Elmo Sketches: February 2013

The main part of the narrative I've focused on is the characters and their relationships within the story. The events and reactions that take place will be the way these relationships evolve and form the events and progression of the game.

Characters:

Nancy Beiman explains in her book 'prepare to board: creating character and story for animated features and shorts' how a story should be told by the most interesting characters, page 10:

The story I will be using is based on my own pets relationship. The characters in the story will include:

Cats (the two main characters: adult and kitten)
Snake (another pet)
Dogs (big/small/puppies)

I had struggled to think of a good motive and meaning within the story. The main event of the narrative sets the older cat off on a journey to find the missing kitten. I had been using a typical home life, with the animals being ordinary house pets in an urban area. After a lot of thought I knew this idea was struggling to find real meaning within it.

Whilst working on a separate project, designing logo's I was looking at wizards. This is when the concept evolved into a more plausible idea: making the pets wizards familiars. The fantasy setting gives more freedom with design the settings and the possibility of more actions/options for game play.

Can still keep a Christmas theme, but adapt slightly for the virtual game world, to winter festivities. This may possibly be less restricting on the marketing of the game.

Over the winter holidays, I completed the dissertation on the necessity of narrative within games. The results of this suggest in the future, narrative will coincide with games and form a unique partnership in video games as character does within story, whereby each supports the other, existing as a unit.

The feedback from the final animatic for specialist study 1, showed that even with the most basic of visuals, the design (lighting/colour/composition) of the scenes was able to effectively portray the mood, atmosphere and message of the animation. With the feedback it received I'm happy to finish this piece, for the competition, "Picturing Time" - Worshipful Company of Clock-makers.

Over the holidays I had a accumulated a few ideas and concepts for narrative, specifically designed for games. Again, most of these concepts involve animal characters. For the purposes of developing my practical animating skills, I have decided to go with a simple story concept, based on my own pets at home.

The type of game created, will influence the narrative form used within the game. Part of the research in the dissertation involved looking closely at narrative forms within games, and the types of games that are characteristically most compatible with each form.

For example: A linear narrative form would be well suited to a game with specific actions, such as a fighting games or driving games. The use of cut-scenes in between levels would be a common practice in narrative for this type of game. The nature of the levels means that the progression of the game relies on completing or 'winning' the level. Therefore this makes the linear narrative an easy form to incorporate into this type of game. Both forms can exist as its own single entity. The combination here, simply reinforces the two ideas and makes it a more appealing concept.

Anyway! here is the briefing for this project. This time it is my own brief, so have more freedom over content and its meaning.

Specialist Study 2 – Proposal

AIMS- GOALS/PLAN

The aim of this project is to design character and story that can be used for a 2D game, which can be played on a mobile device. The outcome will include character sheets and walk cycles, animations for cut scenes, outline of story and details of the what should be included in the game.

PROPOSAL

The story/game will be for a family audience. So there will be certain limitations, making this suitable for a younger audience, whilst maintaining appeal for an older audience.

The story will be based on animals (cats), log line/high pitch – Cat puts aside differences and heroically searches for missing kitten.

The characters and animation will be 2D (pencil/After effects) however, will explore 3D options for character and game.

I will use a free game engine such as:

construct 2,
Adventure Game Studio,
Panda3D,
Unity

The type of game will help determine the narrative flow used in the game, and the types of levels. I will most likely want to include a 3D element

The finished result should include:

Finalized character sheets
Walk cycles (2D/3D)
Opening animated sequence 1-2 mins (2D/possibly 3D)
Game design document (high concept/concept art/level designs/sounds/
Demo level of the game

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

Determine which game types are suited to which narrative form.
Develop and perfect principles surrounding character, narrative and story-boarding techniques for games.
Develop game Design Document, that could be used to complete production of the game.
Develop drawing skills and principles, finding ways to incorporate this style into digital means.
Create 2D/3D characters and animations

Tasks

2D animation task:

Drawing and development work for characters and scenes.
Story-board/script opening scene/character trailer
Record script (voice over)
Animatic for opening scene with sound
Final 1-2 min animation for opening scene

3D animation task:

Model characters in 3D
Rig characters (template rig?)
Animate walk, jump and other action cycles
Use chosen game engine to build game menu and demo level

If there is time I will aim to reproduce the 2D animation in 3D. There is also the possibility that I may find a way to combine the two mediums.

Elmo Sketches

Monday, 11 February 2013

Game Design Document

Sunday, 10 February 2013

Setting

Specialist Study 2 - Proposal

Friday, 8 February 2013

Specialist Study 2: Story and Character for Games