Podcast - Designing Using the Hero's Journey from Gamasutra

Here is the link to a podcast on how the Hero's Journey is used in videogame design it is about
56 min long http://cmpmedia.vo.llnwd.net/o1/gdcradio-net/GDCR/gdcr_017.mp3

I have not yet listened to it from start to finish.

Software Evaluation

To date I have evaluated and rejected 4 programs which do not require programming knowledge in order to build the game. I have another 3 which have come to my attention which I will be evaluating.

3D Adventure Studio
An editor for creating adventure games. It consists of two parts:

• An editor: To allow you to create your own 3D Adenture games
• A runtime engine: To play games created with 3D Adventure Studio

This package is out of Norway and is still under construction according to the site, however looking at the download pages, nothing has been updated since 2003. The package came with a 15 page tutorial which was poorly written. I spent most of one day working with the software. The programs biggest disadvantage is one must repeatedly tap the arrow keys in the editor to zoom in and out when playing the game. The results of how the program looks and works wasn't worth the effort. Further the game could not be modified at this point to add characters, dialogue etc.

Here is a picture of an outdoor scene

Adventure Game Studio

Adventure Game Studio (AGS for short) allows for the creatation of point-and-click adventure games. It consists of a development environment, and run-time engine. The game interface is fully customizable. AGS came with an extensive tutorial and is still supported through Wikis and a support team should questions arrive. However the resulting game is 2D and very simplistic looking. The software as far as I could discover after 2 days of experimentation is only customizable within pre-existing perameters and thus was not suitable for developing my Heroine's Journey.

Here is a sample of the software's interface

Game Factory 2

From the company

"The Games Factory provides everything you need to manufacture Arcade games, Platform games, Adventures, Screen Savers, and much, much, more. You simply click on an object, drag it to the play field, and click on the action it should perform. We supply all the heroes, monsters, powerups, and other objects you need, plus the sound and music for your games. Of course, you can easily add your own, custom items if you choose."

GF2 had the best tutorial of all the software packages I evaluated, including both pictures and words, which made it easier to follow. The tutorials were seperated into 14 steps or lessons. Though the company claimed that by following the tutorial a game could be created in an hour I found in reality it took 3+ hours to build the example I will be showing below. Without purchasing the complete package I cannot conclusively rule out that the program is incapable of being customized to my requirements, however following a series of emails with the support department and the resulting arcade style game I have decided to keep looking around.

Here is the resulting game

Here is the URL to view it directly from YouTube if you cannot see this embedded version http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dbayFAJ6jzg

Reality Factory

The last software package I evaluated was Reality Factory, a freely available toolkit that allows for the creation of complete, commercial quality games without knowing any programming. It was the most promising of all the software though harder to learn then some of the others. It's major draw back is that it is a shooter, and hence not suitable for my Heroine's journey. I contacted support to see if the game could be modified to be an adventure game and was told a couple of people online were experiementing with doing so and I should contact the forum, but they could not help with any modifications because they designed a shooter. I posted to the forum but was never contacted back. I spent 2 days working with the software to get the following example:

Here is the URL to view it directly from YouTube if you cannot see this embedded version http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZacBMb6vn_Q

Design

Below is a sample of how the Nine Act Story Structure from film can be used to design a videogame.



In case the video is giving anyone problems here is the URL to the uploaded movie directly on YouTube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oP2M6qo6n5g

Star Wars: The quintessential hero's Journey

As I mention at the end of the video clip. I would have liked to have used a female protagonist and given a film or literary example of the Heroine's Journey, but todate without extensive research I have not be able to find a story to give as an example so I chose Star Wars to illustrate the journey.



If you are having problems viewing it from here click this link http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_3PDmwnUbvM and it will take you to YouTube to see the video

References

This is alist of articles, books and links I have started to accumulate. It will be updated throughout my research.

Bates, Bob. (2005). Into the Woods: A Practical Guide to the Hero's Journey. Gamasutra Retrieved 12 March 2007 from http://www.gamasutra.com/features/20050617/bates_01.shtml

Campbell, Joseph. (1949). The Hero with a Thousand Faces, New Jersey: Princeton University Press.

de Castell, S.C., & Jenson, J. (2005). Videogames and digital game play - The new field of educational game studies. Orbit, 35(2), 17-20.

de Castell, S.C., Luke, A. (1986). Defining literacy in North American schools: Social and historical conditions and consequences. In S.C. de Castell, A.Luke, & K. Egan (Eds.), Literacy, society and schooling (pp. 87-109). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

Dickey, Michele D. (2006). Game Design Narrative for Learning: Appropriating Adventure Game Design Narrative Devices and Techniques for the Design of Interactive Learning Environments. Educational Technology, Research and Development, 54, 3; 245

Estes, Clarissa Pinkola. (1992) Women who run with the wolves: myths and stories of the wild woman archetype. New York, NY: Ballantine Books.

