Week 1 Paper Please

Personally, I want to talk more about the choices players have to make in this game. The essential choice player made in this game is Approved or Denied.

At first glance, this is a gameplay puzzle, not a narrative choice. In practice, Paper Please reasonably combine the gameplay puzzles and narrative choices. They are in a similar form, but with a different motivation and lead to different results.

The choices of gameplay puzzles are from the game mechanic. In other words, there is a correct answer. Considering the game is always about the challenge, you should always select the correct answer to get the reward from the game system.

But in some situations, the Approved or Denied choices are not gameplay choices. They’re narrative choice. If approving one passenger may represent the attitude to some NPCs and will lead to completely different endings.

This is exactly the best design of Paper, Please. This game finds a fairly great way to combine the gameplay puzzles and the narrative choice. This kind of combination help player immersive in the story and the world, which obviously so important for this kind of game.

Comparing to Paper Please, the design of This Is the Police(2016) could not be thought clever. Similar to Paper Please, the player needs to finish his own work and make some hard decisions in this game. But making decisions and the gameplay system are virtually two games.

If we regard the core experience of Paper Please is the hardness of making choices in a 1984-style society and environment, the mechanic keeping families alive plays an important role making the dilemma. In other word, the awesome combination of puzzle and narrative choices help player immersive in the dilemma while the dilemma is created by that mechanic.

Week 2 Stardew Valley

If we divide the story of Stardew Valley, we could easily found it contains two parts. The first part is about the player, and the second part is about the stories of other NPCs.

For me, I feel like the mechanics of Stardew Valley support the player’s story excellently, while the NPCs’ stories do not make a strong connection with the game mechanic.

Similar things always happen in RPG games. Most RPG games aim to create a story exclusive to the player. This experience is game-only. You can never meet a similar experience in other narrative media (like novels or movies). And to achieve this, RPG games have to take advantage of the interactive mechanic. But on the other hand, because the designer can not control the story pacing in this kind of game, it is much harder to create impressive NPCs’ story in this kind of game. Stardew Valley could be an example.

So, how the mechanic of Stardew Valley help with creating a player-exclusive story? First, it creates a complex numerical system. The player could make their choice freely. In this way, the player could immerse this game more easily. Second, there is some random event in this game. Randomness is always the best tool to create unexpected things. (think about the dice and D&D) From this perspective, how accurate the word “Country-life RPG” is!

Another good method to create a player-exclusive story is multiplayer, like Minecraft and World of Warcraft. For the player can never know what other players will do, there are always unexpected fun things that happen. I would say this is also a kind of narrative.

However, as a fan of traditional narrative and JRPG, I believe I do not enjoy the narrative of Stardew so much. I am also not sure I have a correct understanding of the mechanic of how player creates their own story.

Preliminary Proposal

Gamebook name: Little Red Riding Hood

The original fairy tale (Copied from Wikipedia):

The story revolves around a girl called Little Red Riding Hood. In Perrault’s versions of the tale, she is named after her red hooded cape/cloak that she wears. The girl walks through the woods to deliver food to her sickly grandmother (wine and cake depending on the translation). In Grimms’ version, her mother had ordered her to stay strictly on the path.

A Big Bad Wolf wants to eat the girl and the food in the basket. He secretly stalks her behind trees, bushes, shrubs, and patches of little and tall grass. He approaches Little Red Riding Hood, who naively tells him where she is going. He suggests that the girl pick some flowers as a present for her grandmother, which she does. In the meantime, he goes to the grandmother’s house and gains entry by pretending to be her. He swallows the grandmother whole (in some stories, he locks her in the closet) and waits for the girl, disguised as the grandmother.

