I’ve used Otter Transcription to begin my story, for I believe it can help you flesh out your story before you begin. The story I’ve decided to go with is kind of a search party game because Bitsy is more of a storytelling game rather than a skill based game. Though since I was doing a Bitsy game instead of twine, I found it hard to form any sort of dialogue out of it. I mainly used it to get my ideas out of my head and used it to write relevant dialogue later.
I’ve used these cards sporadically throughout the whole process of the piece. For card 1, “lost in useless territory,” I’ve used it to express my world building throughout the game map. I wanted to inspire a journey through its use, so I added “useless” backgrounds. For card 2, “give the game away,” I’ve decided to make the game a bit easy and focus more on art and the story rather than make it super complex. For cards 4 and 5, “be extravagant,” and “it’s quite possible after all” are cards that inspired me to make extravagant game art and a whimsical story about the land of dogs. I was inspired to create the map this way when a youtube video about Bitsy came up on my feed. I learned that you can import images through a generator and it will make the game tiles for you to insert into the Bitsy game data. Card 3 was just used as an excuse to take a step back from the game and come back with fresh eyes. I usually watch a quick youtube video or have a snack break.
The predictive writer theme I chose was that of Pbs nature. The first dialogue, “Dogs take their homes to keep them alive,” was used when interacting with the collar. Although this is a bit of a weird combination, I’ve used it in a way to say that Sparky, the dog, is missing a part of his home and he needs it. The last phrase was used to conclude the story.”Buddies return to their resting place,” they’re headed home.
I asked a few of my friends and acquaintances who have dogs where they like to take their dogs. Majority of them said they like to take them to the park to go out on walks and play around. I can say that I also like to take my dog, a German Shepard named Scout, outside to play as well and we have a grand time together! Most dogs need to get their exercise and this is one of the best ways to do it.
I placed the last inner monologue in the generator. This led to some wholesome, yet slightly off results. Out of the lines, I used the first and last line in my story. I’ve decided to place them at the ending to make the inner monologue more heart wrenching. Since they’re a little wonky, I’ve changed to read as “I wonder if I should let Sparky come again sometime, he seemed like he was really living in the moment…”
For N+7 I used the previous dialogue of the all knowing dog. I’m really keen to the last outcome, it’s more telling. It gives you hope that they’ve seen Sparky but it all leaves it open, for there are many dogs that fit Sparky’s description. The text I’ve placed is “I might know about a dozen dogs like that.”
The phrase I used for the anagram Generator was “My dog Sparky didn't wake me up.” This wasn’t all too helpful to help develop my story, for most, if not all, started with “A Ad.” So like the midterm project, I’ll just grab the essence out of the words. I’ll use this phrase to describe the torment of how the owner, the player, is worried about Sparky and can’t seem to live without him. I’ve tried to implement it in the beginning of the game.
Through this class I got to learn the basics of the html coding language. While learning html, I was also learning c#, so I got to see how similar these two were in their language. Ultimately they were quite different, but the principles of coding remain the same. I also learned many ways of brainstorming a story. I can see myself in the future using one of these methods when I’ve encountered writer's block.