December 2012
1 post
Class Four Debrief
In class four, we took a more traditional approach to narrative and looked at how narrative arcs play out across entire game storylines, and also across specific in-game plot arcs (AKA levels). We talked about what games we thought had great stories, beginning to end, including whose plots may make up for lackluster gameplay.
As a prime Mass Effect oriented example, we picked apart the Tuchanka...
November 2012
5 posts
Class Four: Reapers' Fall
In Class Three, we talked about how to structure game mechanics, including character choice, on a micro scale—how player choices can fan out and collapse to fit into the overall story of a game.
Pic from http://masseffect-caps.tumblr.com
In Class Four, we look at just how one structures a game’s overall story. For those who have taken fiction writing classes before, some of...
Class Three Debrief
Hello, all. In class three, we discussed how storytelling gets done in video games—basically how events (especially those involving character choice) are arranged and ordered in order to create the fabric of a narrative.
First, we asked ourselves the question, “What exactly is a plot”? Some answers included key words like conflict, character development, rising action/tension,...
Class Three: In the Middle of Some Calibrations
The third class concentrates on the events depicted in Mass Effect 2, focusing on the leaps in storytelling technique from the first game to the second. Again, Shepard’s crew will be discussed, as well as the choices Shepard makes. Special emphasis will be given to how the choices in the first game affect outcomes in the second, as this is a landmark achievement in video games—every major choice,...
Debrief for Class Two
For Class Two, we concentrated on looking at how characters shape stories in games. We started by going over some of our favorite Mass Effect characters and why they remain our favorites. Many agreed that the reasons for some characters being their favorite were myriad. Some pointed to great gameplay aspects, such as Legion’s tech abilities or Wrex’s handy combo of health regeneration,...
Week Two: The Saren Encounter
This class session concentrates on the events depicted in Mass Effect 1, focusing on the various characters that make up Commander Shepard’s crew, on the Reapers as the existential/ineffable threat, and on chief antagonist Saren as a complex foil for Commander Shepard. Students will weigh in on how they felt about the revolutionary (at the time) branching decision making system, which decisions...
October 2012
3 posts
Week One Debrief
Thank you all for a rousing class! I hope that you found the universe-building session illuminating and inspiring. Such brainstorming activities are great for teasing details out of your head and onto paper or your computer. I wanted to post this debrief to go over the results of our session because I wanted to use it as a reference for future writing exercises.
Our World
We started out with a...
Week One: The Genesis of New Media Narrative
Mass Effect is certainly one of the more notable efforts to get more storytelling into video games. But by no means is it the first or only time game developers have tried this. As far back as Adventure for the Atari 2600, games have had some sort of narrative to go with the bleeps the sweeps and the creeps. This first week will begin with a discussion about your experiences with video game...
Thrusters...check. Navigation...check. Internal...
Alright, folks. This is it. The first post (well second). But the first one that matters. If you’re reading this, you’re most likely enrolled in a class on Mass Effect. Congratulations. You’re one of the cool kids. Didn’t think it would be that easy, did you? Well it was.
Now you gotta prove it.
Don’t worry. It’ll be fun. Here are a few things that...
June 2012
1 post
Who am I, and what is this class all about?
Hi. Nice to meet you. My name is Reinhardt Suarez, and I am an editor and writer based in the Twin Cities, Minnesota area. I’ve been published in a few small arenas (short stories, essays, and in an upcoming graphic novel anthology), but the great majority of my printed work can be found as sparkling text in other people’s books, articles, and the whatnot.
This tumblr is a...
