Initial Pitch Drafts:

In researching for my pitch, I decided to look to other forms of media for works that people had engaged with for long periods of time. Of course, I immediately thought of soap operas. Soap operas often run for decades. One I watched with my mom growing up is called Days of Our Lives, and it ran for 54 years. These shows often aired daily, or a few times a week. Soap operas tend to tell real-time stories. There aren’t often huge jumps in time between episodes. You follow these people’s lives as if you were checking in with them daily. Also, the action is very dialogue focused, and most scenes play out between a few people who are talking in a single room. So, they are very space oriented, and most of the drama takes place in homes. So, my pitch is inspired by the soap opera format.

In researching for my pitch, I decided to look to other forms of media for works that people had engaged with for long periods of time. Of course, I immediately thought of soap operas. Soap operas often run for decades. The game would be a long-term story driven game about a college English department in the style of a soap opera. Over the course of thirty years, players learn about the professors in the department, the rotations of students, and the students who stick around, for example. Similar to soap operas, it tracks the long-term evolution of the relationships between all of these people, and the daily drama of their lives as it unfolds in their homes and workplace.

Each weekday, a single scene is be released. It’s restricted to a single room--a classroom, for example. The player picks one character to play as on that day. The intent is that you learn about different perspectives on the overall scenario depending on who you’re playing as. The format would be similar to a visual novel, but the choice structure would be more like a web that branches in order to support the linear story. You may trigger conversations with different characters in the room directly, or by interacting with objects in the space. You may also learn things through the objects that you find (emails, books, notes etc).

I haven’t worked through this whole part yet, but it’s something I’m thinking about: The designer tracks the characters who are picked most and least often by players, and will use that as a guide for writing scenarios. This will be public knowledge that is shared with the players.

So, in short, this game is a soap opera inspired game that would chronicle the lives of these characters on a daily basis over the course of thirty years. Players unfold the story based on which characters they pick to play on a daily basis, and shared discussions with other players.

This format would hopefully encourage group play, or information sharing between players who have selected different characters that day in order to get all sides of the story.

Additionally, the room itself will have normal things in it--people’s notebooks, books, objects and other things that you can pick up and look at. However, some things like computers and phones are locked and can only be accessed by the character who holds the password.

group stuff!

keep track of what characters people are playing and adjust the storyline to reflect that

only be allowed to play one character’s storyline in a given day

encourages cross reference with friends

maybe 2d visual novel style?

Final Pitch?:

In researching for my pitch, I decided to look to other forms of media for works that people had engaged with for long periods of time. Of course, I immediately thought of soap operas. Soap operas often run for decades. The game would be a long-term story driven game about a college English department in the style of a soap opera. Over the course of thirty years, players learn about the professors in the department, the rotations of students, and the students who stick around, for example. Similar to soap operas, it tracks the long-term evolution of the relationships between all of these people, and the daily drama of their lives as it unfolds in their homes and workplace.

Each weekday, a single scene is released. It’s restricted to a single room--a classroom, for example. The player picks one character to play as on that day. The intent is that you learn about different perspectives on the overall scenario depending on who you’re playing as. The format would be similar to a visual novel, but the choice structure would be more like a web that branches in order to support the linear story. You may trigger conversations with different characters in the room directly, or by interacting with objects in the space. You may also learn things through the objects that you find (emails, books, notes etc).

The limit of one character per day is designed to encourage players to share what they learned in playthroughs with their friends that may have picked different characters. Given the soap opera style of the game, much of the story will unfold through characters gossiping or having private conversations. So, sharing information with friends is an extension of that--characters talk about each other, and players analyze their interactions outside of the game space by making connections between the different scenes they saw in a given day.

CHARACTER AND STORY NOTES

Soap Opera structure: a rich and poor family

Game: Professors and students

Lucia and Randall - long-term couple.

Lucia is a desk aide in the English department. She’s quiet, too humble for her own good but is very good at saying no. She always maintains control over her life in a practical sense, but has a secret romantic and risky streak that no one’s really noticed. She has a mundane and charming sense of humor that only comes out around her close friends. There are only women in her family, as far as anyone else knows. She loves her sister more than anyone else in the world. She has been dating Randall for three years, and they’re deeply in love as far as she is concerned.

