Setting, Context, and Chain Reactions
Karey and I met today to talk about some possibilities of delivering the story to the players in the “My Child’s Eyes” game. I brought the fairytale version of Gloom (1) and T.I.M.E. Stories (2) for her to review and for us to discuss the possibilities that they represent. On the one hand, Gloom has a context and the story is built by the players in that context. On the other hand T.I.M.E. Stories has definite settings, or locations, and the story is delivered to the players.
T.I.M.E. Stories pod room. In the story the players will be transported to somewhere in time from here.
In T.I.M.E. Stories the location is defined by a set of cards. The cards are laid out on the table and the players take turns randomly choose a card to turn over. Each card has s piece of the story, a description of the mission, or a task to complete.
Here are the cards turned over. Each card has a piece of the game. There is story, puzzles, and a mission description. The players discover their goal and enter into the story.
On the other hand, Gloom doesn’t really have settings but it has context. The focus is on the characters and their development. Location is secondary to the story.
The players have characters. In this case it is Grandmother. There is a prompt for the players to begin their story.
The player has added the card "wound up in a whale." There are consequences and the story takes a turn.
Now the character has "wasted a wish." Perhaps the player has tried to wish for something to help the character get out of the whale and has failed.
In Gloom the cards are layered on top of each other. Each new card has an effect on the previous one. This is done with clear cards so that certain aspects of the character and their story are blocked out by the new card and other aspects are preserved. In this way the characters are developed by the player.
At the end of our meeting, Karey said something that really made this project get to the next level. As we were discussing location (setting) and context she said that the situation of parental conflict was really all about a context in which a chain reaction would take place. My game designer heart stopped. I knew what I needed to research next: games that use chain reaction mechanics.
(1) Gloom was originally discussed in this post: https://www.studio4gameinnovation.com/through-my-childs-eyes-developer-blog/is-setting-important
(2) T.I.M.E. Stories was originally discussed in this post: https://www.studio4gameinnovation.com/through-my-childs-eyes-developer-blog/what-makes-a-game-fun
