#14 Concretization and The Witcher 2

 This post is concerned with the concretization of existing ideas, thoughts, concepts, stubs, ... This central element of any design process will be applied to my current quest design aswell.

Concretization

What, then, is concretization? I will answer this intuitively. On the one hand, concretization means to add informations, to differentiate, to formulate and create details. On the other hand it means implementation, to bring something closer to actual reality in opposition to its existence as an idea/concept in your head, on a piece of paper or in a sketching program.

1) Creation: Idea - Conditions, Gaps - Finish

Concretization means to fill out the gaps, the void that hinder the work from being finished, real: This is creation. A piece of paper needs something drawn upon it in order to become a drawing. The drawer will decide when it is finished: There is a certain (not precisely identifiable) minimum amount of drawings to be done. Until then, lines are struck, areas filled and synthesized to something bigger: Faces, landscapes, forms, scenes, ... The same applies to quests: An original idea is expanded, event chains, decisions, intended goals, characters, locations are added and connected.

Inspiration comes from both hard conditions and free voids. Idea, heuristic design guidelines and medium give some initial restrictions, later maybe other designers and higher level elements of the quest (theme, location, central decisions, major story beats, main characters, ..) guide further expansion. In the beginning, there is a lot of free space that needs filling and it is up to the designer to choose major directions and differentiations that will later be guidance for all the finest details.

2) Expression: From Mind To Existence In Real World Medium

Concretization means to get hold of an idea that took form in your head and bring it into the world. The second layer of meaning to "concretization" is thus essentially (self-)expression. The one(s) with the idea might inscribe an idea on a whiteboard or a piece of paper and transform it thereby away from its mere mental existence forth into the real world, where everyone else can perceive it.

But design doesn't stop at idea-generation, it proceeds, as said above, with differentiating the idea and its real-world correspondent, and it is the expressive aspect of concretization which captures this: Any differentiation, modification to the idea/mental design is transferred, propagated to the implementation. The real-world thing is updated according to the mental expansion of the idea - this is expression too.

Side Effects and Notes

• Expression is translation: From the language of mind or human conversation to that of the medium, on which the design shall be inscribed
• Higher and lower level expression: In a bigger video game studio, a lighting artist may works on a specific location and is guided by the informations that level designers, environment artists and storytellers have already set. A game designer develops something that has a lot more influence on the overall game and is conceptually much closer to the overall game direction.
• There is a dependency graph in all the activities in game development that is determined by higher/lower-level expressions and the (somewhat) distinctive types of creation

Further Reading / Inspiration

• CD Projekt RED: Junior/Specialist Quest Designer - Job Description, Qualifications Link

A "Witcher" Quest - Part 5: Concretizations

Not much talk here today; these are the concretizations I have thought of (see especially posts #10 and #13 to know what quest design and locations I'm talking about here):

• "Geralt arrives in a valley via a path"
• How should the start of the mod be? I don't believe simply letting the player walk down the path is appropriate. I'd rather add a temerian border post where Geralt needs to get entrance first during a dialogue scene. The mod would start right into that dialogue scene then. A fitting camera angle exists in the training level of Witcher 2 and the dialogue might do some initial exposition: The valley, the lord, the village, Geralt's goal.
• After having finished the dialogue with the border guard and passing through the gate, an arrival moment is happening: The player gets an overview over the valley. Here some space and monologue might be added to guide the player into halting and looking around.
• While Geralt climbs down some events might be triggered to not bore the player: Maybe some harpies cry in the distance or crows are flying around. Maybe a travelling merchant making a last rest before heading towards the village approaches the player.
  
• "Geralt hears someone crying"
• I don't know if crying is actually implementable with the tools given to me, but in any case more obvious hints seem sensible. Maybe Alene is lost because some monsters (Nekker?) attacked her and she ran away in fear into places she didn't go oftento before. Geralt might then find the place of attack, needing to defeat the still living Nekkers and following some traces (footprints in mud). Since Geralt meeting Alene is essential to the quest, I suggest to place alpha walls all around where Geralt says something like "There's someone in danger. I can't simply walk by.". I'd rather like to avoid alpha walls, so maybe there is a better solution.
• "Geralt meets and talks to Alene"
• If we look at her location on the map than it shows her in a rather secluded area. In the already existing level there were broken structures and trees placed there, so I decided that this part of the map will be a forest of graves, which explains why Alene is lost after going there: This part of the valley might be deemed dangerous, bewitched and therefore avoided by the villagers.
• "Geralt leads back to the main road", "Alene leads the way"
• I imagine silence in the first section, a short dialogue when Alene says she knows the way and then two unsuccesful tries by Geralt to get some informations from her. He might ask for instance if this is indeed the right way, since he saw the village being to the left of his arrival path, but they're now going right. There might also be a patroling soldier there and some harpies to kill on the way onto the mountains side.
• "Geralt walks back, Alene follows awkwardly."
• I expect here that the player is now advised to go to the village but while doing so, Alene follows in some distance. This might require some scripting, a custom variant of the usual companion system. After a while Geralt would have noticed her attempts to follow, so there could be two cutscenes, one with him looking back and seeing her hide quickly and a similar one where he additionally talks - to himself and her: sighing and out of pity and a bit annoyance allowing her to come openly with him.
• "Geralt walks back, Alene follows less awkwardly."
• In this scenario the two might actually conversesomewhat normally with Geralt explaining who he is and Alene talking a bit about her village and family.

This is it for today. I haven't yet arrived at the village with Geralt and Alene while concretisizing, but so be it.

Ideas for Feedback

• Are there, to you, other elements to concretizations? (e.g. what about evaluation?)
• How could the alpha wall solution I did in my quest design be replaced?

Conclusion

To me, concretizations are at the very heart of any design process, thus including quest design. The two meanings in this, creation/differentiation and expression/implementation are, in fact, essential in my opinion.

There is a small melancholy in this project - well, rather in anything that is time-consuming. It is the melancholy of unfinished designs: Designs that are not fully concretized, since their creator(s) did not seem them worthy of being fully finished. I fear, that this is the fate of many of quest designs on this blog, and this is its melancholy.

May the force be with you and have a good time!