Randall is a fast-talking charmer--the kind of boy that every girl in high school has had a crush on at some point, until they realized that he actually isn’t all that special. He’s smart and sharp like someone who wants to work on Wall Street, but he really wants to be a politician. He doesn’t have a job because his wealthy parents support him completely. He’s very close with all the other guys in the group, but not in an intimate way. He always prefers bro talk with beers over anything too mushy. Basically, his party boy tendencies make it hard for him to get too close to anyone other than his girlfriend, Lucia. He loves her incredibly. However, he’s used to doing whatever he wants, so he often will leave her behind at parties to go smoke pot with his friends, or to party hop before she’s ready to go. He doesn’t see that this makes her uncomfortable.

Scarlett

Scarlett thinks she has control over her life. She’s the professor's favorite in her poetry class and she’s in the honors college. She knows she’s smart and can do whatever she wants in her career, but she’s not happy. She thinks her happiness should be dependent on her success at school, but it’s more dependent on other people than she realizes. She’s recently gone through a devastating break off of a summer fling. She fell in love with a guy who knew the relationship was going nowhere, but slept with her anyways. She is trying to focus on school, but is secretly still an emotional wreck from the summer. She is now suspicious of anyone’s interest in her--she agonizes in secret over who she’s friends with, who she’s dating, and which professors take an interest in her. Her entire world revolves around what a given person thinks of her at a given time, but she just won’t admit it. She’s fallen into a new group of friends in the English department after a mutual friend took her to one of their apartment parties. This will be her first time having a friend group larger than three girls, and a fresh chance at finding a guy who might actually care about her. Navigating the web of friendships and romance will force her to face the truth that her happiness hinges on the unpredictable inclinations of other people.

James

James is snarky, but he’s cute and has a calm disposition so no one ever notices. He’s really clever, but would rather self-deprecate to hell than admit it. Between every single class (and sometimes during) him and Pablo walk outside to the nearest stoop and smoke cigarettes silently, only speaking if they have something bad to say about themselves. He doesn’t let anyone become close to him other than Pablo, unless they get his jokes or will self-deprecate with him while he smokes. He is a programmer but no one’s ever actually seen him code, so they just take his word for it. He gets paid to do it outside of class, which is proof enough for anyone. He really loves his parents, who are both super nerdy and into deep niche SYFY channel drama, which he thinks is boring but would never tell them that. He has a casual distaste for things he thinks are nerdy and won’t even touch a video game controller, despite being the first person in the group that people assume is a huge nerd. It’d be easy to assume that he hates himself, everyone and everything based on his disposition. But he actually thinks very highly of himself and is too ashamed to admit it.

Pablo

Pablo hates himself, and the only things he loves are his brother, women and James. Everyone just assumes that wherever James goes, Pablo will follow. Pablo loves James because they can hate themselves together, and neither will try and dissuade the other from doing that. Pablo also has a reverence for James, his good looks, and his allure that has a powerful effect on (as far as Pablo can tell) all women. Pablo is incredibly jealous of James because of this. Pablo has never managed to date any woman that stuck around for more than 3 or 4 months. He assumes that’s because he’s not as good looking as James, and he really believes that James good looks inspire all women to ditch him for greener pastures. Pablo is 6 years older than everyone else in the friend group, and he never lets them forget it. His low self-esteem may be crippling romantically, but the cold attitude it inspires in him actually makes everyone else think he’s super cool. He has a mysterious allure due to his quiet and cold attitude. He’s been known as someone to go to for advice--probably because he’s a good listener that doesn’t actually try to give any advice. He just listens, quietly.

Gary

Gary is an orchestrator of people. Everyone who enters the English department has entered his domain (he’s the office admin), and he ushers them to the appropriate social sphere. He’s basically considered the wise and good-humored leader and former of the main social group that revolves around the English department. It’s not in his job description, but it is his main interest. He recognizes who can prop who up, and who can bring who down. He generally wants everyone to succeed, but sometimes his ushering is misinformed and he brings two people together who would be better off apart. Many romantic relationships have began and ended in this way. However, due to his unrivaled skill in helping people relate to one another, these couples nearly always remain friends and within the umbrella of Crawford’s ever expanding network of students.

