A Subatlantic Question

Worcester woke up Crouton and Le Mon after spotting something under the ice.
The Comet couldn't tell what they were. There were three of them ahead.
"What should we do?" asked Worcester.

Crouton:

a) Go around them because they may be dangerous.
b) Ignore them and skate across and ignore them, they are just shipwrecks.
c) We will go to one of them and take a closer look.
d) Wait and ask the Albatross.

C9.0 - Storyboard
It has gotten to the point where the actual plot of the story matters.
There were some old exercises on expanding plots and this follows that
old method. The purpose at the moment is to get one thread of an
interactive story.

The basic plot follows this structure:

0.1 - Declaration of the conflict
0.3 - A plan to solve the conflict
0.5 - Carrying out the plan
0.7 - Discover something that could foil the plan
0.9 - Some last minute ingenuity that solves the problem
1.0 - Happy ending.

The designed structure of the story is fractal.


Story Arc 1: Bogota Gate
High Level Plot:
0.1 - Commencement of the mission, introducing the characters
0.3 - Deciding to work on the Bogota Gate
0.5 - Repairing the gate, fixing the grid, solving other related problems
0.7 - The coming magnite storm to uproot the gate
0.9 -

The reality is that there is no last minute ingenuity that hijacks the
thread and save the world. So in this case the flight crew met the storm
head-on and got zapped.

1.0 - Happy Ending(?)

Whether the ending is happy is subjective, but the moral of is not to
take preparation for granted. Don't count on miracles.

From the perspective of the player, it is considered a win if the gate is
not destroyed and Romaina comes out alive.

Interactive Elements Design:
Interactive Elements are refered to as 'Beads'.


Introducing Olivia

0.1 Objective: Need a interactive scene to introduce the character.
Suppose we want to introduce the character Olivia interactively,
how do we do it?


This is Olivia. She is a student and does not know anything about the
Albatross. This matches the state of the player and thus makes her
character an asset of introducing the story as well as introducing
her. You could say that the presentation of the story is cartoony
because it is primarily presented through her tone.

This bead needs to show that Olivia is curious and her view of discovering
and asking questions.

0.3 Concept: First have a dialog scene between Olivia and her mother,
then have an interactive (side-scroll) section where Olivia is on the shuttle
Falcon3 en route to Earth where Oliva could walk around in the shuttle and
look outside. The player is controlling the movement of Olivia. Questions
would pop and Olivia would bring the question to other passengers. Depending
on where Olivia brings the question, she would get different answers.

0.5 Recipe

Necessary Sprites:
Olivia: Standing, running, jumping, looking out a window, sitting in seat
Romaina: Standing, running, looking out a window
Falcon 3 Interior: seats, windows (the height of windows is done such that
Olivia must stand on a seat or someone's lap to see the outside), emergency
door,
Moon (Colony) Exterior
Old Satellites and Telescopes Exterior
Space debris
Earth Exterior
Albatross Exterior
Seatbelt sign

Necessary Dynamics:

When Falcon3 is passing the debris and before landing, Olivia needs to
return to the seat next to Romaina. Else Romaina would catch the player and that would be the end of the section.

Olivia jumps on seats or passengers to see the outside. When she sees something
new questions would pop. Player controls Olivia to catch a question and bring
it to a passenger for answer. The question disappears whenever she gets an
answer regardless whether the answer is true or false. The answers go to her
diary.

The flight from the moon to Albatross is a timed sequence of two minutes. The
objective of the game is to let Olivia ask questions and get answers. Olivia
could be asking questions about the other passengers or make them talk by
making them look out the window or bringing objects to them or lead them to objects.

The game could abruptly end if Olivia opens the emergency door.



