Story Lines In Games

Top Games With Good Stories:

(In my opinion, don't shoot me because I know some of these totally suck.)

Bioshock- Totally awesome. The story to Bioshock is great in my opinion. I think it's pretty original and just great to play.

Diabolik Lovers- Okay, I don't think the story to this totally sucks. Although it's more about fanservice and romance stuffs, the story kinda fills in the gaps. I'm not so much into this game because of the story, more so for the characters and development.

Story- You girl (Komori Yui) Finds herself living with 6 vampires after being sent there as a sacrifice by her adoptive father of whom works for the Church. She must choose one of the boys and it turns out she has a heart of a demon queen, that demon queen being the mother of the triplets. Blah, blah blah, that's the basis of it anyway. (It's an otome game so there isn't a definite story line.)

Amnesia- Awesome game, the story is great, characters a little generic, but it works. 

Story- Heroine (you never find out her name) has amnesia and is living in a world that is trying to kill her before a certain date. And in order to progress through the game you have to chose one out of four male characters to go with, and the story alters slightly (Multiple choice game so it's difficult to describe a set story.)

Dramatical Murder- Okay, this game has its questionable moment, like... REALLY questionable. But once you get past the ummm.... Yaoi. It has a great story! It has a lot of depth and to add to that, there are some great characters. (Eg. Aoba and Koujaku)

Story- Aoba lives on an island off Japan in poverty? As part of the island has been privatized for the resort 'Platinum Jail'. After being dragged into the game 'Rhyme' with his allmate (Ren), a bunch of stuff happens (It really depends on the route you take.)

Mad Father- Cute style, pretty good story. Although I find this story kind of loose around the edges, I really enjoy it. 
Story- Pretty simple really, a young girls father cuts people into tiny pieces in their basement. And ultimately, the ghosts are bought back by his dead wife, in order to wreak their revenge. Although his wife is the one who wishes to kill him the most as he was frick fracking his assistant behind her back whilst she was slowly dying.

DanganRonpa- This game is totally awesome and I really can't flaw it. The story is just great and the characters very well defined, which is impressive considering there are so many of them.

Story- A bunch of high school students with ultimate talents (Ultimate: Gambler etc.) are confined to a school in which they are not allowed to leave, lead by the unusual, teddy bear headmaster, Monokuma. Well that is unless one of the students kills a maximum of two others, and gets away with it. In which case all the other students will be killed and the murderer then walks free.

Games Without Strong Story Lines:

Nekopara- Not much story at all. It's just kind of a slice of life day to day game where you can get with cat girls... It's really good, though, I'm pretty sure nobody plays this game for the 'story' though *Coughs* Cute cat girl boobs.
Story- You work as a chef and get given cat girls that act as maids? And oh and totally didn't see this coming, if they go into heat and nothing is done, they get really sick unless something is done about it...*wink wink* It's basically, day to day life but you get naughty with kitty girls. I think the uncensored R18 version comes out soon. As well as the second game.

Lollipop Chainsaw- Totally awesome game but it was really just a cluster of randomness, fanservice/ panty shots and humor. The story was just... Weird although entertaining. 

Misao- I did like the story but there wasn't a lot of depth. It was a little bit generic, although the ending was great and the characters were done pretty well.
Story- A girl (Misao) goes missing and you play as the main protagonist (You name the character you play yourself.) And the school you attend is plunged into a kind of ghost world and you have to find Misao's body parts scattered through out the school. Once found you discover she was murdered and dismembered by her teacher because he was in love with her and she didn't return his feelings. Or he had a weird hand fetish. Something like that(if I remember correctly.)

Stimulus, ideas generation, legal & ethical issues

Stimulus

What is a brief: A brief is a set of requirements given to the staff of a producer. Mainly with character design, a designer will be provided a sort of style for the character. This is a rough outline or set of requirements needed for the design. For example there might only be something along the lines of 'This character must be female, wearing a uniform that is blue and she must have pale pink eyes.' Although it's not really detailed, the designer would come up with something that is suitable and ticks all of the boxes the producer has set. 
Client brief: Given to the designer. The designer must follow the guidelines given by their client. Like what was a brief by the main producer. While maintaining their own idea above. There may or may not be any breathing room given where design is concerning. What I mean is, they may be given some freedom as far as the style and the like is concerned. But there may not be, and they are provided a very solid and detailed idea of what the want.

Own brief: The requirements you set for yourself. Although you could have been given a pretty solid idea of what you have to produce, you may be able to add extra feature that the client had not specified in order to make the character look better or more appealing. Although it's better to ask the client before making any drastic changes or you could get into a little bit of trouble.

Market research: It's good to do this once employed by someone who requires your services; as it will help make the character look more appealing. This is because when you look at what styles and the like are currently relevant, it is easier to adapt you character into someone that will appeal to a larger audience. Same goes for what age ranges most players are and the like. What gender plays these games the most? Because face it, if it's females and you're doing a game where the girls have larger... Assets... Then someone is bound to complain and be real touchy about it. So this is useful ethics wise. And market research determines how far you are able to go with particular designs. Given the age range it's supposed to be produced for. (How messed up can you make it before it gets labelled as 'too scary' and such)

Ideas Generation

Brainstorming: Perfect opportunity to do things such as research styles the designer likes, ranging from overall design, to clothing and eye shape, whatever really. But yep, good to get ideas and concepts going etc.

