Category: Process

Interactive Story update

The flowchart below indicates my progress with the narrative. Only 2 parts to go.

I’ve indicated ‘1’ and ‘2’ as there’s a slight change during that options.

  1. A suggestion provided with prof Don is to have a character yank the cables out as it allows the character to show more emotions.
  2. Character throws a rock as a form of distraction but due to his low accuracy, it hits the golem. Originally, the character sneaks around the golem, but felt it wasn’t as funny or interesting.

Storyboards and research are in my previous post. Other than the 2 changes, they’re pretty much still the same.

These are the updated boards for Act 1:

Interactive Narrative: Focus (Storyboards)

Focus is a working title for this assignment*

Updated Logline: Roger is a confident 18 year old  police recruit from the future. He is next in line to complete his final test to graduate from the academy. The test being a VR game that requires the player to diffuse bombs in peculiar situations.

This interactive narrative lets player help Roger make various decision throughout the story whereby the objective is to get him to pass his test.

Character Designs

The style I’m going for with this designs are simple to ensure that I’m efficient with my animatic.

(From Left to right)

Roger: A 17-year-old recruit and the shortest among his cohort. He never gets intimidated when a problem arises and with the help of the audience, he will try his best to ace his test.

I referenced his design with old school scifi films and series where baggy outfits were ‘in’. However, I toned down the “bagginess” to highlight his diligence (which will be more obvious when he’s next to his mates, who are much baggier).

 In-VI-gitron: A mannequin looking robot whose function is to invigilate examinations for recruits. It’s the 6th type of robot that is utilized in the police force (this information does not really matter but I thought it would be fun to world-build a little).

Its plain design is inspired not necessarily from a particular character but from a scene in Ghost in the Shell 1995 (which I was reminded of during my research) where during the montage, Major Motoko Kusanagi roams about the streets where one of it’s final shots was a bunch of mannequins.

P.s. In-VI-gitron only has one arm as it only needs it for results projection.

Golem-Knight: It being a golem, it doesn’t really have or need a personality apart from it having one goal in mind, to protect the treasure chest and to attack whoever attempts to steal or provoke him.

Since this character is within a VR game, I went with a more fantastical approach with its design. Its huge proportions is intentional to make it a lot more intimidating to the audience as well as Roger, who’s much MUCH smaller. It’s dismembered design is inspired by the material golems are made of, earth/rocks. Having some pieces float as opposed to being attached gives this monster a fantastical look as well as emphasis the material it’s made off as opposed to adding details to the design which can hinder the animatic process.

Storyboards

The boards are a work in progress where there are some missing elements in between some shots but still more or less captures the general flow of this story.

The ending for the “Smash” outcome has yet to be decided as I’m going back and forth as to whether this should be another bad ending or a good ending.