The project already having its intentions established, I had to adapt to it to write a story coherent with the wanted mood. A first kind reference research work had to be done.
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Intentions of the game:
Chillness / children's story / light and close.
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An analysis of works follows to define the key elements of this kind of story.
Children's albums:
Simplicity
Friendship theme
Font and color games
Lightness and originality
Short format
More mature underlying topic
Main references:
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L'agneau qui ne voulait pas être un mouton
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Me pardonneras-tu ?
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Lune et Soleil
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Pour toujours et à jamais
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Le renard et le coq
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Le rêve du renard
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Le Loup vert
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Le plus heureux des ours
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Novembre au Printemps
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Le mouton en habit de loup
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Je veux être comme toi
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Ma nouvelle maison
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La magnifique crinière de Monty
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Le loup qui voulait changer de couleur
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Pob le petit ours Bleu
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Comme 1 maman
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La glace brisée
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Le Ballon d'Alexandre
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Le poème de Nina
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Même pas peur
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Iris et Isaac
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L'Ogresse en Pleurs
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La course aux étoiles
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Petite Poule et Petit Canard
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Les musiciens
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La carpe et l'Ours
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Le chien bleu
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Les yeux noirs
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L'arbre à Histoires
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Oh non Geoffrey !
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Ernest et Celestine
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Comment le chameau eut sa bosse
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Casse-noisette
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Les crocodiles
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Frère lapin
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Les meilleurs amis du monde
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La folle course de Maman Poulesse mais ils
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La rivière
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Les corbeaux de Pearblossom
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La maison de moufette
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L'Afrique de Zigomar
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Le Chat Botté
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Poucette
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Blanche Neige
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Cendrillon
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Belle au Bois Dormant
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Belle et la Bête
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Jacques et le Haricot magique
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Doux comme des Agneaux
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Mon chien est un éléphant
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Lapin de Pâque
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L'oeuf du coq
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Opération coccinelle
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La toison du mouton
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Castor fainéant
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Sale menteur !
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La Rhino est une féroce
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Ourson trop petit
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Une amitié Difficile
Main references:
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Le lièvre et la tortue
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La cigale et la fourmie
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Le Corbeau et le renard
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Le cerf se voyant dans l'eau
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Le loup et le chien
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Le cochet, le chat et le souriceau
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Le lièvre et les grenouilles
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La chauve-souris et les deux belettes
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Le rat de ville et le rat des champs
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La grenouille qui veut se faire plus grosse que le boeuf
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La tortue et les deux canards
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Le renard et le bouc
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Le lièvre et la tortue
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Le loup et l'agneau
Pressed Stories (Bernard Friot)
Theme originality
Originality of structure
Lightness
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Main references:
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Attendons la suite...
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Les histoires ne sont plus ce qu'elles étaient
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Nicolas et saint Nicolas
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La sorcière amoureuse
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Les histoires se terminent toujours de la même façon
Les Fables de la Fontaine:
Themes
Reading levels
Personifications
Melody of text and words
Morals
Why this reference?
Theme of emotions
evolution from childhood to adolescence
Why this reference?
Short format
Simple situations
Crazy situations
Cinematographic references
Upside down
Martin Matin
Video Games References
_ Breaking down the 4th wall
_ Crazy scenes
_ Interactions with enemies
_ Humor
_ Calm, light, intimate
_ Endearing character
_ Theme and structure of the children's story
_ Melody of words (verses and rhymes)
_ Evolutionary dialogue according to the player's actions.
_ Humor
Literary style and techniques
Once the genre of book was well analysed, a pre-production phase centered on the development of the writing style was necessary. Following the gender analysis, several techniques seem more suitable, the objective is to create our own style based on what already exists and has proven its effectiveness in the world of children's stories.
Free verses:
Taking into account references such as Child of Light and Les Fables de la Fontaines, the narration is composed of dialogues written in free verse.
