Animated Narratives wk#4

Premise Wiki Week 4
A teenager, who suffers as a victim of human/ labor trafficking, tries to find a way out.

Visual novel game treatment

Title
Secrets (working title)

THE LOGLINE
A teenager tries to break free from her tragedy with the help of her friend.

OVERVIEW

‘Secrets’ is an interactive game that aims to bring more awareness and start the conversation of labour/ human trafficking. The player will play as the friend to gain trust and friendship in order to save the victim.
For this part of folio, the storyboard focuses on the background story of the teenage victim.

EXPLANATION

This will be a 2D adventure game focused on exploration, story, and characters. The player will play as a common high school teenager, whose friend has gone missing.
To focus on the labor/ human trafficking issue, the characters will be personified animal illustrations (to avoid race, religious and other relevant issues).  
As the protagonist, the player will experience a common teenager daily routine, such as school, peers and family activities. Trough events, encounters, conversations, interactions and exploration, the player form relationships with the characters as well as collect the clues to solve the missing case (safe his friend).
The game is aiming to send out a message that labor/ human trafficking is actually an issue closer than we think. And understanding the cause and historical background is as important as how to spot and support the victims.

SUMMARY (THE BACKGROUND STORY OF THE CHARACTER)

Alpaca Bates is a teenage girl, who was “adopted” by the Bates. However, she is still in contact with her biological family. As matter of fact, Alpaca started doing “extra chores” at home since she’s 10 years old. By doing so, she could make more allowance and sent the money to support her biological family. Alpaca also has a weekend job that was introduced by her “uncle”(a family friend).
She is just like any ordinary high school student, who is quiet, not much involved in school activities and doesn’t have many friends; except she seems tired most of the time and sometimes fall asleep in class.
Like some of the teenagers, Alpaca struggles with puberty  syndrome. While her family and friends don’t seem to care much what she’s going through, a new transfer student in town seems to be friendly enough to reach out to her.

FOLIO DOCUMENTATION
This work demonstrates the idea that modern slavery is an issue that happens close in the neighborhood. Compared with animation, the medium of game is a simulation that can make the player connect the game play with their real life experience.The player, instead of being the observing spectator, lives the story and then, with the experience, reflect on his action in real life to make a difference.

The structure  of the work is similar to the visual novel ’Night In the Woods” by Infinite Fall that is pubilshed in 2017. Player, plays as Margaret "Mae" Borowski, interacts with the characters, explores the town and discovers the secret in the woods. A similar example is Chaos on Deponia by Daedalic Entertainmen, published in 2012. By the interactions and explorations, the player  puzzles the plot together and overcome the obstacle, solve the problem or break the case.

According to Jan Simons states in the article “Narrative, Game & Theory”, the perspective of game player is different from spectators of films. For the players, instead of being external observer, immerse in the series of connected effective interactions and events. The players experience “what is going to happen.”

For this type of game genre (visual novel), the game play is heavily depended on the narrative. As Bordwell and Thompson point out in Narrative as a Formal System, the narrative is often formed by characters triggering and reacting to events. For this project, in order to build a complex story, there will be a number of main characters and also supporting characters, which will individually trigger different events  as well as general interactions as a group.

By interacting with the environment and the characters, the protagonist (player) will discover the pieces of casual motivations. This series of interactions, as Simons states in Narrative, Game and Theory, then trigger the connected events. The traits of both main and minor characters in this game need to be well planned as they serve as narrative purpose.

As the immersed player, the finite goal (in this game) is to successfully safe his friend. The quest is to discover the the background stories of both characters and the environment and the character traits as much as he can. In the process, the the player also become part of the narrative, where he mold the protagonist with choices he makes.

For this part of the folio, the storyboard is a brief sketch about the missing girl.