Here you can see the fruits of my efforts in a class where we focused mainly on stories of video games
“How stupid are you?” I would ask rhetorically, “When a murderer is chasing you, you stop screaming, and you fight back. Just grab that stupid pan over there!” That was the sound of me watching a scary movie. You see, I am quite fascinated by a good story, but what good is a story when it doesn't make sense? What kind of a hero in would react worse than I would have? The most special thing about video games as a medium to tell a story, is that YOU are not just rooting for the protagonist of a story, you are the protagonist of the story, and you get to make the hard choices.
There are many ways to tell a story. You can speak it, write it, show it, or the most recent and most exciting way as of now: let them experience it as a character in the story. Role playing is one of the most natural tools that we use to entertain ourselves. It’s true that when someone else makes the story for us just to role play inside of it they are limiting our imagination, but as with all stories, there is a point in making them. What I believe, is that stories are the spoonful of sugar that helps the moral or lesson we need to learn sink it. I believe the potential in video games should be used, not to just make money, but to help people learn about the real word. To help them with critical thinking, and make our and the next generations smarter, and more mature human beings.
As part of this exercise, we learned about the importance of the first impression a product and its sale’s pitch can make on the mind of the consumers.
Example:
"You have been given a chance to become a super hero. Prof. Madduck has offered to give you a shot of hero gene; you can pick what kind of super powers you want to have, but chose wisely; you will be stuck with your decision. Fight the evil Prof. Sanegoose and win the day for all the good of humanity!"
(Find the full version of the Box Copy and quest assignment at the bottom of the page as "Quest Assignment.pdf".)
For this exercise, I chose to review Batman Arakham City. It is my most favorite game of all time. (at least at the moment. These things tend to change.) The story is engaging and characters are well developed.
The thing that most shocked me when I was researching about the game was that there are actually people on the face of this planet that did NOT like the game, because they thought the mechanics were the same as the last game of the series. The very same people would acknowledge that the story is beautiful and the voice acting is brilliant.
(You can find the full version of this assignment at the bottom of the page as well by clicking on "Game Narrative Review.pdf ". )
We had to write the first 20-30 pages of a screenplay for this class! You'll find the link to the latest version of my screenplay at the bottom of the page, but here's a shot pitch document:
Exposed
Charles Ebony Peters is a retired health inspector living in a retirement home, who is being interviewed by a young reporter about his career. As we travel with then Charlie to his youth, we meet Denis Tambourine, his forced coworker. A very strange man with brown eyes so bright that they look yellow. Denis Tambourine is not a regular, or simple, or even normal man… not by a long shot.