Games as Art - Research

Research:

This is to think about games that are ''not games''.
This basically means games that are not classed as a game because someone might only see it to be a game if it has a ''win/lose'' scenario.

Games that can be put into this category:

Dear Esther - This is a first person game where the player explores an island listening to a narrator read from letter fragments, in this it is suggested that the voice is of her husband and that that woman that you are playing is dead and was killed in a car accident. This game has semi-randomly generated voice clips, meaning that if you play through it a couple of times and then each is slightly different. In this game the character can do no more than just walk around the environment.

Stanley Parable - This is a first person game, and as the character all you can do is press buttons and also open doors. This game is told to the character though a narrator. As the character is going though his day he can do as the narrator suggests or he can go his own way, and if that is to happen the narrator will try to adapt to what the character is doing. There are six possible endings to this game.

Gone Home - This game is about the main character coming home and then finding that the house is deserted and filled with secrets. As the character you walk though finding out what has happend to everyone though letters and a journal from the characters sister.

Among the sleep - In this you play a two year old child who has a teddy who is basically the narrator. As the child all you can do is wonder around the environment and also trough and pick up objects and open things. There is a monster that you have to hide from and memorys that you have to collect to make the game go on. In the end you find that the monster turns out to be the childs mother who is a drunk and that the teddy was a safety blanket from the farther, who comes to pick up the child at the end of the game.

What I find similar about all these games is that they all seem to have some underlying dark themes, and this seems to be something that can be portrayed farly easily in slightly different different ways, and another thing that ties them all together is that they all have some sort of narration.
Dear Esther has the man reading letters at different points within the game. The Stanley Parable has the narrator guiding the player, or correcting it self. Among the sleep has the childs teddy talking to the audience, explaing what is going to happen or what they can do to progress.

Using this idea, I have made it so that the character 'Toni' will be trying to answer questions, or explain things, so that it looks like the bunny is saying it, and not her.

When looking into what game I am making for this project I looked into the age and type of audience that I wanted to pin point. I went for people in their teens, and studying to be a child psychiatrist. I wanted something that was thought provoking and also showed an issue that is not widely talked about.
I wanted a story of a child that was scared to tell the story her self, so she would use her teddy as a buffer, so it was the teddy that would explain what happened, so the child her self would not get told off. The audience it self would know that the child is doing this, and its not actually the teddy. However the child would see this as a safety net and think that no one would find out that it was her that told the psychiatrist what had happened at home.

This idea closely resembles the game above among the sleep, in the fact that the child had a teddy companion and there is hints at abuse towards the child. In among the sleep however, only one parent is accountable and the other comes to 'save' the child.

I wanted to be able to make something that would be interesting to the player, but also keep the story from being a 'game'. I wanted something more of a story teller, but instead of using triggers while the player is walking scene to scene, I wanted something that you would have to click on as though the player was probing the child to give answers to the questions that they are asking.

In this game there is no win or lose state. The session with the psychiatrist just ends, and they will probably allude to there being a next session for the child. you can just walk straight through, or you could click on everything available, doing so does not mean that the player has done 100%, since it does not matter whether you do so or not.