{"author_link":"\/users\/gaze-team","author_name":"Gaze Team","author_uid":"gaze-team","comments":[],"epoch":1525556865,"event":"LD41","format":"md","ldjam_node_id":96042,"likes":9,"metadata":{"p_key":"114797","p_author":"Gaze Team","p_authorkey":"1090664","p_urlkey":"330757","p_title":"How Late for Love was written","p_cat":"LDJam ","p_event":"LD41","p_time":"1525556865","p_likes":"9","p_comments":"0","p_status":"WAYBACK","us_key":"1090664","us_name":"Gaze Team","us_username":"gaze-team","event_start":"1524182400","event_key":"72","event_name":"LD 41"},"node":{"_collation":{"body_sanitizer":"TextUtils::SanitizeHTML via existing importer","event":"LD41","removed_author":false},"_superparent":73256,"_trust":1,"author":90664,"body":"My name is Goss and I wrote the story and dialog for Late for Love, which you can play [here](https:\/\/gaze-team.itch.io\/late-for-love).                         \n\"What?\", I hear you say. \"Did they have a dedicated writer for a *game jam*?\". We did, and if you give me a moment I\u2019ll explain how I drank just as much coffee and slept just as few as my two other teammates, and how I helped make the game we made (which you can play [here](https:\/\/gaze-team.itch.io\/late-for-love) by the way). \n\nWe decided to mix **speed racing with dating sim**, and so each of us had a challenge. Our game designer\/programmer Gama had to make sure playing it would feel seamless and interesting. Our artist Mdonze had to give it bones and flesh, and I had to write an engaging story for it to convey feelings which, despite what fans of the Fast & Furious franchise might have to say, don\u2019t easily flourish in a roaring vehicle storming on the tarmac. \n\n# Finding the idea\n\nNo game has ever told a good story without blending it in its gameplay. I knew I had to use as much core elements of the game as possible; to make constraints into strengths so that the story would **only** work in this particular situation.\n\nWhat\u2019s a love story that only happens in a car, doesn\u2019t involve characters getting lost at any point (we agreed they\u2019d be only one road) or physically interacting and can be told in just about a few minutes?\n\n![LateForLove_Start.png](\/\/\/raw\/822\/61\/z\/14a44.png)\n\nAt first I had this idea of two childhood friends whom you\u2019d follow very briefly at specific moments of their lives - key moments - all of which would happen on the move (a sled ride when they\u2019re four, a forbidden night on a motorbike at sixteen and a car trip in adulthood for example) and serve as levels for the game. Mdonze and Gama gave that pitch the strongest, most spontaneous and synchronized \u201cNope\u201d that\u2019s ever been said by professionals who rightly know what can and cannot be done in less than three days. \n\nIt had to happen in one trip. One journey, a few minutes of playing and The End.\n\nWe knew from the beginning it\u2019d work well if they were going to a wedding. It\u2019s both romantic and dramatic, especially if they\u2019re late, and it makes for a proper background to the racing aspect of the game. \n\nIt could have been their wedding, though I feel it would\u2019ve been hard to build up drama without going too cheesy.\n\nThe bad news is I won\u2019t unveil much more of what ended up in the game because I don\u2019t want to spoil it for you if you haven\u2019t played it yet (have I told you you can do such a thing [right over here](https:\/\/gaze-team.itch.io\/late-for-love)?). Sorry about that. The good news is I\u2019ve already said it all anyway. If you\u2019ve played it, you know.\n\n# Pouring it into the game\n\nOnce the story had taken shape I wrote it down in short form; a little synopsis which I read to Mdonze and Gama, to see if they liked it. At this point we had about 60 hours left (we started late). \n\nI broke it down into a classic structure of three acts, each of which matching one of the three different environments Mdonze had begun to draw.