The Forest - Update #1 (Patreon)

Good evening everyone. Hope you're having a good one.

A quick check in on the video-essay project. I'm finding myself pretty enthused and things are going pretty well, I think.

I'm currently in the process of constructing a structure for the script. Planning where all the points need to be setup. And this week I'll be completing that process and starting to flesh out the script properly.

As an extreme overview of the video structure:

 An introduction to open-world survival games. And how they operate. With the claim that many developers want "put in a story". And wondering how that would even work in a genre defined by the absence of developer direction.

A look at Subnautica (2014). An open-world survival game that did retroactively add a story post release. And what sort of challenges they faced doing so.

A quizzical comparison/plot walkthrough of The Forest (2014). To see how they decided to solve the same challenges. Or if they faced their own.

Some dives down the strange rabbit holes of development logic. Which reveals that something is drastically odd with the way this game is made.

From there is all somewhat unravels. I hope in an interesting way.

So there's roughly about 28 hours of stream footage recorded for The Forest. And I've scrubbed through about 19 hours so far. Making hundreds of "Markers" in Premiere to select things that are interesting - either as visuals for the video-essay or as examples to cite. And my wall is a collage of colourful post-it notes for the plot. As I try to unravel what connects to what. What is a clue and what isn't, etc.

If anything, bizarrely, I find myself extremely interested in playing The Forest 2 on launch at the start of next year. As I think that might be a fascinating contrast. Assuming the story is there from the start. Seeing the same (or similar) team work without the same restrictions placed on them - adding a narrative retroactively.

So a fairly brief Patreon update I'm afraid. I'm working to try and finish the script plan. Before writing a script based on that plan. Much to do. But I think it's going smashingly.