When the girl arrives, she notices that her grandmother looks very strange. Little Red then says, “What a deep voice you have!” (“The better to greet you with”, responds the wolf), “Goodness, what big eyes you have!” (“The better to see you with”, responds the wolf), “And what big hands you have!” (“The better to embrace you with”, responds the wolf), and lastly, “What a big mouth you have” (“The better to eat you with!”, responds the wolf), at which point the wolf jumps out of the bed and eats her, too. Then he falls asleep. In Charles Perrault’s version of the story (the first version to be published), the tale ends here. However, in later versions, the story continues generally as follows:

A woodcutter in the French version, but a hunter in the Brothers Grimm and traditional German versions, comes to the rescue with an axe, and cuts open the sleeping wolf. Little Red Riding Hood and her grandmother emerge shaken, but unharmed. Then they fill the wolf’s body with heavy stones. The wolf awakens and attempts to flee, but the stones cause him to collapse and die. In Grimm’s version, the wolf leaves the house and tries to drink out of a well, but the stones in his stomach cause him to fall in and drown. Sanitized versions of the story have the grandmother locked in the closet instead of being eaten and some have Little Red Riding Hood saved by the lumberjack as the wolf advances on her rather than after she gets eaten, where the woodcutter kills the wolf with his axe.

What My Story Could be like:

1. I plan to add some new setting to help the wolf be not only a bad guy. A possible idea is the wolf also has families and he has to eat people to survive. I am also considering to make the Little Red Riding Hood not a pure positive figure.
2. Wolf. The player will play the role of the wolf.
3. I plan to add some settings, as said above, but at this point I have no intention of changing the original story so much. I prefer to use some gameplay system to tell this classical story in a brand new perspective, creating new experience for the players. In other word I hope I could more focus on the Narrative and Storytelling, rather than the story.

Week3, West of Loathing

Let us first go ahead with why West of Loathing works. This game successfully creates a unique game experience that is much different from other games. Different from the traditional RPG games, West of Loathing creates a weird but funny world. If we regard immersing in a fantasy world as one of the best experiences of RPG games, how this world would be like obviously is a serious problem. As a result, many game developers choose to implement a convincing and credible world to make players easily immerse in. However, West of Loathing does exactly the opposite, intentionally making a fake and unreal world.

Here we have two things. First, why immersing in a West of Loathing like the world is as good as immersing in a convincing world. Second, how West of Loathing uses its game mechanic to help players immerse themselves in the world.

For the first question, the different worlds of the RPG games could give the players different experiences. Like The Witcher 3 creates a cruel and brutal world, aiming to tell a story about love. Like the Mass Effect fictile a disorder and strife-torn university, aiming to create the experience playing a hero. So what is more important is whether the experience matches up with the world, rather than what the world like. There is a funny and absurd world in West of Loathing. And the game also wants to bring the player a funny and absurd feeling. So this is what West of Loathing does really well and what makes this game work.

For the second question, I think the attitude of the players is one of the most important factors. In other words, it is not only the game mechanic that helps the player immerse in the game world and game environment. The attitude of players but also plays an important part. Maybe the art is simple; the game mechanics are minor; But, the players would cheat themselves and naturally immersive in this game. The players are always tolerant. On the other side, though the art of the game is simple, the art is expressive. A good example is the animation of the doctor’s healing skill. The animation is simple but impressive. I would say this kind of animation plays an important role in bringing a strong immersive experience.

Week3, West of Loathing

最近属实状态不好。于是先用中文写完这篇Reflection，之后再转成英文。

80 Days，和 Paper Please、 This is the police、 This war of mine、 Princess Maker（美少女梦工厂）有着类似的设计思路。它们都在一套基于数值的Gameplay框架下，加入了大量的分支选择，在不同的分支下带来不同的叙事内容。然而与大多数同类游戏截然不同的是，80 Days 中玩家要做出的 叙事系统 和 数值系统结合得如此巧妙，让玩家可以更容易沉浸其中。

如果我们把那些对数值有影响，而不影响分支剧情的选择 称为 Puzzle，而把 基于代入感，让玩家遵从内心做出的剧情选择称为 Choice。 Puzzle 往往是有“最优解”的，玩家游玩中的乐趣和挑战性，就在于运用自己的策略性知识，努力寻找数值上的最优解。而Choice旨在让玩家做出自己的选择，从而代入到角色当中享受属于自己的故事。很多游戏在两个系统上都做的非常优秀，但是两部分试图结合的时候却略显糟糕，让人惋惜。严重者例如正在测试的Steam游戏 苏醒之路，轻者如FrostPunk，很多玩家吐槽结尾时“可这一切值得吗”，就恰恰体现了 基于数值的Puzzle玩法和游戏中叙事玩法的冲突。

