Dear Insane Children,
For those of you interested in Narrative Crowd Design, here’s a little teaser… which I hope to use to test out how this process works prior to sharing the Alice: Asylum narrative outline. I mentioned in a previous post that I want to share the Asylum outline with some holes in the middle – so that there’s a place where YOU can engage with Crowd Design and help fill in the details.
But before we go down that particular Rabbit Hole…
I’ve attached the Oz: Adventures (game) synopsis that I sketched over the weekend.
This document is a response to a request made by [REDACTED] as we continue to go through their Due Diligence process.
The basic question behind this document is: “We [REDACTED ]need something to describe the game for our internal discussions, and to explain how the episodic structure + playing as different characters would work.”
So I’ve described the basic narrative for 4 episodes. But also left some bits blank or [TBD]. And I’ve left Episode 4 really blank… because one of the things we’re trying to sell in this pitch is that narrative will emerge as we develop the game, as players engage with the game, and as a part of the Crowd Design process.
I kinda think we don’t want to know just yet what happens in Episode 4. We shouldn’t try to write that until we’ve delivered at least Episode 1 & 2… and then build Episode 4 around the feedback those generate.
Think about the Crowd Design goals while you read the episode outlines.
And let me know if you see openings for interesting character development, plot twists, etc, in what’s written so far. There are some obviously marked [TBD] areas where you might suggest interesting connections to the characters and locations of Oz.
And just let me know, in general, do you “get it” – as a game divided into 4 pieces, delivered episodically, but ultimately stitched together into a cohesive final product that spans 8+ hours in length?
Finally, let’s use the back and forth on this to define how best to manage Crowd Design around Narrative.
From Shanghai with Kalidahs,
-American