videogames and Storytelling

Also known as English 2090, this is a class that provides insight into storytelling through interactive media. Throughout my experience of this course, I learned how storytelling is used in one of the fastest growing industries across a very complex and popular medium. Unlike literature or film, videogames demand interaction from the audience, making them into players that are involved in the story instead of a mere witness to events.

Several major techniques taught in this course was "Mechanics as Metaphor" where the actual functions of the game emit specific emotions from the character into a variety of dynamics such as frustration, joy, excitement, and so forth. The mechanics of videogames are used to incite dynamic experiences from the player in order to help them achieve the creator's desired aesthetic.

Even within the realms of videogames and storytelling, endless elements are used within the field of videogames that are very similar to literature. It's a fine art that demands active participation and an invested interest in order to experience the end of the story. This action of engagement has been inspiring to me as I continued to learn more of my own innovative ideas and goals.

What makes this course unique is the additional perspective that it builds upon writing. A story is told not only in characters, animations, and plot, but in gameplay as well. Videogames are capable of immersing the player into virtuality to assist them in realizing what potential realities can be created through embracing virtual ideas.

While writing has different styles and nuanced techniques to portray their ideas, videogames use similar tactics in how they design every aspect of their game from the soundtrack to the lighting, down to their player's interface. Some designers will use details, features, and endless tools to assist the players performance and experience, whereas others will focus on providing an experience focusing on other gaming aspects without handy tools such as minimaps or inventories.

There are advantages and strengths to both, but as I continued to learn and observe I continued to ponder what design would I need to use to make my product effective storytelling. How can I capture a perfect balance between function and form to appeal to the player's curiosity while giving them a story they would remember. Busy designs with complex gameplay can be intimidating to certain groups, and make my product less accessible to others. Stories, on the other hand, are only limiting based upon the breadth of the vocabulary used to portray complex ideas. Therefore, English 2090 not only showed me the different levels and methods of storytelling in videogames, but urged me to consider how I was going to design my innovations for future players.

To apply these techniques, I decided to create an MVP, Hilltop. Storytelling differs across the many available mediums from film, to literature, and to video games. Video Games are currently one of the fastest growing forms of entertainment, and there exist endless possibilities of where stories can go, what they can do, and what sort of problems they can solve. The interactive nature of storytelling emits emotions within a player as they interact with the mechanics of the game, and openly engage with literary elements that may have reactions to players behavior, and provide a refection for players as they experience a story that reacts to their actions.

Hilltop is a game that was created with the intent of building on the learned principles of what makes a video game story effective. How can a player's experience with game mechanics evoke desired emotions and grasp the underlying aesthetics that a game has to offer. Hilltop ended up being my project of application for all the tools I learned from this class.

Film, Literature, and Videogames

Also known as English 5090, students delved deeper into the major ideologies presented in storytelling, and more specifically how the arts embrace virtuality as a form of potential. To me, this was the class that bit into the meat of storytelling, especially when considering philosophies and deeper messages that are displayed across the various art mediums. Within this class we discussed two major methods that are vividly opposing to each others principles, yet both embrace certain truths that make them appealing on a universal scale.

In this class we discuss two major ideologies: Linearity and Multi-linearity-- the two faces of storytelling. In business they are identified as collective vs individualist societies, and in philosophy they are respectively identified as the Western thinkers vs the Eastern thinkers. Understanding the fundamental strengths and weaknesses between the two is pivotal for innovating storytelling, and inevitably has become a focal point of my own product, Hilltop.

Multi-linearity is rhizomatic in nature, it presents the claim that all perspectives are equal in value, and that all actions or intentions will ultimately result in equal outcomes. It demands a collective approach, and acknowledges the existence of branching paths, all of which exist and hold the same acknowledgment. Alan Watts, Taoism, and other eastern philosophies strongly embrace the nature of conforming to the universal collective. It reduces the ego and demands focus on the world around you as opposed to your own existence. Consequence is subverted in return for recognizing balance between entities, acknowledging the value of everything around you as an equal instead of a hierarchical nature. It’s a thought process that has appealed to Eastern countries, and more specifically my selected market of Korea, for generations. My class investigated more of this thinking through stories such as The Garden of Forking Paths or the game Everything which exemplifies much of the philosophies of Alan Watts. But still I struggled to grasp the value of this philosophy. It reduces agency to something whimsical and weightless, and undermines individual value in return for harmony and the big picture.

