university project
solo
everything
ca. 1 month

Military outcast

a narrative game made in Deig

about a rather unlucky soldier

Military outcast was inspired by a Norwegian series called Førstegangstjenesten and it presents a rather unlucky and clumsy soldier who gets dismissed. As being in the military is his dream he comes up with a plan: blend into another country's army. Does he succeed? Well, that depends on the meaningful choices taken, the dialogues and attention to detail.

The mechanics of the game include discovering and visiting the 11 locations (although, this is mostly story-driven), interacting with objects and characters. There are branching dialogues with different outcomes (5 endings) that are also spiced up with the factor of randomness. The game is built in a way when almost every choice the character makes will influence the outcome, either by immediately failing or incrementing the “suspiciousness counter”. I have added many choices so that the player can feel a part of the game, where every choice matters and adds to the final outcome. I have also implemented a little feedback system. In some cases, when the “wrong answer’ was chosen I put a little feedback in form of an inner voice, that said “I should be more careful what I say in the future”, “That was close” etc. to remind the player that they took the wrong choice and think more about the next answer; and to remind them of the goal of the game, which is to successfully become a member of the Swedish army.

Summary

As with any other projects, I began with brainstorming and later on prototyping; I went from wanting to create something deep to just making something that makes people laugh while playing. The game is mostly story-driven, and there is a limitation of places to discover and elements to interact with. The story mostly progresses through dialogues, the choices taken and some interactable items. The idea was to present an engaging and entertaining narrative, which the use of the narrator, dialogues and conversations with other characters; and also by the responses different choices evoked. Besides these, I have created some banal or funny situations which not necessarily add to the outcome but simply serve more comedic purposes. The overall image of the main character was one way to implement the desired aesthetics (I wanted to evoke fun and enjoyment in the players), since his character makes believable that these situations could actually happen. I have also added Norwegian accent to the main character, as he is Norwegian and Swedish to almost everyone. This alone seemed to evoke positive reactions.

Takeaways

really enjoyed planning and creating this game

increased interest in game writing

more understanding of the MDA framework

game available only for request because of copyright

Based on the feedbacks from the playtesting sessions I can say that the game achieved its goals as it proved to be entertaining for the players.

" The main character’s thoughts gives indications of which options are best. Sometimes the player is rewarded for making "slow" and "wise" decisions, but sometimes the player is rewarded for making hasty decisions instead. It's hard to predict when to chose hasty or well-thought out options. "

“The choices you make often contain fun reactions from the military leaders and other characters. That makes it fun to choose dialog options.”