Evaluation 02

My research has been quite slow and I haven’t been able to finish the orrery project because I haven’t planned my time accordingly. I am however, finding more information about the Wild West genre which is helping me  shape my design document and come to some decisions about my concept designs.

Wild West Films

The Western or Wild West genre was developed in the 1930’s and 1940’s America during Hollywood’s  so called “Golden Age”. The films and books that are based around the Western theme are based at a time in the United States history when people set out between the 1783–1920 to make settlements and money in the western territories which were largely unexplored wilderness.

Western films tend romanticise and exaggerate the violence and life around this time because of many of the stories that had developed around the time, this is called the “Myth of the West”. The Western genre is so well defined that it even has its own character archetypes specific, such as the lawman, outlaw and cowboy.

Research Report Subject

Along with the Creative Practice part of BA3 there is also research and a research report to complete by January, I have put a lot of thought over the question I will like to research and answer.

I have chosen to ask the question: History: How is it utilized in Video Game Development? I will be researching how the use of historical references has been used to create narratives, aesthetics and political views. I will also be looking at how historical references have been used in other media like films, TV series and books and how these techniques have come through to video games.

I will be researching genres like Westerns and Steam-punk and how these have been used in different media. For example Westerns although based on a specific time have there own character archetypes e.g lawmen, outlaws and drifters. You can watch many different westerns and see these characters come up every single time.

Also I will be looking at how historical references have been used to design the aesthetics of video games: e.g Bioshock Infinite and Steampunk.

Games Art and Design: Year 3

This is my final year at NUA and the unit BA3 is the last project I will complete. It will last all year so I have to choose a subject that will interest me for all that time. I have chosen concept art as my specialism and much like the last project I did in year 2 I will have to write a comprehensive learning agreement on what my project will be about and why I have chosen that particular subject. I will also have to complete a 5,000 word research report, which I will be posting the research here instead of the contextual studies blog so that it is easier to read through all of the research I find.

Directed Study: Feedback

Following our conference, we have been given some feedback from Gina Jackson about where our game design could lead. The main point was to look at further research into the subjects we are focusing on. In Wizard of Oz there are good and bad witches, Gina made the point that men are not always the ones holding women back sometimes women hold other back. Because emotions are extremely complex and people don’t always do the right thing even if the right thing is obvious.

It may also be interesting to look up lots of different fairy stories and see how they could influence our work more.

 

 

Directed Study: Progress

I have been doing work for the conference. I have finished an environment piece that I feel could be the main characters house or the start of the game.

I have also done some diagrams on how the cat levels would work. The cat would jump through onto the level as the level would continually move and if the player hits a wall they have to go back to a checkpoint. 

I have also done a sketch of a boss design but I don’t think it really suits the game and needs a bit more work.

This work is all going towards the conference.

Characters Overview BA6

I am going to do the following characters in further development for BA6:

Brother – Young Soldier. He is trying to get his sister through the wilderness to somewhere safe. He is fighting off the monsters that are coming after them. He is brave but is constantly worried they will not make it. Quick on his feet, more like a scout. Has a dog who helps him.

Sister – Young girl that can use calming and distracting magic that will confuse enemies. She has a fascination with wisp-mother which can sometimes lead you astray.

Atlas the dog – Usually holds a lantern to help fight off the darkness. He is more in tune with when the monsters are coming and will bark when they arrive.

Wisp-mother – An elegant but dangerous creature who tries to take you away from the path. Signified by the will-o’-the-wisps.

Bull – Usually calm signified by calming colours, can be angered will be signified by reds and teeth showing.

Bears and wolves – Other creatures that will attack straight away.

I will do character development for most of these probably not all of them will be in final images.

 

Directed Study Group

I have found two other people to work with for directed study so we will all be focused on different roles. This will hopefully make it better for coming up with ideas and metaphors for gender equality. I will be focused on art for the game and someone is working on the presentation and games design document, so they will look at the game mechanics.

Directed Study: Gender Equality

Games can serve many purposes from education to entertainment. They allow you to explore environments and interact with characters in ways that would be impossible in the real world, providing multi-faceted experiences; reflecting a variety of viewpoints.

Challenges women face in the games industry:

• I feel I constantly have to challenge assumptions.
• Being judged based on stereotypes about women.
• Being considered incapable of doing a certain job because I am a woman.
• Lower pay due to gender, lack of career progression opportunities.
• Old boys club – being excluded.
• My voice being heard.
• The Glass Ceiling.

Brief: Against this background of gender imbalance, your challenge is to use one of the themes above as the inspiration for a game.

Use metaphors that would help the majority in a work place to appreciate these challenges so they can develop empathy for the situation and potentially resolve these challenges.

Ideas on Project

I have had to think about what my specialism project will be about, I have decided that mainly it will be focusing on concept character designs with environment backgrounds.

In terms of a focus for the meaning behind the concepts I have several ideas; Look at isolation and how people can be treated differently due to race or gender, Dreams and Fears could also be an interesting focus because of the amount of different concepts I could look at, this also links to mental states and how these affect our perceptions on the world. I also thought about looking at the representation of Limbo/Purgatory because this could be quite out there in terms of concepts.

After some thought I think I will focus on dreams, fears and the mental state, this means I will have to look at how these have been represented in art, games and films and how I can utilize these to give an interesting end product.