whiskeyeyeproject

[whiskeyeyeproject]

Retrospective/Issues/Plans

Looking back at the work I have accomplished over the last couple of months, I am quite proud of what I have achieved. 

My coding was really limited and I have learnt a lot about this process, as well as the process of creating a game, story writing, voice acting and composing an interactive score. 

I enjoyed using Twine, even if it does come with some limitations. The fact that it isn’t really meant to be used with audio made it challenging. The lack of an audio mixer made it tough to balance the different audio elements, such as the voice overs and the score. Sometimes the voice over is too quiet, and can get lost. This problem would be fixed with an integrated audio engine. When I get back to expanding this project, I will without a doubt move to a piece of software with that application. 

I would also like the games artwork be the centre piece of the games visuals rather than a picture in the background. I want to create character models/ sprites and have animations. This will make it a lot more interactive, playful and immersive. 

The main UI could do with some work, I don’t like the fact that a player can go back to a previous slide, taking out the immersion and removing the severity of a players actions, as they can be negated just by returning to the previous slide. Volume sliders would also be beneficial to have on the side for a player to control the volume of the different aspects. 

Setting out on this project at the beginning, I really wanted the audio to shape around the players choice. Although nearly, I don’t think I have been as successful in this as I had hoped. The music is shaped by your actions (such as the guitar playing if you set off the alarm). But it would be nice for your choices to have real consequences sonically, and that will be something that I will hone in on next time. 

This experience is in my mind a prototype for something bigger. I would like to expand this project using Unreal Engine, making it longer, offer more choice and for them choices to be a lot more devastating than they are in there current state, but I also don’t want to lose the humour. 

I look at life quite lightly, and I like that to reflect in my work and writing. I don’t like to take things to seriously, myself least of all. And I think this sensibility comes through in my work. I like the idea that the game knows it is a game, and I can’t help but to poke fun at it. I think that there is a lot more room for this kind of humour pushing the game forward. 

The narrator/ your brain being a character in itself was derived from a game called disco Elysium. In that game you play as a detective who got so drunk he lost his memory, and every aspect of his brain is a character that you can spend points on upgrading, for example your vitality or your strength are all characters. I loved taking that idea on. And I look forward to expanding on it when expanding this experience in the future. 

 There is an optimum way of playing which allows you to experience everything. 

Just make sure you chose:

To kiss the figure. 

Do not talk to the bandits

Run straight to sanctum

 Hide behind the rock.

Shoot them

Press forward 

Head for the Tavern 

I hope you enjoyed your brief time with Whiskey Eye.

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Wrapping the chapter up.

At this point of the story, (depending on the path). You can finish the chapter. 

In the end, you were being manipulated by Cort this whole time to go to the vault of the bank, so that he could return to his body. That body being the brunt one from the start of the game ( did you kiss it?!).

The major was just trying to warn the player not to trust Cort as they have met before. ( More of that in chapter 2). The entire narration was Cort messing around with your head. 

It is all a bit farfetched I suppose. But there’s nothing wrong with a bit of dumb fun. 

If you have just woken up from the minigame, there is another musical interlude where you can either sneak, shoot, or talk you way out of being held captive. 

This was all achieved using similar methods as before. With the use of timers, loading all the music up muted, and voice acting. This final gun fight was a lot of fun to write, but also challenging, as there are around 10 different branching narratives that lead to the same conclusion.  Being in the vault, which is in fact a rocket that will split Cort from your head and send you both into space. 

I thought to add musical motives, if you set off the alarm for example, the sound of the alarm will be my guitar oscillating through a delay pedal by maxing out the feedback. But also coating it with different reverbs. I think these little moments make the audio feel really effective at immersing the playing into the situation.

I had finally finishing the narrative and audio of the project. But I wanted some visuals. I had a friend working on some but he unfortunately had a few set backs and was unable to send the work over. 

Above is the first draft he had sent over. 

I have Adobe illustrate, but I am in no means very good at drawing. I gave it my best go. And I think the rubbishness of my art work adds a certain charm no?

The images were pretty simple to add into the game. 

You just had to create an images folder where the game is stored, and code the route. 

<img src="image/void.jpg" width="500" height="300">

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The second option

Getting through the bandits and not getting caught deserved a little reward. 

I suppose it is a reward... maybe.

