Progress Update #3

Progress oh progress.

My favorite thing.

But actually, we've made some pretty nice progress.

I think that we've finally found more stable footing on the narrative side, thinking about and representing Leo's memories. The memories will be presented in a non-linear fashion, though perhaps lightly structured fashion. According to Leo the inspiration initially came from the way that rouge-likes spawn items from item pools. So, for example, in Binding of Isaac items spawn semi-randomly when you explore the dungeons. The reason it's semi randomly is because the item that randomly spawns isn't selected form every item possible, but from a specific pool of items depending on if you're in a basic dungeon room, or an area, or the shop, or in a boss room, etc...

Here's a little image to illustrate.
 

Leo's idea was to translate the random yet structured nature games like this dole out items, and use it to structure a narrative. The game moves through scenes - memories - chosen randomly from the current pool of memories. As of now there are going to be three pools: very early abstract childhood memories, more grounded+specific memories from later in childhood, and memories/reflections from current Leo. As we're talking about it now each memory will be paired with an audio clip, but one that doesn't necessarily relate to the current memory. - but maybe relates to a different memory. Leo is interested in how this narrative structure relates to how he actually remembers things - very specifically, but in non-linear ways. And how abuse has shaped the way he does and can remember things.

Leo compiled a bunch of memories and we started sketching out how a couple of them go. We've pretty much finished one scene, and have story boarded and starting working on four others. We don't know exactly how many there will end up being, but we're aiming to have at least a couple (3, 4, 5??) for each memory pool, so the randomization element works. However, the scenes are going to vary in scale, so some might be more involved, and others very short.

We haven't started doing any voice over for the scenes yet, but we've booked a recording booth for this weekend and plan on starting then.

Here's a very rough sketch of a scene that Leo made on a post it.

 

Here's what the scene ended up looking like three days later in Unity.










I think we're finally in a place where development can happen more quickly, and I'm excited to see how these next scenes start taking shape.

That's all for now!