{"assets":[{"original":"http:\/\/ludumdare.com\/compo\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/op42-fire-loop.gif","local":"\/data\/posts\/2015\/04\/b60f2e7b6961a79c3aa563aa217cd35f.gif"},{"original":"http:\/\/ludumdare.com\/compo\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/MAINTHUMB-300x195.png","local":"\/data\/posts\/2015\/04\/1618223f14757465a03ba4398286ddf7.png"},{"original":"http:\/\/ludumdare.com\/compo\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/MAINTHUMB-300x195.png","local":"\/data\/posts\/2015\/04\/1618223f14757465a03ba4398286ddf7.png"},{"original":"http:\/\/ludumdare.com\/compo\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/op42-fire-loop.gif","local":"\/data\/posts\/2015\/04\/b60f2e7b6961a79c3aa563aa217cd35f.gif"}],"author_link":"author\/travischen\/","author_name":"TravisChen","cat":"LD #32","categories":["LD #32"],"comments":[],"epoch":1430165880,"event":"LD32","likes":11,"metadata":{"p_key":"82842","p_author":"TravisChen","p_authorkey":"0","p_urlkey":"293574","p_title":"TOUCHTONE HELL: Writing for OPERATOR 42","p_cat":"LD #32","p_event":"LD32","p_time":"1430165880","p_likes":"11","p_comments":"0","p_status":"WAYBACK","us_key":null,"us_name":null,"us_username":null,"event_start":"1429228800","event_key":"27","event_name":"LD32"},"source_url":"2015\/04\/27\/464181\/","text":"

\"op42-fire-loop\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Hi. I\u2019m\u00a0Peter Javidpour<\/a>.\u00a0I worked with Travis Chen<\/a> and\u00a0Alex Wimmer<\/a>\u00a0on Operator 42<\/a>. I was responsible for writing the voiceover script, implementing puzzles, and building out the phone navigation.\u00a0Travis has asked that I make a\u00a0post about the writing process.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t normally like getting into\u00a0the nitty-gritty of things I work on, but Travis assured me the Ludum Dare community likes to read this sort of thing. He also assured me a blog post\u00a0would lead to more ratings\u00a0on our jam entry, and I can\u00a0really use the Ludum Dare Cash Prize, so here we go.<\/p>\n

OPERATOR 42 | PLAY AND RATE<\/a><\/h2>\n

\"Operator<\/a><\/p>\n

There are some light spoilers here, so stop now if you care about spoilers and you\u00a0haven\u2019t played the game yet. If you don\u2019t care spoilers, but you have no intention of playing the game, I\u2019m not sure why you\u2019re reading this. But go ahead, I guess.<\/p>\n

BRAINSTORM<\/h2>\n

The theme of the jam was Unconventional Weapon.\u00a0At the start,\u00a0we didn\u2019t know we were going to make a game that would require any kind of writing. All we knew was that we didn\u2019t want to do a lot of work and we wanted to make something unique. So to kick off our brainstorming session, we swore to follow three\u00a0simple constraints:<\/p>\n

\u2013 Minimal use of unique assets.<\/div>\n
\u2013 Infinite playtime.<\/div>\n
\u2013 No guns.<\/div>\n

After 2 hours of brainstorming quirky arcade ideas* that would make a game designer\u2019s mouth just<\/em>\u00a0water<\/em>\u00a0we settled on an idea that needed:<\/p>\n

\u2013 A ton of unique assets (mostly voiceover).<\/div>\n
\u2013 Finite playtime.<\/div>\n
\u2013 One giant gun.<\/div>\n

Somehow we became\u00a0fixated on the premise\u00a0of needing an owner\u2019s manual to operate a doomsday device. We replaced the manual with a phone and we had something we were excited about. We broke the only rules that we gave ourselves, but we were collectively too excited about the idea to fall back on\u00a0better judgement.<\/p>\n

*Here are some of the ideas we didn\u2019t use.\u00a0Please don\u2019t steal them. I might come back to them one day.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u2013 An old lady trying to navigate through traffic, causing accidents<\/em><\/div>\n
\u2013 A ceiling fan that seduces people<\/em><\/div>\n
\u2013\u00a0A back-handed compliment simulator<\/em><\/div>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

THE WORLD<\/h2>\n

\"operator<\/a><\/p>\n

Once we knew that our game was about a doomsday device, the rest of the setting fell into the place easily. The player is\u00a0an incompetent henchman who\u2019s just going through the motions of a job that should, for all intents and purposes, be exciting. I think\u00a0this is an example of\u00a0irony,\u00a0<\/em>but honestly I\u2019m not sure. Let me know in the comments if it is.<\/p>\n