Year one

Scarlett is dating James, and Lucia is dating Randall. The two girls are very romantically invested in these relationships, and their boyfriends seem to be too. However, everyone involved has some self-esteem issues which blind them to the truths of their relationships.

From Lucia and Scarlett’s perspective, the guys seem amazing, smart and like they could do no wrong--they’re from nice, well-off families with great reputations. The two girls aren’t like that--they’re from families with issues, and unsteady incomes.

From James and Randall’s perspectives, their girlfriends are just… around. They care about them, but only as much as is convenient. They want to feel loved, but they don’t have enough love to give away. They’re too lost in their own struggles with low self-esteem and the desire to be well-liked universally.

Over the course of the year, the girls come to realize that their backgrounds and faults don’t make them any less good than their respective partners. And, that their partners have just as many emotional problems that they do. But the problem is that their partners emotional problems take precedence over their relationships. This realization leads to the end of their relationships.

Year long story beats

Scarlett meets the the friend group that hangs out in the English department offices at a party in Bed-Stuy.

Scarlett and James start dating.

Scarlett and Lucia become close friends.

Randall starts ditching Lucia at parties, but always comes back and begs for forgiveness.

Pablo harbors a secret jealousy of James, because Pablo likes Scarlett. He starts trying to get Scarlett to spend more time with him than James.

James is a passive boyfriend, so Scarlett spends more time with Pablo.

Lucia and Scarlett feel alienated by their boyfriends well-off families when they go with them on a trip to their hometown.

Scarlett meets the the friend group that hangs out in the English department offices at a party in Bed-Stuy.

She meets James, and starts to develop a secret crush on him.

Randall gets really drunk and eggs her on.

Lucia catches Scarlett up on James background--she knows a lot about him because Randall and him have been friends since childhood.

Lucia and Scarlett spend most of the party together, because Randall leaves without telling anyone to smoke some pot.

James, Pablo and Gary are worried about how Randall ran off.

Scarlett, a freshman, meets a sophomore named Gary. They’re both in a required writing class, but are both legitimately interested in writing and are part of the school art journal. Gary thinks Scarlett would get along with his friends, so he invites her to a party.

MORE PITCH DRAFTING

DRAFT

In researching for my pitch, I decided to look to other forms of media for works that people had engaged with for long periods of time. Of course, I immediately thought of soap operas. I remember being a tween, and sitting with my mom while she watched soaps like All My Children, Days of Our Lives, and Passions. I have vivid memories of these shows, their soft golden lighting, and the melodramatic dialogue. Soap operas have always stuck out in my mind as a unique and strangely captivating form of television. So, I called my mom up to ask her about soap operas, since I remembered watching them with her when I was a kid.

She told me that she kept up with the soaps every once in awhile, but she’d never been the type to watch the new episodes every single day. I asked her if she knew of anyone who had kept up with them daily, and she told me yes. She remembered being in middle and high school, listening to some of her neighborhood friends gossip about the latest soap episodes, unraveling the drama between classes and after school. She said this was pretty common--lots of young women she knew were really deep into these soaps, and knew the characters intimately, almost like they were their own family and friends. I don’t know about you, but I think that’s a pretty powerful effect for a story to have on someone. So, I decided to dig deeper.

My mom mentioned that her favorite soap character had been played by Susan Lucci--Erica Kane, from All My Children. On Wikipedia, a notable fact about Erica is that: "Seven of her marriages to six different men have been valid while four of her other marriages are invalid." Sounds pretty dramatic, right? But honestly, we’re all familiar with divorce and marriage, so is it really all that odd? That’s what strikes me about soap operas--no matter their reputation as melodramatic, these shows were essentially about real world, ordinary people and their real world, ordinary problems. In fact, soap operas are in some ways pioneers of depicting real lives on television. All My Children and One Life to Live creator Agnes Nixon is famous, not only for her groundbreaking soaps, but for her intense efforts to reflect real world issues in her shows. For example, Nixon wrote a character with uterine cancer into a 1962 story at Guiding Light, but not without and pushback: she had to do it without mentioning the words "uterus," "cancer," or "hysterectomy", given the networks restrictions at the time. In a later episode of another show, Nixon showed a white woman's black friend entering her house through the front door. After that episode aired, she came across a shop that had purposefully stopped carrying Procter and Gamble products — because that was the company that owned her show.

