Interactive Storytelling Summer 2022

Immersing the Player

I have been exploring different ways of immersing my player in the game, one of the ways being through visual art. I have a few obstacles to overcome to achieve this though.

  1. I am not the best artist.
  2. I don’t really have the tools to create digital art.
  3. I am unsure if I have the time to obtain the tools and skills to perform this successfully.

Now, these may seem like pretty substantial obstacles and you may be questioning why I still want to try to incorporate art into my story, but I think it would really support my game. Much of my story is focused around deceiving the player and causing them to overthink, but to do that, I need to make sure they are deeply immersed in the experience. In games like Who Stole My Bone?, the art is simple but effective in giving the player a better idea of the setting. I was hoping to follow a similar sketching style as it does seem like something I could do, however it does not fit the mood of my story. I think this would create ludonarrative dissonance as the childish, simple, lighthearted sketches would conflict with the eerie ambiance portrayed through the storytelling. I discussed this issue with a few classmates on Wednesday and they gave me some ideas of other art styles I could potentially be inspired by that do not seem too difficult either.

The use of colour and lines in these photos creates the eerie vibe I want to give off through the story of my game, so I think they would work well together if I am able to recreate something similar. The second obstacle is still very much an issue though. I will try my best to do what I can with this idea, but I will continue to look for other ways to make my game more immersive as I work through this process.

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maliha.chowdhury

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3 responses to “Immersing the Player”

  1. selena.tran1 Avatar
    selena.tran1

    You don’t necessarily have to be a good artist to create visuals for a story. I personally think that as long as it’s distinguishable and easy to recognize, you’ll be able to get the message across. Either way, I think it’ll add a unique flare to your story no matter if the art is “bad” or “good”.

    For your second concern, you can probably easily find free art apps or programs to use through a quick google search. There’s this free app I use on my iPad (also available on phones) called MediBang Paint where I do my digital art on. It’s not really the best program out there but it does the job. If you’re unable to use digital platforms, you could probably go for traditional art with paper and pencil. I think this way would be the easiest as you can simply take a scan of your drawing and upload it onto your story. I think it would be pretty cool if you took the traditional art route just to switch up the player’s expectations for the visual aspect of your story.

  2. hayden.ockey Avatar
    hayden.ockey

    I think if you wanted to tackle your own art it wouldn’t be as hard as you’d think! Especially if you want it to look like the art that you posted. I think you could hide a lack of skill with heavy stylization, like the hatched/sketchiness of the posted images. Like Selena said, as long as you can tell what’s going on (or if you can’t tell what’s going on deliberately, not as a result of bad inference) you’ve got good art. Try whipping out some pens and drawing fast and loose, hiding errors with bundles of lines and hatching. I’m doing a similar thing in my project where I’m rendering the game in very low resolution so you can’t see how bad my modeling and texturing is, all under the guise of “stylization”.

  3. dorjeet Avatar
    dorjeet

    This is such a fun idea! Plus, I understand where you’re coming from as I’m facing similar challenges when I consider how I will bring my vision to life. I decided that I’m better off sticking to a purely text-based medium and attempting to immerse the player by playing with some literary techniques to add moody elements to the story. I was actually inspired by the interactive story With Those We Love Alive since they’ve done a great job of accomplishing that without any images. However, I think any art would elevate the storytelling and add another textural layer to your project. Best of luck to you, I’m excited to see what you create!

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