Developing the lore: Moving along in my project, I have decided to delve into my game’s lore. Following the 16 November 2016 election, which would go on to be referred to as the “Reclamation date”, president Trump assumed power and promptly declared marshal law and ruled by decree. The following years of protest mirrored the civil unrest present in post 1934 Germany, with sparse but vocal protest. With the mysterious disappearance of the Trump’s detractors and opposition [Bernie Sanders Easter egg?], a new America was consolidated under a dictators rule. Quickly protests were quashed and public opinions shifted, Trump pioneered multiple civil engineering programs including the construction of the wall to the south, and elaborate cavernous catacombs inside the Rocky Mountains in preparation for a great nuclear war.
Sometime in the early 2020’s, following the entrenched fortification of the American people within the Rocky Mountain caverns, Trump in a state of immense boredom and awaiting nuclear war decided to rewriting the English language. Despite popular belief, Trump did not indeed know the “best words” and ended up reusing, “Trump” and “Trumpet” not just for male and female pronouns, but most nouns in general. ‘Dollars’ became ‘Trumps’, ‘days’ became ‘trumps’, and Trump’s henchmen whom patrolled the caverns were referred to as ‘Trumpoids’, possibly as a result of the brief [but profound] passion Donald developed for 1950 B-grade, Sci-fi films.
Given the independent and small scale production of the game, this narrative lore would be sporadically explored via objects and information the player comes upon in the world, rather then elaborate cut-scenes. As I’m producing a dossier and not a completed game, I am totally interested in further suggestions as to where the game’s story could go; is Trump actually immortal? Is all of earth a barren wasteland inhabited only by mutated animals? Did Poochie really die on his way back to his home planet??
With the excessive analogies to Nazism throughout my project, it seems fitting the characters cosmetic aesthetic should be mirrored upon the well documented style of mid-war Germany, as well as stylistic elements derived from post war, neo-fascism. In the realm of independent game design it appears that a defining aesthetic is imperative to success (McCrea, 2013), especially if my game project is rooted in a well-covered genre that can be seen as outdated in comparison to contemporary game design trends.
Hopefully the aesthetic discussed above, coupled with the games narrative is enough to set itself apart in the crowded, independent video game scene.
Reference:
- McCrea, C 2013, ‘Australian Video Games: The Collapse and Reconstruction of an Industry’. Gaming Globally, p. 204, accessed 16 May 2016 <https://moodle.uowplatform.edu.au/pluginfile.php/547456/mod_resource/content/1/9781137006332.pdf>
Game Cultures 
This concept is really good and I think it would make a very entertaining game. A few weeks ago, our group played a game called Infiltration as part of our assignment. The game has a very detailed narrative that players must understand before the game begins. We found that this was really distracting and made it much harder for us to understand how the game is played. So I like your idea that the backstory is something that will gradually develop through the play. Great job, I look forward to seeing the final product.
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Hey Ben,
You have me hooked on this, your ability to create a game narrative is really quite inspiring! I did some research about narratives in games and came across this article:
http://www.develop-online.net/analysis/telling-tales-the-art-of-narrative-in-games/0201176. From this article it can be concluded that a large number of developers are pushing the boundaries of what game narratives are thought to be capable of. To help you further development your narrative you might want to consider that the most interesting form of storytelling is a highly adaptable but largely linear story model.
I am interested to see what your stance is on our current Australian political landscape? Keep up the great work!
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Thanks Justine!
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I have loved following your project this semester. I think it’s hilariously clever, relevant and thus interesting. I like the idea of having a storyline or the lore develop through objects and other pieces the player comes across within the world. I’m not totally sure on your storyline, but maybe you could even play on the idea of the lack of knowledge the player has, and have the actual character not understand where he is. Therefore it would give the player something to relate to the character with, and would help develop objectives within the game.
Would definitely be keen to see a full version of this game released!
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This game would be such a great thing to play, the ideas of comparing Trump’s reign to such a typical “Monster game” Archetype, Why stop at the the semi-realistic. If it were me, I’d go full blown crazy with this, have as much fun with it as you can, and then add another level of amazement to it. Hell, while you are going with a game about the monster that is trump, an add on purchase could be the “Rebellion pack”, that would be LIT (Gamefaqs.com, 2016). Just a though, It’s coming along amazingly though. And I love the idea of slowly turning all nouns used in the game to Trump.
Gamefaqs.com. (2016). Lets talk about the games of the hunting genre – PlayStation Vita Message Board for PlayStation Vita – GameFAQs. [online] Available at: http://www.gamefaqs.com/boards/620272-playstation-vita/69246821 [Accessed 19 May 2016].
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