Sometimes life isn't what you expect. So far I've been through I lot of changes, and I confidently say they are all for good.
I feel motivated, my health is increasing, and I think I'm able to propel myself again.
I want to create.
I'm going to start humble, I want to stick a little bit more, and hopefully gaining some momentum.
I want to cover a variety of interests and some personal and professional goals, and also share a little knowledge and mistakes on my own.
Some of my interest right now without any particular order:
Game Development
Java Architecture
DevOps
DataScience
I hope to post on a weekly basis and mostly held accountable to myself. That is the purpose after all.
It is no secret that I love clever storytelling, even more, when it gets mixed up with video games.
But how a reader or a moviegoer gets engaged into a video game mechanic, or in the other hand how a gamer gets invested in a video game lore.
This a question Iāve tried to answer, nonetheless what Iāve found is a rabbit hole of more questions. A few video game examples come to myĀ mind. Destinyās lore, pretty interesting in my opinion, but in the game is in a collectible card format hard to follow and easy to ignore.
Complex or enriched video games lore rarely has an essential place in video game mechanics unless you pause the game, go toĀ āthatā menu section and review your notebook/log/bestiary notes because you encounter a roadblock that cannot be passed simply smashing buttons. Or how many āaugmentedā version of books are out there trying to engage younger audiences.Ā Ā
In my opinion, this New York Timesā article is still relevant 10 years later.
āNevertheless, some educators argue that students may learn more by playing an active role in the simulated world of a game than they might by simply reading a book.ā
This is a subject I will try to continue to explore.
I try not to use unhealthy workload and schedule asĀ an excuse. But the truth is that I cannot deny the fact that pushing myself beyond my physical limits has a detriment effect in the long run.
This story by Jon Kabat-Zinn sums it up perfectly.
āSaying yes to more things than we can actually manage to be present for with integrity and ease of being is, in effect, saying no to all those things and people and places we have already said yes to.ā
Iām still trying to figure out how to get back and stay on track.
What if a particular story does not fit or follow the 3 act structure paradigm. More importantly, what is an act in first place?
This is a question Michael Tucker answered in his YouTube channel. Better watch it by yourself.
I like to think an RPG story as stories within a story. A fractal story, each quest, for instance, is a story by itself. Maybe a game can have a 3 arc structure for an arc but significantly smaller. And a different paradigm for another arc.Ā
WanderingĀ too much, I know. But, so many ideas are sparkling right now.
To me, the wordĀ āstructureā implies a broad meaning. Last weeks havenāt been easy, nor this 365-day project. Nonetheless, Iām trying to keep up the goal alive.Ā
Regarding structure, a structure is a powerful tool. To keep a project going, to have a healthy sleep cycle and eating habits for example. And very much structure is involved in storytelling.
So, first structured decision making is project management.
Focus on the story of the game first.
Second structured decision making isĀ to learn about structured storytelling.
Recently, I stumbled upon this course (realizing a pattern here) it has a really interesting approach and its free. I love to learn, and mentorship is one of the most successful methods for me. You can check it here if you want. A 10-day course onĀ āHow to Plot a Novel Using the 3-Act Story Structureā by Reedsy. Reedsy a network of world-class publishing professionals, you can learn more about them here.Ā
Iām not going to publish the whole course, but rather give my understanding and some further research and readings about the topic.
In my opinion,Ā the class is intended for newbies, like me. The first class is, guess what, about the 3-act structure. Perhaps such structure paradigm is more widely recognizable and more feasible for new writers. Even thou, Iām very interested in the underlying principles of story-telling, definitely, not every story is structured in that way, nor every life event, movie, novel, video game plot, follow the same conventions.
As I dive deeper and learn, I will try to unravel more details and perhaps find, or merge a suitable storytelling process for the story I want to tell for a video game.
Basically, the 3-act structure follows a somewhat intuitive pattern; set-up, conflict, resolution. Each act can be dissected into smaller parts. Reedsy enumerates like this:
Act #1 I like to call it āset-upā
The Hook, which captivates readers by introducing the protagonist and teasing the storyās conflict;
The Inciting Incident, which serves as the protagonistās first call to adventure;
The First Plot Point, which launches the protagonist into the heart of the story.
Act #2 āConflictāĀ
The Pre-Midpoint Rising Action, in which the protagonist cautiously sets out to achieve their goal while shying away from conflict with the storyās antagonist;
The Midpoint, a major conflict between the protagonist and antagonist that highlights the storyās stakes and irrevocably changes the protagonistās viewpoint;
The Post-Midpoint Rising Action, in which the protagonist no longer hesitates to confront the antagonist while fighting to achieve their goal.
Act #3Ā āResolutionā
The Dark Night of The Soul, in which the protagonist suffers an unexpected loss that forces them into a make-or-break situation;
The Climactic Sequence, which serves as the final conflict between the protagonist and antagonist;
The Resolution, in which all or most of the storyās loose ends are resolved.
As a matter of exercise, The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins can be dissected and try to find out if the story can fit into the 3-act structure.
I might get this one wrong, but anyway... letās see:
Act #1:Ā
The hook:Ā Katniss, Peeta and Gale characters and the relationship between them is presented, other important characters are shown as Primrose. The district context, everyday life of characters and Hunger Games reaping is presented.
The inciting incident: The reaping, the ballot process. Primrose is selected but Katniss volunteers instead of her, for the Hunger Games, Peeta is selected as the male tribute.
The first plot point: Tributes die! :(Ā
Act #2:
The Pre-Midpoint Rising Action: Katniss is starting to show defiance to the establishment of Capitol, rivalries between contestants added heating up to the start of the event.
The Midpoint: The hunger games start, Katniss allied with Rue, Peeta on the other hand allies with theĀ ābad guysā.
The Post-Midpoint Rising Action: Rue is killed, Katniss reacts killing Rueās assassin.
Act #3:Ā
The Dark Night of The Soul: Rules are changed, same district contestants can now team up. Katniss finds Peeta injured and risks her life to heal him. Now they know they have to face Cato.
The Climactic Sequence: Katniss and Peeta face Cato, mercy killing him as he is mauled by wolves. Destined to kill each other Peeta retrieves poisonous berries that he took early and they decide to kill each other. SenecaĀ changes the rules, and declare them both winners of the 74th Hunger Games.
The Resolution: Peeta and Katniss are healed in the Capitol district, and returned to district 12.Ā Haymitch tells Katniss to play along with the Capitol to stay out of trouble. But Katniss has other plans.
This is a really interesting exercise for storytelling. Like I said before, I could have messed it up somewhere but roughly or not, it gives you a really thoughtful appreciation of the story.
Lately, I have been overwhelmed with ideas, to doās and random stuff. Itās not been easy to handle. As I dig deeper into a creative process, I soon start to realize how much I donāt know. And its a bit frustrating sometimes.
For example, storytelling, and game engine programming are huge tasks, but there is a whole bunch of things to take into account. Music, design, art, how the world will be presented, pictured, etc.
After wandering around those thoughts, regain consciousness of the basic principle againĀ ākeep it smallā.Ā So I try to keep my daily derivable simple even thou might seem too small sometimes.
Short story, long story... Decided to google a little bit, and found this website Pixel Art MakerĀ and well... started playing.
In the upper left, a fair, kinda shaped, cubishĀ object took form. Not after a few terrible tries. This tutorialĀ helped a lot. Seriously.
There are an incredible, vast and resourceful places to keep learning... That what this project is all about.
I like to use this analogy. Imagine your goal is to break into pieces a massive stone or boulder or whatever large piece of rock. Surely many questions will rise, mainly anyone probably will say āWhere I do start?ā
Well... it canāt be brought down more than this... start hitting it!
So, I have a giant rock in front of me, I have my hammer, my gloves, boots, etc. I can only see part of the mountain, but my goal is to shatter it completely.
The landscape could be exaggerated, but the challenge is the same. At first sight, could be intimidating, but is part of the process. Today my task is to set up some common and free tools that I know absolutely nothing about, to start developing the RPG mechanics of the mobile game.
There is enough resources to learn, so letās get started.
Cocos2d-x is a cross-platform game engine. It is free, you can go to this site:Ā http://www.cocos2d-x.org/downloadĀ and download it.
I downloaded the 3.17 version, there is other options. In case you wanted to learn more, you can read the documentation, there is plenty of guides and wikis.
After download is done, there is some configurations needed to create the project. Isnāt quite the point discuss those issues here, but Iāll give some credit to someone who explained it really well.
The build succeeded, and my first project in Cocos2d-x is born.Ā But it looks like this... And Iām not entirely comfortable with all those warnings. I will have to review them later.
As I expect shattering rocks is not a straight forward process. But that is exactly what I am here for...
Now Iāve decided to tell a story, a game proposal ādocumentā is starting to take shape as well. Two obvious next steps for me now are:
Create the story
Design the vehicle of the story
Werenāt so obvious a week ago...
Might be an early decision, but I like how an RPG game handles the story, characters, flow, and the mechanics.
So, I will try to gather some specific technical tools and make some proof of concept mechanics. And in the other hand review and start with the storytelling part.
Iām finally starting feeling some solidish ground. As I go through, I realized I want to tell a story.