Linearity acts nearly opposite to this form of storytelling, using constraints and laws to determine a more hierarchical nature. Every choice holds weight and consequences, and victory can only be obtained by following the strict and immovable laws set by reality. Constraints are placed in order to assist the reader/player/viewer in changing themselves to meet the demands placed upon them. Often times this is captured in the universal myth of the Heroic Journey. Individuals have purpose and direction, they depart to the unknown to be initiated and return with a great boon that improves their lives and others. This is a philosophy that I’m much more comfortable with, but unfortunately limits my reach to a specific demographic and region of like-minded people. How could I improve the lives of other people if I limit my focus on perspectives I already understand?

Inevitably, the true value of this class emerged when I identified the similarities and patterns between games. The most effective games, the climax of the movies, and the powerful messages of the story, all demand the same thing regardless of their idelogy, and that is the relinquishment of something familiar to embrace the divine. This class helped me understand what messages are worth exploring and portraying in my products, along with the values that are important to communicate in each specific medium.

For Hilltop, a game that will be teaching western mental health practices to an Eastern demographic, I had to find the balance between linearity and non-linearity, different approaches to telling stories that reflect the philosophies of structured Ludus play or playful Paidia, and still provided direction for users. A powerful similarity between these two mentalities is the concept of relinquishment, that greater strength and improvement can only arrive when we choose to sacrifice the original state. This is a mechanic that is fundamental to Hilltop, as players will often have to sacrifice certain resources, time, or even burdens in-game in order to open new opportunities and pathways. Sacrifice and rebirth are deeply ingrained into both philosophies, and can provide a story of healing and growth for all players.

Entrepreneurship and The Scientific Method

This course was taken during my semester abroad in South Korea, where the David Eccles Global Program encouraged students to locate inspiration and identify problems in a different culture that could be addressed in an innovative and entrepreneurial manner. Other classes were taken during this semester abroad program which were especially useful, such as how to sell your idea to your chosen market and how to fund your starting enterprise financially. But most importantly I believe this class helped me recognize how my passion could solve real problems, and how I can make my solution desirable to my chosen market. It was a monstrosity of a class with a ridiculous amount of work and research, but it was worth it in the end, because it helped me determine my second engagement: Hilltop.

This class that forced me to look at my MVP from all angles using a formula known as the 10 P’s and Q’s. Problems had to be identified, and my solution had to hold a secret value that couldn’t be easily duplicated by another competitor. Even when I developed my own solution I had to identify potential alternatives that could undermine my own products. When a product is made what features ensure success compared to the current solutions existing now? What sort of risks stand in the way of my plan, and what sources of skill or people will I need to actually make my solution a reality? How much potential growth could my solution obtain? Who in the world would even buy the product, and how much profit do you need to actually become profitable?

These were, and frankly still are, the hard questions. The risky questions that don’t have an exact answer, especially when you’re just a student with nothing more than an idea looking at a problem. How many companies have tackled the same problem as me? How much time and resources have they poured into solving the exact same question as myself? It can get especially discouraging very quickly when you focus on the specifics of this sort of thing.

Thankfully, we were given case studies to pull from to see how other businesses in the past were able to succeed from solving a problem, specifically from the American innovators long before. Pilgrims, canals, railroads, steel, and every major commodity that was successful resulted due to a single individual solving a problem, and it required them to solve the problem in an especially unique way that couldn’t be easily duplicated. While not all were ethical solutions (especially when you start monopolizing these connections) they were all still effective, and they helped me realize that sometimes the solutions don’t require anything grandiose or flashy. Sometimes people have problems that require answers, and you have to be in the right location with the right skillset and networks to resolve that problem in an effective manner.

With this in mind I started to think to myself where I need to be to answer problems. If I want to solve storytelling problems should I be immersing myself in the film and entertainment industry? Do people need to hear these kinds of stories? Or do people need to hear stories in specific situations and contexts? Should my stories be purely message based, or should they actually teach my audience something worthwhile?

It all took a long time of reflection, but I finally concluded that I needed to determine what sort of audience actually needed to hear stories, and I discovered this through my engagements with my internship and with my MVP.