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oai:keep.lib.asu.edu:node-2004512025-04-21T23:37:16Zoai_pmh:alloai_pmh:repo_items

200451 https://hdl.handle.net/2286/R.2.N.200451 http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0 2025-05 67 pages Holder, Rowan Funk, Hunter Heidke, Shane Holmes, Jeffrey Kobayashi, Yoshihiro Barrett, The Honors College Computer Science and Engineering Program Computing and Informatics Program The developed solution, City of Discard, is a 2D side-scroller demo developed in the open-source game engine, Godot. City of Discard aims to produce personalized gaming experiences for players through its use of narrative and gameplay consequences. When games allow for their players to have agency, they enable them to feel a sense of control over the game’s story; however, it is also equally important that the game’s narrative can account for these player choices. Not only that, but the differences created in narrative are superficial until these player choices also impact gameplay. Unless an audience is already empathetic to the narrative being told, the player will not feel the weight of narrative consequence until their mechanical ability is affected through gameplay consequences. As such, the gameplay of City of Discard revolves around a virtual card game combat system that acts as an abstraction of the game world’s characters, places, and events. The rules of said game were specifically designed to mimic the strategic planning and methodic execution a detective would need to have as the player must unveil their opponent’s secrets and allies. Players will be able to customize their deck’s to their desire based upon their preferred playstyle, aesthetics, and interest in the four different factions introduced throughout the story. As they develop their own strategies, it will become within the player’s best interest to spend more time in the narrative with their preferred faction, as allying themselves with the faction or investigating them further will unlock more cards for the player to collect. As such, the player’s mechanical prowess will be improved by their narrative investment as they gain stronger cards to enable better strategies and conquer more difficult conflicts. This then creates a feedback loop where both narrative and gameplay consequences impact each other. As the player makes gameplay decisions to customize their playstyle to their liking, it will alter the direction of the story as the player makes narrative decisions to further ally with their preferred faction. These narrative decisions then create consequences within the story that will directly affect the player’s gameplay as well. The City of Discard demo acts as a proof-of-concept of the game's introductory sequence as well as familiarizes the player with the gameplay and narrative. Game Design Game Development Interactive Narrative Card Game Godot Application and Development of New Interactive Storytelling Model in an Independent Game Development Demo