很多人曾在 GDC Talk 里提到 Choice 和 Puzzle 混在一起是很危险的。因为 Puzzle 在规则上里要求玩家寻求最优解，而Choice 希望玩家从角色和代入感出发，做出属于自己的选择。而 80 Days 巧妙地结合了这两部分的体验，让数值系统和叙事系统完美地融在一起。让我们从各个游戏本身出发，看看不同游戏是如何结合Puzzle 和 Choice的，从而回答关于 80 Days Game Design Choices 的问题。

Paper Please 中的Puzzle 和 Choice有着相同的形式——让玩家作为签证官，选择是否放行旅客。Choice 首先会触发不同的剧情分支，其次对于数值系统有着轻微的影响——如果Puzzle 的部分犯下了一些错误，那你的Choice 就会降低你的数值（在这个游戏中是薪水）。换言之，这款游戏中的 Puzzle会增大你的选择空间，你只有薪水足够，错误较少，才能真正选择自己内心想要的Choice。这种设计和真实世界有些相似，和游戏压抑的基调和核心体验非常贴近。

出人意料地，80 Days 里的做法和Princess Maker（虽然他们看起来是完全不同的游戏类型） 颇有几分相似之处。它们将Puzzle大量地拆散，拆小，放在游戏中不起眼的各个角落，让每个Choice 和 Puzzle对于整个数值系统的影响压缩到很小，让真正对剧情有意义的选择也隐藏起来，让玩家很难发现面前的选项究竟是数值选择还是剧情选择，并且很难预测这些选择对于数值系统和叙事结构的真实影响。这种设计比起Paper Please的设计，强化了叙事的体验（毕竟，在现实世界里我们也不能准确地预测自己的选择对于未来的影响），但是从Gameplay的角度，克服挑战和策略性的乐趣可能有所下降。

这就是我关于 80 Days 的 Game Design Choice的想法。

（Sorry for my going off the topic. 80 Days reminds me a game I made several years ago and inspires me a lot. Maybe I could redesign that game and make a new version for that)

Week4, Brothers A Tale of Two Son.

In the beginning, I must admit that I am not the kind of person who really enjoys the game Brothers A Tale of Two Son. Neither the story nor the gameplay seems compelling enough to me. I would state the reason why I am not a fan of this game by answering the first question asked by the professor.

Let us start with the motivation of this game. For me, the only motivation driving me to finish the game is I want to know the ending of the story. I want to know what happened to the brothers and his father. However, I completely did not get immersed in the story. I never felt like I was one of the brothers. I just watched them go for an adventure, like a witness rather than a character.

So, why is it happen? There are some issues with the script and the presentation. For the script, the player is almost forcedly informed, “Your mother has died! Your father is seriously ill. You must save your father! Go! Right Now!” No foreshadowing at all. Take a look at The Last of Us, Heave Rain or A Plague Tale: Innocence, and we will easily find how much effort these games have made at the beginning to help the players be immersed in the game and feel like they are characters in the game. The motivation of this game could definitely be better if there is some foreshadowing plot. The presentation is something else that could be better. The game uses cinematic storytelling as the main storytelling method. However, the unpolished skeleton animation and shot design make cinematic storytelling not as good as expected.

According to the Quantic Foundry Gamer Motivation. There is 11 other gamer motivation more than the Story. How about the Challenge and Fantasy. Taking an exciting adventure should have been a good point to create Challenge Motivation, like The Journey. Unfortunately, the adventure seems to be a little common for me. I did not feel it fun enough to create motivation for me. As for the challenge, the game mechanic and gameplay is not hard enough to encourage me. To make the players get the motivation of challenge, a good mechanic like Mario or Ori is absolutely necessary.

So basically, I believe the game could be better if it can solve all these issues and gives me more motivation.

