Games As Art Evaluation

Evaluation

When the Games As Art project began, I started to research games which i found to be unique in their own ways. I looked into: Gone home, Flower, Journey, Neverending Nightmares, Kraven Manor and The Long Dark. Although my ideas didn't link to these games much i still wanted to look into the six games as each one has a very unique and different experience for each person who plays them.

After my research was finished, I thought about what i wanted to be the main experiences for the player. I decided to choose first person experience, freedom to explore, unique antagonist, unknown ending and hidden secrets. The reason why i chose the above experiences is because i think it will give each player a different feeling towards my game and each person will come out with different ideas about what the ending of the game is. Afterwards i began to get story ideas down, I came up with three ideas my first idea was a hostage situation, my second idea was escaping convict/mental asylum and my final idea was missing friend.

I chose to create concept work for my second idea, the reason why i chose this idea over the other two is because I felt I could create something really unique and very different. The other two ideas seemed to predictable for me, and i wanted something more complicated for the player.
Now i had my chosen idea I wanted to put more into the idea itself, this is when i began to think about the antagonist Twitchy. I thought about what could make Twitchy a unique antagonist. I came up with three ideas which could make Twitchy a game mechanic, my first idea was to have him narrate over the game and help the player and give them guidance on where important things may be hiding but i thought this has been done before so I canceled this idea. My second idea was to have Twitchy again narrate over the game but to have him try and make the player do things they shouldn't do, basically give the player a hard time, also this time Twitchy would try and lead the character away from importation areas. I personally really liked this idea. My last idea was to have the player be able to control Twitchy so for example you could command him to open a door, distract a guard, kill somebody etc. Again i did like this idea but i felt like it had already been done. So i chose my second idea as i thought this was best suited and would help make my game unique.

As my game contains a hidden story, I now needed to think about what hidden links I should add to the game. The hidden links are: find out how long you have been in prison, written letters from you sent to your family stored in a file room, Clues which point out that Twitchy isn't real, find out what you did to end up in prison, find clues which point out that you are a patient not a convict, find a key and a riddle. The player will find these links across the playable area but must piece the hidden story together for their self's.

Now my story was coming together, I started to create concept work for Twitchy's bust.



This was my first design of Twitchy, the quick sketch on the left shows how I created the form for the face. I did like this drawing but the nose was to big and not life like at all.

These two were my second and third drawings of Twitchy, I liked the hair on the drawing on the left so I considered to use that hairstyle on my final piece. On the right i tried to create a more slightly overweight version of Twitchy but i didn't like this version as i don't think he looked tough enough to play my antagonist.






I then decided to get some nose practice in, as my previous nose drawings were very poor and didn't consist much form in that area.

These drawings of Twitchy looked slightly better in the shading part of things. But the proportions were still slightly off on the left drawing. But i did like how i created his slightly shut eye, as it gives his name a true meaning. I did like the right drawing but it was to much like Samuel Jackson from Pulp Fiction.

This is my final drawing of Twitchy from the front. I am pleased with the final

drawing, his proportions look a lot better then previous attempts, i would of liked to go back and changed the forehead shape looking at it now but i'm still please with the finished piece.

Once the front of the head was done I moved on to creating the side of the head, as it was my first time drawing the head from a side view, I did some research on ways to draw the head from a side angle to help me.

The research I found pointed me at these two ways of drawing the human head from the side. I found the second way to be more useful as i could add more detail and i could create a more realist form. I think the first way of drawing may be more useful in cartoon drawings.

I then moved onto drawing the head on a bigger scale, i found it to be much easier than the smaller drawing practice above. I just needed to add more detail and create a larger back to the head.

As you can see to the left i lined the eyes and mouth across the cheek and forehead to create the correct size for the ear. I did this because the average human ear should line up with those parts of the face.

My final drawing of the side of the head for Twitchy. I am pleased with the final outcome, i manged to create a detailed inner ear, i also like the shape of the nose i created. Looking at the drawing now i think i should have made the ear just a slight bit bigger.

The side of the head was complete, i now had to create the back of the head.

Here is my first attempt at drawing the back of the head. I was trying to get the right proportions and form right, i think i did okay for my first attempt.

