Plots and Events story games

Approaches / TASK

Life is strange

This game is very detailed in the way the plot is done and the events that take place. It starts with a character called Max (Maxine/ main character) that is in her photography class day dreaming. All of a sudden she goes into a flash back and ends up on a hill with trees next to a light house, its raining and she is making her way through the forest on the hill and sees a ghostly deer figure and follows it to the top of the hill next to the light house. When she gets to the top she looks over to the Shore and sees a huge hurricane coming towards the town. She notices a newspaper, it says a date that is a few days forward in time and shows the events.

At this point you realise that Max has gone through time and saw the events that is going to happen.After this she comes out of the flash back and ends up back into her class room. While she is just getting her focus back she knocks off her camera by accident, she goes to pick it up in shock and by doing so she reverses time and the camera ends up back on the table and not broken. 

 Further on in to the game Max goes in to the toilets as she is freaking out due to this new power she has just got, then someone comes in to the toilet and its not a girl. He keeps pacing about and talking to him self. While this is going on Max is hiding behind the toilets at the back and sees a blue butterfly and takes a photo. Turns out its Nathan Prescott and he goes to check what the flash was, max at this point is freaking out if his sees her. Then some else comes in, this time its a girl and one of the main characters in the game, Chloe Price.You find out later on that max and Chloe were best friends when they were little.Turns out Nathan owes Chloe money for drugs and she threatens him about Rachael Amber which you find out again and further on, in the circumstances Nathan all of a sudden pulls a gun out on Chloe and threatens to shoot her. Max listens to the situation and hears her get shot, she rewinds time and hits the fire alarm to stop Nathan and to stop Chloe dying. 



After this event, max gets out of the building, her friend called Warren just text her at this point to give his flash drive back as she borrowed it. You get to explore the dorms around the campus and in the game you have your own free will to interact with your surroundings.

Depending on the choices you make in this game changes your future further on into the game.

Characters:
MAIN CHARACTERS - Max and Chloe/Lovers with friendship 
SUB MAIN CHARACTERS - Warren, Mr Jefferson, Victoria, Kate, David, Nathan, Joyce, Principal Wells and Frank + Dog.
DEAD MAIN CHARACTER - Rachel Amber

The whole plot for this game is to find out what happened to Rachel Amber.
The symbol in the game which is the main symbol is the blue butterfly and also there is a slight butterfly animation when you choose a choice that will have consequences.This shows the theme of the butterfly is telling you that it changes the future of the game with the choices you take.


There is also for symbolism, through the game you come across a few animal printings on the walls and those animals relate to the characters in the game. they are the spirit animals of the characters. Max's spirit animal is the deer as it follows her though the game and Max has the curiosity of the deer.

The location if the game its self made it isn't based on anywhere in real life and has its own name not taken from anywhere in real life again. the town is called Arcadia bay which has the light house on top of the cliff facing the coast and has it own shore. its a small town but has many mysteries within it. The scenery is very basic but detailed, from the dinner to the forest areas it truly is a beautiful game set. Also has a train track going through the forests as the back where Max and Chloe walk along it on one of the animated scenes.

The conditions of the game is so emotional for the character and the player to over come. This game is literally just an emotional Roller coaster all the way through. you really connect with the characters feeling in the game as you go through it. Max has to deal with so much in just a week, seeing Chloe for the first time in ages as she moved away and didn't stay in contact was a huge shock to her not to mention finding out what happened to Chloe and dealing with the fact she abandoned her and is trying to make up for it. Through the game Max realise how much Chloe means to her and the bond between them is still strong. 

(SPOILER WARNING)

Through the game Max has to support Chloe as she is looking for Rachel Amber and when you get to the part were they find her dead,Chloe brakes down right in front of Max and at this point you can literally feel Chloe's pain From the emotion of the Character.

The action in the game is slow and fast depending on what part of the game you are on and the episode. As in the first episode of this game has one fast part which is where you have to hit the fire alarm in time to safe Chloe from dying.but while you are trying to save her you have to be fast by moving the cleaning equipment out of the way and reaching for the hammer to hit the alarm in time before Nathan shoots the gun. But you can take your time as you can rewind as have as many tries as you like to hit it in time, this is what i meant by it can be slow for you if you don't get it first time. 

