3D Environment
Study: Alice Madness Returns
Alice Madness Returns was developed by
Spicy Horse and published by EA, it was released in 2011. The game is labelled
a psychological horror game which fits in perfectly with my 3D project because
I want to re produce the essence and flare of psychological horror within my
environment. Wait, there’s more! It’s INCREDIBLY surreal; something that I also
want to inject into my project.
The first 27 minutes of Alice Madness Returns
Because my research report and studio
project cross over and blend together in terms of themes, ideas, terminologies,
techniques, mechanics, genre and much more I am going to be using the research
I have done so far in order to produce a far more academic study and analysis
of the games environment. My project focuses on how environment artists inject
horror into their 3D environments in games, my research for BA7 so far has
consisted on mechanics and ways in which this is done in multiple media formats
such as film and art, therefore I will be drawing from what I have learnt so
far to make specific points that will aid my pre production work.
Surrealism
Alice Madness Returns is incredibly
surreal with regards to it’s environments (well to be fair, nearly every aspect
of the game is surreal, narrative, characters, themes…the list goes on). I am
incredibly interested in the surreal aspects of the environments within Alice
Madness Returns because I want to promote some sort of surrealism into my
psychological horror environment as a means of creating fear in the player.
These screenshots are examples to show you how large in comparison to Alice the surreal worlds of the game are. They encompass her in their surroundings are often daunting and intimidating to the player to be amongst. Claustrophobia plays a large part in the cognitive reaction the player could feel to provoke fear as a lot of the environments contain smaller “nooks and crannies” where the player can feel underpowered and vulnerable as the environment becomes dominating in terms of space and room to manoeuvre.
A common element of surrealism is to
play with dimensions and obscure the proportions of recognisable objects. In
Alice Madness Returns Alice is able to shrink in order to go through secret
keyhole doors. This is surreal for three reasons, 1: the keyholes are massive
in comparison to normal keyholes, but not big enough for Alice to fit, 2:
Keyholes aren't doors? And 3: Alice is able to shrink which makes the keyholes
appear even bigger which further distorts the laws of basic proportions.
Alice Madness Returns often uses the
notion of falling, missing, corrupted, juxtaposed and invisible floors to
emphasise the surrealism within the playable environment space.
The use of vibrant but unusual and
highly saturated colours to differentiate between playable environments sets
the tone of area to the player. In this particular scene Alice has left the
toxic green, polluted and smokey exterior and ventures into an interior via a
broken wall. Inside there are surreal dodo’s/chicken/poultry of some variety
hanging from the ceiling with a pool of blood underneath. This use of abstract
mise-en-scene helps create a truly surreal scene.
Even the enemies in Alice Madness
Returns are surreal, but they are hauntingly surreal. Linking back to Ivana
Muller's’ theory that the audience will feel more fear If they can relate
something to human form. In this case, the surreal use of a creature that has a
baby dolls face, arms and legs and also appears to move in a human fashion
increases the frightening factor these enemies poses.
The environments in the game are
overwhelmingly surreal and I will post comparisons when I begin to produce
surreal artist studies because saying “they are surreal” doesn’t quite cut it
when I haven't got any visual research to compare and contrast with, however
for now you must rest assured that these environments are super surreal. They
help me a great deal with regards to the overall feeling of the environments
that I want to have within mine but I feel that the use of bright vibrant and
oversaturated colours doesn’t communicate horror. Whilst many of the
environments in the game have surreal assets, they aren't to scare or cause
fear, they are primarily there to create a world of confusion because
ultimately that is what Alice in Wonderland is about. The games trying to
display another world, one that exists within Alice’s head. Sure, If we go by
the themes of Lovecraftian horror, the game contains elements that may result
in horror related emotions such as the fear of the unknown, loss of sanity and
surrealism generally (all of which is contained within these environments in
the game) but the way in which they are presented don’t often lead the player
to react in a scared manner as one would in comparison to Amnesia.
The point is that whilst surrealism can
cause horror (and there are places where this happens during play) the games
primary communication via surrealism doesn’t cause the player to feel
physiological changes associated with fear, terror and anxiety; at least not
like most psychological horror games do and therefore I need to ensure I don’t
accidentally replicate this within my environment because it wont communicate
the correct emotion and genre to the player.