Plot Outline

Section 1：

主角的狼先生和怀孕的狼妻子在收拾自己家中的东西。他们要搬家了。（玩家可以控制主角选择搬家要带什么东西，每个东西有一定重量，但是重量有限制，这些东西会影响后期玩家选择的自由）他们要搬家的原因是这个村子附近的食物变少了。如果继续在这里捕猎人类，捕猎家畜，或是捕猎野生动物的话，对于自然的平衡并不是什么好事。于是他们决定搬到红红村去。两只狼表达了对未来生活的憧憬，一起前往了红红村。你可以选择坐船（Section 2 。更快，但你们不会游泳）或者陆行（Section 3。更慢，但是相对安全）前往红红村。

Section 2：

你们决定从水路前往红红村。在途中，你向撑船的水精灵询问了一些关于红红村的基本状况（此处会有Gameplay的简单对话选项）你得知了红红村曾经比较贫穷，但是最近几年发展很好，虽然算不上都很富裕，但起码家家户户每周都能吃上一顿肉或者蛋了。同时对神明和大自然的信仰也逐渐弱化。他们希望能够顿顿都有肉吃，所以也在一直扩张发展，建造更大的牧场，养殖更多的野生动物。在对话间，下起了暴雨，狼妻子坠入了水中。在一通手忙脚乱的Gameplay选项之后（此处会有连续三个选项，如果一直选错，主角也落入水中，溺水而亡，Gameover），水精灵将她救了起来，根据 是否携带医疗箱，狼妻子有吃药/没有吃药的选项。来到 Section 4。

Section 3：

你们决定从陆地前往红红村。然而路上遇到了狡猾的猎人。你虽然抓住了他，并通过审问得知了红红村的状况。然而猎人的同伴突然出现，此处有类似Section 2的选项。狼妻子一定会受伤。来到 Section 4。

Section 4：

你们来到新家。狼妻子说浑身发冷，你简单地处置了一下她的伤势和状态。决定出去为她狩猎，带更多的食物回来。来到Section 5。

Section 5：

你来到村子边上的小路埋伏，四处观察和张望。很快你遇到了第一个人，她是一位成年女性，一头黑发，身上有着丁香与醋栗的香味。你可以决定是否向她出手。如果出手，前往Section 6。如果不出手，前往Section 8。

Section 6：

她看到你，大笑嘲笑了几声。交手几个回合后，她点明了你 Druid 的身份，告诉你还是不要惹她比较好。你可以选择继续攻击，也可以和她交谈，也可以直接逃跑，继续蹲守。继续攻击后，她会浑身冒着火光消失在你的面前。如果和她交谈，进入Section7。如果直接逃跑，进入Section 8。

Section 7：

你向她介绍了你的妻子的经历和状况。她表示同情，并建议你在这里蹲守随后的一个带着红色帽子的小女孩，吃掉这个小女孩可以帮助你的妻子恢复，而吃掉一个卑微的人类，可比攻击一个尊贵的女巫明智地多。她和你说了一些话后准备离开。你可以选择临走时偷袭 或者 继续蹲守。继续蹲守就进入Section 8。直接攻击，她会浑身冒着火光消失在你的面前。（TODO：增加最初带的道具在这里的用途）

Section 8：

你终于遇到了小红帽。按常理说，你不会攻击这个年纪的人类儿童。但是情况紧急。按你的推算，如果你继续再这里等，可能很难遇到下一个人了。你此时可以选择直接攻击小红帽，或者上前去，问她要去哪。如果直接攻击，进入Section 9。如果上前询问，进入 Section 10. 或者继续等待，进入Section 11.

Section 9：

Section 10：

小红帽用天真无邪的眼睛看着你，告诉你她要把篮子里的狼皮被子带给她的奶奶。她的奶奶身体并不是很好，这个狼皮被子一定可以让她每天过的更温暖。此时你可以直接攻击小红帽，进入Section 9。或者躲回去，继续等待，进入Section 11。或者前往她奶奶的家里，进入Section 12.

Section 11：

你左等右等，再也没有其他人前来。此时你也可以继续等待。进入Bad Ending，妻子身亡。你还可以选择追上去，重新选择小红帽做你的目标。进入Section 12。

Section 12：

你一路尾随小红帽，找到了她的去处——她的奶奶家。你可以选择继续尾随，等待小红帽进入屋子（Bad Ending，她们待在家中一直不出来，你敲门也没有任何反应，最后妻子去世） 也可以先行一步来到她奶奶的家中。进入Section 13。

Section 13：

来到她奶奶的家中，你可以选择将奶奶塞进柜子 假扮成奶奶 Section 14，也可以直接将奶奶带回去给妻子。（Normal Ending：保住了妻子的命，但是你们失去了你们的孩子，小红帽没有来找你们寻仇，可能是她无法描述你的状况吧）

