Read/watch the following:
“History of Virtual Reality.” Virtual Reality Society, 2 Jan. 2020, https://www.vrs.org.uk/virtual-reality/history.html.
Eic, Ksenia. “Spatial Design in Architecture and Video Games.” Game Dialogues. Hand Eye Society's Game Dialogues, 2016, Toronto, ON, CA, https://gamedevcafe.com/2016/09/01/spatial-design-architecture-video-games/.
Hall, Laura E. “Environmental Narrative: Telling Stories in Spaces Without Saying Anything Aloud.” Game Developers Conference. Game Developers Conference, Mar. 2019, San Franciso, CA, US, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oXZTz3oR30A.
Lawardorn, Damien. “The Rise, Fall, and Place of Environmental Storytelling in Games.” The Escapist, The Escapist, 27 Jan. 2020, https://www.escapistmagazine.com/the-rise-fall-and-place-of-environmental-storytelling-in-games/.
Smith, Harvey, and Matthias Worth. What Happened Here? Environmental Storytelling. Mar. 2010, https://www.gdcvault.com/play/1012647/What-Happened-Here-Environmental, PowerPoint Presentation.
Hall, Michael. “The 15 Basic Elements to Know to Better Your Film's Mise-En-Scene.” Mentorless, Mentorless, 1 Nov. 2016, https://www.mentorless.com/2016/11/01/basics-elements-understand-mies-en-scene/.
Goins, Elizabeth. “Structuring Digital Game Stories.” Interactive Storytelling, Springer International Publishing, Cham, 2018, pp. 265–269. Lecture Notes in Computer Science,
Play the following (Samantha will work on getting lab access to them):
Answer the following:
Give 2 short examples of “environmental storytelling” that aren’t as overused. [hints in the example here: https://www.gamedeveloper.com/design/environmental-storytelling]
If designing a game space with environmental storytelling elements which advice from the reading is most helpful for you? Why?
Respond to a point Elizabeth Goins made in her paper: “Structuring Digital Game Stories”
DUE BEFORE SUNDAY 3/6
Two examples of "environmental storytelling":
You were born in a mysterious cave, breathing the cold air. Everything within your sight was stone walls colored deep marine blue, among which was only a thin beam of light cutting open the darkness. An ethereal voice broke the silence, calling your name Link and guiding you outside this place. After looking around, you started walking, then running, and then climbing up the obstacles just to seek the source of the light and the voice. Your footsteps echoed in the path outward, and the clear, bright view of the outside world soon broke into your eyes. There lay a grandiose scene of the sky, clouds, trees, and mountains. You reached the edge of the…
1.1 "Hitman 3" uses environment storytelling with heavy interaction involved as the core game mechanic. The environmental queues in the mission area not only paint a narrative picture of the event taking place, but also guide the player to engage with the setting and the objects to progress through the mission. The player has a plethora of ways to assassinate the main targets of each level, and the game rewards each unique method. With each pathway, a new piece of story is uncovered about Agent 47's target. A great way for players to feel the narrative is by dawning the attires of the people working at these locations. For example, when you switch places with a cook, you are abl…
1.
"Firewatch" uses a large number of real scenes in the forest as visual guidance, such as cooking smoke, rivers, unusual, strange trees, tall buildings, etc., which appear natural and reasonable without destroying the sense of immersion.
Firewatch is a dialogue-rich, narrative-driven game. It creates aesthetics and spatial navigation feelings for clearing a large and beautiful open forest scene. Players have an adventure that is sometimes leisurely and sometimes exciting by talking to the other end of the phone.The game that uses growing wildfires and smoke in its levels to tell the player that the wildfires are getting bigger and bigger over time.
At the same time, this game uses a huge and beautiful natural environment to highlight the insignificance…
[I have had a tremendous affectionate for interactive visual and environmental aesthetics in regards to games, and I notice a lot of creative storytelling whether be it a game or movie or real life (as the visual aesthetics is the only thing that makes me feel adrenaline rush in my body), as I am mainly inspired by the environments both in-game (created by designers) and in real-life (created by nature). As an environment artist, I mainly focus on the environmental elements that bolster the player’s intuition in regards to the scene setup within the game. Such as if the designers design a scene that consists of bright light, nature, birds chirping, leaves falling from the trees and likewise, then the…
1. One of the examples of environmental storytelling is Rust. When players firstly spawn, they only have a rock in their hand and get confused about the world around them. After exploring the wild, players may see a lot of abandoned buildings, launch sites, factories, etc. These abandoned man-made structures tell the player that the background of the game is built after a period of civilization. There are also a lot of building that contains radiation which will make players lose health points if they walk close enough. This gives players a clue that the story happens after the nuclear war, human beings started to build their homes from a primitive state, starting from the rock in the player’s hand.