There are other parts in the game were you have to save Chloe multiple times, there is a part where you are walking along the train track and you rest for a bit but when Max and Chloe get up to go some where else and Chloe gets her foot trapped and there is a train coming. You still can rewind time to help you safe her. You  have to into a work station building that switches the lanes for the track but is abandoned and broken so you brake in and try looking around for tools to change the track manually. You eventually save after that long Process. 

The main actions in this game is you finding clues and items to use for future reference and fixing and finding out what happened.

Facial expressions in the game:

In this game Max's and Chloe's Relationship is very flirtatious which you can see with the faces. The emotion to when They first see each other after so long of not seeing their faces lit up in excitement. Later on as they are in the car Chloe reveals her true emotion about the situation ans they haven't seen each other in a long time and feels to Chloe as if she just came out of no where.Here are some emotions that they do:

(WARNING SPOILER)

(WARNING SPOILER)

Vengeance:

There is a part in the game where there is Vengeance. This is when Chloe finds out that Mr Jefferson is the killer of Rachel Amber. This definitely makes the character feel the emotion from the characters and it hits you like a bomb shell. This also effects Max as well due to when Chloe and Max get court by him and then he kills Chloe. This emotion is just thrown at the player in a matter of second, what makes it more worse is that Mr Jefferson ties Max up and Drugs her which makes her what more vengeance.

Fear:

The fear in this game can be very intense and it can really shock you due to all of the sub plots and the main plot.The fear is shown in stages with this game to when Nathan pulls out a gun and then to where Kate tries to kill her self. As i said before the emotion in this game is extreme and comes over in waves and fear is one of the big stages in this game.

Anger:

The anger in the game links to the vengeance, due to the killer and how that effected the characters in the game and the player. The anger also shows when the characters are having fall outs as well. 

Perseverance:

A lot of sacrifices are in this game to achieve the goal, With Max and Chloe, they are determined to find out what happened with Rachel,. They come Across a lot of obstacles such as Max saving Chloe from being run over by a train and reversing time to save her again from being shot or disabled in a wheel chair. What makes this go to the next level is that what the game has already thrown at you, you don't think it will get worse but it does. Right at the end you have to choose to sacrifice Chloe or Arcadia bay and that is a big decision to make.

Heroism:

Heroism is shown In the game by Max as she saves Chloe so many times and other characters in the game. This has a massive impact to how you play because with every corner you go round you are faced with obstacles and emotions to characters and this is where the heroism comes in.

Image Capture

Image Capture

Image capture is where you are drawing an image and then taking a photo of it. It can also be taking a screenshot or taking a photo and taking photos from the internet.

Optimising

In computer science, program optimisation or software optimisation is the process of modifying a software system to make some aspect of it work more efficiently or use fewer resources.

Storage of images assets

File size
Image file formats the normal way to store and organize digital graphics. They are made of either vector data, pixels, or a mixture of the two. The image file size is shown by the number of bytes. The greater the number of rows and columns, the greater the image resolution, and the larger the file size.

File-naming conventions
The three most common image file formats, the most important for printing, scanning and Internet use, are TIFF, JPG and GIFF. However, Tiff cannot be used in Internet browsers.

Asset management
Digital asset management is made out of management tasks and decisions surrounding the annotation, cataloguing, storage and distribution of assets. Digital asset management systems have in it computer software and hardware systems that help in the process of digital asset management.

File extensions

File Extensions

A file extension or file name extension is the ending of a file that helps identify the type of file in operating systems, such as Microsoft Windows. In Microsoft Windows, the file name extension is a period that is often followed by three characters, but may also be one, two, or four characters long. For example, the file name "myfile.txt" has a file extension of ".txt", which is a file name extension associated with text files.

File Compression

If you download many programs and files off the Internet, you've probably encountered ZIP files before. File compression system makes this easier, especially for Web users, because it lets you reduce the overall number of bits and bytes in a file so it can be moved faster over slower Internet connections, or take up less space on a disk. Once you download the file, your computer uses a program such as Win-zip or Stuff-it to expand the file back to its original size. If everything works correctly, the expanded file is the same to the original file before it was compressed.

