Narrative

In order to make players understand the story of the game clearly, I think the game can add simple text animations that can be triggered in some rooms. When a player collects a specific item or moves to a specific location, the storyline text will appear. Take Dark Deception as an example. The text automatically appears in the screen when the player reaches a specific location. Another example is What Remains of Edith Finch.

Based on our previous discussions about the narrative idea and the presentation of the labyrinth pieces, I found an image that fitted and by using Photoshop I split it into eight pieces for our subsequent sections.

Ref: https://www.pngsucai.com/png/8516579.html

In response to the story context of the project, I came up with the idea of Alzheimer’s disease and conducted research and studies on it. Using these studies as inspiration, I came up with some ideas for refining the context of the project.

Including:

• Thoughts about the shape of the memory pieces and what they would look like when put together
• An extension of the game play based on Alzheimer’s
• The game narrative context as well as the story line, I have proposed two different contexts and ending narrative designs that I hope to discuss later.

For more details please refer to my brain map file.

Alzheimer

We set up our player’s character as a person who’s suffering from Alzheimer’s disease. Every memory in each room is his/her former experience. And the game is designed to help him/her recall and retrieve lost memories. 

Why do we choose to focus on people with Alzheimer’s disease?

• To call attention to Alzheimer’s disease and this group of people, and give them more love and care.

The Economist describes the disease as a ‘global emergency’. The number of people with Alzheimer’s disease is increasing not only in the elderly but also in the young in recent years. And the patients need more care and love because Alzheimer’s disease is one of the known incurable diseases in which people are unable to take care of themselves in later stages, which can be fatal. Moreover, it is a subject of concern, because nursing and other medical expenses are taking heavy cost on the patients’ families and also on the state’s finances. However, taking medicine could delay the development of Alzheimer’s disease if we can find out about it as soon as possible, so this is also one of the reasons that we want to call more attention to this disease and this group of people.

Why do we come up with ideas about memories?

• Alzheimer’s disease
• To make an appeal for cherishing life and memories

Memories are very precious, and it can be said that everyone has memories. So we use ‘memory’ as the touchpoint of our game to attract more people to play our games. In daily life, some people may rely on looking forward to the future to comfort their current situation of struggle, and some people may regret not treasuring the past. But each experience is precious to us no matter in the past, now or in the future. And we always get the new harvest from our experience. So, we want to make people realise that memories and experiences are precious, and then cherish their current life. Don’t wait until you miss the time and chance to know how to treasure your memories.

Narrative

“I” seemed to have arrived in a non-Euclidean labyrinth and couldn’t remember why I was there. I switched on the radio in the room and followed the instructions to complete the first room, at which point multiple doors opened and different choices took me back to different stages of my memory, and I needed to explore each room in the labyrinth to retrieve the pieces belonging to each stage of my life and repair my complete memory.

1. Once the player has completed the room assignment, is it possible to add subtitles or narration to connect Erikson’s stages of psychosocial development more closely to the content of the room.

With the workshop, we can achieve some interesting effects with max and apply them to our projections.

1. Overlaying the player’s real-time play footage with a gradually changing puzzle video to give the viewer a differentiated experience from the player.
Implementation solution: capturing real-time game footage via obs.

Inspired by https://www.adceurope.org/awards/annual/remember-me_729

2.The projection plays our recorded gameplay video and can make certain effects based on the player’s or viewer’s movements and sounds. The content of the projection is like a parallel world to the player’s gameplay world. Such as RGB video effects : https://youtu.be/sO5NaTjBvL8

What’s this game about? 

You play a character in this game who has Alzheimer’s, who wakes up in their own home and don’t recognize where they are and who they are. They are completely lost, and to them, their home has been transformed into a non-euclidean maze that they now have to work to navigate and find their way again by entering each room, and discovering objects in the space that helps recover their memories of their home and their themselves.

In the last stage the player escapes the maze, bringing all the objects into the final room placing in position so they finally recognize where they are and who they are.

These notes are based on the group meeting on 03/06

How are we presenting our game?

We are playing with the idea that there are multiple people on a journey of discovering their lost memories at the same time.

Our game can become a kind of art installation, where the waiting room, and the room that people are playing can become part of the game experience to make it more immersive for the players.

We would like to have people experience the game in two different ways, where one group of people are participating in the experience as the player in the game, and another group of people are participating as a spectator.

We have also decided to have 4 people playing the game at the same time, in their own space in a cubical or some other such thing but the key is the players are in their own enclosed space.

How are we making this immersive?

We would like to include a projection of visuals in the room, along with sounds that can correspond with them on a speaker. Some ambient music would also be a great addition to have.

We can either project the the gameplay from one person into the room where other people can watch as spectators, or it can be a warped version of the game to project a different perspective of the game for a bit of a interesting twist.

The goal is to help the physical setting of the game become part of the play experience to make it more immersive. So, there can be one speaker and a projection with visuals that can match the color aesthetics of each room the player enters in, with the sounds and music in the background that’s heard in the room that matches the gameplay of the player.

In the enclosed space the players are in, we can also put LED lights in each space that would light up with same colors seen in the room that player enters in the game. We can also include some floor cams that would do the same thing.

