small dog in a BIG world

Room 1

• This room helps define the setting of the game
• It introduces the Jurassic period
• It also introduces the avatar and sprites we see throughout the game

Room 2

• This room officially states what time period we are in
• It begins the story arc by alluding to something happening
• You obtain two items needed to complete the game in this room

Room 3

• This room is the first color palette change to signify that the main character has been traveling for some time
• It continues the story by giving more information about what may be happening
• The sprites pressure the dog to leave
• You exchange one of the items for information

Room 4

• This room is a different color palette because the “meteor” has just hit
• It shows the destruction and why the dog needed to leave
• The story may appear to be over but the dog has to keep going to get home

Room 5

• The color palette changes once again because the dog is in a different area
• The aliens are introduced
• There is a plot twist because there was no meteor just the spaceship
• You must exchange two items in this room in order to get home

Room 6

• The final room introduces the last color palette and characters
• The human has no idea the small dog went on this adventure
• The larger dog is here as well which reveals why everyone calls the avatar small dog

  Throughout the course of my game timeframes were something that I paid attention to. I wanted the timeline for this story to be one day. Therefore, the first two rooms look very similar to show that the dog has not traveled far and it hasn’t taken him long. The rest of the rooms are different settings but the third and fourth are still in the Jurassic period. I think this helps show that time is passing and he is covering ground (pg. 100-102). The fourth and fifth rooms are darker in color to signify it’s getting later but it’s right before he returns home. I had to employ abstraction for this project because Bitsy doesn’t allow for much detail. In Understand Comics McCloud talks about not eliminating details but focusing on specific ones (pg.30). I did this with the dog character, he needed a tail, ears, and because there were two dogs in this story one needed to be small and the other big. When creating the dinosaurs, I tried to do the same thing, just focus on the most important parts of a dinosaur. I also used color to help define the plants and rocks. Majority of the transitions in this story are moment-to-moment or action-to-action (pg.70). I found this the easiest way to tell my story. The first two rooms are moment-to-moment and the rest could be classified as action-to-action. The last two rooms may air more on the side of subject-to-subject or even scene-to-scene (pg.71). Looking back on the game I’m not positive exactly where they would fall but I think the point is clear and the player understands what is happening.