My second attempt at drawing the back of the head, here i think the neck is too long and the trapezius muscle inst raised high enough. 

Here is my final drawing of the back of Twitchys head, I think I did okay, i would of liked to make it look more realistic looking back at it now.

All my traditional drawings were now complete for Twitchy so I decided to create a orthographic of Twitchy's bust on Photoshop. Unfortunately i didn't take screenshots or regular saves of step by step progress of the orthographic so I will try and explain as much as I can how i went about creating the piece.

To create this orthographic, i first went round each imported drawing to get the outline and minor details. I then created a basic light brown color for the base of the skin. I began from the left image, i began by shading in some details such as the wrinkles on the forehead and the cheek bone. After that I did some shading under the jaw line on the neck, i then moved to the nose and created some more shading there. Afterwards i moved to the eye and quickly created a simple looking eye ball. I then moved onto the ear, this took me the longest as the ear can be very detailed with all the different shadows cast in the canal, under the helix and by the concha. I then finished with creating the hair. 

I did the same with the front view except I've just realized I have forgotten to add wrinkles to the head, something i must not forget to do next time.

The back of the head was very simple, i just needed to add tone behind the ears and down each side of the back then create the hair.

Afterwards i began to model a 3D version of Twitchy in Mudbox.

I began my Mudbox model with a basic head to begin with.

I then added a nose to begin with, I did this as its the center of the face and i thought it might be best to build around the center. 

Afterwards i created eye sockets ready for the eye balls to sit in. The sockets on the left is slightly higher as this is the eye that has a constant twitch. 

Here i changed the jaw line of Twitchy.

I then started to create the lips, the lips took my awhile as I am very, very bad at creating the lips so I made sure i took extra long. I also adjusted the nose.

Again i'm still working on the lips and adjusting the nose.

The lips are now finished so I sent the model to Maya to create some eyes, and then sent the eyes to Mudbox.

I then started creating eye lids, I also made a slight change to the chin.

Here is my finished Mudbox model of Twitchy. To finish him off i added his hair, a few wrinkles around his twitchy eye, some chest muscle to make him more masculine and i also raised his trapezius muscle up.

I thought I would take the bust I made for Twitchy into Maya and add some light effects i did a front view with basic light.

What i did here was show his twitchy eye and hide the normal side of his face. I did this to try and show that Twitchy has two personality's one which wants to help and the other which is trying the make the player go somewhere they shouldn't.

I also created four ambient occlusion shots.

Now Twitchy's bust was finished I thought i would create two of my hidden links the first one i created was the key. I began with a few simple drawings and then created my final drawing.

Here are my first three drawings, i liked 1 and 2 the most, 3 was just to sci-fi looking for my game. So i thought i would dismiss idea 3. 

I then created this key, and i liked it that much I decided to have this as my design. It fitted the game perfectly, it looks slightly old which is what i was aiming for. 

Here is the 3D model version of the key. I am happy with the way the key looks. I looks very old and weird, which was the design i was going for.

The second link I wanted to create was the computer. Again i began by creating some simple sketch's.

Here I was just designing what i wanted the monitor, mouse and keyboard to look like.

This is my final drawing for the computer. Its a simple drawing but i'm happy with it.

This is the front view of the computer i created, the screen seems slightly which is something i would like to change in the future.

Here is the side view of the PC i created i think it looks realistic. I'm happy with the outcome.

This is the back of my computer, it looks slightly of balanced but that is because i had to take the picture with my phone as Maya wasn't rendering for me.

I think if i was to do this project again, I would have attempted to texture the two hidden links instead of using Mayas color applicator. I also think I would have tried to create a full body Mudbox model just to see if i was capable of creating something so complex in a short amount of time. Overall I am happy with the outcome of this project and I think i have learnt a lot and will use what I have learnt in future projects.

Chad Greenway.

