/masters
Rapid ideation for the week 3 challenge.
The challenge for week 3 of development practice is
…identify an artefact you feel is particularly interesting. Select one or two of the prototyping methods outlined this week and build quick prototypal representations of your chosen artefact.
(TL;DR see here)
A quick run-down of the prototyping methods:
- Sketching
- Storyboarding
- Paper Prototyping
- Physical Modelling
- White / Grey Boxing
- Wireframes / Interactive Wireframing
- Game Prototyping
- Narrative Prototyping
- Wireflow (wireframes + flowcharts)
- Body-storming / Role-playing
- Wizard of Oz Testing
An artefact I’ve been particularly enamoured of lately is Disco Elysium [accessed 2020-10-05]. My favourite parts of the game are:
- the narratives and dialogue system
- the painterly pastel artwork
- the abilities and skills system
Typical of RPG systems is the player’s indulgence in the meta game of min/maxing a player’s attributes to fit their gameplay style. However, with Disco Elysium, this can have consequences:
…your focus of abilities and skills is probably the most important choice you can make in the entire game. The other thing to note is that while having any skill too low is obviously bad, upgrading any skill too high will also bring various negative effects and character quirks.
(Rock, Paper, Shotgun, 2019) [accessed 2020-10-05]
The game’s abilities and skills felt too daunting to “prototypally (prototypically?) represent”, so I tried my hand at the narratives, and the game’s layout and initial mockups. For narratives I used “Narrative Prototyping” and for the layouts and mockups I used “Wireframes” and “Sketching”.
I present the prototypes using another medium that pops up a lot in these pre-production discussions: the presentation format. I had an extra bit of fun and gave the presentation a narrative feel… how very meta, I guess.
Have fun: