More main character

His name is Dunderhead or D.H for short

The 3/4 was an earlier design that had a terrible head of afrohair. That was quickly changed to be  hat with ears that could be expressive.

Game assets for GDD

Just some models of treasure made for GDD

Grue front, back and side

An update of my grue.

 Grue front back and side and also with its mouth open. The mouth emits a bright piercing light. The grue can come in all shades and colours with different patterning denoting what level it comes from.

Grue silhouettes

These are the silhouettes for the Grue. I ended up choosing the bulbous headed spider-legged design because I liked the idea that that entire bulbous head was a mouth ready to open up and eat whoever came along. The spider legs were there to add a level of creepiness.

Zork Character silhouettes

Some silhouettes of my main character. I was looking at potentially having a child or a woman as my main character but I enjoyed the look of a lanky 20-something male (which i think many video game players may relate to) and decided to focus on that
The stand out feature in the third set of silhouettes is the inclusion of high visibility bands. This is my idea of having a UI that doesnt plaster the screen with clutter that is immersion breaking. Its a little bit Tron inspired.

Composition

This picture of a boat uses the rule of thirds compositional guideline used by photographers. You can see that the Sun is using the top left corner and the reflection is in the box below. That the pebbled beach makes up the bottom third and that the boat takes pride of place in the middle thirds. It is a rule that establishes how uncluttered a good photo should be and this photo shows how it is done.

 In this painting the viewpoint of the viewer isn't focused on the view and is in fact located inside the mouth of a cave giving the painting a very claustrophobic feel. The use of oranges and other warm colours also give a feeling of heat to the picture. The brushstrokes in the sky give off the effect of immense heatwaves or smoke and with the sky turning into a hotter colour as it gets closer to the ground, gives the impression of the ground itself being unbearably hot.
 The golden colour of the ground suggests that it is also evening, as the sun gets closer to the horizon and its light gets redder. Of the two men in the foreground one of them is relaxing, lying on the stone wall giving the impression that he is tired and strengthening the assumption that it is getting nearer the end of the day.

This is Van Gogh's Starry Night. The amount of curving lines in the sky give the strong impression of movement. That stars and moon are dancing. It looks like there is a lot more motion in the air than on the ground. It is interesting that the picture is set at night. Is it an attempt by the artist to show the stillness of night time by making the sky look so active and alive that by comparison the land is dead? There is a lot of the colour blue being used. This is because night time light is a dark blue and Van Gogh is showing that it is night time despite the bright lights in the sky of this painting. The blue makes the orange of the stars, moon and lit windows in the houses pop out and catch the eye of the viewer thanks to the contrasting nature of those colours.

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I was not aware that Starry Night was already included in the lecture as I missed it. So I will do an additional look at Salvidor Dali's Elephant Legs.

This painting is made incredibly surreal through the use of the long limbs of the elephants. With their huge bodies and tiny unsupportative legs the viewer knows that this place is strange and alien. The animals tower over a man in the foreground. Naked save for a cross and looking like he is pleading for his life. The viewer feels like this man has nothing and is begging for his life as he is on one bent knee, bent backwards away from the terrifying beasts. The barren plain that appears impossible flat on the straight line of the horizon seems to suggest an infinitely sprawling world. This is definitely a surreal place and not a pleasant one. Despite the cheery blue sky, the top corners of the picture shows a black sky hidden just out of site of the viewer.

Light

In this image you can see the light from the sun coming in through the forest canopy. There is a lot of sub-surface scattering of the light as it looks like a lot of leaves themselves are glowing. This is causing a lot of green light to fill up the photo despite the sun being the only light source and throwing white light down. The amount of light is also making the trees look black when they are probably more likely a brown colour.

This is an HDR photo, done by taking multiple exposures of the same image and then manipulating them to get a striking image such as this. It has also had the effect of negating one of the problems with a photo like this. It has removed the transparency that water gains the closer it gets to the camera, due to the light bouncing off it at at a deeper angle than it is at the far away shore. The reason the reflection is sharper at the far edge of the water is because the light reflecting off of it is coming in at a shallower angle.