Further Idea Devlopment

1/10/14

Idea Development

Further development for Escaping Convict

I must come up with different ideas of how i can make Twitchy a unique game mechanic. My first idea to do this is if i have him as a narrative character who follows the player around and gives them advice of where to go or where not to go or where important things might be hiding, the player doesn't have to listen to him but this is one way he could be a game mechanic. My second idea for Twitchy, is he's the players antagonist and again he narrates over the game to give you information. For example there's a dark hallway which leads to a good vantage point, but Twitchy might say "Don't go down there, you will get caught and took back to your cell" the player could listen and go a different way or the player could ignore him and go down there to be rewarded. My last idea is that the player could command Twitchy around, for example. The player could make Twitchy chuck something to distract a officer, or make Twitchy go and activate a door to open. All three of theses ideas make Twitchy a game mechanic. I think the best option is my second idea as this can trick the player because they will think Twitchy is there friend/helper but really he's trying to make things harder for them.

Ive also decided to change the game play, the main objective is to escape the prison, but there is also a deeper hidden story the player must try and find out but Twitchy is always trying to distract you and keep you moving so you cant find the hidden links. The links to the hidden story i have are;

• Find out how long you have been in prison.
• Written letters from you sent to your family stored in a file room.
• Clues which point out that Twitchy isn't real.
•  Find out what you did to end up in prison.
• Find clues which point out that you are a patient not a convict.
• Find a key and a riddle

To implement these hidden story's into my game i must think about where they would be placed in the real world and how the player could find them.

For my first link, "Find out how long you have been in prison" this link will be hidden in a room on a computer. But firstly the player must unlock the door with a key code, the code can be found on any of the near by offficers. Once this is accomplished the player must find a password in the room to unlock the computer. After the player enters the password on the computer the game cuts to a cinematic, it will be shot in a first person perspective but it will also change to a security camera for a short 5 seconds where Twitchy will not be present in the room this will be a clue to the player Twitchy isn't real. While the cinematic is playing it will show what year and date Harry first entered the prison.

For my second link "Written letters from you sent to your family stored in a file room" this hidden story will be a room with hundreds of other letters and files. If the player finds the letters it will make them think why haven't they been sent? This will make the player want to discover more of the hidden story becasue they will be questioning hidden links in my game.

My third link "Clues which point out Twitchy isn't real" the way my game will do this is by making Twitchy invisible while looking through security cameras. Players may think this is a glitch but if they take the time to put things together they will understand why he isn't there. Also if the player finds my first link to the hidden story, Twitchy will not show up in the prisons dater base.

My fourth link to the hidden story "Find out what you did to end up in prison" this link will be found in a room where all prisoners criminal records are kept, but to find Harry's record you must find the head of the department Mr. Chuckles to find the computers password. If the player finds Chuckles you can choose to pick pocket him or kill him to get the password. Twitchy being the players antagonist will be trying to force you to kill him its up to the player choose what to do.

My fifth link is "Find clues which point out that you are a patient not a convict" This link will be found in the Nurses office on her computer. She will have test after test result trying to understand more about your psychological disorder, but the test notes will not give anything away to the player about the hidden story for example it may be "Patient Harry Stone is still not reacting to medication i will continue to push further medication to see if this may change his current actions."

My final link to the hidden story is "Find a key and a riddle" to find the ending the player must find and complete all previous links to the hidden story. The player can find each link in any order, personally i think the order the player finds the links is up to them as it will only confuse them even more. Once all links are complete the player must find a key located in Dr. Predricks operation room. The key is wrapped in a piece of paper, the paper has writing which says "What has four corners and two faces, a white coat to find me, but has wood around with a hole straight through?" the answer to the riddle is door to doctors office. (14/10/14)My first idea was to make the player find the doctors office, the doctor would explain to the player everything about the hidden story and whats truly happening.  But instead there isn't an ending to my game, but after the player has found the last link to the hidden story they must understand the links they have found and put the story together for themselves. I think doing this will leave many players confused, also it will make players think of there on conclusions to the story.

14/10/14

The core idea of my game

I want the player to understand there is always more than meets the eye. I will do this by giving the player the freedom to escape the prison but if the player takes there time to explore the map they will begin to put a puzzle together and uncover a deep hidden story about the character you are playing.  

My game will have a unique antagonist which forces the player to make decisions and put them in situations for example: killing someone, ways to escape, which way to go, leading you into traps, pointing you away from hidden story links. 

