Week 9

This week I gave my presentation and joined Hugo’s group.

Monday

On this day we gave our presentations for our 3 game ideas. E-Jay and I presented the moustache idea independently of each other. I presented my moustache idea, my Tahtib game idea, and a third idea called Sellsword, which was essentially my year 2 gdd project idea that I still feel passionate about. My presentation went well and the majority of the class found my second idea, my Tahtib game, to be the most interesting. My presentation may be accessed here.

E-Jay had at this point become more invested in his own ideas than in the moustache idea, thus he left the idea behind. I too, lost interest in that idea and became more interested in my Tahtib idea. However, I felt that I wasn’t sure I could program it, thus I decided to join Hugo’s group.

Work of the Week

Hugo’s game was about a robot handler. I had felt a bit invested in it as living with Hugo I saw him develop the idea and ideate on it, and I gave him much feedback on it too, as a result I felt that I had some stake in working on it. However, the aesthetic and gameplay loop of it wasn’t super appealing to me and so I wasn’t feeling very passionate about it in this week, which would come to a head in the next week. The group consisted of myself, Hugo, and Joe. Rosie was also briefly part of the group before she decided to go and work on her own project, as she felt she could better exhibit her skills that way and work on something she was more passionate about.

For the rest of the week I helped create mood boards and generate ideas for the the game’s aesthetic and art style.

We had a bit of conflict on the art style of the game, Hugo wanted to make a more clean-shiny sort of game while I wanted a more stylized low-poly look. Hugo said he would try various different looks for the 3D models to see what he liked best and we’d collectively decide.
We also looked at various ways the rover could look like, being inspired by both actual rovers and baby prams, as the core of the game was about a rover carrying a baby. We also looked at various landscapes such as the surface of Venus and some Beksinski paintings to get an idea of how desolated the world of the game would be. We also looked at many different aesthetics for the core gameplay area – the bunker. We looked at real control rooms, submarines, and military bases.
Hugo and I also conflicted on this as he wanted a more run-down office look while I wanted a more professional military control room look. Ultimately we ended up going for a nuclear control room look, with inspirations from both offices and submarine monitors ending up in the designs I made.

These were the designs I made. Some were based on control terminals in submarines, others based on old offices, and others based on nuclear control rooms. The order I made them goes from left to right, showing my ideation and how I altered my designs based on the feedback from group mates.

Unfortunately I felt very dispassionate working on this project. Drawing these designs was unpleasant, I am already not a fan of futuristic or modern aesthetics, but even more so, am I not a fan of drawing objects that have to be symmetrical. I realised that my role in this game would, for a good amount of it, consist of me creating designs for an aesthetic I have little to no passion for, and this made me reconsider working on this project altogether, and it made my other project ideas much more alluring. This issue would be resolved in the next week.

Reflection

Overall this week felt scattered, a game idea was scrapped, I delivered a successful presentation, I joined a team to work on a game I realised I wasn’t interested in, and I felt a yearning for my own ideas. This week just felt like the precursor to the next week and readying myself for the journey for the rest of the semester and moreover, the rest of the year.