BA4: Game Design Document #05

University Lecture October 8th: Help & Guidance for our Project

Here are the notes I took today during our lecture. It was really helpful because my group were getting pretty lost in all of our ideas and getting confused on which direction to take with our game. This lecture cleared  up all our questions!

What is re-imagination and re interpretation?

• Your chosen game is to only be a starting point to re imagine.
• How do you interpret Fatal Frame? It is horror to the girls, takes from their own experiences and forces terror on them because of it. This could be perceived and re interpreted as mental and physical abuse, mental illness etc.
• Visual research, look at lots of different types of style and see which one works best. It doesn't necessarily have to fit in or copy Fatal Frame!
• You want to the people to relate to your game.
• If your game/genre is older you can bring it back, bring it into the current world and re imagine it so that it works. Fix issues which didn't add up and push it through so that it works for the player.
• Look a what makes your game interesting and what makes it work but YOUR game doesn't have to copy this, just reflect it and modernise it.
• Keep it within the genre but find something niche and interesting that will push your idea concept further.
• David Hockney, The Hidden Secret of Art - looking at distorted anatomy
• Hole in the wall camera.
• Symbols and iconography
• Keep thinking: Why would anyone be interested in this? Is this engaging?
• Research cameras/interesting niche aspect to game play.

How do you get good ideas?

• “I get ideas from my head...”
• Places you could get ideas: books, films, games, comics, music, art etc.
• An idea is nothing more nor less than a new combination of existing elements.
• Brining old elements into new combinations depends largely on the ability to see relationships between things.
• 5 step guide to getting good ideas:

1: Gather raw material: specific (perhaps related to a particular genre or game) and general. Gathering raw material: images, ideas, knowledge, experiences, clippings, notebooks, discussions, forums, travel, facts etc).

2: The mental digestive process. Taking different material you have gathered, researched and you “feel” them all over with the “tentacles” of your mind.

3: No direct effort in this stage. You have gathered your “food for thought”. Now you need to do something else to let the idea formulate naturally within your “coral reef” mind.

4: Out of nowhere, the idea will come and probably when you are least expecting it. This is how ideas come, after you stop straining for them. Offer your idea out to others, especially if woking in a team. Suddenly a good idea sparks others to add to it.

5: Constantly seeking to expand your experience, both personally and vicariously, you ensure the production of good ideas. Continue to fill your reservoir.

• Innovate: “Make changes in something established, especially by introducing new methods”.

Project Update

Today I met with my group to discuss our never ending list of awesome ideas for  our game as I felt I was becoming a bit lost in all the possible ways to execute our concept. Plus I wasn’t sure of the boundaries etc. The lecture thankfully cleared that up and now we have a new direction that the game is going to take which differs to the plot lines I have already written about on my blog. I fear that if I was to put down anymore text on my blog with random ideas right now I will become lost and confused, plus it wont read very clear. 

 

Tomorrow we have a group meeting with our project tutors so we can talk to them about the idea and concepts behind it. I will post up the new (ish) idea once finalised and having spoken to my tutors tomorrow in case there needs to be more changes. 

As far as combat and gameplay go, I am a little torn between 2 very separate ideas influenced by games very close to my heart. I am playing them and making notes tonight to see if I can further my opinion on which will suit our game best. Again, progress will be posted up soon :D