Mood Page and Ideas

 Mood Page

Gone Home 

Exploration

First person experience

Hidden story

Gone Home is a first-person interactive story adventure game developed and published by The Fulbright Company. The game is set in the year 1995, the plot focuses the player to explore a mansion in Portland, Oregon and examining common household objects within the home.

Flower

Free to explore surroundings

Poetic journey

Amazing environment

Flower was intended as a spiritual successor to Flow, a previous title by Chen and That game company. In Flower, the player controls the wind, blowing a flower petal through the air using the movement of the game controller. Flying close to flowers results in the player's petal being followed by other flower petals. Approaching flowers may also have side-effects on the game world, such as bringing vibrant color to previously dead fields or activating stationary windmills. The game features no text or dialogue, forming a narrative arc primarily through visual representation and emotional cues.

Journey

Adventure 

Third person experience

Co-op play

Free to explore surroundings

Journey is an indie video game developed by That game company for the PlayStation 3. Released on March 13 2012. In Journey, the player controls a robed figure in a huge desert, the player must travel towards a mountain hiding in the distance. Another player on the same journey can also be seen and the two players can meet and assist each other, but they cannot communicate through speech or text and cannot see each other's names. The only communication the two have is a musical chime.

Neverending Nightmares

Psychological horror

2D platform

Developers battle with mental illness

Black and white art creates moody and creepy atmosphere

Neverending Nightmares is a game developed by Infinitap Games. The horror game drawing inspiration from the lead designer Matt Gilgenbach's personal struggles with obsessive compulsive disorder and depression. Matt stated that he was "trying to create that feeling of bleakness and hopelessness in Neverending Nightmares".

Kraven Manor

First person atmosphere

Tension, puzzles, threats.

Hidden secrets for hidden ending

Unique antagonist

Kraven Manor challenges the player to explore a manor and discover the mysteries that hide in its dark corners. The player has the power to dynamically alter the layout of the environment by interacting with a miniature scale model of the manor.

The Long Dark

Survival

Exploration

Simulation

Sandbox

The Long Dark is a first-person open world-survival simulation game which is currently in development by Hinterland Studio Inc for Windows and Mac OS X. The game's alpha was released through Steam on September 22, 2014. The game takes place in the Canadian wilderness where the player is a crash-landed bush pilot struggling to survive after a world wide disaster. 

Ideas

I want to create an idea which has: first person experience, freedom to explore, unique antagonist, unknown ending and hidden secrets. I think doing this will really involve the player in the story and will also give each player a different experience.

Idea 1: Hostage situation (Not Chosen)

The player controls Roger Buzzwald, your a criminal in control of a huge drug and gun dealing organisation. You have recently had a lot of trouble with a rival gang The Vagos, so you decided to fly to your cabin in the mountains of Aspin, USA with your family to have a rest from the chaos. The Vagos knew you were flying out to your cabin due to a member of your organisation giving them details. First two days pass by with no trouble, on the third night a group of masked man break into the cabin and take you and your family. You wake up in a dark basement, handcuffed to a weak pole. You must try and break free to find your family.

Idea 2: Escaping convict/Mental asylum (Creating Concept Work)

The player controls Harry, a middle aged man who has been in prison for the past 15 years for murdering his family. You have planned to escape with your cell mate Twitchy, you both paid off the block officer to release you from your cell at midnight. Once he releases you both you have 10 minutes before he reports you and Twitchy missing. Once set free from the cell it is complete up to the player for what to do next. There are many ways to try and escape; sneak, disguises, kill, hide etc. There are many different endings to this game, but all send you back to your cell apart from one. If you find the one secret ending you will discover that you are actually in a mental asylum and you have been there for the past 30 years. You always try to escape with your imaginary friend Twitchy, and each time you attempt to escape you do it different every time.

Idea 3: Missing friend  (Not Chosen)

You are Harold, a 10 year old boy who went to discover Red Dawn Creek (RDC for short). RDC is a forest which has been cut off from civilisation for the past 20 years due to mysterious problems and constant dead body's being discovered at RDC, you went with your best friend Jimmy. Jimmy is always on the outskirts of RDC and says to Harold his parents wont let him visit the little town outside RDC but never says why. Jimmy convinced Harold to enter RDC with him, Jimmy already knew a secret entrance to get into RDC. The entrance was to walk across an old wooden bridge rotting away, everything was going fine until you realised Jimmy had disappeared. You was alone, scared and lost, you needed to find Jimmy to find your way home before nightfall. The player must find Jimmy and on the way discover the untold horrors of RDC.

