Is there a way to make an MMF game with actual hard pounding drama without people thinking its ment to be silly? Its just hard to imagen how to make a 2D game cause a person to feel something such as a tragic thing happening. Does anyone know of a good way to do just that?
yeah, make a character that the player cares about, it's hard because you need to make th person seem real, also music in the BG sets the mood right, you need to create a good atmosphere around while you make drama.
but now I'm ranting cause I didn't sleep too much last night.
Yeah, it just takes a little knowledge of dramatic writing techniques (and a lot of theory on the conflict between interactivity and high-level story). I was planning on writing a big article on the subject, if you can bear to wait a couple of days.
I just think that the lack of the 3rd dimension is the biggest challenge, because for some reasion 2D games with drama seem to be more silly rather then drama. Thanks to 3D games & there life like tech. its easyer to simulate a real life occurence, & you get more into the game that way, thus when something bad happens, you tend to feel more of the pain. Its just seems impossable to get that feeling into a 2D game.
You can have the effect in a 2D game, it just requires a bit more planning. In an MMORPG it'll be difficult, but doable.
One way might be as follows:
-Establish early on that good guys (good NPCs) can, in fact, die in this game.
-Spend a lot of time on character development, make the player care about one character in particular. This takes some serious writing skill, and would be the main difficulty for most people.
-Then, threaten to kill that character.
Warning alarms and a countdown timer in an exploding base after a boss fight are a cheap way of getting a responce, too. There's plenty of generic tricks, I'll keep them in mind when I write the article.
Yeah, the only big problem with a MMORPG, is because if something is happening with a NCP that is in the game & someone new just comes in & all of a sudden a bear attacks the NCP, they wont know or feel any drama, they will find it just extremly funny. I mean even I would find it hallerious to open the game for the first time & see an NCP being attacked by a bear. The other problem is, if you go farther in the game & u see an NCP, then it dies out for your save file, everyone else still see's it & confusion occurs...
Drama can added to any old game with a storyline of sorts and some characters, but from my experience the best way to intensify this is with graphics and sound effects.
More specifically the graphics really have to be clear and obvious, so that the player can recongise what exactly is going on with the characters, rather than staring blankly at 32x32 sized characters with crappy animations. If you want to add some drama in the graphical sense you really have to go with the Hollywood perspective which means alot of different camera angles, lighting effects and shit like that.
Of course this is really a 3D game thing, where in alot of cut-scenes you get the kind of drama unfolding with dialog, which brings me to my next point.
It's enough to have like dialog done with text and all, but to get a better connection between the player and the drama in the game using actual voices from characters is the best way. Again, this is asking alot.
My last point is music and sound effects in general. To be honest, there arn't many Klik games with environment sound effects like those you get in professional games. These really do add to the atmosphere in a game, and in turn, the drama. But doin' such a thing may require a fair bit of work and extensions of sorts I don't know about.
The same thing can however be done with music. A simple change in the music can set the scene depending on what kind of atmosphere you want to convey.
Anyway, that's about all I got to say.
MUGGUS
Come and annoy me more at
www.muggus69.tk STOUT ANGER!!!
Well, that was just an example. There are higher-level stories that can have good effect, but the higher the story, the more game-specific it is by definition. Basically the higher you go the more generic and less personal it is, which means you have to create emotional attachment to something larger than one character. I can't really help with that without knowing more about your game.
Muggus: For speech to make that kind of connection the voice acting has to be perfect, otherwise you'll rape the fourth wall.
A game with a depressing theme can help add drama. As well as a sad story or ending. It all depends on what you take as sad and not , because lets face it everybody doesnt always agree on the same things. So it just depeneds basicly on the most popular view of it. Not much to say about this thread really.
To be honist, the only videogames that I recall that I felt synthicy in was SonicAdventure 2: Battle (The final Intro) & Devil May Cry 1. Other then those I dont recall any other game's.
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The other problem is, if you go farther in the game & u see an NCP, then it dies out for your save file, everyone else still see's it & confusion occurs...
Edited by the Author.