The interest is to create a melody in the structure of the text, to give a harmonious aspect that follows the musical intention of the project. The text, in addition to being interesting in substance, must be pleasant to read in form, it is also according to this desire that we try to stay as much as possible in the dynamic sequence of short lines.
"Charlie : Qu'est-ce que cette histoire ?
_ Qui dois-je croire ?
Emilie : Grenouille, regarde bien, sois rigoureuse !
_ Quelle émotion rend Charlie soucieuse ?"
Theatricality:
As the play is mainly textual, a theatrical style has been adopted. This style aims to make this sequence of dialogue more alive and to give more personality to the characters.
To do this, each character will have his own way of speaking, more or less supported, the game having families for part of the player's target, this language has an educational interest ( interesting for families living this experience together).
Each character also has a tic of language which is more or less present depending on the mood of the latter. This tic can play on the structure of the text and break the rhyme (especially under the nervousness of a character).
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Language tic:
Chick when angry and break the rhyme.
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Language tic:
Zozote and speaks more familiarly.
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Language tic:
Bipolarity of language, howls then stutters, quickly changes emotion.
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Language tic:
Purrs when subjected to strong emotions.
The tales, the basis of creation of the narration
Game dialogues
Evolutionary dialogues:
The first big difficulty in writing the dialogues was to create a series of pieces of story that were coherent between them according to the emotion chosen by the player. A lot of test dialogues were created, a lot of iterations were done to finally come up with a satisfactory version of the story.
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Main issues:
_ Colossal production of dialogues.
_ 1500 lines of dialogue for the final chapter version.
_ Thousands of testing lines were discarded.
_ Production of the game dependent exclusively on the production of dialogues.
_ Alone on the narrative production, responsibility for the success of the project on the shoulders of one person.
_ Game only on french version.
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Respect for project intentions
Accessibility:
In the references analysis, humor proved to be an important asset in making the story accessible. She creates a childish and light appearance while delivering a darker and more mature underlying story.
Topics such as death, adoption, tolerance are therefore approached in the form of a bear separated from his mouse friend because of social rivalry, of a cat adopted by a wolf, of a bird that is not accepted by his family. ... We break the 4th wall, we create seemingly wacky conflicts ... Everything seems light and humorous in appearance.
[Bear] -qsiuhfkjshfpçzswhf
[Wolf] -Zzz ... Zzz ... Zzz ...
[Mouse] -What's going on, everybody's gone crazy?
[Bird] -It's nothing, it's the author who fell asleep on his keyboard! it happens all the time, he still spent his night working!
[Bear] - Make peace with your past!
[Wolf] -J ... I can't make up my mind ...
[Mouse] - (that's it, they start again as if nothing had happened!)
[Bird] -But I'm suspicious of you! You are the big bad wolf!
[Wolf] - That story again !? I'm sick of this reputation!
Yesterday I was blind, I'm not a danger, why is everyone afraid of me !?
[Bird] -It was the cat who told us, would he have lied to us again?
[Wolf] -Is he the one spreading all these rumors?
[Bird] - everyone thinks you are a bloodthirsty monster!
But you did not see anything, it cannot be you, it cannot be done!
[Mouse]-Tom le Taupticien !? Moi qui croyais que les taupes n’y voyaient rien... [Cat]-C’est bien pour ça qu’elles sont douées en verres ![Bird]-Tant de manière, moi aussi je suis douée en vers ! [Bear]-Qui parle de boire un verre ? [Bird]-Veillez à votre parlé ! ça ne se boit pas, les vers sont bons à manger ! [Mouse]-Les amis, vous divaguez ! Laissez le chat parler ! [Cat]-Laissez, ce n'est rien, vous me faites rigoler !
Endearing characters:
Each character has his own story, his past and his reason for following Grenouille on his adventure. The goal is to make them unique and endearing.
Mr Ernest
Scapin
Grenouille
Mr Gevaudan
Charlie
Emilie