Mood Boards: Isn't that like the same thing? But mood boards are good to gather a range of things like picture styles and colours. What you think might work and what wouldn't, what you want and what you don't it's kinda getting examples and ideas on the desired outcome.

Thumbnail sketching: The basic idea of what something will look like, a rough outline before the final product really. You can change it pretty easily at this point, add things, take them away and such. Sketching and adapting till you find something you're happy with.

Concept Drawings: The almost final result of all of the above. Basically the final version of all the sketches generated and the like. Coloured in, filled in and very solid. But yep, the near enough final idea that will most likely be used in the game.

Legal and ethical considerations:

What is copyright law: Copy right law is the law put in place in order to stop one company from stealing aspects or ideas from another. It prevents things from being stolen and such because no one really wants their ideas stolen.Although this can still apply if someone hasn't made a game but has had their idea stolen and used to produce an identical or vastly similar game. Even with smaller things, it's actually pretty easy to accidentally copyright. Say if you had some posters in a game, and you decided to google, I don't know 'Cat eating pizza' You would be risking copy right infringement as that is not your image to use. Although you are able to pay the owner of it for it's usage.

What is libel: Basically, who do we blame? Who is responsible for this screw up? Who can we sue? For example, if it's a game and it was identical to 'Lollipop chainsaw' except the Heroines name had been changed from 'Juliet' to 'Brenda' They would obviously want to take action and hold someone responsible, or 'Libel' for copyrighting their game.

How are female characters represented in games: They aren't exactly represented in the best light physically. Like... I guess they have a tendency to be drawn with reveling outfits and not exactly small... Uh... Y'know what I mean. characters. I don't particularly care about how the character looks as long as they don't come off as annoying.  Like Juliet from 'Lollipop Chainsaw' She's a cheerleader in questionable clothes. But totally awesome! Same goes for Lara Croft a number of other female characters. Face it, when you play a street fighter game, at first you choose the cutest characters (Well, I do at least.) Although thinking about it, I don't really see any black female character .But just because they are drawn a certain way, it doesn't mean they can't be awesome s in games, aside from the walking dead. Even then the main female (Clementine) is half cast. But she's not sexualized because she's like... 11 so that's good. 

Sound

Sound is almost always used to create emotion and mood within games and films. It is also used to convey information.

List at least 3 games (or films) which use sound as information (speech, iconography, symbolism, and or metaphors) to convey information. 

Explain how sound; speech, iconography, symbolism and or metaphors have been used. 

1. Psycho - ‘The Murder’ Is the track played in the background whilst Norman Bates is stabbing the blonde chick in the shower. 
2. Call of Duty: Black Ops II – Zombie mode – When progressing through the rounds of the zombies mode and you come to end of the round, the final zombie spawns randomly and gets louder and this is an adrenaline pumping moment in the game. 
3. Jaws – When the shark approaches in jaws, an iconic track plays in the background; this track gradually build in both tempo and volume to indicate the arrival of le shark. 

Using at least 3 of your favourite games explain the purpose of the game music:

    Mad father: All the music is pretty old and light sounding. It’s both eerie and relaxing. It mainly just provides a creepy old timey sort of atmosphere. I guess it’s relaxing because the girl you play as is very young and sweet. So it’s kind of a piece of her reflected in the music. It also kind of works with the progression of the plot as the music gets slightly darker and such, as well as more rushed etc.

I think that the opening screen is probably the best for this music. It’s just a really nice, repetitive melody. I think it suits Aya very well as a character and again, it’s just a little sad, which works with the game.

Bioshock: It has a very vintage feel as far as music is music is concerned. Very 1920’s, it really suits the city Rapture as it all has a steampunk vintage setting. I guess it’s used to reflect how normal life used to be but given the Splicers and such, it kind of has an under tone of terror or fear.

I think the sound that best fits the game is the vending machine where you can buy more items. I say this because it is really kind of creepy. It has such a cheery voice but it says things like ‘Tell you friends’ innocent as it is, I find it pretty freaky, and fitting for the game.

    Amnesia: Amnesia background music is pretty delicate in most situations. And kind of sad in a way as the game revolves around death and sacrifice. When something bad happens the music intensifies. So the overall feel you get from this game is ultimately sadness. Although when good choices are made, the story gets more uplifting, so does the music, especially at the end.

This basically applies to all of the music playing in the background.

What legal issues should you consider?

    Copyright seems to be quite an issue. Taking an artist’s music without their permission and the like. The same applies to videos and images etc. Although there is a slight loop hole. I noticed this with YouTube videos. Users ‘mirror’ videos of TV shows, like family guy. A variety of things can be done to the footage in order to try and avoid copyright. So take a family guy episode, the user will either flip It over so the image goes in the opposite direction or edit the voices far higher or lower pitched in order to avoid some forms of copyright. So I guess you could do something similar with music. So although there are a deal of loopholes, it’s not recommended I suppose.