The Big Picture
By Austin, Ivan, John, Kaitlyn & Marcus
In the course Narrative and New Media, during the Summer 2020 semester, my team and I were tasked with creating an interactive narrative (a story in which users can interact with). Our concept features a choose-your-own adventure game, titled The Big Picture, in which users play through by selecting desired actions that effect the overall outcome and ending of the story.
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Process Analysis
My role during this process was creating the visual aspects of the interactive narrative through digital illustrations using Photoshop. In addition, I also played a role in story writing, as well as implementation of components through the interactive writing website Inklewriter. The implementation process included linking components together and creating if-statements to create different timelines based on user's choices. The ideating, illustrating, and implementing process were done over a span of 8 weeks.
1 Ideation & Sketches
Having agreed upon the general arc of our story as a team, I began my role in designing the visual aspects of the project. Since my partners had little experience illustrating, I was given the creative freedom to design an aesthetic that fit the playful mood of our interactive narrative. To do so, I started by ideating the visual concept of our game through sketches, determining the angles, perspectives and overall look and style. Sketches were first created with pencil and then later outlined with pen to accentuate key features I wanted to include in further renditions. Pencil crayons were also used to help explore and determine a color palette to match the playful atmosphere I wanted to achieve. Through sketching I realized I wanted more vibrant colours added in the final rendition to truly encapsulate the cheery and playful mood of the game.
2 Illustrations
After creating the initial sketches, the next step was to render my drawings digitally. Using Photoshop, a drawing tablet, and a storyboard guide made by my partners, I created 26 illustrations to depict the narrative of the story and its different variations in outcomes. During this process I made several stylistic choices such as outlining objects in black, to create a fun cartoon aesthetic; I also added more colours to further convey the playful nature. Through digital renditions I was truly able to depict my envisioned style for the online game, creating a fun cartoon aesthetic to suit and appeal to our aimed demographic of young adults. The slide to the right shows the final digital renditions of the previous sketches shown above.
3 Implementation Challenges
With the complexity of our story having various actions, outcomes, and endings, ensuring I had all the necessary illustrations and story parts to implement into the game was a challenge. Through InkleWriter, an online website used for creating interactive stories, I created an event tree linking the actions and outcomes of the story. Though implementing the initial events of the story was straight-forward, as players' choices often resulted in the same outcomes, towards the middle of the story, managing timelines became more difficult as users' actions became more impactful in their story arc. Nevertheless, organizational tactics were helpful in managing the scope of the story. Using an editable flowchart that mapped out the entire storyline, created by my partners, I was able to mark the implemented and unimplemented milestones by changing the color blocks of the events (this can be seen below in figure 2). Green blocks signified successful implementation of the event, while purple signified the opposite. Following the flowchart provided an easier method to keep track of the storylines, helping me manage the implementation process of our project by ensuring actions and outcomes were properly linked. Fortunately, my partners also helped with the implementation of the interview arc, making the process more manageable. Having a draft script written by one of my partners also made writing the actual story easier for me as I referenced the script when writing the in-game text.
Reflection
Since production of The Big Picture started with the sudden onset of remote learning, implementation of the project required quick adaptation in forms of collaboration and communication, however, despite the challenges of collaborating virtually, our final project resulted in a successfully functioning online game. As for myself, with this being my first attempts at drawing digitally, this project has allowed me to explore and quickly develop my skills in digital illustrations while also helping me familiarize myself with the Photoshop interface and tools. I am quite proud that my fun illustrations were able to enhance the immersive experience of this choose-your-own adventure game, making it more enjoyable and appealing to players.