\n\n![Screenshot_act2.png](\/\/\/raw\/822\/61\/z\/14a81.png)\n*The second act takes place in a forest*\n\nThen we set up a process; I would write one act on Twine, present it to the team, get feedback, do some rework if needed, implement it in the editor and start working on the next act. \n\nI didn\u2019t expect implementing the story in Unity to take half my time. We had a system worked out for my non-programmer brain in which I\u2019d fill up blank fields with dialog lines and set up timers for answers or next dialog events. \n\nThat last bit is what took me so long. Because Gama designed the game so that the conversation would happen *as you are driving*, **it became a real-time interactive fiction** and we had to take pacing and flow into account. \n\nI twisted and tweaked those timers until the conversation flew smoothly whatever path you'd choose and still fit the driving rhythm, while giving the player enough time to focus on both. \n\n![lateforlove_gif.gif](\/\/\/raw\/822\/61\/z\/14a82.gif)\n*Answer \"Not at all\" and she'll reply something nice almost instantly, while \"Yes\" will start a 15 seconds long awkward silence*\n\nMany ideas bounced between us about how to blend narrative elements with gameplay rather than simply laying them on top of it, i.e. make stuff happen out of the dialog box. Some we managed to implement (above screenshot of second act for example), some we didn\u2019t have enough time for.\n\nThis was my first game jam ever and I could write ten pages on what I\u2019ve learned but what I really want right now is to shut up and hear what you guys have to say about our game. \n\n*BONUS QUESTION: I\u2019ve hidden a famous dating sim reference in the game, comment this post with a reference to that dating sim if you\u2019ve found what it is! ;)*\n\n## [PLAY THE GAME](https:\/\/ldjam.com\/events\/ludum-dare\/41\/late-for-love)\n\n## [READ OUR POSTMORTEM ON VISUALS](https:\/\/ldjam.com\/events\/ludum-dare\/41\/late-for-love\/late-for-love-visuals)\n\n","comments":0,"created":"2018-05-04T21:56:53Z","files":[],"files-timestamp":0,"id":96042,"love":9,"love-timestamp":"2018-05-06T18:22:54Z","meta":[],"modified":"2018-05-06T18:22:54Z","name":"How Late for Love was written","node-timestamp":"2018-05-05T21:47:45Z","parent":90671,"parents":[1,5,9,73256,90671],"path":"\/events\/ludum-dare\/41\/late-for-love\/how-late-for-love-was-written","published":"2018-05-05T21:47:45Z","scope":"public","slug":"how-late-for-love-was-written","subsubtype":"","subtype":"","type":"post","version":284280},"node_metadata":{"n_key":"96042","n_urlkey":"330757","n_parent":"90671","n_path":"\/events\/ludum-dare\/41\/late-for-love\/how-late-for-love-was-written","n_slug":"how-late-for-love-was-written","n_type":"post","n_subtype":"","n_subsubtype":"","n_author":"90664","n_created":"1525471013","n_modified":"1525630974","n_version":"284280","n_status":"WAYBACK"},"source_url":"https:\/\/ldjam.com\/events\/ludum-dare\/41\/late-for-love\/how-late-for-love-was-written","text":"My name is Goss and I wrote the story and dialog for Late for Love, which you can play [here](https:\/\/gaze-team.itch.io\/late-for-love).                         \n\"What?\", I hear you say. \"Did they have a dedicated writer for a *game jam*?\". We did, and if you give me a moment I\u2019ll explain how I drank just as much coffee and slept just as few as my two other teammates, and how I helped make the game we made (which you can play [here](https:\/\/gaze-team.itch.io\/late-for-love) by the way). \n\nWe decided to mix **speed racing with dating sim**, and so each of us had a challenge. Our game designer\/programmer Gama had to make sure playing it would feel seamless and interesting. Our artist Mdonze had to give it bones and flesh, and I had to write an engaging story for it to convey feelings which, despite what fans of the Fast & Furious franchise might have to say, don\u2019t easily flourish in a roaring vehicle storming on the tarmac. \n\n# Finding the idea\n\nNo game has ever told a good story without blending it in its gameplay. I knew I had to use as much core elements of the game as possible; to make constraints into strengths so that the story would **only** work in this particular situation.