Making a Introduction to my game. Part II: Technical and artistic challenges.

H there, friends and foes of democracy!

My game, Socratic Democracy, is currently undergoing major changes, from art to narrative. I am currently focusing on making a new introduction to both inform and motivate players to progress on the game. To that end, I decided to follow the example of Attack on Titan (AOT), an anime that makes an effective use of film language to introduce and reintroduce its complex story, particularly in episodes of the first and second seasons.

Having decided to follow AOT's style, I had to ask myself: can I really do it? My team is very small, currently composed by me, a professor of political science, Susan Barreiros, a former student of mine, and Andrea Yepez, a senior student of digital animation. None of us are professionals in this area and none of us has much time to spare.

Mapping out the elements of making an AOT style introduction, I found the following list:

• Old movie style.
• Tense, subtle music.
• Compelling voice-over narration.
  
• Sharp script.
• 2.5D animation.

I will now delve into each of these technical and artistical elements, and how challenging they will be to reproduce.

Old movie style

As some friends of mine like to remark, every vintage media eventually becomes fashionable, and what used to be its flaws become a feature. CRT, VHS and old movie styles are often used to transport players to another time or place. VHS security cameras, for instance, can be used effectively in terror, because their continuous operation allowed them to capture unexpected things, and the defects of recording make it all seem more real. CRT (Cathode-ray tube TVs) also have their roles in terror, not only because of classics such as The Ring, but also because of the white noise and interference that those systems could suffer from time to time.

In AOT, events that took place a hundred years or more before the main story are presented using an old movie style. It works like the historical movies about the great depression or the second world war that everyone has seen over and over again, usually as the "real footage" shown in a documentary. But how can I apply an old movie style? 

Andrea Yepez told me that After Effects can easily implement that style into any video we produce. I guess that would work. However, I got worried that this workflow would weigh too much on Andrea, who is already our most busy member. Would she make the animations and then apply the old movie filter? If I didn't like the result, would I make her do again, or learn how to do it myself? if I decide to make a fade-out transition from old movie to present, would After Effects enable that?

As I thought about it, I noticed it would be more practical if the old movie effect was not done outside, but inside the game engine itself. But I didn't find any such shader on the Godot Shaders website, and the youtube tutorials on the matter seemed hard to follow. I thus decided to finally learn some shader programming and the result is my own shader, which you can check here. It looks like this: 

Tense, subtle music

I guess this issue is not as challenging. While no one in our team is from the music sector, there are lots of services and assets one can purchase online. A friend of mine, who work on https://cafofomusic.itch.io/, has even quoted me prices for original SFX and music. 

Compelling voice-over narration

A good voice over narration is powerful. However, that requires hiring an actor, and recording on a studio. Both things are doable with a few hundreds of dollars... but can we do it in every language we offer? Or would we sell out to Uncle Sam and only have it in English?

Adding a voice-over narration in the introduction alone would also create problems of style. |It would feel strange not to have the same narration in the conclusion, for instance, as the game conclusion feels like an epilogue/epitaph that deserves a narration as well. 

I am currently still thinking these things out, but my idea at this point is to have voice over narrations in just three moments of the game (introduction, turning point, conclusion). Moreover, I want to have the voice over be recorded in a single language... Greek!

Sharp script

I remember when I first played Warcraft II, and every race, phase or scenario were introduced by long texts that moved slowly upwards in the screen. I can even sing the background song of those introductions. Planescape Torment didn't shy away from providing long explanatory texts. But I hear these days are long gone.

Today, game writers take it as a major aspect of their jobs the task of saying much with very few words. game writing is indeed a major technical and artful aspect of games. 

I believe, however, that I can write the tight script. As an academic, I do write a lot. It is all a matter of understanding the media a bit more, setting up benchmarks, writing and rewriting. I may even ask you guys here to tell me if my introduction is compelling... 

2.5D animation

AOT mixes 2D and 3D elements constantly. Faces and textures are mostly 2D or at least use a shader to look 2D. The sky also looks like 2D. But in general the scene is 3D, combining meshes and billboards. This allow for very effective animations, particularly in the introduction. 

My team cannot by any means produce 3D meshes --- we don't have the time or the experience. That would be a huge feature creep... However, we can make use of billboard 3D on occasion, or techniques that simulate it, like parallax.

Conclusion

Many challenges lie ahead to make the introduction to the game. However, almost all of them are doable by our team without spending too much time or by outside professionals who are not overly expensive. I am thus excited to embark on this journey! I hope the readers of this blog may help me too, by commenting on our progress.

That is all for today. Big cheers,

Pedro