My Game is about!

The Legend of King Ar‘Thur

Introduction

Hello everybody! My name is Matthias Voigt (Kosko Heiwa) and I want to give you some insights on my project I am currently working on as a part of my Game Design’s course Narrative Design at University of Applied Science. As the course is held by Prof. Csongor Baranyai, he gave me and my fellow students the task to adapt a public domain into a digital game. The public domain we wanted to adapt was “The Story of King Arthur and his knights” by Howard Pyle (1853-1911).

At first let me introduce you to the team itself. Afterwards let us take a look on the novel “The Story of King Arthur and his knights”, as I try to sum up the story, which we need to implement into the game. The game we are making is an Adventure, where you can find and carry items to solve puzzles by interacting with characters from the story. The biggest feature is to switch between two worlds within the game whenever the player wants to: The adapted human world from the original, and the demon world which serves as our interpretation of the story. In this way the player dynamically interacts with characters from the story, can carry items from one world to another, and solve puzzles around it.

The team

From left to right: Benjamin Rose, Nicolas Vogelbusch, Matthias Voigt, Deren Saylik

Starting from left to right, Benjamin Rose is our game programmer and game designer for this project. He works mainly with Unity and Fungus. Nicolas Vogelbusch is our game artist. He designs the concept arts of the game and draws the characters which we see in the game. I, as the third in the picture, am the game and narrative designer of this project. I write the story’s dialogue and am in charge of the level design. Last but not least, Deren Saylik is our second game artist, as the game is very art-driven, we need at least two of them. He also draws the characters and colors them.

The Story

If you do not want to read the summary of the two chapters, feel free to skip!

Uther as a king, is the Overlord of Britain. Merlin came with a prophecy, that Uther will die due to illness and the kingdom will rage into war over the throne. Merlin advises Uther to hide his son from existence as he is the most precious thing of its kings inheritance. Uther follows Merlin’s advise and gives his son to Sir Ector who raises Arthur for 18 years. As these years passed, Uther died to his illness and the kingdom fell into great disorder with fight for overlordship. Archbishop of Canterburry summoned Merlin for advise how to bring piece to the realm again.  Merlin tells of his prophecy and the rightful heir to the throne who shall bring peace to the realm: To know who the rightful heir to the throne may be, Merlin caused by magic a huge marble stone to appear in an open place before the cathedral door. Call out to all the chief people as they shall try to rise the sword out of its stone, as who succeeds in pulling out the sword he shall be king of the realm.

A tournament is held to determine who is worthy of the sword. Sir Kay fights against Sir Balamorgineas. Kay looses his sword and commands Arthur to bring him another one from their pavilion. As Arthur can not find any, he walks to the marble stone pulling out the sword, without knowing of its meaning. Arthur brings Kay the sword who was surprised, quitting the fight and commanding Arthur to meet their father together, eager to take the chance to proclaim the sword as his own achievement.

Sir Kay quit the battle to summon his father Sir Ector to their pavilion, showing him the sword to the throne. Sir Kay claimed that he took the sword out of the anvil. Sir Ector who does not know what to think of it, demands his son to put it back in to the stone and draw it out of the anvil again to show that he is the rightwise heir to the throne. Sir Kay fails to put back the sword, Arthur speaks up and tells the truth to Sir Ector, that he was the one pulling it out so he may be able to put it back in. So he did and Sir Ector was filled with surprise, kneeling down before Arthur, who wondered why his father would kneel before him. Sir Ector reveals that Arthur is not his real son and that the blood of kings flows in Arthurs veins. Merlin and Sir Ulfius came to him with the signet ring of Uther-Pendragon, commanding Sir Ector to raise Arthur as his own son. Merlin and Sir Ulfius came to the pavilion Merlin tells the prophecy, that Arthur shall become the greatest and most famous king that ever lived in Britain.