The special thing about soap operas is that, because they paint real, human characters, diving into their daily drama for decades, showing their vulnerabilities and their strengths… well, frankly, this draws people in. Soap operas make long time viewers feel like it’s real, they make viewers feel like a part of the family.

So, given this inspiration, my game is a long-term story driven soap opera style game about a college English department. Over the course of thirty years, players learn about the professors in the department, the rotations of students, and the students who stick around, for example. Similar to soap operas, it tracks the long-term evolution of the relationships between all of these people, and the daily drama of their lives as it unfolds in their homes and workplace.

I came up with an example of a storyline this game would explore. This scenario could take place over a year. I wrote it with that constraint, because soap opera head writers often approach their story plans in this way, planning a year or two ahead:

Intimacy simulator!

Your goal is to explore character’s relationships, and how they can grow, by getting to know them. You get to know a character by learning about them through conversations with other characters, observing how they behave, and finding objects in the environment that teach you things about them.

The things you learn about the character help you engage in intimate conversations with them--you learn what’s important to them, and follow the conversation down that path, for example. In this way, other characters become more comfortable talking to you and doing things with you.

If you fail to carefully learn things about the character and try to engage in conversation with them anyways, they will become less comfortable around you. They may even stop talking to you, if you bother them too much.

The amount of trust earned between characters will be determined by an average of the amount of trust earned during a given players playtime. Trust levels carry over from day to day, and influence the way the story unfolds. For example, if one day Scarlett’s trust of James is very low, that will influence the resolution of their conflict.

Basically a very long D&D campaign without monsters

Every day a player is able to choose ONE character they will play for that episode. They may not go back and choose another character.
The player learns about other characters and what’s important to them through conversations and environmental details (and longer-term understanding gained by playing many episodes).
Players use the information they learn about characters in order to engage in branching conversations that influence the amount one character trusts another.
The trust one character has for another is tracked on an individual player basis, and can be seen by the player.
At the end of a playthrough of an episode, which the player may only do once, the trust between each character pairing will be calculated on an individual basis. These scores will be aggregated with ALL other player data from all time, producing global average trust scores for each pairing.
These scores will be weighted by time and circumstance--trust will be harder to earn earlier in the relationship, or during certain scenarios (trust would be harder to earn from Scarlett after James breaks up with her).
Game writers will use the trust scores each day to steer the interactions between characters.

Example: Scarlett’s trust of James has a low average trust score at the end of a day where Scarlett thinks she saw James flirting with one of her friends. The next day, players will be presented with an extension of that conflict based on the trust score--in this case, Scarlett would be cold towards James, until she finally confronts him. However, given the low trust rating of the previous episode, she refuses to forgive James and threatens to break up with him, without listening to his side of the story. If the trust rating had been good, she still would have confronted him, but would be more readily willing to hear out his side of the story.

FINAL

An episode is released every week day.
The player may play the day's episode only once.
The player may play through each scene in any order.
The player will be able to look at things in the environment as the scene plays out--people’s phones, computer
At the end of an episode, the player decides how they think characters feel about each other.

For example, the player may choose to say that she thinks James is feeling closer to Scarlett. Then, they may choose to say that Scarlett is feeling annoyed with James.

Game writers will use these character relationship interpretations each day to steer the interactions between characters.

Example: Most players felt that James is feeling closer to Scarlett at the end of an episode where Scarlett thinks she saw James flirting with one of her friends. Most players felt that Scarlett was annoyed with James. The next day, players will be presented with an extension of that conflict based on how players felt about the characters relationships in the previous episode--in this case, the writers may decide that Scarlett would be cold towards James, until she finally confronts him. However, given that most players felt that Scarlett was annoyed with him in the previous episode, they would write that into the story, perhaps making her snap at James, refusing to forgive him, and threatening to break up with him. If most players had felt that she was suspicious of James, but still trusted him, perhaps she still would have confronted him, but would be more readily willing to hear out his side of the story.

VIDEO RESEARCH NOTES

All my children 25th anniversary video notes

14:13

16:40 addresses rape

18:00 erica kane

21:13

24:35

25:20 old lady

27:35

34:25 real world issues

39:35 stats

42:10 soap summary