Environment Project

To kick off the project, I wanted to overload my thought process with imagery of environments and existing game genres that I could take and adapt to make my own. I always make the habit of changing my mind half way through the design process when I have hardly any time left because I don't plan as deeply as I should. (Note to self, fully weigh up all options before concepting begins.) I'm already a big fan of the zombie/apocalyptic/survival genre, especially films like mad max: beyond thunderdrome, with baron wastelands and barbaric hordes of rebels held up in self built fortresses. I think looking at something I'm a fan of is good area to start off in because I am stilling doing something that's needed of me but I can relate to it making the process of designing more engaging. Having said this I need to keep the player, audience and game community as a design priority because this final outcome isn't for me. So the first rule of design club is 'what will they get out of this?'.

To add a new dynamic to a genre that already exists, I have looked at a variety of real environments like third world shanty towns and picturesque Venice river fronts. I have also looked at traditional paintings like Claude Monet's house of parliament . I crammed all my imagery into a few A3 mood boards to refer to throughout designing.

To research a bit further into the apocalyptic genre, I looked at a TV documentary called 'Life After People' which shows what would happen to the world that we leave behind which relates to there being much fewer humans left on earth. The documentary gave me an incite into how cities decay when unmaintained, threat of pandemics, natural disasters and the animal kingdoms survival of the fittest. Here's a link to the documentary: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cbr6mnX95iE&feature=related skip to about 26 minutes in.

Whilst researching, I was devising more rules that would lead to effective design of the environment and characters. I split them into environment, character and final concept sub categories to get consistency throughout.

RULES

Environment- 1. More is less (don't over do things)

2. Maintain continuous derelict feel to surroundings

Character- 1. Characters must be simple with an exaggerated main character as vocal point

Final Concepts- 1. Composition, mood, how well does it engage the viewer

2. Leave audience to conclude the events that have come before

3. leave as much to interpret as possible

From the rules I began to concept the environment for my

chosen apocalyptic genre. I wanted to design the general state of the world after apocalyptic disaster and the area the majority of the game would take place. The story I decided to go with was a brake down in technology in the future that caused nuclear weapons to launch devastatingly wiping out the majority of the planets population. Survivors of the blasts that were caught by radiation were disfigured and in some cases transformed into mutated beings.

I wanted to take the player through a specific area where I thought there could be a high level of threat and a good place that could influence the style of enemies. I decided upon a mental asylum. I took a silhouette and played about with numerous to create a derelict building that had looked as if it had been inhabited by its once patients and sinister travellers.

Task 10: Characters

I could talk endlessly about characters that I have come across since I've watched TV and read books, but at the moment there are a specific group of characters that I would like to focus on. I always haven't been able to get enough of post apocalyptic movies like mad max and resident
evil but the American TV series 'The Walking Dead' brings a new dynamic to the genre. The series is based on a comic book by Robert Kirkman, Tony Moore and Charlie Adlard. The story starts when a county sheriff named Rick Grimes wakes from an enduring coma to find the world he used to know no longer exists and is now plagued with flesh craving 'walkers' or as we callthem zombies. From there on the series documents a husband and fathers journey to finding his family. From the outset the plot of the show makes you think about being in the main characters shoes and how you would cope not knowing whether your wife, son and family are still alive and dealing with what you perceive as reality being torn away from under you like that. Eventually Rick does find his family that are held up with a group of people and you imagine the relief and happiness that must over whelm you, providing a short escape from the new reality you face. On the other hand, without trying to sound heartless, would it be a burden that you have found the ones you love instead because now it's your duty to protect and reassure them with that doubt in the back of your mindthat you may fail in doing so. Would it be better if you only had yourself to
worry about?
As trust and bonds build, Rick becomes a kind of leader for the group, main protector in a way, saving lives, sheltering and feeding the group. I think this aspect to the character is easily related to men in general because we like to see ourselves being the alpha male and possessing the
ability to protect . Another emphasis on the character being there to protect is his title of 'sheriff' because we associate the police as being there to keep us safe and maintain order.
After a longer period of time the group are forced to live this dystopian lifestyle, where a planned and structured routine begins to form in order to stay alive which starts to build characteristics for other characters. States of depression, rebellion and friendships arise under the large amount of pressure there under up to the point where a dominant character Shane, sacrifices another person to survive a horde of walkers. In this situation what lengths would you go to in order to stay alive? In my opinion I don't know whether I would have it in me to do something like that or whether I would like the person something that extreme of a situation could bring out of
me.
A lot of emotion is portrayed well in this TV show which entices you to relate and produce these thoughts about the things that happen. The strain that is put on relationships in extreme circumstances and how its overcome is demonstrated continuously which I think is a good message put across by the actors and script. Another aspect I particularly like about the main character Rick is the burden he willingly takes on when it comes to being the constant, the rock of the group and reliability of decisions he makes. For example when a little girl in the group is chased into woodlands by a walker, without a thought he is the only person in the group to react and try to save her. Obviously all these characteristics are exaggerated in this type of genre but there all aspects of life that relate to us as the viewer trying to inspire the best in us.
The reason I think I become so engrossed in the post apocalyptic genre is because I have always wondered what it would be like to have something like that happen, how I would react, how it would change me as a person and how things would end up.