EXHIBITION STATEMENT
Introduction
If deception was necessary for survival, how far would we be willing to go? For this capstone project, I’ll be developing a video game demo that explores those ideas. The demo would be a visual novel where the player is trapped in a room with two other characters and needs to escape by solving riddles and puzzles. In this demo, the player is trapped in a room with two other characters and needs to solve riddles and puzzles to unlock the exit. The protagonist character spends the game not only solving puzzles, but also gathering as much information about the people around them to manipulate them, and is also willing to betray them for the sake of their own survival.
Literature Review
The game falls under the genre of mystery and social deception games. In social deception games, the players are pitted against each other where one or more is deceiving the others. In this type of setting, collecting information is of the utmost importance. Danganronpa is a series where the characters are trapped in a game where one will betray and kill a member of the group and the goal is to solve the murder mystery. In a game made by the same developers, Zero Escape has all the characters kidnapped and trapped on a boat. They need to solve puzzles and learn about the other characters in order to escape and figure out why they were taken in the first place. Lastly, a game called Your Turn to Die has the characters taken into a facility with others where they need to solve puzzles or risk death, and also through the power of democracy, a collective vote to kill off someone. All of these focus on solving mysteries and exploring the story and characters in order to succeed and ultimately, survive. Because manipulation is part of the player character’s strategy, the Handbook of Communication and Social interaction skills by Greene and Burleson was incredibly helpful in figuring out what mannerisms and techniques to go for.
Methods
For research, other games from this genre were the best source to see how the story was generally structured and how the characters were developed. Normally, many characters hide important details about the characters that will be important to the story. For example, in the first game of the series Danganronpa, all of the characters are introduced quickly and much of their characterization is only revealed later in the game after investigating other mysteries presented. For example, when investigating one of the murder cases, it is revealed that one of the characters has Dissociative Identity Disorder, and another was responsible for his brother’s death (Danganronpa, Chapter 2). This type of storytelling gives the player as little information as they can about the characters at the start.
Audience & Impact
The target audience for this project is fans of visual novels and story-driven games. Visual novel games are more narrative-based than gameplay-based and tend to have the players reading a narrative story. However, they also allow the player to see the environments and characters of the story with sprites and graphics. The story and characters are the cornerstones of visual novel games, so having an interest in those aspects would draw people toward visual novel games. When playing this game, the audience would be drawn toward the characters. Having the audience be invested in the well-being of the other characters will keep them attached to the story, but also personally affect them when those characters are hurt or betrayed by the protagonist. Working on this project has offered a lot of experience in creating a game, such as coding mechanics, creating assets, and writing the story. Additionally, because this project was a long-term one, it tested my general willpower to stay committed and motivated on it.
References
Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc. PC. 2010. Spike Chunsoft Co, Developer and Publisher. Kodaka, Kazutaka, Writer.
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Zero Escape: The Nonary Games. PC. 2010. Spike Chunsoft Co, Developer and Publisher. Uchikoshi, Kotaro, Writer.
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Your Turn to Die - Death Game By Majority. PC. 2017. Nankidai, Developer. Kadokawa Corporation, Publisher.
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Greene, John O., and Brant R. Burleson. Handbook of Communication and Social Interaction Skills. EBSCOhost, Mahwah, N.J., Routledge, 2003.
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Guillermo Owen. Game Theory. EBSCOhost, vol. Fourth edition, Bingley, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, 2013.
Acknowledgments
I would like to acknowledge my various friends for giving me feedback and motivation and the faculty advisor, Harold Burgess, for helping keep me on track and providing guidance for this project.
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