Iāve always felt engaged with text adventure stories, even thou they are just plain text, you interact in your mind so vividly with that world, no matter how simple it is, the story drags you in. Itās like a dungeon master setting the rules prior you even started playing.Ā
My first encounter with a text adventure was with ZorkĀ on Call Of Duty Black Ops ps3 game.
āA long time ago, on a video monitor far, far away, there were nothing but glowing green characters, borne from a stream of electrons hitting the phosphor layer on the back of a curved glass screen. Sometimes those characters glowed amber. But either way, there were just characters and darkness.ā
Dave Lebling on the Genesis of the Adventure Game - and the Creation of Zork
After a little research I found out there is a whole community of Text Adventure Story Developers. There is still room for which I consider one of the purest interactive story telling forms.Ā A dark lit room game by Doublespeak Games, for example, really surprised me after I discovered Iāve been playing it for several hours non stop.
For now, and for me... Know how to tell a good story, can potentially become a good game as well.
Iām taking as an example one of the most compelling experiences in a video game Iāve seen.
Hellblade Senuaās Sacrifice did create a wonderful, such immersive perspective on how Senua perceived her world. Partly because of the extensive research in mental illness general subject by its creators.
I watched the featured documentary, and it gives you an insight of it creative director, Tameen AntoniadesĀ and hisĀ āJourney into madnessā,Ā motivations and struggles to make this game possible.Ā
If you havenāt seen it, the link to the documentary is right down below:
There is two things Iāve like to emphasize:
Driving motivation force to represent mental illness with fidelity as crude and real as possible.
The research along with the mentorship and guidance of people who have dedicated their lives to study mental illness and people who have experienced it by themselves.
āWe need people willing to see differently in order for us to progress [...] and we need to be open to those new ways [...]ā
Ok, I know... Two days, one post (no pun intended) sounds like cheating the #365challengeĀ
But I found out that a game proposal might be quite hard, taking into account Iām a complete neophyte in such subject.
I decided to take my time to sharpen my toolbox, and do a series of study cases on video games. An insight about the creators, personal interests, the process of making their games, it could showcase a glimpse of what a good game needs (and infinite amount of work and talent obviously...)Ā
A few games comes to mind:
Hellblade Senuaās Sacrifice
Chrono Trigger
Monument Valley
Shadow of the Colossus
The Last of Us
God of War
I know I have some limitations, but to praise and learn from the bests is my way to stay humble and try to make progress everyday.
The goal has always been make a game that iām happy and satisfied with. So looking a little back, Iāve picked some of the games that make me feel exactly that after I finished them.
Chrono TriggerĀ
One of my favorites games of all time. Maybe one of the best video games ever made. Itās RPG mechanics, time travel, super engaging and deep story telling. A masterpiece!
Monument Valley
A technical marvel. Celebrating architecture, impossible geometry puzzles. A beautiful experience, visually and emotionally.
I just named two, but they are just enough to realize that a real great game is the one that stays true throughout itās developers.
I have to decide what to do next. I find this step very tricky and challenging, after all, Iām trying to create something... that among other things, it does not exist yet. Not even a clear visualization has manifested at this point.Ā
So in order to follow a fairly methodic approach, the next few days will go on like this:
Iām sort of NBA fan, and I somehow got engaged with the quoteĀ āTrusting the processā. Joel Embiid comes to mind, and reminds me the patience required to build something is quite a rarity this days.
Recently, I started to set, and unearth some goals that I have left behind for several years, and in the meanwhile refreshing and expanding my set of tools.Ā I just stumbled upon this amazingly simple courseĀ of a framework that Cinthya Koo (a designer and entrepreneur) cleverly explained in her Skillshare class that you can find hereĀ on how to start, progress and finish a project in a 365 day span.
Talking about the process itself. Iāve always had this weird lifetime goal of becoming video game developer. I studied computer science and ended up working in some fairly big projects, none of them related with video games at all!
So iāve decided to apply the 365 day project framework to design, develop, and publish a simple but fairly completeĀ mobile game, and hopefully satisfy that little kid that back then dreamed of making video games.
My project can be breakdown into these steps:
Pick up a project: Publish a mobile game
Pick up a minimal viable daily deliverable: 30 minutes of work daily
When you will work on your project: After dinner
Set up an accountability measure: Document my progress every day on tumblr.
Establish your curriculum: My plan here is basically, discovering the next steps along the way.
Articulate your why: I visualize a celebration party and my friends praising and roasting the game with me, some concept art on the walls, beers and geek stuff conversations.
Some things canāt be perfect, some days will be missed, I know Iām prone to make a lot of mistakes along the way; but Iāll try to remind myself that enough time has passed and I donāt want to delay a childhood dream even more.
If you are reading this, and you think it can be helpful to achieve one of your goals, give it a try.Ā