Of course, we never tell you\u00a0you\u2019re a henchman. You\u2019re an \u201coperator.\u201d Your boss\u2019s name isn\u2019t Professor Evil, it\u2019s Jeff, and Jeff has an implied hierarchy of bosses that lead up to the evil (but never explicitly stated as such) Dr. Killigan. And your organization isn\u2019t The Legion of Bad People, it\u2019s just Killigan Industries. Any indication that you\u2019re operating a weapon of mass destruction is only implied by the orbital view of Earth and the giant red \u201cLAUNCH\u201d button. Also, Jeff explicitly requests that\u00a0you\u00a0destroy Paris. A bit heavy-handed, sure, but we had to get the point across somehow.<\/p>\n

The stakes implied\u00a0by your assignment aren\u2019t \u201cWill I have to destroy Paris?\u201d but \u201cWill I be able to appease my passive-aggressive boss?\u201d It\u2019s another\u00a0example of\u00a0irony,<\/em> I think. Let me know in the comments if\u00a0that\u2019s true.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

THE PHONE MENU<\/h2>\n

I don\u2019t know why phone menus still exist. I\u2019ve never had a \u201cconversation\u201d with\u00a0one that felt smarter than talking to even the dumbest person I know (Greg).<\/p>\n

In writing lines for the phone system, the main challenge was making\u00a0them complex enough\u00a0to contribute to the absurdity of the world (and the difficulty of the puzzles), but making them simple enough\u00a0for the average listener to parse out the details they needed to solve puzzles. I also had to throw in some jokes.<\/p>\n

Fun fact: every option in the phone menu will take you somewhere. Some of the dead ends are just fun little gags, others are false tips in case players press the wrong button. In a perfect world, the controls of the console would have been randomized on each playthrough, justifying those extra\u00a0options. Of course,\u00a0in a perfect world, we would have had more than 72 hours.<\/div>\n

Strangely enough, I actually wrote the script before we started working\u00a0on\u00a0the puzzles. Probably not the smartest way to design puzzles, and I\u2019m not sure I would work that\u00a0way again, but it was still fun. Plus, we had to\u00a0front-load as much of the voice recording as we could early on, so we didn\u2019t have much of a choice but to work \u201cbackwards\u201d in that way.<\/p>\n

Alex Wimmer, our musician\/sound designer\u00a0was responsible for creating\u00a0all the content you hear in the game, including the awesome hold music loop, which I couldn\u2019t get out of my head. He\u2019s also the voice of the automated phone system (over 120 lines of VO)!<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

FRUSTRATION LOOP<\/h2>\n

We hoped the humor\u00a0of the game would come from presenting the player with\u00a0a solution to a problem, then keeping it out of reach\u00a0with layers of frustration and mundanity. I feel that\u00a0pretty much describes any exchange I\u2019ve ever had with an automated phone operator.<\/p>\n

This idea of complicating a solution led to my favorite moment of the game, the fire:<\/p>\n

\"op42-fire-start\"<\/p>\n

Ideally, a fully fleshed-out version of the\u00a0game would be built on a chain\u00a0of scenarios like this one. I would love to play a build of\u00a0Operator 42<\/em>\u00a0in which\u00a0the\u00a0station is sparking and burning, and you\u2019ve had to open every single panel only to reveal more and more confounding machinery, with a dumb phone robot as your only guide through the tedium and frustration. But we only had 72 hours.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

NAMING THINGS<\/h2>\n

\"Operator<\/a><\/p>\n

There are a lot of weird labels on the control panel. I don\u2019t know what \u201cretroautomative\u201d means, or if it\u2019s even really a word.\u00a0I don\u2019t know what a \u201cphase matrix\u201d is supposed to be or how it would help you launch a weapon payload from a satellite. We just wanted buttons. So I just mashed a bunch of words together to make things sound technical and confusing. Did it work?<\/p>\n

If we could do it again, I would have littered the control console with more fake buttons and levers and thrown all kinds of scary labels on them.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

EMPLOYEE OF THE MONTH<\/h2>\n

I\u2019m not sure if this was a comprehensive or cohesive write-up of what goes into writing a dialogue-heavy game over 72 hours, but I\u2019m bored now and you probably are too, and both of us probably want to go do something else.<\/p>\n

Thanks for reading and thanks for playing Operator 42\u00a0<\/em>and thanks to all of you have been saying nice things about the game!<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

OPERATOR 42 | PLAY AND RATE<\/a><\/h2>\n

\"Operator<\/a><\/p>","time":"April 27th, 2015 8:18 pm","title":"TOUCHTONE HELL: Writing for OPERATOR 42","title_was_empty":false}