Another musical interlude! But this time, I wanted this to be a little more confusing and not quite so upbeat. The narrator of the song doesn’t sound so sure of himself, and also doesn’t really know what’s going on. I could of leaned into this a little more in hindsight, but I still find it amusing. 

The next step would be another conversation between Cort and the player, but this time, the track repeats itself every time a new dialogue option is selected. Giving the effect that the coding is wrong. The player will then argue with Cort about who broke the game ( meta right?).

I tested this portion of the game out on different players, and in every case the same outcome happened. ( Why does this song keep repeating itself... is it broken?). Until it clicks and the player realises that it’s part of the game. 

I achieved this with timers, which would reload the song and cut it off after 3 seconds. 

<img src="image/plain.jpg" width="500" height="300"> <<audio "ride" play volume 0.5>> <<audio "howdoesitbreak" play>> <<timed 3s>><<audio "ride" stop>><</timed>>

<<timed 3s>> [[I don't know Cort]] [[It could be a glitch]] <</timed>>

This would then end, with either the player shooting himself, or Cort self destructing. Then will replay the intro theme tune. But with a different narration, explaining everything that just happened. 

At this point of the game, the StoryInit part that keeps the audio was starting to look pretty full. 

[whiskeyeyeproject]

A game within a game

The next step got my head scratching. 

The main character was knocked out and I wanted a way to create a little minigame for him to regain conciseness. I tried a few ideas, my first was making every letter in a sentence clickable.

[h][e][l][l][o]

And the right combination of letters would take you back to the game. But Twine wouldn't allow me to have that much choice and was really bugging out. I was trying to code it, so that if you spelled out “let me go” then it would take you back to the game. But alas it wasn’t to be.

Using the same theory, I thought what could be cool, would be that the final answer be the town you’re headed to (Sanctum). 

And the mini game would be to spell it out using the letters of the words being onscreen. So for example:

<span class="drunk"> <<dyslexia>> [[Fling]] [[Change]] [[Murder]] [[Ropes]] <</dyslexia>> </span>

Here the correct word being Ropes. Due to it having an S in it, which will start spelling Sanctum out. 

And then:

<span class="drunk"> <<dyslexia>> S

[[View]] [[Evening]] [[Cream]] [[Drink]] <</dyslexia>> </span>

<<audio "drums1" unmute >>

Here the correct word being “Cream” due to the A. 

And on the game goes. 

Adding to the difficulty of this, I found some Macros online. (Here is the link:https://github.com/SjoerdHekking/custom-macros-sugarcube2 and 

https://qjzhvmqlzvoo5lqnrvuhmg.on.drv.tw/UInv/Sample_Code.html#Main%20Menu )

These macros enable me to mess around with the writing of the text, as the player was knocked out, I thought it would be fun for the letters on the screen to be jumbled and confused. A little like the character would be. I used these Macros and followed the instructions of how to use them by posting the code in the JavaScript and StyleSheet part of Twine.

The music would also be important for this mini game, I wanted for a musical part to unlock every time you got an answer right. Until again, getting the full musical picture by the end of the Mini Game. 

I did this using the same method as the earlier shootout. 

<<timed 30s>><<goto [[Game]]>><</timed>><<audio "wind" stop>>

<<audio "synth7" mute loop play volume 0.5 >> <<audio "synth8" mute loop play >><<audio "synth3" loop play >><<audio "synth4" loop play >><<audio "god1" loop play >> <<audio "synth5" mute loop play >><<audio "synth6" mute loop play >> <<audio "drums1" mute loop play >><<audio "guitar2" mute loop play >>

The game worked! 

The only issue was that it was a little difficult if the player wasn’t paying attention. So I have decided not to make it easier, but to add hints. 

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The first shootout

Following on from our theme tune. The conversation abruptly ends when set upon by a couple of bandits. 

I wanted the intersection to be humorous, but also with a sense of stress. It is not an easy gunfight to get out of unscathed, with different traps set and using different manipulation technics to trick the player into making the wrong move.

As I have said earlier, Cort is the antagonist of the story. Everything he says to do is the wrong move. In this instant, hiding behind the rocks gets your horse killed. I have also added options which are so ridiculous that the player will feel the need to chose them, just to see what the outcome is. Such as demanding a trial by combat, whilst already being in active combat. 

