what's in a genre? apparently a lot.

Since finishing the first episode of everwake we have been looking at ways of developing it for the future. In time we hope to develop it's complexity and make it of equal complexity of some tv series but across different media channels and obviously through games.

Now this is not an easy thing and we are aware it will take along time to bring this to the players but we think the different levels and complexities will make a truly brillant game and experience. But there are two points that have been nagging me about the project. Firstly the argument that games are not stories and indeed stories are not needed to make a game work, and when people say this to me I always think about how I skip through the story of contemporary games such as call of duty which further re-enforce this in my mind. Yet is this the case when it comes to pervasive type games that have real world elements surrounded by a theme.

A really quick way of describing this is thus. If we describe a game through a story or more importantly a cultural understanding then instantly there are rules, fears and all manner of information that people instantly recognise. So as I am talking about stories I will give you two examples:

example one - You are the survivor of a zombie apocalypse, you have to stay alive and make it to safety.

example two - The population of earth has been infected by a virus. billions of people have died from the virus with some people coming back from the dead but having a lust for blood and a desire to kill anything that is considered alive. Among the billions of people who died there are some people who seem to be immune from the virus and are looking for join together for safety reasons. You have to try and find these people are get to safety.

So through your cultural knowledge of zombies through books, films and general myths and legends you understand the who premise of the game and in someways a number of it's rules (such as run from zombies), in a single line. In contrast example two says the same thing but is so hard to understand and also more importantly 'get into'.

So this is a very simple example and I guess you could argue that the game can still be separated from the story. But I think the question is for the pervasive gamers. Is does the story add to the game? but more importantly does the story change the way you play the game? if yes then surely the story is hugely important to the game?


So on to the second part of the blog. The issue of making a story and how it is classified. I was having a conversation a week ago with Kev and allie about how everwake could develop. Looking at if it could have sci-fi elements in it or should it turn more into a thriller or simply stick to a ghost story? while we made no decisions what became apparent is that all three of us had a totally different view point of what stories and films fit into genres.

So as a test what genre would the following films/series fit in for you?

- X MEN
- Misfits
- Heroes
- LOST
- BATMAN
- 28 Days Later

So Sci-Fi, Paranormal, fantasy, thriller what would they be?

I think what I am getting at is that just as things are converging within the media, could that mean that generes are becoming twisted together?

Everwake a social breakdown

I think alot of people struggle to see how a ghost story could be in anyway a FOR GOOD pervasive game. There has been loads and loads of things written about how games can be designed to make people aware of climate change and also others about how through a game you may do good things.

But what if you want to do this kind of project but think the audience maybe quite small at this kind of game and also the knowledge of how games and games mechanics work needs to be looked into?

Option 1 - You wait and don't do the project because you never quite have the right amount of experience/skill

Option 2 - You start to create games and slowly bring more and more social issues into the game.

Well I guess by now you know I took Option 2. So the initial everwake game has a very small social element (most of these being the intrinsic nature of pervasive games). The social aspects being people coming together to meet talk and share. These are some of the most powerful aspects of pervasive games and what set them apart from other experiences such as theatre and film.

Secondly there is an environmental aspect to the game with people 'experiencing' a place they thought they knew and a places being revealed to them. There was also a re affirmation with everwake of good and bad, which while quite broad still seems relevant to bring up.

So as everwake is hoped to be a series of episodes the questions is can we develop the game to have more and more sophisticated ways of introducing other socially good elements?

Well simply for me yes. We are working on an over arching story line for everwake as we speak but we have already broken it down to 6 episodes. With each episode slowly gaining more and more 'socially good sophistication'. It's an experiment and something that in time we will be able to give some idea of how it is going.

everwake

Well I have not posted here for a while. Mainly due to us setting up a personal blog on Hoffi.com. I think however with the production of everwake it might be an idea to reopen this blog. So I have somewhere to discuss and think about the idea of game and what I am really interested in.

"How technology story and game come together in physical and non physical spaces."

So for as long as I can remember me and Allie have been working on everwake. It's now pretty weird that it's all over. I think because we did it at the same time as the playARK talks and games festival then in retrospect we probably bit off a bit too much, as I still havn't recovered a week or so on. But what I have been really shocked by is the emptiness and almost depression of the event being over. I am slowly coming around but the first few days were really very challenging.

What it chowed me was that everwake had obviously touched a nerve in an area of my brain that i have rarely accessed. I remember the last day of uni I had a similar reaction. The moment it's over there is silence and then nothing. The world moves on and the event is gone. Well at least for you anyway.

So back to everwake this is about the third tim eI have tried to sit down and write about it. I got pretty far on some occasions but then lost interested and either deleted it or forgot where I wrote it. I think everwake is something that has always been there for the last 10 years. The need to develop something that is an experience for people in many levels. A story first and foremost that you participate in rather than merely just view. A hybrid between story and ARG and a pervasive game. None of them really seeming to fit the description of it.

The idea of leading with a strong story a narrative people can be drawn on to create culturally understood rules. An ability to bring people together who may have never met and to give them an experience of a lifetime with an element of empathy and genuines choice. So many things were thought and planned during us creating the game that it was clear we would not be able to do it all. curating it down to something manageable was key to us creating a great game and also keeping within a very veyr very tight budget (thank you all the volunteers :-) ). This realisation led us to realise that an interesting thing was possible. Why dont we do a serialised pervasive game with story and online content?

Why don't we use the routines and language that has been established through television to create a six episode series? exploring the abilities of each platform/media such as audio, paper, blog, video, physical, app to best bring narrative to the players and viewers or lurkers.

but what about the reason I started doing games. What about the social good? what about the exclusivity of the game (only having 60 people being able to play the street game for example). Well while the initial game it is not immediately obvious there are huge amounts of commentary built with in the game. The good and evil the choice of should I shouldn't I and also the more basic social aspect to the game have all started a small community centred around everwake.

What we have really done however and more what we now hope to do is we hope to develop more and more social aspects within the makeup of the game to bring more obvious signs of good and effect. So as the player develops within the game so does their understanding of the issues that surround us. As it has been said 1,000's of times a journey starts with one step. I guess we hope that the steps are so easy that they do not really notice and they develop as the game develops.

But I think what has come back to me again and again. Although this is so hard to do when it is your work. We have come to realise that failure is good. Testing, prototyping and developing are the key elements of developing stuff that works. This kind of goes beyond the game word. In everyday life for example come back again and again and you will succeed.

I realise that has not really covered anything about what everwake was in terms of story and perhaps I will write that up in another blog. But what I have realised on this project. I have realised that there are some people in Cardiff that are truly world class at what they are doing in their fields. The skills and creativity we have available within Cardiff is really quite staggering. Also creative integrity is a really interesting paradox its a pain in the arse when you want to move forward but you know that it's key to listen adapt and develop or you lose exactly what you are paying for. Let the people do their job.

Which I think for this blog gives me my final thing to talk about. That is basically management and producing a story like everwake. Basically its huge. I think in the future there is indeed something to be said for the development of what a producer really does. Traditionally on one platform a producer would pull all the threads together about the same story told in the same way through the same channel.

But now we have the producer developing a project on multiple platforms using multiple types of media to create fragments of a single story. Each being pulled together so as a whole they can be consumed and totally understood. Yet also consumed individually and still seen as enjoyable and worth while. And finally the biggest I think of them all working with 'real' and non real. So basically on and offline line content and as it develops further how things like apps bring a further step in complexity.

This has been one hell of a ramble but I hope it has given an insight into initial unedited thoughts on everwake.