A short story beat sequence for a video game a couple of friends and I are developing for the Oregon Games Project Challenge under the moniker "Deadlock Games"
1. OPENING IMAGE: This is fairly self-explanatory; it’s the scene in the movie that sets up the tone, type and salvo of the film.Man is passed out, he wakes up on an empty, moving train. He picks up a journal clearly with missing pages. He studies it. 2. THEME STATED: Usually spoken to the main character, often without his knowing what is said will be vital to his surviving this tale. It’s what the movie is “about.”
A man reads a journal to find a diary about a young waitress aboard a fancy train. The girl is excited about her first job, finally making money and traveling the world. She talks about independence and how she is in full control of her life and decisions now.
3. SET-UP: The first 2 pages of a 10-minute script must not only grab our interest, and studio reader’s attention--but introduce or hint at introducing every character in the A story.
“Where am I?” The man thinks to himself as he walks through the first train car. Soft background music plays as the player explores the environment. The player finds a key and enters into the next car.
4. CATALYST: The telegram, the knock at the door, the act of catching your wife cheating on you, and suddenly you know your life has changed. It’s the first “whammy.”
Once they enter the new car, a paper from the journal can be found left at a desk. The page marks 31. The waitress writes frantically, the handwriting so much worse than before, about how it isn’t set up and how it isn’t ready. After he reads the page, the train bumps around a little bit and another page falls on the ground. Labeled page 4, the girl writes about her job and what she has to do. She must set up a party for the rich passengers of the train in a different car
5. DEBATE: The section of the script, be it scene or a series of them. When a hero doubts the journey he must take.
The man realizes he must do what the diary says and follows the instructions to set up the first party in car 4
6. BREAK INTO TWO: Act Two, that is, and it is where we leave the “thesis” world behind and enter the upside down, “Antithesis” world of Act Two. Let the journey begin.
The man begins collecting plates and following instructions from the first day. Setting out plates, cups, and tablecloths. The man returns to the waiter’s quarters. Party music and chatter can be heard from the character.
7. B STORY: The “love” story traditionally, but actually where discussion about the theme of a good movie is found.
After the man wakes up, he explores the waiter’s quarters and finds more letters from the waitress. TBD on what they say. Basically, they will introduce more of her character and what her life was like on the train. How she fell in love with a rich boy named Norman
8. FUN & GAMES: Where we find the “set pieces,” trailer moments, and the “promise of the premise.
The time winds down, the man doesn’t have unlimited time anymore to set up for the party
9. MIDPOINT: The dividing line between the two halves of a movie, the part where “fun and games” end, where the “stakes are raised,” and where the going gets tough for our hero(es).
One night, the man fails to set up the party. Everything goes dark, it becomes cold, and the man runs back to his quarters. He hears voices and murmurs, but no music this time. He gets up close to the door to get a peek outside and he sees floating rags and bones
10. BAD GUYS CLOSE IN: Both internally (problems inside the hero’s team) and externally (as actual bad guys tighten their grip), that part of the film where pressure is applied.
Life is on the line, the man needs to get off the train. He’s gone to most cars, but he can’t get to the caboose. After some puzzles, he finds a way into the caboose, hopefully finding a way to stop it.
11. ALL IS LOST: The “False Defeat” and the place where you find the “whiff of death”--because something must die here.
But instead, he only finds bones in the caboose. No one could stop the train, man feels bad.
12. DARK NIGHT of the SOUL: Why hast thou forsaken me, Lord? That part of the script where the hero has lost all hope.
The man has lost all hope, but he finds one more page, the final page in the journal. The waitress talks about her grief, not being able to get off the train. But she realizes that if she could get to the front of the train, she could stop it and escape the train. She is the only one with a key to the door.
13. BREAK INTO THREE: But not for too long! Thanks to a fresh idea, new inspiration, or a last-minute word of advice from the love interest in the B story, the hero chooses to fight.
The man realizes he must go to the front of the train and figure out how to stop it. 14. FINALE: the synthesis of the two worlds: from that which was, and that which has been learned, the hero forges a new world.
The train doors open, it’s finally daytime now. You are in an old western town in the middle of nowhere. They look around and then notice the ghosts exiting the train. They begin to fade the further they walk toward the town. The last person to exit is the waitress who looks at the man, thanks him, and moves on.
15. FINAL IMAGE: The opposite of the Opening Image, proving that a change has occurred. And since ALL stories are about “transformation,” the change had better be dramatic.
Man passes out, wakes up in the middle of nowhere, train gone, town gone. Only thing left was a paper that reads “Good Job”.
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