17/09/2015 Bibliography,Game Proposal

Spent today retracing all my images for the bibliography.

I also filled out the visual sections to finish off the proposal and annotated them.

Visual Reference Materials:

Source Narrative Adaption:

Above is all the ideas I was tossing around about gameplay mechanics and feel of the game,whats important and what the themes are etc.Listing down what I wanted to get across gave me a good feel for what I wanted for gameplay and story.

Blog Entry 11/08/2015:

I've been thinking of the game as this 2D side scroller that unravels Bronze past and what is going on in the world around her,while dealing with her state of being a host to the rock element that is consuming her.

I was advised to look at Fez,which was interesting and It may help with certain aspects,mechanics.

I feel like a hub town could be made with this so you could explore it.

It could help the game be less linear.

The game needs some sort of incentive to explore,maybe power ups or unlockables like how precursor orbs were floating around in Jak and when you got all in the area you got a reward to progress the game.

Power cells in Jak were often from beating a boss,getting through an area,collecting a certain number of items,completing jobs for npcs,or just sitting it hard to reach places.

Implementing to reason to explore, I feel thats important to a game.

This Blog post was narrowing my ideas down into my initial concept.

Blog entry 12/08/2015:

Before Game Cutscene)

Before the game starts there is a cutscene of a silhouetted figure walking slowly through the desert in a storm.The figure begin to crumble and parts of the character blow away into the wind as rocks and dust.The figure then falls to the ground and becomes solid rock.The figure's glowing eyes begin to dim and the screen goes black.You hear a roar of something not quite human and sounds of rocks crashing and moving around.

(Title Screen)

“Bronze Origin”

(Intro Cutscene/Interactive Cutscene)

(Visual description)

You wake up as Bronze,a girl with one arm made of rocks.

You are in a rocky desert environment.There is the ruins of some long abandoned town ruins nearby,partially consumed by the sands.There is no one around.

(Dialogue/Text)

A voice begins to speak to you.”Ah..finally..you are awake.”

Bronze looks around confused. “Who are you? Where are you?”

Rock Element:“ Bronze,Look at your arm..I am part of you..You are my host”

Bronze:“Bronze?”

Rock Element:“The name I have given you.. The past long forgotten”

Rock Element:”That is unimportant now..Let us get going..This place..unsettles me”

(Gameplay Tutorial)

Learning mechanics by using the rock arm platforming through the sandy town ruins.

This post was an attempt to split interactive gameplay and the story cutscenes in my story.Gave me some insight on potential problems with communication between characters.

Blog entry 17/08/2015:

The keyboard mouse combo could work perfectly with Bronze and her hand.

The movement would be through the keyboard and the hand mechanics like aiming at where to grab/grapple could be with the mouse.

Mouse could help immensely with precision when shooting/throwing projectiles.

This would help with the idea of separation,the fact that bronze is two entities,both her hand and body.

The mouse would be both your right hand in game,and right hand on the mouse for the player.

This post helped narrow down controls and platform that could best fit the game immersion wise,making the player feel more like they are the avatar,helping engage the player in the story.

Other Games/Media:

This moodboard narrowed my ideas for the main character Bronze,How other stories and games went about similar relationships to Bronze and the Golem,as well as how her visual design can add to her character.

This moodboard for the Dark Elfen narrowed down the personality and visual traits I wanted the Dark Elfen to show,mostly for the antagonist Parade Avalon and her curse marks.Parade is a corrupt high class Elfen and I wanted to get that across in her design.

The Golem moodboard helped me realize how intertexual the Golem race was with things such as titans and elementals,and whats the differences were between my idea and those were.The moodboard narrowed down what kinds of Golems there would be and how they act and function.Through my research I remembered a myth about Clay golems,which I named the race Golem.

The Rera Ruins gave me insight on the atmosphere I wanted to get across.This location is the center point of the story as many events of Bronzes life before the inciting incident occured here which I would like to give micronarrative hints of.

This environment is being designed around Bronze's character.

The Abandoned Mists moodboard is similar to the Rera ruins but at a much later part of the story.This environment is being designed to reflect Parade Avalon's nature and backstory,what I wanted to get through to the player. Just like how Rera Ruins would reflect Bronze's character,This environment would do the same for Parade but before we even come across her in the story,which leaves a lot for the players imagination.

The props helped me narrow down how Bronze interacts with the game world,to reflect her destructive nature.The Props would be quite environmental rather than constructed to show how disconnected she is with civilization.Any architecture would be abandoned and in ruins.Which helps my tight schedule as I haven't fully developed the cultures of the world as of yet.

This target moodboard helped me understand what aesthetics and story ideas would get across to to my audience best and what they like informed me of how I should go about designing this interactive narrative.

Familiarity in gameplay and similar themes in story were a big focus.

Bronze's Concept Art:

This concept art guided me towards Bronze's design which is still in progress but has been refined to a core idea so far.Balancing focus between gameplay functionality,atmosphere and story has proven difficult but has narrowed down enough to get the general idea.Choosing a silhouette that works for the point of view and a easily indentifyable rock hand was the focus of these 3 concepts.

Prop Concept Art:

These concepts show how bronze interacts with the envrionment and how the mechanic of her rock hand assist her in solving puzzles and changing/traversing the environment to progress.Core mechanics shown here are pushing/pulling objects,wall jumping,punching and breaking/knocking walls down.

These concept thumbnails get across how barren,worn down and hostile the Rera Ruins are,and use similar shapes to bronze showing this is her homeland now.

Broken buildings being consumed by sand show time creeping up on the abandoned town.

These thumbnails tested the colours and their effect on the atmosphere of the desert.The colours match Bronzes further integrating the two

Mock up Concepts:

These concepts turn the thumbnails into what I think the Rera Ruins and Bronze would look like in the gameplay's perspective.


Compilation:

Here is all the silhouette and thumbnail concept art compiled to get an overall idea of the aesthetics.Changes will be made in order to refine the style to be cohesive together.