Narrative
Concept: My game idea is heavily based on the idea of portraying what anxiety is like. and due to my game game idea being a choice based game io wanted their to be very bad and good consequences to having anxiety as in modern times their is little in the world that will harm (other than themselves) a person who suffers from Anxiety.
So, in order to have bad consequences for anxiety if for example the player makes bad choices throughout the game , I decided to research when anxiety was first recognised and found out that it was not that long ago. Only 41 years ago in 1980 meaning that up until that point people who suffered from anxiety were never helped and may have been view as insane.
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This led me to look look into ways that the "mentally ill" where "treated" before anxiety was recognised and I found they used techniques such as hydrotherapy and even lobotomy's, which if you didn't know is when someone severs connection between your prefrontal cortex and the frontal part of the brain in hopes to cure mental illness.
Story:
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"Nerves" is set in a rural town that is based off the luscious green fields and farms of Wisconsin in the USA.
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You play as a 18 year old called Michael living in the wake of the Great war later known to be called World war one, our story begins in a large farmhouse estate in Wisconsin, USA where Michael lives alone after his fathers death in the war, the year is 1920 and Michael must live his life with the trauma he suffer 2 years prior, one of the effects of the PTSD from the War that he suffered is unknown to civilization at this point in time, but will later be known to be called Anxiety.
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The Narrative takes place over one week of Michaels life, (I have decided that the ideal length for the game will be 7 hours of gameplay) Each day Michael has tasks that he has to complete (like washing his clothes and going to work at the factory) and these tasks can sometimes be triggering for his mental disorder, which causes certain triggers to set in the effects of anxiety making Michaels day harder, each day Michael will face a new trigger that will portray his feelings to the player.
However, he must not give away to the other characters in his life that he has this mental condition as he knows that if you get caught seeming "insane" he will get locked away as in the months following the end of the war Michael witnessed a close friend be taken by authorities. (which gets revealed as a cinematic during the first dialogue encounter.)
For the Narrative it is introduced into the game as follows:
The image above is a storyboard of the start of the game and the following bullet points explain every frame
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​This Frame showcases that the player has opened the game and has entered the main menu environment (see UIX for more information) the player raises their arm and selects to start the game.
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The players vision/screen fades to black as the game loads
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The player can no longer control the movements of the character for they have entered a cutscene of the character approaching the house door and have to sit and watch the events unfold.
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The character enters the house and walks towards a table
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Upon the table sits a piece of paper that the character picks up and opens.
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The list falls out on to floor for it is very long and the character reads outload (voiced) the first few lines
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The Character then looks up to see a clock and says the lien "Oh shoot, I got to be at the factory for 5!!"
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The player gains controller as the character says "I have to do all this before work?!" telling the player what they have to do.
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The objectives the player has as well as the time are displayed for the player to keep track of.
For the first dialogue encounter it is introduced into the game as follows:
The image above is a storyboard of the first dialogue encounter of the game and the narrative driven cutscene that plays out. This scene takes place after the one above when Michael gets to work.
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Fade into scene and then the player can explore the area and then use the VR controller to point at the character who wishes to speak (shown by speech bubble/box) to start a dialogue
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When the player starts the conflict the man they speak too (the manager/boss of the factory) shouts at the player , the words the manger is shouting at the player appear around the players head in their line of vision.
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as the player is looking at the words the voice of the manger echo's and slowly gets quieter as he zooms further and further away from the player and gets crowded in darkness to the point where he's barely visible.
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Heartbeat sound track and controllers start to vibrate.
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the room is now very dark and someone can be heard calling the player for help.
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the player turns to see to dark silhouettes one dragging the other away further into the darkness
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the one being dragged calls out to the player with a muffled an echoed voice and the one pulling the other away shouts in the distance "this man is insane take him away!"
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the voice of the boss can be heard clearly trying to wake the player turns out they zoned out and are now standing back Infront of the boss like nothing happened
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The player is presented with dialogue options to select from
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This interaction is meant to represent Social anxiety and the struggles people who suffer from social anxiety suffer from when trying to talk to people in uncomfortable situations. The seeing of the black figure being taken away is the character recalling a memory of a friend being taken to an insane asylum, this establishes that the character knows being lcoked up for looking insane is an option
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Every one of the dialogue options that a player is presented with have a value assigned to them in the code that will carry a negative or positive connotations. (more information on dialogue system explained page)