Interactive Narrative Experience: Welcome to Winn Lane

Sketch Introduction

‘Welcome to Winn Lane’ is an interactive narrative game with a pixel art style. Players can walk through the lanes and visit the retailers there, based on real life retailers found in the lanes.

After interacting with retailers, players will receive stickers specific to those retailers. They end the game by visiting the ‘creative coding at the lanes’ exhibit. The final scene will encourage players to check out other creative projects in the exhibition.

All art and coding was done myself.

This project was exhibited 21/06/24 at Bakery Lane, Fortitude Valley, alongside several other exhibitions.

Design and Aesthetic Choices

I chose to create and use pixel art for my creative project. I wanted an outcome that was aesthetically appealing, as well as interactive, which meant I had limited options for creating artwork. There was a pixel art program I had previously used when making a game; I knew I would be able to create aesthetically pleasing visuals in a short amount of time. In addition to this, pixel art has long been associated with games, and would be familiar to players (chalo, 2023).

I chose to feature bright colours in my gameplay for several reasons. Firstly, bright colours are more engaging, and induce feelings of happiness and excitement (Mental Health America, n.d.). Secondly, I considered that if I chose to exhibit my work, the exhibition would take place in the evening, and darker colours may be harder to see.

I chose to have players interact with shopkeepers to immerse themselves in the game, and become interested in the environment around them, as the game is set in the same location where the exhibition will take place. These NPC interactions also serve as an opportunity for players to learn more about the lanes and the shops there.

I am also a big fan of narrative games, especially ones that pair aesthetics with dialogue, like stylized text boxes. Several games influenced the design of my text boxes, including ‘ghost trick’, ‘your turn to die’, and ‘harvest moon’.

Approach to Design Process

I originally wanted to create a top-down game. Players would walk through one of the lanes and interact with different shops. This presented two issues: firstly, I was unsure if I would be able to code this effectively. Players would be able to walk north and south, and the imagery would have to be zoomed in to make use of a landscape canvas, which would incorporate side scrolling. I did not have the technical knowledge to implement this. Secondly, there was little opportunity for the shops to be visually distinct. I wanted my game to provide an opportunity for players to learn more about the lanes, and that would be difficult to achieve with only small visual indicators, as seen below.

Looking for other ways to display the shops, I came across a board game called ‘pop to the shops’ that had shops lined up beside one another.

Organising the retailers like this would provide an opportunity to give them more personality, as well as introduce an NPC for them to talk to.

The canvas size in my art program limited how many shops could be placed next to one another. So, I divided shops into pairs, each shop a different category, to display what was on offer at the lanes (food, gifts, clothing, and art and culture).

I used a switch statement to allow the player to travel between each of these scenes.

I had some difficulty figuring out how to allow the player to interact with NPCs. I chose the ‘play’ cabinet to display my project, so I had a limited amount of controls to use (buttons and joystick), with only one button for interacting. This meant I had to specify in my code that the interaction would only work in certain circumstances – being pressed in a small range of coordinates. This would bring up a screen specific to each retailer describing their store.

This screen was originally a rectangle with text on it, however, it did not fit my project’s aesthetic. I created more pixel art to insert in interactions.

Some initial testing revealed a lack of direction. Players were unsure how many scenes there were and which NPCs they could interact with. I added arrows to all scenes other than the first, to indicate which directions they could go in. I also added a star above NPCs, which would disappear once the player has interacted with them.

Creative Influences

My first creative influence was ‘winston the winn lane ibis’ a creative coding project done by a student in a previous cohort. Initially, I was inspired to also base my project around the lanes, and it led me to do my own research. Later, it was also an influence on my game and art design. My project also had multiple scenes to move through, and I used arrows to indicate if the player could move forward or back a scene.

I chose Winn Lane as a creative influence because it’s a hub of art and culture. Until the introduction of the second project, I was unaware the lanes even existed. I figured this may be the case for some of my peers, or even exhibition attendants. By basing my project around the lanes, and featuring real life vendors, I hope to inspire myself and others to visit the lanes and explore a part of Brisbane’s culture.

My third creative influence was Stardew valley. This game has multiple vendors you can interact with and receive goods from. I knew I was technically unable to implement transactions in my project, so I simplified this concept to only talking to vendors and receiving a sticker at the end of the interaction. It was also an influence for my art direction – Stardew valley is famous for its pixel art style.

A minor creative influence was the board game, ‘pop to the shops’. All the shops are lined up in a row, and you can visit each one and interact with shopkeepers.

Several games influenced the design of my text boxes, including ‘ghost trick’, ‘your turn to die’, and ‘harvest moon’.