ocularis – Gregor Sönnichsen

#49 Attention: Ocularis

Today I’ll explain how I learned about a new principle and applied it. Attention The idea of attention shouldn’t be new to most people, and the design principle connected to that won’t be particularly revealing either. Attention is a mechanism of the human brain that manages the focus of its inner and outer senses: WhereContinueContinue reading “#49 Attention: Ocularis”

#48 Staging: Ocularis

Overall, mainly my recent consumption of seeing CD Projekt RED Quest Direktor Paweł Sasko play Cyberpunk 2077 leads to this post. You can join in this source of knowledge and inspiration on his twitch (or YT) canals. Staging For any game with seamless camera direction (meaning e.g. no or almost no cutscenes), staging is probablyContinueContinue reading “#48 Staging: Ocularis”

#45 Coordination and Polishing: Ocularis

A second quest prototype with the “Ocularis-Engine”! Coordination and Polishing If you understand quests as chains/trees/graphs of events and goals and the quest designer as the one responsible for such an entire experience, then seeing a coordinating aspect to that role is not far fetched. After all, it is not the quest designer who providesContinueContinue reading “#45 Coordination and Polishing: Ocularis”

#44 Open World Quest Design: Ocularis

The Ocularis-series goes on, this time about quest design in an open world. Open World Quest Design Quests, by their very nature, are in tendency more linear in style since they are based on dependencies between events/goals (at least in my conception). And even though quests with small depth and/or great width are possible (e.g.ContinueContinue reading “#44 Open World Quest Design: Ocularis”

#43 Tutorial: Ocularis

Today’s post is about tutorial construction in general and in specific. Tutorials … are about introducing the player to the game experience. This means that the core mechanics (meaning the ways the player can interact), the overall pacing and atmosphere/theme all need to be set up. So a key element to tutorials is the repeatingContinueContinue reading “#43 Tutorial: Ocularis”

#42 Quest Prototype: Ocularis

After a long time of failing to continue, finally a new post. Hopefully a series of them. Prototyping I bring with me something I learned during my university courses: Making a prototype is answering one question. So no matter how aesthatically unpleasant or technically unstable the result is, if it proposed answers to the questionContinueContinue reading “#42 Quest Prototype: Ocularis”

#41 UI: Ocularis

Back from vacation I’m carrying a lot of new ideas with me. Some of these have already started before, some are new. This post is about how UI storytelling is employed in a project I’m participating: Ocularis. Aesthetic Cohesion and Dissonance A while ago I wrote a post about how video games present themselves viaContinueContinue reading “#41 UI: Ocularis”

#24 Dialog Systems & Ocularis

Today we’re going to talk about dialog systems, their integration in quest systems, and how I implemented such a thing. Dialog Systems Let’s hear what Chris Bateman has to say about dialog systems (or engines): A dialogue engine is the means by which a game speaks. This software mediates the delivery of all dialogue (andContinueContinue reading “#24 Dialog Systems & Ocularis”