Gamasutra Podcast (Producer) Bates, Bob.(Presenter) (2007, January 03). A Practical Guide to the Hero's Journey [Podcast radio program]. GDCRadio's store & podcast. Retrieved March 12, 2007, from http://cmpmedia.vo.llnwd.net/o1/gdcradio-net/GDCR/gdcr_017.mp3

Gee, J.P. (2003). What video games have to teach us about learning and literacy. New York: Palgrave/St. Martin’s.

Hopkins, Lisa. (2002). The Female Hero in English Renaissance Tragedy. Palgrave Macmillan.

Labre, Magdala Peixotoand Duke, Lisa. (2004)."Nothing Like a Brisk Walk and a Spot of Demon Slaughter to Make a Girl’s Night".: The Construction of the Female Hero in the Buffy Video Game. Journal of Communication Inquiry, 28: 138-156

McKinley, Kathryn. (2001). Reading the Ovidian Heroine: "Metamorphoses" commentaries 1100 – 1618. Brill Academic Publishers.

O'Reilly, Julie D. (2005). The Wonder Woman Precedent: Female (Super)Heroism on Trial. Journal of American & Comparative Cultures, 28(3), 273-283(11).

Prensky, M. (2001). Digital game-based learning. New York: McGraw-Hill.

Sánchez-Escalonilla, Antonio (2005) The Hero as a Visitor in Hell: The Descent into Death in Film Structure. Journal of Popular Film & Television, 32, 4; 149

Sherman, Sharon R. (1997). Perils of the princess: Gender and genre in video games. Western Folklore; 56 (3/4), 243.

Swift, Susan Eleanor. (1999). Film, feminism, and the sacred: The tension of gender and mythology in popular film. Institute of Integral Studies

Vogler, Christopher. (1992) The Writer’s Journey: Mythic Structurefor Storytellers and Screenwriters. California: Michael Wiese Productions.

Introduction to my MRP

I have chosen to do a major research project instead of a thesis. I am using this blog as a journal or log to track my research progress as I come across information etc. so that I will have an amalgamated source to refer to when pulling my project together.

I will be designing an educational videogame using the Hero's Journey (also known as the Monomyth) as it's core. However, I have chosen to put a twist on the project, and make it a Heroine's Journey because rarely do hero's journeys have a female protagonist.

During my initial research when I googled the term "heroine's journey" the only references that came up were to "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" and "Xena Warrior Princess." When I turned to the York research librarians for assistants, I was given Penelope (Odysseus' wife) and other Ovidian/classical examples, which most people would not be able to identify with today.

The challenge for my MRP at this point as I see it is four fold. If anyone has other suggestions, thoughts, comments, ideas etc. please email me.

1) Design

• Story/Script (Dialogue) - Character - Plot - Setting - Conflict - Archetypes etc.
• Levels
• Music
• Playability - balancing action with puzzles etc.

2) Educational content - Initially I was going to design the game for a junior/intermediate audience (Grades 4-9); however, after watching the popular TV game show "Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader" I realized that many adults are not familiar with material grade school students are learning. As long as there is not "graphic" content and language I don't see a reason to limit the audience.

• I need to determine what topics from the curriculum could be learned from this type of game and demonstrate from existing literature what other learning is occurring during game play.
• Educational material MUST be embedded into the game and not an add-on.
• Content MUST not be drill like problems

3) Joesph Campbell was the first to write about the basic pattern of the Hero's Journey found in many myths from around the world. In looking at the Heroine's Journey, I need to explore

• If and how it differs from the Hero's Journey.
• Does a Heroine need to kill in order to fulfill her journey
• What will be the Heroine's trials
• What will be the boon she brings back to her people - one idea I had for linking this to curriculum was that the heroine would bring back the Magna Carta

4) Lastly I will be looking into various programs for building the game. I have limited programing ability. I need to find programs which will be relatively easy to learn for a novice. I have discusses this with my advisor, and we determined that it is quite possible that I will not be able to actually find anything suitable for my programming level but I should document my search and experience with the programs I try.

The subsequent posts will all have little bits of work that I have been doing towards the above. Images, music etc. that I am using are all for educational purposes only. I have not given specific references for images as in some cases they are too numerous (e.g. I used over 20 sources to create a film clip explaining the Hero's Journey using Star Wars as an example.) I have used YouTube to house my images but they are set as private as not to violate copy write issues.