How to Make a Game: The Mastermind Behind Stories

As you can probably see from my last two blogs, our team has been working on the first one-third of the game very intensively during the first two-and-a-half weeks. If fact, we're almost done with the first scene, now just tidying up some loose ends and finding problems to fix. But here's a huge elephant in the room, so let's just address it directly.

... So, yes, we don't have time to finish the entire project during the allotted three-week period. There are simply too many mechanics to code, too many assets to illustrate, and too many storylines to write in such a short time. However, luckily, we found a compromise - we will sacrifice quantity for quality, focusing to make the first stage of our game the best we can make it, and then creating storyboards for the rest.

What is a storyboard, you may ask? Well, a storyboard usually looks like this:

It's essentially just a series of frames indicating character action, setting, and the plot that happens for a particular story. And if anyone has noticed, the above example is a storyboard section for Frozen. Almost every artistic project that involves linear storytelling of some kind will use storyboards at the beginning of their process - it's the most simple way to demonstrate flow, tension, emotion, and interactions. Thus, with a suggestion from Ms. Hoxha, our team collectively agreed that this is the best and most effective approach to showcase our general idea for the direction of the game.

However, storyboarding is far from an easy process. Having no prior experience with this kind of planning work, I went online to search for some tips. Here is a process that I found particularly helpful with my trial-and-error:

I. Find the big plot turns (or story beats)

This is relatively easy, as our game is sectioned into three distinct scenes with an additional introduction and conclusion. Thus, the story beat goes as follows: Introduction → Cleveland Museum of Art (Ancient Greece) → West Side Market → Cultural Gardens → Conclusion.

II. List the main motivations (or actions) within each story beat

This is also relatively easy, as the protagonist's (James') ultimate objective is the same in each scene - to gather an artifact. Thus, to make it easier for me to sketch later, I further subdivided each scene into specific challenges and encounters. For example, in the Ancient Greek section, the four main arguments would be the four main actions. Thus, the main actions for each scene go as follows: four arguments (Cleveland Museum of Art/Ancient Greece) → three ingredient gatherings (West Side Market) → three rhythm puzzles (Cultural Gardens).

III. Now sketch it out!

This is a proper challenge. Although seemingly an easy task as there's no need for line art, details, or even color, storyboarding is the ultimate test of an artist's skills. Let's break down what I've used and what I've learned during the process.

V is for Values

To simplify the process and increase efficiency, I opted for a black-and-white storyboard just like the one made by the Frozen team. Although I don't have to worry about color palettes and consistency anymore, I'm now forced to practice the hardest task of balancing values. With just black, white, and all the grey in between, I have to distinguish between foreground and background, character and setting, atmosphere and details, and the list go on. However, I have one trick up my sleeve that makes this easier: creating a neutral grey masking layer.

A Neutral Masking Layer for the Cells (Ft. An Unexpected Optical Illusion)

That way, I can directly dial the values up and down in a neutral environment, and it's certainly an upgrade from pure white.

For complicated scenes that involve multiple objects with complex spatial relations, I realized that the best approach is to set the foreground object first. With this trick, any additional values added will be based on the foreground objects, emphasizing the visual focal points more. The same goes for characters in a scene - drawing the characters first will always guarantee a sharp contrast, thus bringing them under the highlight. Below are two examples of this process, one with a setting and one with a character.

Setting Cell

Character Cell

M is for Mood

Another important feature the storyboard should achieve is telling the mood of certain scenes. Whether it's through composition, values, or mood-indicating symbols, there are many ways to indicate the mindset of the characters and the atmosphere of their situations. For example, greater proportions of the sky to the ground (when sketching a scenic shot) can create a freeing and tetherless feeling, while an angle looking down onto characters can create a sense of foreboding events' arrival. Below are some examples of using various techniques to show mood.

The Plunge into the Unkown

Hope is Just Out of Reach

From the above two examples, notice how values create a sense of drowning in the first cell while conveying hope of escape in the second, and how the composition makes the spaceship seem suffocated in the first while exaggerating the length of the alleyway in the second, indicating that danger lurks near.

A is for Action

Just like a film for an animated movie, a game is continuous. There are no segmented frames like a storyboard is constrained to, so how can we show action and movement? This is the aspect that challenged me the most, and I spent a lot of time experimenting with the best way to approach this problem. After many trials and errors, I ended up with the following conclusions:

1. You cannot show more than one moment of action or emotion in one frame. This may sound like a stupidly simple conclusion, but after working with continuous media for the entire duration of the project, that took me several tries to figure out.

2. There needs to be some grounding aspect in succeeding frames to emphasize what has changed. Action, at its core, is change, and change is best highlighted by stability. Thus, by selecting a few things to remain the same (certain character body parts, objects, or the general composition), we can have a clearer read of the movements in a scene.

3. Focus on the "maximum" of every action. This may take longer to comprehend. Let's look at an easier example - jumping. In order to storyboard this action, I would choose the moment before the person jumps, some time when they're mid-air, and the moment they land to convey the series of movements. If I want to focus on the maximum of this action mid-air, I wouldn't choose the moment their feet just leave the ground, I would choose the moment they're at the peak of their trajectory. The same goes for every other action or emotion, choosing the most intense moment will get the message most clearly across.

Let's see how I used these three self-discovered principles! Below are a series of character actions.

An Unwanted Phone Call

In the above example, notice how I used mood-indicating symbols, exaggeration of emotions, and grounding aspects to convey a series of actions. 

C is for Compilation

At last, let's see what the final product looks like! This is only my first storyboard for the game (of many), and I by no means am implicating I'm an expert, but I hope my simple black-and-white cells can convey some humor and brilliance of the story.