Skip to main content

The Art of Heavy Rain (Part 5)

Gameplay

“Heavy Rain is a very dark thriller; it’s an experience that I think for the first time is going to put gamers into very different emotional states … I think it’s going to demonstrate that emotion is the key to any entertainment form.”
— Guillaume De Fondaumiere

Fun Fact:

There is a sheet inside the disk case players can fold into an origami figure (instructions on screen), during the 4GB game download.
ARI - Added Reality Interface
ARI is agent Norman Jayden’s FBI augmented reality interface accessed through his glasses and interacted with by his glove. It’s not only very cool but  highly useful in game; clues are scanned and highlighted through ARI by pressing the RB as the player searches. ARI also acts as an inventory system of files, clues and evidence found by the player can be compiled and clues can be put together.
“This … this is my office?”
ARI also allows the user to customize their view, choosing any theme from underwater, to no a mountain, in a forest and on planet mars. Much more exciting that the bleak, filthy room Norman was given.
Jayden can also die somehow by not closing ARI.

 Theme
When Ethan goes out to play with his sons, they’re really excited and ask their father to lift them up. The player can choose which son he picks up first. When Ethan lifts Shaun up on his shoulders, the player must tilt the controller to “steer” Ethan as he walks around the backyard carrying a giggling Shaun.
When Ethan goes to lift Jason he grabs onto his hands and swings him around; the player has to rotate the right stick around repeatedly. After a dizzy Jason falls over, the two boys ask him to lift both of them up together, where the player must repeatedly tap the X button.
The boys clap and cheer and Ethan then hugs them. Jason picks up one of the toy swords on the ground and challenges his father to a duel. This sequence is a series of quick-time events and button taps. In this the player has the option of “defeating” Jason by hitting all of the QTEs or letting Jason win (or failing) by missing some buttons.
If Jason wins Shaun celebrates with his brother and Ethan looks genuinely disappointed. If Ethan wins, Jason falls over and dramatically utters “My life … has come to an end.” (an ill-fated omen.)
Grace calls them in for dinner.
Shaun goes upstairs right before the family is seated. Grace calls out to Shaun but he won’t come down. She asks Ethan to go get him. When the player walks upstairs they see Shaun kneeling down at the top of the stairs.
Ethan asks his son, “Shaun? What’s wrong?”  Shaun sniffs “Merlin’s dead and it’s all my fault.” as he stares at his bird Merlin. It is here Shaun is confronted with death for the first time.
Ethan consoles him, “Sometimes there are just things that just have to happen… even if you don’t want them to.”
Ethan’s response is one of resignation -- an admission of his own powerlessness when faced with death; a forerunner of what is to come.


Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Creating Action Scenes for Concept Art

Creating Action Scenes Concept Art Tutorial  After wrapping up my first fanart series on NieR:Automata ( catch it right here ), I would like to start a new walk-through series right here, on how I create action scenes for entertainment art. So, let's jump into it! Step 1: Reference and Thumbnails To start building a reference board, I use a free app called PureRef; it allows you to take any reference images that you like, and lay them out in an organized collage.  One thing to keep in mind when creating thumbnails, is it’s best to get as  many  ideas as you can down on paper. Don't be intimidated by that! There are no wrong ideas and it doesn't matter if it looks rudimentary at this stage.  When creating thumbnail sketches, think of what you want to see as the main focus of the scene; so, in this case, I want to have the main character 2B slashing a large machine – something inspired by an in-game screenshot. Now, with a rough sketch of b...
Post a Comment
Read more

Forza Motorsport 6: Apex Review - Part 3

FORZA MOTORSPORT 6: APEX Favorite Gameplay Component My favorite gameplay component of Forza Motorsport 6: Apex is altering and tailoring my driving style to the conditions of the race. If ever I attempt to reach top-speed on a wet track such as Brands Hatch United Kingdom, the vehicle spins off track and out of control. That’s a challenge for me, as my strategy isn’t so much into drifting, but in staying as straight as possible, so that I can reach over to 200 km/h -- keeping within a controllable limit. Another method of mine I had to retire -- and this is coming from the likes of Asphalt 6: Airborne and Mario Kart Double Dash - - which is ramming into players. I quickly found out in a vehicle simulator under the laws of natural physics, this reduces my speed on impact. There are also frequent bottlenecks at turning points in the track; luckily I can use my best strategy and I find this to be the best opportunity to strategically slip past other cars when an opening ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Time Manipulation in Game Design

Time Manipulation in Games Introduction The gameplay mechanic that I wish I had come up with first, is Time Manipulation. This is includes the concept of time dilation and the reversal of time in games. Implementing the Manipulation of Time Time manipulation is a robust mechanic. It involves non-exploitable time manipulation, with the goal of being fast and smooth, while not computationally-taxing on memory or hardware resources. The best way to implement this mechanic can be seen in Braid - an indie platform and puzzle game, developed by Number None, Inc. In this game, the world state is recorded for every frame, where the data is stored and compressed. With the recorded frames, any changing entities are extracted and mixed into the final state, which can be manipulated or rewound by the player. The player’s position is recorded and other properties such as color and rotation are stored as an integer that can be reconstructed, along with time information taken fro...
Post a Comment
Read more