Visual Semantics and
Stimuli
Following my research and studies into
the theories of emotion and how audience are communicated to and manipulated by
visual medias I want to discuss the visual semantics and stimuli found within
the surreal world of Alice Madness Returns. By this I mean that I'm going to
discuss the smaller elements found within the massive surreal environments that
communicate narrative via semantics and can cause physiological and cognitive
changes in emotion. I will then discuss how this relates to my studio project
and how it will benefit me. Lets start with the obvious one shall we? Blood..
Blood is a common visual semantic in
horror games. It sends an incredibly strong visual message to the player and
has severe connotations with danger, harm, death and violence; all of which are
associated with horror, fear and terror. Seeing these with games can cause the
player to go through the suggested emotional changes, their brains recognise
the visual semantic which causes physiological changes such as sweaty palms and
nervous shakes, the cognitive change associates these reactions with fear and thus
the visual semantic has communicated to the player that they should feel fear
in these environments.
Its not just blood that can send a
message to the player associated with fear. When I was playing I came across
these sudden broken plate pieces. I hadn’t seen any plates or chinaware for a
while in terms of surreal levels so to suddenly see some broken on the floor
caused me to feel uneasy and nervous in the environment. Something wasn’t quite
right and this was communicated visually by the semantics behind the broken
plate connotations.
This statue is crying, only her tears
are black. Black has connotations with death and darkness. Therefore the visual
semantics behind this statue suggest that something isn't quite right in this
surreal but beautiful dystopian world.
The delicate white china severely
contrasts against the reds of the hard solid rock formations. This surreal
environment communicates danger by showing broken china amongst a hardened
environment. Juxtaposition works.
Influential
Environment Assets
Moving onto the more practical side of
the study whereby I have found assets within the surreal world of Alice Madness
Returns that I find influential and inspiring; many of my ideas so far have
been a direct result of the assets found within the game. Here’s a variety of
screens I found with inspirational assets that I will list off at the end.
- Mysterious railway tracks
- Surreal object protruding walls (Voxophones)
- Juxtaposition of assets and environments (teapots made of delicate china juxtaposed against the hard dark red rock environment)
- Surreal mushrooms, exterior assets but built with what looks like china and patchwork colours, distorted and obscure.
- Surreal doors that lead “no where” but communicate voyeurism and show secret areas.
- Crack or broken walls that reveal mysterious secretive and surreal areas within the environment, these may also be from a voyeuristic position whereby the player can only peer through into a new area and see something that may communicate the theme to them (like in Outlast where I could see blood through a door but not go in to investigate).
- Distorted cages, boxes, chests and other forms of containment.
Technical Aesthetic
Inspiration
Whilst Alice Madness Returns is
labelled a horror game, its not got constant visuals/aesthetics similar to that
of Silent Hill whereby throughout the entire game the environments are testing
and communicating to the player specific emotions, themes and genres. Having
said this, there are environments in Alice Madness Returns that do inspire and
influence my studio work and that are greatly reminiscent of psychological
horror game Silent Hill.
In this section I am going to refer to
the screenshots I took which inspired me with regards to textures and
atmosphere found within the environments, ones that I think help communicate
similar emotions to the player that I am trying to re create within my project.
I really like how there is still use of
slightly vibrant and contrasting colours here but the lighting and atmospheric
fog dims the saturation. This is an inspiration lighting example that
demonstrates similar lighting to that of the lights I want to create.
I want to pay attention to areas where
something else might have happened and ensure my textures reflect the action
and communicate the narrative to the player like the manhole and rust/blood smear
do here.
I really like the surreal juxtaposition of the rusty old door that is randomly placed on top of the dirty checker floor. I want to make use of rusty textures in my environment and this game does it really well in my opinion. Here are some more examples of how rust has been used in the game on similar assets to those I want to re create such as large industrial pipes, manholes and gates. I can recall this study for visual comparison when creating my own textures.
What I like most here is the use of
randomly placed autumnal grass texture that is on the floor of an industrial
themed level. It reinforces the surreal nature of the environments in the game.
The section of the level is already floating and there is another randomly
placed rusty door on the floor too which further adds to the
surreal assets within the environment. This is something I could consider when
texturing my environment. I want to think about how I can manipulate walls and
floor in a similar fashion and perhaps case some confusion amongst the fear
within the environment.
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