\n\nWhat\u2019s a love story that only happens in a car, doesn\u2019t involve characters getting lost at any point (we agreed they\u2019d be only one road) or physically interacting and can be told in just about a few minutes?\n\n![LateForLove_Start.png](\/\/\/raw\/822\/61\/z\/14a44.png)\n\nAt first I had this idea of two childhood friends whom you\u2019d follow very briefly at specific moments of their lives - key moments - all of which would happen on the move (a sled ride when they\u2019re four, a forbidden night on a motorbike at sixteen and a car trip in adulthood for example) and serve as levels for the game. Mdonze and Gama gave that pitch the strongest, most spontaneous and synchronized \u201cNope\u201d that\u2019s ever been said by professionals who rightly know what can and cannot be done in less than three days. \n\nIt had to happen in one trip. One journey, a few minutes of playing and The End.\n\nWe knew from the beginning it\u2019d work well if they were going to a wedding. It\u2019s both romantic and dramatic, especially if they\u2019re late, and it makes for a proper background to the racing aspect of the game. \n\nIt could have been their wedding, though I feel it would\u2019ve been hard to build up drama without going too cheesy.\n\nThe bad news is I won\u2019t unveil much more of what ended up in the game because I don\u2019t want to spoil it for you if you haven\u2019t played it yet (have I told you you can do such a thing [right over here](https:\/\/gaze-team.itch.io\/late-for-love)?). Sorry about that. The good news is I\u2019ve already said it all anyway. If you\u2019ve played it, you know.\n\n# Pouring it into the game\n\nOnce the story had taken shape I wrote it down in short form; a little synopsis which I read to Mdonze and Gama, to see if they liked it. At this point we had about 60 hours left (we started late). \n\nI broke it down into a classic structure of three acts, each of which matching one of the three different environments Mdonze had begun to draw.\n\n![Screenshot_act2.png](\/\/\/raw\/822\/61\/z\/14a81.png)\n*The second act takes place in a forest*\n\nThen we set up a process; I would write one act on Twine, present it to the team, get feedback, do some rework if needed, implement it in the editor and start working on the next act. \n\nI didn\u2019t expect implementing the story in Unity to take half my time. We had a system worked out for my non-programmer brain in which I\u2019d fill up blank fields with dialog lines and set up timers for answers or next dialog events. \n\nThat last bit is what took me so long. Because Gama designed the game so that the conversation would happen *as you are driving*, **it became a real-time interactive fiction** and we had to take pacing and flow into account. \n\nI twisted and tweaked those timers until the conversation flew smoothly whatever path you'd choose and still fit the driving rhythm, while giving the player enough time to focus on both. \n\n![lateforlove_gif.gif](\/\/\/raw\/822\/61\/z\/14a82.gif)\n*Answer \"Not at all\" and she'll reply something nice almost instantly, while \"Yes\" will start a 15 seconds long awkward silence*\n\nMany ideas bounced between us about how to blend narrative elements with gameplay rather than simply laying them on top of it, i.e. make stuff happen out of the dialog box. Some we managed to implement (above screenshot of second act for example), some we didn\u2019t have enough time for.\n\nThis was my first game jam ever and I could write ten pages on what I\u2019ve learned but what I really want right now is to shut up and hear what you guys have to say about our game. \n\n*BONUS QUESTION: I\u2019ve hidden a famous dating sim reference in the game, comment this post with a reference to that dating sim if you\u2019ve found what it is! ;)*\n\n## [PLAY THE GAME](https:\/\/ldjam.com\/events\/ludum-dare\/41\/late-for-love)\n\n## [READ OUR POSTMORTEM ON VISUALS](https:\/\/ldjam.com\/events\/ludum-dare\/41\/late-for-love\/late-for-love-visuals)\n\n","title":"How Late for Love was written","wayback_source":[]}