Induction Project

Induction Project

For our Induction project we were set to create our own post-apocalyptic character, the first half of this project was set to complete over the summer holidays. Once we arrived back to college in September we then had to create a detailed orthographic bust of our character. 

The character bust i created was a post-apocalyptic cowboy (Picture right). I did want to add a lot more detail to my character bust, but sadly i felt like i wouldn't of had time to complete the whole induction project if i was to do this. I would of liked to add a more detailed beard as its the end of the world there wouldn't be many shavers around. Also i wanted to create a mutant/burnt side of the face but again i didn't think this was possible in the time i was given. Hopefully sometime in the future a similar project is set so i can attempt these ideas.

After the orthographic drawings were completed, we then moved onto creating a 3D model made from clay like materiel. This was the first time i had attempted something like this, and i really enjoyed this part of the project. We begin by creating a human skull with the materiel, this was fun as i was learning how to sculpt the human skull also because i was leaning about all different types of bones which combine to make the human head. The other reasons why i enjoyed it was because it was something new to me so it was a challenge to get to grips with how the clay formed objects and how to shape it correctly. Also carving into the skull to form eyes, cheek bones etc. was also fun as you had to get it right otherwise it would look pretty strange. 

After we had got to grips with the materiel we then moved to creating the character bust we had drawn. But this time we used a materiel which took a few hours to go hard. We scrunched up foil into medium tight balls to start forming our heads around, after we had a basic head shape we then be gain adding bits to create a face such as noses, lips, ears, eyes. Once all these were in place we made sure they were the right size for the face, after these simple checks were compete i then added the neck and upper chest. I than added my own unique parts for my character. For me i had to create a bandanna to hang around the neck, an eye patch for my characters left eye and the final part was the hat. The hat was the hardest and longest part to add due to having to keep lifting the edges up because of it not hard enough to stand by itself. To finish the 3D model off i added the long hair and made some adjustments to complete the model. (My finished clay model below)

Now the 3D Clay model was complete we moved on to 3D Mud box which is a computer-based 3D sculpting and painting tool. On Mud box we used the preset human head sculpt to begin our character bust. I be gain the sculpt by taking away parts of the chin and neck to create a more defined look on the chin. Afterwards i started to create the lips i struggled at this point so i asked Simon for his help, he made me understand what brush is best to create the lips and other face feature. The brush he explained to me was the grab tool, with this tool it allows you to grab any spot on the surface of the sculpt and drag it around in any direction. You can decrease the radius to grab and bring out smaller parts of the sculpt or dent in parts of the sculpt, the bigger the radius of the brush the bigger the area it will grab on to. After Simon finished discussing the brush with me i continued working on the sculpt moving further up the face to the nose, eyes, brow line and ears. Once all the main features were complete i continued using the grab tool to create the cheek bones. I did this by dragging into the sculpt slightly creating a small smooth dent in the face.

Once i finished the head sculpt i sent the head bust to Maya. Here i created a bandanna to hang around the neck of my bust, i also created a cowboy hat and an eye patch. By sending my sculpt over to Maya it made proportion these objects a lot easier as i could create the three objects around the face.

After i had finished creating the bandanna, eye patch and cowboy hat. I created lights around my bust with a slight red tint to show the character does more bad than good in the post-apocalyptic scenario. Once the lights were set up i took two renders one render of the front of the character, and one render of the side. I then took them into photo shop to align them next to each other and print them off.
I also had to create a photo shop drawing of my original traditional drawing before finishing. Once the photo shop drawing was finished, i had to print it off and put my rendered views and photo shops views on black paper to hang.

I think the Induction project was fun and i also feel like i learnt a lot about bones in the face, sculpting with clay and finally sculpting in Mud box. If i could redo this project i think i would of created a more mutant bust to make it more challenging for my character. Altogether i am happy with my final outcome and hope to do a similar project in the future.




Final Outcome.

Mud box/Maya Render.

Photo shop drawing.

Chad Greenway.