Research
Research this week consisted of a deeper dive into one of the primary games that inspired this piece, Night in the Woods (2017). I primarily spent time looking various critical analysis of trying to understand the subtleties of communicating critical themes through the video game medium.
I also spent time looking at how Night in the Woods was received on less-than-the-meta level. This video was telling on just how strong an impact games of this category can leave:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aPABW2vtQSQ
I also spent time looking at Kitty Horrorshow in particular her games like Anatomy which explore dreams and personal experiences abstracted through video games.
Progress
Progress this week was to begin asset creation.
The first part of a this involved trying to work on the soundscape of my project because if I can land the sound of the project, the visuals should be a lot easier. While I do not have any images of the setup, I was able to record results, and those have been included. I ran an electric guitar through fruity loops and managed to pitch shift and distort it to get it to the sound I wanted — a grungy metal sound. Then I recorded plucking intentionally terribly and processed it further in order to make as uncanny a soundtrack as I could.
The other part of my asset creation was translating some rough sketches from my game into illustrations. This just involved using vector drawing program. This process is robotic and straightforward so I cannot necessarily give any “highlights” or insights. The results are included below.
Reflection
I had a hard time finalizing the concept for my game, and it was not until I saw some of the assets being generated was I able to describe what it’s about. The way I am looking at it right now is that is a project that is testing how effective micro games can be at investigating lived experiences that other passive mediums cannot. The interactivity inherit to any game is where this next more intense level of “experiencing” comes from. It is testing if even a minimal level of interactivity — speech bubbles and movement — can evoke strong responses.
I am not happy however, with how everything is going, the visuals are not where I want them to be nor is the music. Everything just seems off. I. cannot quite pin on what that might be. I think I just need start coding and things will pan out fine.
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