All people gathered around the marble stone, a throne built nearby for the Archbishop to sit in. Nineteen kings and sixteen Dukes. King Lot of Orkney tried to pull out the sword and failed. Kieng Urien of Gore did the same and failed to succeed. King Fion of Scotland, King Mark of Cornwall, King Ryence of North Wales, King Leodegrance of Cameliard and all the other kings tried and failed. With great dissatisfaction all of them who failed to pull out the sword confront the Archbishop with the assumption of getting deceived by Merlin’s mocking tricks, asking who would be able to pull out a sword out of iron. Believing in Merlin the Archbishop commands the kings and dukes to wait a little longer, as if there will be none capable of pulling out the sword, the Archbishop himself will proclaim one of the kings to become the Overlord of all of Britain. Meanwhile Merlin, Sir Ector, Sir Kay, Sir Ulfius and Arthur arrived to the Archbishop from their pavilion, ready to take the chance. The Archbishop asked who of them could be capable of pulling out the sword. Merlin revealed Arthur’s Inheritance and that he will be king. While the crowd rests in disbelief, Arthur tried to perform the miracle by pulling out the sword and putting it in again several times. While many were filled with anger and left, others like King Leodegrance saluted Arthur for his accomplishment. Thus Arthur achieved the adventure of the sword that day and entered into his birthright of royalty.

As people were filled with disbelief and anger about their upcoming king, the Archbishop held three more trials of the sword, where Arthur continued to succeed while others failed. After that Arthur was crowned King of all of Britain, splitting the kingdom into those who followed and those who fought against him. Two wars were held, the second one called the Battle of Bedegraine. Both wars were won by Arthur and thus he was accepted at long last as the Overlord of all of Britain. He established the Roundtable, a court of worthy knights.

King Arthur and his court made pause within the forest. The knights then present at that court were Sir Gawaine, Sir Ewaine, Sir Kay, Sir Pellias, Sir Bedevere and Sir Caradoc, Sir Geraint, Sir Bodwain of Britain, Sir Constantine of Cornwall, Sir Brandiles, and Sir Mador de la Porte. While Arthur and his companions rests, the wounded knight Sir Myles arrives and tells of his story how he was beaten by the Sable Knight, who resides at his castle in the forest. When the Sable Knight fought successfully against someone, he takes the shield of his opponent and puts it on a tree as a warning. King Arthur treated the knight’s wounds, but Sir Myles dies nevertheless. Griflet, the knight’s scarce seeks revenge. Arthur confers a knighthood on Griflet, so he can fight against the Sable Knight. As he failed, he returned to Arhur, who himself now takes the challenge on beating the Sable Knight. As Arthur approaches the Sable Knight’s castle, three young maidens are playing with a ball in front of a lawn, tossing the ball. The maidens warn Arthur that he should not fight and at least rest awhile. Arthur rests with the maidens and gets something to eat, as he afterwards approaches the castle. As Arthur goes further he is confronted with three bandits harassing an old man. Arthur scares them away. The old man is in fact Merlin and thanks Arthur for the rescue. Together they mounted the horse, riding to the Sable Knight’s Castle.

Arthur and Merlin ride through the forest till they arrive at the castle at a glen. In front of the castle’s yawn is the apple tree decorated with the shields of whom lost against the Sable Knight. Beneath the tree is another shield, which Arthur smites to call out the Sable Knight. The Sable Knight enters the yawn from his castle. Arthur and the Sable Knight greet each other and start jousting with the Sable Knights equipment brought from his castle by his pages. As they fight, Arthur gets badly wounded and falls of his horse. Arthur wants to continue fighting on feet, so he dismantles the Sable Knight. As the Sable Knight falls, his helmet came off and his true identity is revealed: Sir Pellinore. Sir Pellinore is filled with anger against Arthur, as he wanted to claim the throne. They continue fighting, but Arthur looses and breaks his sword. Merlin cast a sleeping spell on Sir Pellinore and takes Arthur to escape. As Merlin knows of a hermit nearby he takes Arthur there. The hermit is known for his saintliness so it happens that some may cross is path in pilgrimage. As Arthur is treated by the hermit, Lady Guinevere of Cameliard and her court arrives searching for the hermits help, due to her pages sickness. Lady Guinevere talks to Merlin and helps Arthur to heal his wounds with a leech. Lady Guinevere departed, after seeing Arthur. Arthur  recovered from his wounds within three days.

