"Ti Ob"

Since last night, I've been taking another look at what the message that the team are looking for could say. Here's a section from my notes:

The story would end in the successful instance with the designers finding an ancient creed, which reflects the holder’s image, that says “LOOK FROM WITHIN.”

Or, they find a glass object, with a nonsensical inscription on it…

“…What the hell is that supposed to mean?!”

“Fuck it, why don’t we just make another action game. We can base it on what we‘ve just had to do to get here.”

They then make this very game that the players have just completed.

Basically, the characters would be looking at the message the wrong way round and wouldn't understand it, but because they have to make a game anyway, they just go ahead and make one about themselves.

“LOOK FROM WITHIN” “NIHTIW MORF KOOL”

“THE IDEAS COME FROM YOU” “UOY MORF EMOC SAEDI EHT”

“THINK OUTSIDE THE BOX” “XOB EHT EDISTUO KNIHT”

“LOOK AROUND YOU” “UOY DNUORA KOOL”

“USE YOUR HEAD” “DAEH RUOY ESU”

“LOOK AT YOURSELVES” “SEVLESRUOY TA KOOL”

“LOOK AT OURSELVES” “SEVLESRUO TA KOOL”

“OBSERVE YOURSELVES” “SEVLESRUOY EVRESBO”

“EVERYTHING” “GNIHTYREVE”

“LOOK AT US ALL” “LLA SU TA KOOL”

“WHAT ARE YOU LOOKING AT ME FOR” “ROF EM TA GNIKOOL UOY ERA TAHW”

“WHATEVER WILL BE WILL BE” “EB LLIW EB LLIW REVETAHW”

“MAKE A GAME” “EMAG A EKAM”

“JUST DO IT” “TI OD TSUJ”

Then I thought this:

“DO IT” “TI OD”

or better:

"dO iT” “Ti Ob”

I stopped there cos I quite like this idea. For a start, it's simple.

It fits in with the genre the game is aiming to be - a beat'em up action adventure.

It also fits in with the idea that games are supposed to be interactive. The player doesn't just watch, like they would watch a movie, or just listen, like they would listen to a piece of music or a story being told to them. To move the game along, they have to do. You could say the language of game is doing.

I hear that showing people in cinematics that the character they play is a certain way can be better than simply telling them that the character is that way, and expecting them to go along with it. I hear that it's even better to work it into the game's mechanics or the gameplay. Think Sonic the Hedgehog. Probably wouldn't quite work if Sonic was the protagonist of a game that turned out to be like Farmville or something [I probably shouldn't say that, since I've not actually played Farmville. But I imagine that it's a slow paced game, that involves a lot of waiting around for stuff to grow before you can harvest them].

"Do it" can also be quite wise advice in regards to any goal someone wants to accomplish, in that sometimes it's better to just try something and see if it works, and then learn from that then develop a new plan and try that, rather than sit around forever thinking about how to get it perfect the first time.

I had an idea that completing the game could unlock a short humorous animation explaining why the object say "Ti Ob", where the glass object is on a pedestal in a temple or something that feels a bit like an art museum. It starts off saying "dO iT" and then some naughty person comes along and looks at it, and chuckles, wanting to make some mischief, and the object is there looking at him, telling him to dO iT, so he does, and sneaks under the barrier to swivel it the wrong way round, so that it doesn't make sense anymore. Hehehe.