Computer game graphics

Pixel Art

Pixel art is a style in graphics which is a grid of colours that make a picture. As you can see here is a image of groot is a 2D sprite.These images are edited on the pixel level. The majority of graphics for 8-bit and 16-bit computers and video game consoles, as well as other limited systems like graphing calculators, is pixel art. There is also a way to make this image 3D in the way you use the colours in a curtain way. This image below is a 3D sprite.

Concept art

Concept art is a form of illustration used to for an idea in films, video games, animation, comic books, or other media before it is put into the final product.Art is also referred to as visual development or concept design. This term can be applied to retail, set, fashion, architectural, and industrial design.

Concept art is several iterations. Multiple versions are looked at before choosing the final design. Concept art is not only used to develop the work, but also to show the progress to directors, clients and investors. Once the development of the work is complete, concept art may be reworked and used for advertising materials.

Background Art

Background art is a process of animation that color,style, and mood of a scene drawn by an animation layout artist. The methods used can either be through traditional painting or by digital media such as Adobe Photoshop. Traditional methods are painting entire scenes for a television program or film. Current methods of painting are backgrounds or landscapes.

IN-GAME interface / head up display 

In a game (HUD) which is Head up Display is were you can see all of your players surroundings and also in this method of gaming you can see the heath bar and any other parts to the game that you may need on the screen. The graphics side to this is that you can see it as birds eye view which can make the game look 2D but sometimes 3D. You can also being playing the game but have the menu up while in game play. can relate to making things in the game as you also have been collecting items and using that to make things(opening up your inventory).

Printed Media

Printed media is when a game is about to be released they advertise it before the release so they get the costumers attention, this can be shown in posters, trailers for the game and adverts on TVs, banners, box packaging and many more. it can also be advertised after released which then merch can be sold and displayed, so that the developers make more profit. this can go from games to cars, clothing and basically anything that is being sold for profit. The main reason to why they advertise in posters and colour is that it catches the eye and suddenly gets costumers interested.

Types of digital graphics

Digital Graphics

Raster Images

In computer graphics, Raster graphics or bitmap images is a dot of data that shows a rectangular grid of pixels in colour. This can be shown on a monitor, paper or other displays. Raster images or also saved in image files with different formats.In other terms a raster image is a very small image file and when you zoom in closer you can see each individual pixel in the image. Also if you wanted to make a raster image bigger you would loose the quality of the image and in which making it pix-elated. Types of raster images are bmp, gif, tiff, jpg.

GIF:

BMP:

TIFF/JPG:They've are the same but a JPG is compressed, with TIFF it can be uncompressed and compressed.

Vector images

Vector images is a digital image with a sequence of commands or mathematical statements that place lines and shapes in a given 2D or 3D space. In physics, a vector is quantity and a direction at the same time. This can also make the image big and the quality of the image doesn't get as much blurred as a raster image, also the difference is that a rater image is only 2D and The vector image can do 2D and 3D. Types of Vector images are PSD, WMF, FLA and AI.

PSD:

WMF:

FLA:

AI:

pixels

pixels

The pixel is a picture element,the basic unit of  colour on a computer display or in a computer image.The physical size of a pixel depends on how you've set the resolution for the display screen. If you've set the display to its maximum resolution, the size of a pixel will equal the physical size of the dot pitch (let's just call it the dot size) of the display. If, however, you've set the resolution to something less than the maximum resolution, a pixel will be larger than the physical size of the screen's dot (that is, a pixel will use more than one dot).The specific colour that a pixel describes is some blend of three components of the colour RGB. Up to three bytes of data are  for specifying a pixel's colour, one byte for each major colour component. 

Picture/image Resolution

Resolution is the quality of the image. As the resolution goes up, the image becomes more clear. It becomes sharper, more defined, and more detailed as well there’s more information in the same small space. Your computer, laptop and your smartphone (if you’re lucky enough to have one) both have image resolutions. There is a certain number of dots in the space that is the screen. Put even more simply, the more dots you jam into the width and height of the screen, the higher the resolution. The less dots, the lower the resolution.