As Arthur wants to reencounter Sir Pellinore, Merlin advises him to not battle without a sword, so Merlin mentions Arroy, the Land of Enchantment, where therein is an enchanted lake to be found. Within the lake a woman’s arm has been seen, holding a powerful sword. Excalibur. So Arthur and Merlin depart from the hermits place on the way to the Land of Enchantment. When they entered the woodlands of Arroy, they meet a white doe with a golden collar around its neck. They follow the white doe to an open space, where is a little lawn and a bower. Before the bower is a table spread with refreshments. They meet a page all in green, with black hair and black eyes. Merlin and Arthur are invited to refresh thyself. After the break they depart and end up at the lake which therein is a arm holding a sword. As Arthur thinks of how he approaches the arm best, a strange Lady comes forth. Arthur tells the Lady of the Lake of his loss against Sir Pellinore, and the Lady is willing to help. The Lady of the Lake summons a boat, which Arthur uses to approach the sword. As he gets it, Merlin and Arthur go to the Sable Knight for another fight, which he wins, but instead of killing Sir Pellinore, Arthur makes him his ally.  After the battle, Merlin tells Arthur, that the sword is enchanted and that its miraculous sheath prevents him from taking any damage. First hurt in pride, he accepts the gift afterwards, which he uses to protect his kingdom.

The little flavor – Merlin is evil!

If you came this far, you really like the legends of Arthur, or you just skipped the whole passage. Either way, thank you for coming this far! As we now have a background of the story, we can adapt it to our game. As I, Matthias Voigt, was responsible for the narratives, it was important for me to stay as true as possible to the story, but we also wanted to put some flavor into it, without moving away to far from the true story. So, we came up with the idea of switching between the adaption of the story and our own interpretation within the game. In this way, the player can have some insights on Arthur’s adventure, as written by Howard Pyle, while experiencing our own interpretation of the story.

To do this, we implemented the feature of switching between the normal, adapted world of King Arthur and our demon world. We kept the story, but added some twists to it, as Merlin is in fact an evil demon, using Arthur to recruit demons for the Roundtable. Why is Merlin evil? He came up with the prophecy, that King Uther will die and that someone worthy of the throne – so in this case Arthur – will bring peace to the realm. Imagine Merlin just came up with the prophecy as an evil plan to become the true monarch of Great Britain and Arthur is nothing but a marionette which Merlin uses for his plans. As Arthur fulfills the prophecy by pulling out the legendary sword out of its anvil, he becomes king and rules over Britain. Merlin as his adviser will guide Arthur and manipulates him for his own good.

As Arthur pulled out the sword out of its anvil, he gains the power to switch between two worlds.

By switching between these two worlds, we are able to tell the player two different stories. The story written by Howard Pyle, and our own interpretation with a little twist! As the player switches between the states, he can dynamically interact with his surroundings. While in the human world lies a corpse, it transforms into a ghost in the demon world with which Arthur can talk to, helping him to solve puzzles.

Old-English dialogues!

As the game is very text-driven, the player can experience the true story of the original work.

As the game writer of the team, I wanted to stay true to the original as best as I could. One thing to do this for me was to write the dialogues in an old-English style. When the player travels around the human world, as while he talks to characters in the demon world, they would reply in a more casual way, which, apart from the visuals, sets a contrast between both worlds even more.

Level Design

As the game designer of our team I came up with the idea of switching between two worlds to have the adapted world and our interpreted world. That also means I needed to design the levels in a way they are compatible with each other’s worlds. I designed map charts for each chapter and added the most important objects and characters.                      Level chart for the second chapter.

For the level design I used the locations from the original story and tried to connect them with each other in a senseful way, so that the placer can move freely between the locations, talk to the characters and solve puzzles, by interacting with them, switching to their demon form, carrying items and using them maybe with another character or object.

Still in Development!

We  have to put in much effort for our game as it is still in development, but we will work hard to make this game an enjoyable adventure for the player. There is still much dialogue to be written, many assets to be made and many coding to be done, but as we will work even harder from now on, we hopefully make a game which the player greatly enjoys. Thank you for reading, I appreciate it! If you want to test the game yourself, feel free to download and test our 0.5 version of the game.

Check out the game at: https://koskoheiwa.itch.io/arthur

University of Applied Sciene Europe, Dessauer Str. 3-5 ,10963 Berlin

#ExploringWorlds @ Narrative Design with Prof. Csongor Baranyai