Live From The Bunker

A topic by OneGameDad created Jul 02, 2017 Views: 596 Replies: 21

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So the idea of "Live From The Bunker" has stuck with me ever since I looked at the list of titles, because it spoke to me immediately. It screamed - someone livestreaming or livetweeting the apocalypse from their bunker.

I'm creating this in Twine, so graphicly it won't be very intense. I'm not much of an artist and the art will come last. But right now I have two potential ways of doing this and I need your feedback.

1) The player is a viewer of this livestream and can vote for actions of the host. The host is doing a sort of MTV Cribs show of their bunker as the apocalypse hits.

2) The player is the host of the livestream and is showing off their bunker as they settle in to sit out the apocalypse. The player can then reply to the chat and their requests.

3) The player is livetweeting their tour of their bunker as the apocalypse hits. This I would imagine would have some Twitter integration.

All versions have different implications for how things are implemented and what I try to accomplish. Sadly I don't know how to create a Twitter bot that could then reply the the player's tweets for option 3. So which version should I do?

PetrakSubmitted6 years ago

I mean, if anything it's a great opportunity to learn how to build a Twitter bot so I'd go with that one!

OneGameDadJam HostSubmitted6 years ago

I know I don't have the time for that. I'm still learning HTML/CSS and Javascript. Twine utilizes those so it's a perfect way for me to practice. A Twitter bot is beyond my comprehension at this moment.

wazanatorJam Host6 years ago

A twitter bot isn't as hard as it sounds. You should be able to pick it up fairly fast, Codecademy has tutorials covering it.

OneGameDadJam HostSubmitted6 years ago

Thanks for the tip. But the life of a dad means my time is not my own. So I'm going to keep the scope of this game really simple for now. It's something to aim for in the future though.

PetrakSubmitted6 years ago

In that case i like the second idea!

pfailSubmitted6 years ago

As I voted in the Waypoint poll you posted, I think the most interesting and engaging idea would be the player hosting a livestream from their bunker. The number of directions that could go, especially with a chat function, seems just about endless to me. Looking forward to how this comes together.

OneGameDadJam HostSubmitted6 years ago

This is the map of the game's and thus the bunker's structure. Do you think I'm missing anything. I wasn't planning on having the game start in the airlock but rather the entrance. And the position of the Armory will be explained through the story. But are there any types of rooms you think I should include? As I wrote this I thought about water, waste and electricity. So maybe a utilities room.

pfailSubmitted6 years ago

Hard to say what else you could add without knowing more about the story, but I'm always a fan of a secret/mystery room that's either hidden or off limits for reasons that later come to light. Or maybe there's some sort of sub-level all-purpose room that's been barred off because of some hazard. Like I said, I'd guess it depends on the direction the story is going.

OneGameDadJam HostSubmitted6 years ago

I've now managed to sort the movement, so the player can go from to room to room at will. Each move is added to a variable so (hopefully) certain events can only be triggered at a certain time. Of course each room will have to have an individual variable to see if they've been visited. But's easy to establish. So together I can set up a range of possible events in each room, which should result in different stories for each player or play-through.

That of course depends on the amount of possible events I include in each room. I've seen a video of how to do something like this so once I have that sorted and tested I can focus on the story more.

Current Focus: Variable Events for each room

Future Features: Story, Page (Room) Formating, Images, Viewer Chat, Viewer Count.

OneGameDadJam HostSubmitted6 years ago

Been struggling with the conversation system, so I reached out to Dan Cox who creates the fantastic tutorial videos on YouTube regarding Twine. He got back to me with some suggestions. So once I'm no longer saddled with a bunch of other stuff I can get to that. Took a short break to try and work on something for the Game Maker's Toolkit Jam but that too isn't working out. Shows how much I need to really sit down and learn to code. More experience with Javascript would help my Twine games. But as ever it's a question of priorities.

Hope everyone else is having a good jam.

pfailSubmitted6 years ago

Seems like a lot of us are facing some moments of truth now that we're at the jam's midpoint. Myself included. I think it's hard to gauge whether or not an idea is too big to take on until you've put some real work into it. I bet that even if we don't all get as much finished as we'd like, there will still be some cool ideas to check out by the end of the month. And if not, well, it's still been great following everyone's progress. I've had a blast, and thanks again for putting this together!

MajugiSubmitted6 years ago

Trying to do more than one jam at a time sounds tough! The benefit of trying a 48-hour jam is that this month-long one seems much more relaxed in comparison. I second pfail's thanks for your organizing of this jam. I'm really looking forward to seeing what everyone has in a couple weeks.

OneGameDadJam HostSubmitted6 years ago

I've got the base of the conversation system down now, thanks to Dan Cox. The idea I was going for was to keep a person in the same passage (aka room) while they speak so as not to break the illusion. Jumping to new passages in Twine creates small refreshes that I think break the immersion. Luckily there's a way to display the contents of a one passage in another.