The scene is supported with audio queues, voice acting and a musical score that develops depending on the choices made. Gunshots break each scene up and allow enough of a break to allow ( for example ) a synthesiser to come in. And the bandits are voiced just to add an element of characterisation and humour to the interaction. 

The voice acting was done by myself, recording with a Tascam field recorder, then pitched up a couple of semitones. Whilst rudimentary, I think this is effective. The musical score is upbeat, with rhythmic guitars and harmonicas dominating the landscape. Plus a couple of synthesisers to switch up the mood. 

To keep this all in time, was to bounce the finished track out in individual stems, set them all to play at the same time but I had to make sure they were all muted and looping. And then depending on the decision, start unmuting tracks, hoping that by the end of the interaction the full sonic picture was unlocked. 

As you can see, this shoot out leads to two different outcomes. One where the players horse is shot and the player is taken prisoner. The other where the player escapes/or kills the bandits. And this will be rewarded with a musical interlude and about 10 minutes of more content. 

The coding aspect was quite straight forward, again using timers and making sure the audio levels weren’t swallowing each other up. 

The original code to set up the tracks:

<<audio "titlet" stop>> <<audio "wind" loop play>> <<audio "gunshot" play>> <<audio "wasgunshot" play>> <<audio "guitar1" mute loop play >> <<audio "harmonica1" mute loop play>> <<audio "synth1" mute loop play>> <<audio "synth2" mute loop play>> <img src="image/plain1.jpg" width="500" height="300"> A couple of bandits setting up camp have spotted you. They have found you whilst they were unprepared. You can probably run. There are 2 of them. [[Stop and say hello!]] [[Ignore the bandits and carry on towards the town]]

The code unmuting the tracks:

<<audio "runningthen" play>> <<audio "horsegallop" play loop>> <<audio "harmonica1" unmute volume 0.4>> <img src="image/plain2.jpg" width="500" height="300"> The men open fire on you. You see some rocks to your left, or a stream to your right. Which way do you go?

<<timed 4s>> <<audio "hidebehindrock" play>>

[[Use the rocks]] [[Go down the stream]] <</timed>>

Another example:

<img src="image/plainrock.jpg" width="500" height="300"> As you take a left and duck behind the rocks, a bullet hits your horse and you come tumbling down.

Your horse has died. That is a problem. <<timed 4s>> [[Search for a gun]] [[Surrender]] <</timed>> <<audio "gunshot" play>> <<audio "deadhorse" play>> <<timed 3s>> <<audio "thehorsedead" play>><</timed>> <<audio "horsegallop" stop>> <<timed 0.3s>> <<audio "gunshot3" play>><</timed>> <<audio "bulletwiz" play>> <<audio "synth1" unmute volume 0.4>>

[whiskeyeyeproject]

Whiskey Eye

Following on from the introduction, you walk through a door called “Whiskey Eye”. Which is where you inhabit the character and the first song starts. 

I liked the idea of having a theme tune, or an opening credit, which explains what is happening. So, a means to take away the players control and have an audio montage. 

I had recorded the song a couple of weeks earlier, but now was time to have some fun with the timers, and explore what they were capable of. 

I started by finding points in the song, where written text would come in time with the beat. I listen closely for different clicks and gongs. I inputted timers, for these bits of text, which felt really satisfying to watch. I thought another cool idea would be for the written to come out like a typewriter. 

And low and behold, Twine has a macro for it. Which is simply <<type>> and <</type>>

Here’s an example with the timers:

<<timed 2s>><<type 65ms>>\After spending years in the outback. Whiskey Eye comes to Sanctum for one last score.\<</type>><</timed>>

Another idea, was for the page to clear and automatically go to the next slide. To do that, was basically just to use another timer. And specify for the slide to go to the next specified slide after a certain amount of seconds. 

In this case it was 52 seconds.  

The next slide was very tricky. There is an audio narration imbedded within the track. And the writing HAD to be in time with the narration, but not only that, the type writer speed had to match the recording. 

It wasn’t as simple as saying, the narration of the track comes at let’s say 80 seconds. So I will write a timer to activate the typewriter at 80 seconds. 

The song had already started on the original slide, and 52 seconds had already gone by. Which meant, 52 = 0. Or the point of the song 80 - 52, is the correct point. And with all the different dialogue queues, got very confusing very quickly. Especially with the typewriter speed added into the mix. 

