The Story Begins - The Game Maker's Companion: Game Development - page 307

C H A P T E R 13
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The Story Begins
Shadows on Deck may belong to the platform game genre, but it is the story and puzzle elements
of the game that are the driving force behind the concept. It already looks pretty cool, and has a
pretty solid movement mechanic, but this kind of game needs the puzzles, traps, and character
interactions set out in the game design to keep the player engaged along the way. These are the
elements that will appeal to the game's target audience, moving it away from a hard-core
platform game like Zool and toward the platform-adventure genre.
In this chapter, we will be putting all these missing elements in place in order to create our
finished vertical slice of the game. This is the point at which the roles of designer and
programmer meet, and programmers often build custom level editors that allow the designers to
place scenery, script interactions, and edit dialogue for themselves. Of course, Game Maker
provides programming and design tools in a single package and so this chapter will seamlessly
move between the programming and design tasks required to finish the game. Nonetheless,
whether you consider yourself a programmer or a designer, we hope this process will give you an
insight into the incremental nature of the game design process.
Emotivation
Games are all about motivation. If you're not motivated to play a game, then you simply stop
doing it. One advantage of games that include storylines is that it provides the opportunity to get
the player to “emote” (express emotions) with respect to the characters and storyline. Emotions
are perhaps the most powerful motivators of all and you can truly guarantee the commitment of a
player who is emotionally engaged in your game.
Of course getting a player emotionally engaged in your game is very hard. Flynn's story is
certainly emotional for him, but even with the greatest storyline, transferring that emotion to the
player can take a lot more time than we have in our vertical slice. Fortunately, it is possible to play
on a range of more immediate emotions, such as awe, wonder, anxiety, or even fear. These are all
emotions that the player will more readily submit to while we work on the long-term aim of
getting them to buy into Flynn's plight on a deeper emotional level.
Exhausted from his fight, Flynn is hiding out in the crow's nest aboard the pirate ship. The
skeleton crew is down below and he has no idea where the ship is taking him or whether he will
be discovered and imprisoned or killed when he gets there. His companion, Archie, is already
showing signs of being a little bit sinister and Flynn must be starting to question whether he
made the right decision setting out on this journey. If there is one emotion that comes to mind
from his predicament, then it is anxiety .