If you remember those old computer monitors from the 90's, you'll see how blurry the images were. Till now, most basic laptops and LCD screens have a much higher resolution. You get more detail in the space of your screen because there are more dots to display the details of the images. That’s all resolution is. It’s the number of dots (i.e. pixels) in any given space.

Intensity/ pixel values and histograms

In an image , the histogram of an image refers to the pixel intensity values. This histogram is a graph showing the number of pixels in an image at each different intensity value found in that image. For an 8-bit Gray scale image there are 256 different possible intensities, and so the histogram will graphically display 256 numbers showing of pixels amongst those Gray scale values. Histograms can also be taken of colour images either individual histograms of red, green and blue channels can be taken, or  3D  can be produced, with the three axes with the red, blue and green channels, and brightness at each point representing the pixel count. The exact output from the operation depends upon the implementation it may simply be a picture of the required histogram in a suitable image format, or it may be a data file of some sort representing the histogram statistics.

Game review

The last of us

The last of us has a lot of awesome game play to the parts were  your killing zombies to the cut scenes with the story of the game.The theme that this game has are vengeance as Joel ( one of the main characters loses his daughter at the start of the game by the militarily ) he's action towards this is anger and from then he hates the militarily as his daughter was not infected by the infection. He starts working with the outsiders with another main character called Tess 20 years later but the apocalypse is still continuing.

Also there are other themes to the games as in horror as your killing the undead to the hunters, hunters are people that are not infected but will kill you for the fun of it and to also loot you and take your weapons. There is fear in this game due to the Adrenalin when killing a clicker as they are fast and can get you in a number of seconds.

When Joel meets Ellie for the first time He is Curious to why you have to take her Half way across america which you find out further on so there is also mystery to this game.

Turns out Ellie is infected but she has had the bite for three weeks with no side Affects, Joel is immediately put off by the deal He made with Ellie as he said he would take her to these people called the fireflies and then he would get an award in return.

In there game you also come also the theme heroism as Joel does eventually agree to take her to the fireflies and in doing so safes her from almost death by zombies, hunters and climbing through broken buildings. There is happiness in this nightmare of the game as they finally reach them but it is not what it seems, as Joel gets too attached to Ellie and them He realises why they need Her.Hope is used in this also as they are going through so a huge journey making sure they survive and make it hoping they will live. 

The genre of this game is adventure as you go through the game ad explore the scenery of the game and all of the detail, to the vines on the wall to all the nature that has spread over the buildings and waterfalls coming through the cracks of tall buildings. This game is mainly role play as your playing as Joel one of the main characters And playing through the story in his view.Your playing this game in TPS and as you are you capture all of the story and the detail to the game, the game play is amazing as you can make different items to help you kill the infected such as if you find nails, gun powder and a tin can you can make a nail bomb which obliterates the enemies your facing. 

This game is also a race to where you are running from enemies to the point were you get to your next pit stop, there is a part in the game were you run into as base of hunters and you have to avoid the base by climbing though buildings to finally getting to the safe building were you also meet Sam and his brother Henry. 

There are curtain puzzles to the game were you have to open doors by one of the characters holds the door up the other character gets i bin and pushes it under the door to keep it up.There is team work to the game as well by sneaking up to a zombie to looting houses without setting of traps. you can also deactivate the trap and get loot from it. also in the game there or multiple stations were you can upgrade your weapons with the items you find. this can upgrade how much ammo you can fit in a mag to making the site of the gun more accurate. 

The game play mode is single player for the story mode but there is a multiplayer mode if you get the limited addition.But the main  game play is the story mode.

The multiplayer on  the other hand is also really fun to play, the basics of it is you have a group of survivors and you go on to live matches against the fireflies or hunters and bring back supplies to your group by wining the game, the more games you win the more survivors you get and more loot. there is different modes to play in multiplayer such as team death match to taking over the boxes on the enemies side. 

The perspective of the game is 2D and 3D as in the game when you get to a workbench the main of it is 2D, the overall game is 3D as you are in Third person.

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OQWD5W3fpPM