<<timed 34s>><<goto [[next2]]>><</timed>> <<timed 2s>><<type 65ms>>\After spending years in the outback. Whiskey Eye comes to Sanctum for one last score.\<</type>><</timed>> <<timed 8s>><<type 70ms>>\ The bank of Sanctum\<</type>><</timed>><<timed 11s>><<type 65ms>>\ The town, quite small in size, but hides one large secret hidden deep within it's vault.\<</type>><</timed>><<timed 19s>><<type 50ms>>\ With his gang of thieves, Major John West has taken control of the town. But is ignorant of the secrets that lie beneath the vault. \<</type>> <</timed>><<timed 26s>><<type 60ms>>\ It is your job to uncover the mysteries and see what lies beneath. \<</type>><</timed>><<timed 31s>><<type 70ms>>\ Because you are...Whiskey Eye\<</type>><</timed>>

After having finished that, for the chorus of the song, I found a cool online Macro which added subliminal messaging to the text. 

I found the code here: 

https://qjzhvmqlzvoo5lqnrvuhmg.on.drv.tw/UInv/Sample_Code.html#Glitchy%20Text

Following the same principle as before, I did the same thing for the chorus slides. I added timers, for each musical line, but also subliminal messaging. I liked the idea of adding subliminal messaging, because I want to start reinforcing that Cort is bad. Every decision that Cort says you should do will result in death. Or something bad happening. This will remain hidden to the player until the end. 

Whiskey Eye = Cortis Bad

Ohhh Ohhh Ohhh = Runr Unru Nrun and also Kill Kill Kill 

None the less = Kill the Girl and Dont trust cort

After the chorus, I let the volume fade down to 20%.

<<audio "titlet" fadeto 0.20>> <<timed 2s>> <<audio "whatonearth"  play>> <</timed>> <<timed 6s>>

[[I have no Idea]] [[I guess so?]] <</timed>>

Following is another conversation with Cort, establishing more of the plot, and an argument can ensue about whether to skip the track or not. 

The argument ends when the music is cut out with a gunshot. Which takes us to the first confrontation.

Here’s the track:

https://soundcloud.com/tombryanuk/whiskey-eye/s-z7G2I3lPJYu?utm_source=clipboard&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=social_sharing

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Timers

Having finished the introduction and the theme song. I showed my lecturers what I had accomplished so far. I'm sure they were sceptical with the project, not due to my competency, but the scale of the project is potentially enormous. 

They played through the introduction and seemed pleasantly surprised with my work so far, and we had some good discussions about it. Mostly the idea of doing what I did with the dialogue but using different pieces of audio, that will play out depending on character decisions. Almost as if the choices in the game dictated the music. 

But that will have to wait till another day because there were timing issues within the game. 

The problem I had, was the narration and the answers were appearing at the same time. And if the player decided to sprint through the game, all the audio would stack on top of each other and it would sound awful. 

 So I had two options, I could either cut the audio from one slide to the next, and allow the player to rush through the game, or I could find a way to input timers, which meant the answers would not show up until after the dialogue had finished. I find this to be the more immersive option. 

I found some macros online which allowed me to input this. 

<<timed “how ever many seconds you need”>>

“here you add your dialogue”

<</timed>>

I spent the day going through every slide and inputting this, quite a tedious task, but it works. 

[whiskeyeyeproject]

Starting up with Twine.

I booted up the software and got started. I watched a couple of YouTube videos(embed at the bottom) to get me started and off I went. 

As I started to write, I wondered what if the text that you are reading was a character itself. The narrator is a character. What if that character is bad and trying to sabotage the story, basically an unreliable narrator. This opened the story up for me quite a lot. I dropped the idea of playing as multiple characters, and decided to focus on the narrator (which is called Cort) and the player. 

Cort would be your cerebral cortex, that has suddenly become sentient. You find yourself on an endless bridge, which is the space between life and death, and then you would inhabit the body of Whiskey Eye. This story would be interspersed with dialog options, narrative choices and musical montages. 

But before I got too ahead of myself, I needed to get to grips with twine. I needed to figure out this audio situation.  

I trawled through the internet for other twine games, and was quite surprised with what I found. There weren’t any games with lots of music, but I did find games with audio, art and atmosphere. 

This alleviated a lot of my stress and I did some research on how this all worked. I found that there is a version of twine called SugarCube, and this version had an audio engine. I would be able to create folders within the folder that the game resides in, and then write coordinates within the game text that would enable the audio to play. 

