Gameplay Flowchart
Planning quite complicated and hopefully subtle story-telling within somewhat limited and complicated gameplay within a non-linear environment, was proving quite a headache for me. I tried just writing it all down, but this didn’t really help me, especially when trying to consider all the differing ways players may confront the same situation.
Therefore I decided to support my planning and design gameplay and story-telling by using a flowchart. It’s really early days, but I think, even considering the blurred out *top secret* bits, it shows how I’m using both the story’s direction and possible player ‘direction’ to guide how I’m going to provide the story subtly through gameplay. It also outlines the means by which each story development is provided, and I dare-say more types will be added over time.
This does suggest a degree of scripting in the gameplay, and that’s true, but it does, more productively, allow me to plan on telling the linear story through a non-linear route. Hopefully.
earthQuake: ghosts of despair 