Section 14：

“What a deep voice you have!” (“The better to greet you with”, responds the wolf), “Goodness, what big eyes you have!” (“The better to see you with”, responds the wolf), “And what big hands you have!” (“The better to embrace you with”, responds the wolf), and lastly, “What a big mouth you have” (“The better to eat you with!”, responds the wolf),

此时奶奶从衣柜里开始大声呼喊，让小红帽赶快逃跑。你此时可以选择直接抓起小红帽就跑。或者告诉他们你妻子的事情，希望得到他们的帮助和理解。

Section 15：

你将奶奶和小红帽都带给了妻子，妻子吃掉两个人后完全恢复了。

Section 16：

你只将小红帽带给了妻子，妻子完全恢复了。但是奶奶带着全村的猎人来找你寻仇。

Week 9 Heaven’s Vault

It is always said game is designed to create experience. Unfortunately, most modern games are creating some similar experience. Take a look at how our modern AAA games like and what kind of experience they want to create, then you will understand why Heaven’s Vault is so unique and amazing.

Different from the predecessor 80 Days by Inkle, Heaven’s Vault is a language puzzle game which have much more gameplay mechanics. You are not only making some choices this time, though you still have to do your business with the text. This time, You must learn a new language.

So here are two questions. First, why learning a new language is a kind of new experience different from any other games. Second, how this game use its story and mechanic to encourage players to learn the new language.

For the first question, one of the most famous puzzle games, The Witness, is a great illustration. The Witness is a puzzle game almost has no tutorial, no introduction and no number system. All the fun and happiness is from yourself. According to the Jonathan Blow, he hopes the player could enjoy the pure happiness of learning and understanding. “Breath fresh air.” as Jonathan Blow has said. Not as pure as The Witness, Heaven’s Vault has much more happiness than learning and understanding. After all, here is a story and you play a role here, which means you could enjoy the story. However, the learning language part is pretty similar to the gameplay mechanic in The Witness. In both two games, you must guess, understand and explore a brand new system you have never seen. Both games give you some hint or information to help you guess, and you could check your answer and get to know you are making progression. I would these are the necessary parts to make the players enjoy learning. From this perspective, the biggest difference between The Witness and Haven’s Vault, may be the knowledge system games wants you to learn. Language is somehow more emotional while the knowledge in The Witness is more rational and logical.

For the question how game encourage people to learn, two games are using completely different methods. Considering The Witness is a much more pure puzzle game, the only thing you could do in this game, is learning and solving puzzles. In other word, the only reason you learn is learning is interesting. Heaven’s Vault, however, uses a much more gentle way. Even you completely do not learn anything, you could also finish the game. (personally I’m not sure if this is a good design choice) But If you carefully read the story and get immersed in the game, you would definitely understand the character and want to learn this language.

Week 10 Where the Water Tastes Like Wine

As a super fan of Gone Home, I was really excited to try the brand new text adventure game, Where the Water Tastes Like Wine once released. However, after playing it, I decided never recommend this game to my friends while I have introduced Gone Home to more than ten people as their first walking simulator – with the great progress the developers have made in the story and aesthetic, the gameplay part has also changed so much that it is even harder to get immersed in. Actually, the core experience of this game exactly has nothing about immersed. It is more about reading and watching.

Let us start with the story collecting mechanic, it aims to provide player a new kind of motivation to finish the game. According to the Gamers’ Motivation Model, people call this Complete Motivation. And it gave players information about the progress of the game. But I would say the core emotional experience has nothing about this mechanic. The core experience is about text, stories and how stories are changing and evolving. So you can see, though the game mechanic makes Where the water taste like wine more like a game, it does not help build the core experience.

This is also why I do not enjoy this game so much – if the game mechanic does not help with the core experience, why not just writing a book to tell all these stories? Game is one of the great art forms, but not all kinds of experiences is good for games. Take a look at Gone Home and Outer Wilds, they are games about exploration and adventure. It is the curiosity that encourages player to finish the game. However, in Where the water tastes like wine, so many game mechanics have nothing about the experience exploring the U.S. and meet different people.