Some things to consider…

• How can we make sure the audio matches the projection?
• How can we make the experience more convincing for the players but also the spectators?
• Should we have people watch the gameplay play while in the waiting room, or should we just have a projection showing some game controls and hints? Or will there be some abstract visuals with fun textures and colors with some sound and music that could build anticipation as well as interest?
• How are the spectators viewing the game? Are they peering over the players shoulders or are they walking around the room and experiencing the game as a kind of art installation with warped images of the game or just fun seeing visuals and textures?

What do we need to make this all happen?

We need to take the time to find the best room to do this in. The Atrium is the best contender at the moment, where it has the most space that we could easily manipulate for our needs.

We thought about Room 101, but to make the game more immersive it would be a bit tricker to try and figure out how to use the room to our advantage.

So far we need: One speaker, a projector, 4 really good laptops, and 4 really good headphones.

These notes are based upon the meeting we had on  06/3/23 and are the conculsions we have come up with so far. More information about the phenakistoscope is in Ruxin’s Room Concept  here. 

The Narrative 

This game is about discovering lost memories, through remembering old feelings and experiences in a surreal way that’s shown  in each room the character enters. The player’s goal is to discover their lost memories by finding objects in each room and escaping the maze to reveal their lost memories.

At the end of the game, when the player escapes the maze with all the objects retrieved from the game, the player enters the last room where they place all the objects they collected onto an ancient toy called the phenakistoscope. The objects spin together on the phenakistoscope and creates an image of a person growing up in all the different stages of life.

The Gameplay

The game begins in an introductory mode, where the player finds the room and the object it contains very easily in order to teach them how to the play the game.

After this tutorial, the game proceeds but this time some rooms may be harder than others. When the player finds the object, it also acts a a key to that lets them leave that room and continue further along in the maze.

The objective is the same in reach room, (find the object) but each room looks different from the other and symbolizes one of the different stages of life based on the theory on psychological development of human beings by  Erik H Erikson.

• Infancy, Trust vs. Mistrust
• Toddlerhood, Autonomy vs. Shame/Doubt
• Early Childhood, Initiative vs. Guilt
• Late Childhood, Industry vs. Inferiority
• Adolescence, Identity vs. Role Confusion
• Early Adulthood, Intimacy vs. Isolation
• Middle Adulthood, Generativity vs. Stagnation
• Late Adulthood, Ego Integrity vs. Despair

Environment, Music and Sound

The maze is in the shape of a Rubik’s cube, where the character is navigating through a non euclidean space. The player cannot trust what they see since there are false doors, dead ends and other such things. In order to navigate this maze since they can’t trust their eyes, the players will have to use sound in order to find their way out. The sound, however, is not located in the virtual game world, but only in the physical space the player is in.

The music in the game will be used to create a strong sense of narrative, the soundtrack that’s heard in the rooms helps make the connection between the game play and the character and builds out the emotional side to the story.

Since sound is being used to help navigate in the maze, it is a key component of the game. The sound will be heard in the physical environment so we wait till maze prototype is ready to test how the sound will be used to navigate the maze.

The List of Rooms & Build Arrangements

• Infancy, Trust vs. Mistrust

(Pending,  Alex for now )

• Toddlerhood, Autonomy vs. Shame/Doubt

(Pending, Linteng for now)

• Early Childhood, Initiative vs. Guilt

– Princess and The pea – Alexandria

• Late Childhood, Industry vs. Inferiority

– Sadness – Bohan

• Adolescence, Identity vs. Role Confusion

– Yogesh

• Early Adulthood, Intimacy vs. Isolation

– Loneliness – Ruxin

• Middle Adulthood, Generativity vs. Stagnation

-Nightmare / Dark Mood / Atmosphere – Linteng

• Late Adulthood, Ego Integrity vs. Despair

(Pending, Ruxin for now)

Decisions and Next Steps

We still have decisions to make as to what the final room is going to look like but we know what is going to happen in this room.

Ruxin would like to make the scope. Zhaoyi is interested in doing the sound for the animation of the scope.

We also need to decide on what will be seen in the room, after the character places all the objects on the scope, and after  the animation scene of the scope.

We also need to decide upon what the objects the player discovers in the room is going to look like.

We are all going to begin creating the models for the rooms, or the drafts of the rooms concepts.

Roger and Bohan will collaborate on the programming. Roger will begin creating the maze prototype.

At the start of the meeting we discussed the idea of combing projection  mapping with virtual reality, looking over digital installations that were done as museum exhibitions .  I was the most inspired by the installation, Inhabitat ,  a mixed reality artwork that explored alternative ecosystems where people would be able to explore the environment in two different ways. One person could explore while wearing the VR headset and look at  microscopic ecosystems up close and personal, while others could manipulate the ecosystem and play with a physical sand sculpture with a projection laid over it that was also in the room.

https://artificialnature.net

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During the meeting we played with the idea of doing something similar, where we could create a world that could be seen in two different ways, and well as have some interaction with real objects and sensors by using a Vive tracker.

I’m also inspired by this installation done done by Design I/O called Connected Worlds and brought it up during our discuss. This installation was also held in a science museum, where projection mapping was used as well as physical objects. The physical objects were used by the “players” to help manipulate the environment, in addition to motion sensor technology.

https://www.design-io.com/projects/connectedworlds