[Here is some content]<name|(click: ?name)[ (replace: ?name)[ (display: "Passage 2") ] ]

So the text displayed "Here is some content" is replaced by the contents of "Passage 2". This should allow me to represent livestreaming better in what is effectively a text adventure, as all of the text is immediately displayed. It also allows for a passage to hold choices that provide further branching.

I'm not planning on having any sort of interrupt and memory system for what's been said, as that's beyond the scope of the game right now. But players should be able to move to another room in the middle of a dialogue tree. Conceivably I could create a variable to track whether or not a particular branch is finished, but I think that's for a later date. Right now I want to focus on getting the story/conversation written and in the game.

And no worries, I'm happy to help organize this. I need this as much as everyone else. Not just to be motivated to complete something but to have a conversation with people about things I'm interested in. There's only so much a six-month old can contribute to any conversation.

OneGameDadJam HostSubmitted6 years ago

So I've been thinking about artwork for this game. And I'm torn between doing something artistic, and something basic.

This is what I'm thinking of for the artistic aspect.

Original by Joakim Olofsson. Gif & Glitch aspects added by OneGameDad.

I was thinking of this glitch style gifs because I can apply it to artwork I haven't created and thereby make something new. I'll still credit the artists of the original work, but per fair use I want to make sure it's different enough that there are no issues. I like this style because it gives a sense of how adhoc the bunker is and poor the wifi is within the game. So the player character is going through showing off their lair, but their connection isn't great because they're underground. Gifs also add some movement to an otherwise still medium.

The only problem with this is one of dissonance. As the player you are the character livestreaming. So you won't see the issues with your feed. Thus any interference and other issues affecting the image stream are not viewable. All you receive is information regarding the quality of your connection.

So it's a question of style over cohesiveness. Granted movement is done through clicking, the same goes for speaking. So conceptually there's already a distance the player has to overcome, a suspension of disbelief, in order to rolepaly as the character in this game. Does the glitch gif add or detract from that? What do you think?

pfailSubmitted6 years ago

I think the effect is cool looking and will add a sense of real time to the game. When I saw the glitched image, I actually thought it looked less like wi-fi interference than, say, a hardware malfunction or some sort of internal disruption. Maybe there's a way to pivot to that, if necessary. In any case, I think the effect will be useful to communicate something is wrong to the player, regardless of which end they'd expect the glitch to be on.

MajugiSubmitted6 years ago

The glitch art seems like a good idea to me. I don't think it changes the "fairness" of using the original art one way or the other, but it could give your own project a more distinctive and cohesive look, particularly if you're using art from multiple sources. Making the image less static is a big plus in my opinion.

I don't entirely get what your UI will look like and how the glitches will play into the story, but I feel like there must be some way to spin the story for the visuals to make sense. Maybe your salvaged computer is having issues. Maybe the fluctuating power levels in the bunker mess with your screen. Maybe the apocalypse was something that specifically affected computer systems. Maybe you're watching your own stream so you can tell what viewers are seeing. Regardless, if there's one thing that video games have taught us, it's that players are usually willing to accept narrative dissonance if it's stylish/fun.

OneGameDadJam HostSubmitted6 years ago

Thanks for the feedback Majugi and Pfail. I think I've figured a way to justify it with the internal logic of the game. Rather than the player character walking about with their own camera or mobile phone streaming their MTV Cribs episode, they're using the internal security cameras. That then accounts for 1) Why you don't see the character, 2) There's the image issues and 3) The Player sees a variety of stats and the chat while streaming.

As far as "fairness" goes, my understanding of the fair use doctrine in the US is that a person can use another's work as long as it is changed a certain amount and is then considered a new piece. While I don't think I'll be changing anything that much I will not be making any money from this work and I will be correctly attributing the creators.

OneGameDadJam HostSubmitted6 years ago

Here's something to get you excited. It's just a little look at the art style.

pfailSubmitted6 years ago

This looks AWESOME. Such an evocative GIF!

OneGameDadJam HostSubmitted6 years ago(+1)

Live From The Bunker is now available at:

OneGameDadJam HostSubmitted6 years ago

I updated the UI to give an better indication of which room you're currently viewing as well as how many people are watching the stream. All with the purpose of providing more control and better immersion. Really should have done this sooner.

And thanks so much for the feedback. Glad to hear that people have been enjoying it and felt the tone/world was consistent. I know I originally mentioned the apocalypse and there isn't much of that beyond references currently. Hopefully in the future I can add more storylines and endings. But that requries additional features I need to develop first. Just wanted to make sure I had a complete working bunker before all else.

itch.io

New Jam City

Live From The Bunker