Arcade Berg aka. "Learning Game Design with Arcade Berg"

Teasing Title?

I’m one of “those guys”. I like to watch japanese anime. Giant robots, ninjas and disturbed “wtf”-humor! What’s not like?

One thing I find interesting with anime are the title of each episode. Maybe this is the case for live action series in asia as well, I don’t know but they name the episodes in such a manner for the viewer to know something that’s gonna happen.

Let me use the hugely popular anime One Piece (http://anidb.net/perl-bin/animedb.pl?show=anime&aid=69) as an example with episodes like:

• Luffy Drowning! Zoro vs Octopus Hatchan
• The Reindeer Has a Blue Nose! Chopper`s Secret

From the first title we can assume the character Luffy will (or at least almost) drown and Zoro will fight the Octopus Hatchan.

The second titles tells us that we’re gonna get to hear about something juice about Chopper.

Chopper!

I’m sure this is done with some special narrative magic in mind. Not really my area but I can see how it works on me. Knowing what will happen, I’m sitting on the edge of the couch waiting for it, looking forward to it, building suspense and anticipation! It’s just like when the viewers knows more than the hero in movies, knowing it’s an ambush set up by an evil genious.

It’s like when you’ve ordered something and have to wait a few days for it to arrive. Of course you hate the wait, but at the same time it’s during that time that your imagination goes wild! The night before christmas anyone?

So here’s what I’m thinking.

How can we use this in games? How can we by telling the player what’s gonna happen make it a more exciting experience?

In a way, it’s already been done in a million ways. Take Metroid for example, making us see upgrades before we can reach them. Or why not something as simple as an XP-bar in an RPG? You know that by the time that bar is full, you’re gonna learn a new skill and it’s gonna be kick ass!

If you were to take the first Resident Evil and edit it. When entering the infamous hallway a title screen appears:

• The mosters hallway…

By then, you know something’s gonna be lurking there. Would it ruin the surprise? Would it increase the tension?

I’m just thinking out loud here but I think we could use this…