 The light here is coming from the lava. You can see that the light is being scattered through the smoke. Smoke is made up of solid particles and the glow you're seeing are the electrons of light hitting those solid particles and bouncing around, thats why the light is less intense than at the lava source.

What is a coherent world.

A Coherent story world is a environment with a set of rules and stereotypes that come together to make a immersive story world for the player to interact with. A coherent world is necessary in a game to make the player feel immersed in the narrative of the game and makes the story understood by the player. This is done through the use of genre signifiers and stereotypes that can be interpreted by the player. It is through the "narrative genre" that the player understands the laws and rules of the game world that they are currently playing. The use of genre also allows for the game to break away from the normal rules of reality. A player will understand that a fantasy game allows for magic despite not being a wizard themselves in real life. For example in a game with a western genre the player can expect to see horses, underdeveloped towns and bandits everywhere and maintain his suspension of disbelief. The signs and stereotypes of this genre will immerse the player and create a game play experience which the player will enjoy.

What is genre.

I contend that video game genre is split into two parts. First the "narrative genre" which is what creates the coherent world, contains the music, art assets, and plot. This genre is what will immerse the player, and is the more important genre when it comes to development as it is this which will help create the suspension of disbelief that allows the player to keep playing the game. The second genre is the "game play genre" which is how the player interacts with the story world. First person shooters, real time strategies and Role playing games are examples of a game play genre and are the focus for the players interactions with the game. The game play genre is flexible in that it can be attached to any variety of narrative genre and still work. It just effects how the player interacts with the narrative. An example would be Halo Wars, a 2009 strategy game set in the Halo series of games which are well known for being first person shooters. The game sold well and was praised for having "the halo feel" despite being a drastic departure from the standard first person shooter genre for which the series was best known.

How does genre make a coherent world.

Saussure had the notion of the linguistic sign which is the idea of signs containing a signifier and the signified. The signifier represents the concept of the signified. For example winged horses, decorative metal armour, and pointy ears on a character are all signs that indicate a fantasy game set in a realm of swords and sorcery. These signs can be looked at as "generic stereotypes". Something that a player instinctively knows as belonging within the world that the genre helped create. The generic stereotype can be anything within the game world; characters, music, sound effects, game assets etc. As long as the narrative genre maintains these signs and stereotypes then the coherency of the world is safe and the player will remain immersed and interested in the game. Straying from this would have a negative effect on the player's suspension of disbelief. An alien appearing in a game that maintains a fantasy flavoured narrative genre would seem out of place and would pull the player out of the story world and make them aware that they are sitting down and playing a game. As a side note it is possible to mix and match genres, sci-fi and fantasy for example. However there is a danger in doing that, as the mix can be quite archaic and may not translate well to the player, having a negative effect on the coherence of the story world.

Presentation draft

The use of genre in games.

Making the arguement that games have two genres

In games there are two genres at play. Genre in story-telling terms and genre in gameplay terms.
On one hand you have Genres such as world war 2, Space, Fantasy. The genre here effects all the signifiers in the game, that tell the player what kind of world and what kind of rules they can expect in the game.
The gameplay genre is how the player interacts with the game, first person, role-playing, strategy. This also has signs and signifiers
These two genres can be mixed and matched, for example you can have a fantasy role playing game, or a fantasy real time strategy. The genres form the story world and the narrative the player experiences.
The "Narrative" genre is the one that shapes the game world entirely. The art design, the plot, the characters. Basically the narrative genre acts the same way for the game as genre would in a film. World War 2, Science Fiction, Fantasy etc. This is the genre thats important to look at from a designers point of view as it will convey the story to the player.
The Gameplay genre is basically how the player interacts with the world and has its own signs and signifiers seperate from those of the narrative genre. These are the genres that the game is typically going to be identified by. First person shooting, real time strategy etc.
Despite the gameplay genre being how the player interacts with the narrative genre I contend that gameplay genres are interchangable and dont have a strong effect on the coherence of the game world.