Discussion of greater game story?

[8bitgentleman]

In conjunction with #2206 I think we should start talking about the over arching story of Hawkthorne. In case you didn't know @niamu is in contact with the original ADR guy from the episode and he is willing to help us add some sfx/dialog to the game in a similar style as the episode. What he needs is a script and a list of dialog bits that he can record. Most important is nailing down Cornelius's script for the final boss battle as well any changes to his first cutscene.

Since the game as a whole has moved away from following the episode directly there are a few inconsistencies that have carried over from the episode. One main one is the first cutscene. In the cutscene Cornelius is talking directly to Pierce about his inheritance. Does this make sense anymore with the direction the game is heading? Maybe the overarching storyline should move towards freeing hawkthorne from the corrupt ruler Cornelius. These are the kinds of things we need to talk about.

@reddfawks @didory123 @edisonout @CalebJohn maybe you guys have some ideas for the script?

[kcig]

Out of everyone who is going to be playing this game, people who don't know Community will inevitably be alienated, and people who really like Community are mostly going to be looking for the things that match the episode. That will originally be the thing that is entertaining to them. So the game definitely needs the head of Cornelius in the forest cut scene that is addressing Pierce directly, rather than to edit that out so it feels more inclusive to single player gameplay. There can be Cornelius-head cut scenes in other levels that can be tailored to the character that was chosen, just like the way that in the battle for the throne with Gilbert, the game detects that it is Gilbert playing ("Due to the nature of your complexion,...".

What I'm envisioning is that there are cut scenes in each island to act as pinch points (reminder of what is at stake in the story) where the head of Cornelius shows up and evaluates if the player is Pierce or Not Pierce. The game wants Pierce to fail, and it wants his friends to win the inheritance, but still believes that his friends are fruits, sluts, and junkies. So if the player is Pierce, it will say something discouraging and personal to Pierce and his upbringing, like:

Cornelius: Piercinald, by some fluke you have already made it to the Valley of Laziness. I had your nannies raise you to become a coward, so I do not doubt that you will quit the game by forfeiting.

but if the player isn't Pierce, it will say something like:

Cornelius: I have detected that you are {{orange}}not Pierce{{white}}.
cont'd: Congratulations on your arrival at the Valley of Laziness. As a {{blue}}junkie {{white}}you should feel right at home.

Maybe each player can have several unique attributes that the game can detect (like race, character flaw, etc) that can be referenced by Cornelius in these cut scenes. Or anyway, the greendale 7 can have unique attributes, and the extra characters can have random or generic attributes.

In the canon of the episode, the game is made explicitly for Pierce and 7 of his friends, so that is the audience that the overall story arc of the game has to cater to. Obviously video games in general are never made for such a narrow audience, but the story that the game tells I think should have this detail so that it can remain true to the episode, because that is what is really important to our actual audience.

[8bitgentleman]

Thanks for injecting some life into this conversation @kcig ! I like your take on the cutscenes, changing the language based on the player and the idea of a reminder of what is at stake in the story at each new island/area. In the game the 7 players have a common enemy in Gilbert even though they are technically all supposed to be playing against each other. Gilbert gives the study group a sense of urgency when playing the game, an urgency that is missing from our version. There's no time constraint, race or opponent other than the various enemies in the levels so what is the goal of our game then? If it's not a race against other players ( this may change if we ever move towards multiplayer ) then is it just a battle towards Castle Hawkthorne with obstacles placed in your way? I like the idea of 'liberating' the world of Hawkthorne from King Cornelius, battling your way to castle hawkthorne in order to over throw cornelius, restore peace from the realm and claim your inheritance. With that plot the goal of the game can be moved from a race/competition.

[kcig]

Well in the arc of the episode, they are racing against Gilbert because he's still going with the rules intended by the game. The game is always to beat the other players because the goal is the inheritance. The study group just decided to be allies for conflict in the episode. Theoretically, Cornelius had to design the game knowing that Pierce might be playing by himself, then the goal of the game is to get Pierce to stop playing the game altogether before he gets to the castle so that he forfeits his inheritance. Though for us playing it, these points where the game is trying to bring Pierce down are mostly sources of humor.

I'm thinking about Super Mario mostly when I think about single player platformers. There is not conflict in that game in the way that Joseph Campbell/Dan Harmon Story Circle defines conflict, because what motivates the player to get through the game is just that it's fun to hit the blocks and get coins and kill the enemies in different ways, I don't think the player is like "damn I gotta get to that castle to save the princess, this is really urgent". It's really just kind of a cheap ploy to give a fake prize at the end of defeating Bowser, which makes the game feel like it has a little bit of purpose besides just killing a thing that is reducing your health points. Just presenting a level with enemies and puzzles is enough to motivate the player to play through it. I can't think of a platform video game that actually makes the player meet with the goddess and atone with the father before winning the game. The conflict with Gilbert isn't a feature of the game but of the actual episode itself. The promise of an inheritance is the Princess Peach of this game, it just gives you enough motivation to defeat the boss. It's not like you actually have an option not to end up at Bowser's castle.

So, I don't think the structure of the video game should be altered to shoe-horn in a story for a single player. It doesn't feel right to me that the player's goal is to free the townspeople from evil King Cornelius, because from the episode I know that the 'real' Cornelius wouldn't have programmed the game to motivate you through it. It's trying to get you to quit by being racist and homophobic and stuff.

Maybe there could be a different game mode where you have to race an AI gilbert, just like in Kirby Gourmet Race or whatever. I don't think it needs to be the focal point of the story for single player though.

I don't know if you saw my reddit post about my general philosophy about how to approach the story for the game but I'll link it here: http://www.reddit.com/r/hawkthorne/comments/2txzr4/some_ideas_for_the_general_storywriting/

[8bitgentleman]

@kcig I did see the original post. Your explanation here made it much more clear and I definitely think it's an interesting direction forward. We've struggled with figuring out what makes hawkthorne different outside of just a community homage and this is a pretty good answer to that question. In addition you should take a look at @didory123 's new forest levels that are nearing completion ( #2314 ) I know he was struggling with some story-line/quest stuff and we'd love to see your take on it. I agree I don't think that freeing the townspeople should be a main story-line since Cornelius would never have programmed that. I do like to think the NPCs of the episode game were programmed in such a way that they almost became sentient and took on a life of their own within the game. Why would Cornelius have the ability to kill the blacksmith or marry Hilda ( unless that was an addition that Abed made ) programmed in? Unless it was just as a distraction as a distraction for Pierce. The level of complexity is at odds with the old school graphics and feel of the game and that's definitely something we can play with.