Optional Sprites
Allisa: sitting in seat, looking out
Minivamp (Alisa's camera): Fly
Pippali: sitting in seat, looking out
Le Mon: standing, running, looking out
Atiel: Sitting
Falcon 3 Interior: Cockpit, cargo area
Granola: piloting
Falcon 1 Exterior
Cargo boxes

Optional Dynamics:
(intentionally not listed, too much distractions)


0.7 Psuedo-Demo
(to be continued)


0.9 Comments
(to be continued)

Starting the Story



Intercom
"Flight F-0-3; Destination: Albatross; Now boarding..."

[ Scene changes to side-scroll inside the terminal.
On the left is Olivia's mom and Olivia. On the right
is Romaina, other passengers, and the terminal gate.
People are boarding. ]

Olivia
"Look, Mom! Everyone is going! Is there room for everyone?"

Mom
"Of course there is. Follow Ms. Officer, okay?"

Olivia
"Okay."

Mom
"Come give mom a hug."

[ Olivia goes close to Mom and a heart shape pops.
Then Olivia runs to Romaina. ]

Mom
"Be good, Olivia."

[ The dialog heart icon is displayed with this speech. ]

Olivia
"I will."

[ Scene change. Romaina and Olivia goes into Falcon 3,
where other passengers are already seated. ]

Granola
"Flight F-03. Destination: Albatross.
Please fasten your seatbelt."

[ Buckle-up sign blinks on ]

Granola
"Flight F-03. Now departing..."

[ Scene changes back to the exterior of the station.
Falcon 3 launches with music. It flies to the right
then toward Earth and disappears as a star. ]

[ At the third beat, the Buckle sign is off. The second
part of the music begins. Olivia is free to look in the
shuttle. ]

Graphical Representation of an Inquiry Process


Once Olivia is free to move, the player can control her
to walk around

and to climb on a seat [up].
When she climbs on a seat and there is something out the
window, a magnifier icon appears above her. Pressing [up]
again would magnify the object (I suppose the magnifier icon
should be a binocular icon in this particular context.)

In arcade mode, the text is displayed on the bottom of the
screen without breaking the tempo of the interaction. There
is no pop-up or drop down list. There is no dialogue box.
See ALIBI for the demostration of the mechanics. Reading
of the text is optional.

When the player hit [up] while the magnifying glass is
displayed, Olivia makes one comment and questions regarding
the object pops as marbles and fall onto the floor. Olivia
can pick up [left+right] at most one at a time. When she has
a question, the first character she runs into will answer it
using the text field at the bottom of the screen plus an
emotion icon that displays above them. The emotion shows
whether the character is happy, indifferent, or annoyed.

A score board tracks type of answers provided

Types of Questions
o Appearance
o Usage
o Demographic
o History
o Relation
o Personal info

Types of Answers:
o Material
o Function
o Statistics
o Event
o Profile
o BS (that Olivia cannot distinguish)
o Distraction/Jokes/Getting Tickled (the question will disappear)

Character responses:
[Heart] Interest, encouragement
[Dots] Indifference
[Sweat] Embarrassment, no clue
[Nerve] Annoyance, anger

The exact of questions that Olivia can ask depends
on the level of answers she got. The idea is that
she needs to level up in various areas to ask hard
questions.

Message Topic Bubbles
When Olivia examine an object, the following bubbles may spawn from the
object. Bubbles float off the screen if not picked up. Picking up the bubble
would display the question or urge on the bottom of the screen. When Olivia
drops the bubble onto a character, the character talks, the bubble disappears.

Appearance
"What is this?" "It looks so red!" "Why does it have no eyes?"

Function
"What does it do?" "How do you use it?" "Can I try it?"

People
"Whose stuff is it?" "Who left it here?" "Who made this?" "Who uses it?"

History
"When did that happen?" "What happened after they left?"

Special Interest
"May I play with you?" "Do you like ice-cream?" "I want this!"

Deja Vu
"Didn't I see this before...(?)"

Composition
"What is NaSO4?"

Objective
"Where are we going?" "What can I do?" "Let's do this!"

Medical Attention
"I need a bandaid." "Le Mon isn't moving!"

To Earth

Olivia saw the moon outside the window.



