For this week, one of our main priorities was implementing the narrative. We identified the four vehicles for story in our game: the environment (the art, background, props, etc.), the world map, a potential comic or still cutscene in between level sets, and speaking characters. In our original concept, there were two speaking characters, the Radio Announcer and the Neighbor. The Radio would provide a persistent monologue, but the Neighbor could be spoken with repeatedly throughout the Garden sequence. However, upon designing our tutorial levels, we determined that these initial levels were too short for any narration or dialogue longer than a few seconds. That's not a lot of time at all! Furthermore, having the Kid stroll up to the Neighbor and speak with them brought the game to a halt. After some consideration, I decided to cut the Neighbor character out entirely. The Radio Announcer is now in the game, but there are still some issues with how it has been implemented. We've decided that, for our next build, we will have a persistent Radio that speaks continuously, rather than being triggered only upon loading a new level. More environmental art will also flesh out the story and feel of the world.
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