Kelsey Sharpe--Week 7--Presentation Aftermath

All of the groups have now presented their projects and received feedback, so I think it's going to be interesting to see how things progress from here. I was unable to attend Wednesday's lab (one of the reasons why my group went a week early), so I don't know what sort of suggestions the other groups received, but our main issue seemed to be with investing our story with a sense of importance or purpose for the player.

As an English major, I spend much of my time writing essays that analyze literature and then put forth an argument about it. This argument, the thesis, is the crux of the paper--it can make you or break you. One of the most important parts of your thesis is what we like to call a "so what." A "so what" takes your argument and then expands it to show the reader why they should care about it, or why it's important. Maybe Hamlet hates Claudius not only because Claudius killed old King Hamlet, but also because Hamlet has an incestuous desire for his mother Gertrude. So what? Who cares? Well, maybe that means that Hamlet is getting revenge on Claudius not because he killed King Hamlet, but rather because he took away Hamlet's chance to complete the Oedipal cycle by killing his father himself. Whether or not we agree if it's a viable argument, I think we can all agree that the "so what" makes it a lot more interesting and juicy.

What I'm trying to get at, in a round-about way, is that our game currently lacks a "so what." I think we've got a pretty compelling argument--perfection leads to stagnation--but we presently lack a reason why that is the case, or why that is something the player should care about. I think that once we find our "so what," it's not only going to add a lot in terms of story depth, but also in terms of how our player will be intrigued and/or motivated to keep playing and reach the end.