Simple I thought! But no, I did everything that the internet said. And no. I wasn’t getting any audio at all. I just couldn't understand why.

If I couldn’t get the audio to work, then this whole project was doomed to fail. I kept trying different solutions within the game code, and also the browser code (twine plays your project on a webpage).

I decided to ask my sister (who has a computer science degree) for some help. We both couldn’t figure out the solution, and we left it for the day and would figure it out over night. 

She got it working. 

All this time, we were writing the code wrong and forgetting to state the audio was a WAV file. 

Twine works in blocks. In order to input audio, you need to create a separate block called StoryInit. Which is used to store and load up all the audio.

Then all is left to do within the story blocks, is to call up the audio. You can use play, pause, mute, loop, etc etc. 

With the music finally working, I decided to narrate Cort myself, and just pitched my voice down. It worked surprisingly well. The project is well underway and unlocked.

[whiskeyeyeproject]

Second meeting

I decided to leave things mellow in my mind for a few days, and started to conceptualise some music and story elements. 

I spent time working on different musical pieces, some synthesiser parts and some western parts. Mostly trying to bridge gaps in sound and playing around. I also started to conceptualise what the story would be about. I came up with the character Whiskey Eye. Who would be the protagonist of the story. 

I tried to picture who he would be, but as I thought more about it, the story is an  open narrative. So the character is the decisions that the player makes, and can be devoid of any personality. I liked the idea of being able to pick which character you wanted to play as, I thought it could be fun to chose whether to be a villain or a hero. I liked the idea of a player having so much choice, although a lot of work, it could be fun to play. Also the music being different with each character was an exciting prospect to work on. 

I had a meeting with my computing lecturer, we spoke about the idea, and he mentioned a program called Twine. Which is exactly for this type of idea. But it is usually for text based stories. We spoke about how we could implement audio into a text story and spoke about running a second JavaScript page hidden behind the main one with all the music cued up. 

This was quite daunting.

 As I said, my coding is quite limited, and would take some serious focus and training to be able to pull it off. I came home and downloaded twine, and started to try to figure things out. 

[whiskeyeyeproject]

Let’s get complicated

Following on from this idea. Today was time to sit down with our lecturers and discuss our ideas. 

In the first year, a keen interest in audio programming emerged. I did want to focus on it for my second and third year but due to me being the only student wanting to take the plunge, it was aborted. 

It was a shame, but I can still find a way to use it in compositions and different projects. 

Following that train of thought, I had a meeting with my lecturer. He liked the idea, but wondered if there was a way to open up the narrative. A chose your own adventure type of thing. Using the computing skills and interest I have. He told me to think on it, and here we are. 

I love the idea, the possibilities are endless. But how am I even going to get this together. I can code a little bit, but nowhere near enough to create a whole video game or app, with music. 

But I do want a challenge, something that’ll make me tear my hair out but learn a lot in the meantime. 

What could be interesting, following the musical ideas I have, is to change the music depending on the character choices. If the player plays the game in let’s say an “evil” way, more dissonance could come in. 

Let’s run with it. 

[whiskeyeyeproject]

Introduction

Beginning this project, we were assigned to create some sort of artefact for our applied Music Technology project. 

This really could of been anything from different microphone placements or composition for film and media. I am currently working on a few different composition project but I think I want to push myself and expand my boundaries in music making. 

I am quite keen on narrative concept albums, such as War of the Worlds by Jeff Wayne, or Eyes like the Sky by King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard. 

I think narrative concept albums have been a little left behind in the last decade. There are musicals of course, but not an album that you can put on from start to finish that tells a story over immersive music. Especially in this day and age where most music is single driven. They still exist obviously, but they are so few and far between. 

I’ve had the idea for quite a while and have been wanting to do something about it and this seems like the perfect time. I have been playing music for 15 years and for some unknown reason have been gifted with the ability to play western cowboy music on the guitar. 

I have no idea how this happened, it is just something that developed over time, that and my love for psychedelic Krautrock music. So with my love for both genres, why not combine the two and tell a story? And how can I combine these genres?

I decided to research artists such as Ennio Morricone, Woody Jackson and Public Service Broadcasting. And find a way to create “Cowboy Pulse Music”. Or maybe find narrative reasons to mix the two? 

Give the main character drugs or send him into space? It sounds ludicrous. I'm excited to start.