From the feedback I’d gotten, I started to lean more closely to Hair Braiding and Ball-Jointed dolls as a topic. At first I was more strongly aligned with Nightcore as a topic but when starting to think of more potential ideas, I love the combination of these two concepts. I think they work very well together and loads of game ideas could come out of it.
I wanted to bring back some of the more intriguing questions I got from the nodenogg.in (referenced in week 3) and expand on them more, how could I go into these topics further?
Chosen Topic: Hair Braiding / Ball-jointed Dolls
Expanding on the nodenogg.in statements – Hair Braiding
- Statement: Braiding of hair vs. braiding of other things? (rope, etc.)
- My Answer: Braiding in this sense could be used as some kind of “tool”, like how rope is used. Like in Tangled (2010), where Rapunzel’s hair is part of the reason she’s trapped but her tool to freedom in the end, when she cuts it off.
- Statement: Community Connections and Culture
- My Answer: I think there’s a lot to say about how hair as a topic connects communities together. Like I’ve stated in my presentation, hair is a way to bond people together through some type of “social ritual” and a form of trust.
- Statement: cornrows to hide food and mapping out routes, interesting secret languages
- My Answer: Hair as a tool for escape is also an interesting concept. I think I’d dive into hair as some “secret language” which leans into it as a ritual and delicate process. Butchering a language could be akin to ruining the hair, like death or pain.
Expanding on the nodenogg.in statements – BJDS
- Statement: really draws attention to the idea of humans as ‘jointed creatures’. How does this affect our perception of ourselves?
- My Answer: I like the idea of humans as fragile creatures, and how easily we can break our bones just by simply falling or colliding with an object. I think it makes us very aware about how we go about our lives.
- Statement: Really popular in Japan, Korea and China, I have one if you want to do some research on it
- My Answer: Looking at a doll in real life could give me some reference to how the joints move.
- Statement: fashion dolls ? could connect to braiding aswell ?
- My Answer: Fashion dolls and BJDs have a very connected history, just because many BJDs wear popular fashion for the current era. For the link to braiding, I could lean into the theme of social ritual and meticulous process as both BJD making and braiding are things you can’t mess up without having to start over or hurting the person (or ruining the object) so I like that theming.