"Is that the moon?" asked Olivia.
Romaina said yes.
"Why is it all white?"
"Sunlight is white."
"Is the sun behind us?"
Romaina said yes.

Olivia tried to see the sun.

She asked "Where are we going?"

"We are going to earth."

Olivia tried to see what was ahead but couldn't.
She got off and went toward the front. There was
no window in front but a door.



"Where does this go?"
"It goes to the cockpit."
"May I see the cockpit?"

Knock knock "Incoming."

Romaina and Olivia entered the cockpit. Olivia saw the earth.
Granola was the pilot, although Falcon 3 was on auto. Olivia
was looking around and opening boxes.



Olivia: "There is a bird in the box!"
Granola: "That is the Trumpeter."
Olivia: "What does it do?"
Granola: "It calls people to lunch."
Olivia: "Oh?"


"(Drop your weapons and surrender... it's almost lunchtime...)"

Olivia then asked about the avionics.


"Wanna fly?"


"Really?!"


Flying Falcon 3
Fly to earth without crashing into stuff.



"Welcome Olivia, our new pilot... please fasten your seatbelt..."

Roll call
Transporters:


1) Falcon 3.
2) Officer Granola. She is keeping Falcon 3 company.
3) Trumpeter. Granola's bird.


Passengers to Albatross:

1) Olivia the student. Asking questions and testing others' patience.
2) Officer Romaina. She is not Olivia's nanny. She is being transfered to the Albatross.
3) Officer. Le Mon. He is being transfered also.
4) Dr. Pippali.
5) Allisa the reporter.
6) Minivamp the camera.
7) Atiel. Romaina's bird.


Over the Pacific:


1) Albatross.
2) Falcon 2. Fitted as a medical annex.
3) Captain Crouton.
4) Parmesa, technical director.
5) Worcester, technical intern.
6) Albatross's worker robots.
7) The bees. Albatross's light drones.



Honolulu:


1) Blaahval. Being defrosted and revived.
2) Falcon 4. Brought Blaahval a new reactor.
3) Captain Ballena.


Colombia:

1) Falcon 1. Fitted with storm armor. Conducting training exercises.


Falcon 4

Falcon 4 is the fourth Falcon assigned for the mission, and the newest
model among of the Falcons lineage. It is the most configurable and
adaptive platform of the four. In the begining of the story it brought
a new reactor for the Blaahval. The current order of F4 is to help and
protect the Blaahval. It changed its color to match the Blaahval.

F4 sees Blaahval as a huge pet although the Blaahval is much older. F4
can recharge in the water. It listens to the Blaahval and to Captain
Ballena. F4 works with the Blaahval to load and unload its cargos,
shuffle its sections, cleans its tail, scratches its back, and survey
the water path ahead.

Name: Falcon 4
Age: 1
Birthplace: Montes Apenninus
Current Location: Honolulu

[Edited by - Wai on September 19, 2008 2:07:03 PM]

Flying to Earth


"We will now make the descend to earth.
Please fasten your seatbelt."


[ To Earth (Flash) ]

Concurrent Story Structure


Mission Control

Everyday, a number of tasks need to be completed. These tasks are listed
in the mission control room of the Albatross. Some characters are sent to
various worksites to complete the tasks, while some characters remain on
Albatross as support or to send supplies when needed.

The resources for the day's tasks are interrelated, as a player may send
a character for task 1, making the same character unavailable for task 2
on the same day. The player may fail any number of tasks in one day. At
the end of the day, the player would decide whether to save the day's
results by controlling Captain Crouton to close the Mission Log Book.



The player may choose to end the day without completing any task. This
may happen because the player got a rare item during the day's activity
and wants to save the item for later use.


Stage Channels:

Channel 0: Albatross
Channel 1: Earth Orbit (The path from the moon to the Albatross)
Channel 2: To be assigned as needed
Channel 3: TBA
Channel 4: TBA
Channel 5: TBA
Channel 6: TBA
Channel 7: TBA
Channel 8: TBA
Channel 9: TBA