face charts

these are the first batch for facial expressions created more coming soon

Blog entry week 4 the wolf among us

Do the choices made in the game result in branching narrative paths? If so, how? If not, how are the choices meaningful?

This week I chose to play "The Wolf Among Us" an interactive mystery, drama adventure game made by telltale games. The game itself is based on Bill Willingham's Fable comic book series and follows prior to the comics events. You play as Bigby wolf that was formerly the big bad wolf being a fable himself. Now working as the sheriff of the small community and helps hide the fables from the humans in the world. You start off the game entering a house where a disturbance is called and you quickly meet Mr Toad where you're told your first interactive scene, which shows that you can be generally nice or being a total jerk, with everything you say is remembered by the characters you interact with. We soon meet the Woodsman a fable from The Little Red Riding Hood and engage him in a quick time scene full of action choices like hitting him against different objects like a sink. after saving the prostitute she thanks you then leaves. However once you arrive back in the  place where you live. You are soon woken up and informed by Snow White that something's outside, which you soon find out that its the same girl you saved earlier. From here the story begins. Wolf among us is a very interesting game that i honestly enjoyed playing and its choice based dialogue is very influential in the progression of the narrative. The choices you make give you an impression that what you did is important to your first run, as you can choose some serious moments like ripping a person's arm off was something really surprising. Later the choices of taking another character's life you really feel this heavy burden of choices, along with your choices influences other character's outlook on you.

I can completely agree with this, as your choices can make you feared, hated, liked or respected, which can form smaller branches of the game's progression and this makes your choices feel much more personal and meaningful as you are making what are your personal influence into a character that you're using to act as your own persona. This gives the story to give more interesting options later on as you can choose good or bad cop. Which can be exampled in Perdue, 2011 - Ethical dilemmas and dominant moral strategies in games File is a good example of this in his section "no easy solutions" that moral choices aren't ever easy and won't be, thus giving more emphasis on decision making on the player's behalf. In paragraph 8 of "Two Roads Diverged"  Perdue explains that in another game.  Players have to make several choices that end up having far reaching consequences further into the game which can change the outcome of certain events happening, Without changing the whole game while keeping it to a static plot. However this only works very well on the player's first run and that their practically blind when their doing their run, otherwise you'll kind lose that sense of meaningful input into the game as you will probably know that this character will die anyways and so on. which also in the end lose the immersion in the first playthrough of the game. Otherwise like said before the first run always feels more immersive and meaningful in choice when a linear branching narrative is being used, like in The Wolf Among Us.

production blog week 3/4 concepts and developing further

all are following concepts from me using ideas from also other concepts the team had designed to help build on my concepts mainly i focused on the look of the head while leading for the more cartoonish look in general and later i did try playing little more with shape overall to create these concepts while still following some ideas the group made to incorporate for new designs 

the following below is one of the further developments of the concepts where the group shall decide over what has worked in overall concepts and now imperilment what went well into the next stage of the concepts focusing on a more detailed face to a extent, a slick hairstyle with a flick and originally a bath robe but its now been changed to a jacket like Elvis ect

overall this has been the following work including some facical expressions that will be added later when finished 

interactive narrative week three game - Sonic the hedgehog 2

Sonic the hedgehog 2

 Did linear storytelling in your chosen game(s) engage and excite you as a player? Explain why or why not.

This week I've decided to play of the chosen games Sonic the hedgehog 2 the second installment of the series made back in 1992. The game follows up on the the previous game and improves over the last with new tropes and a new sidekick but follows on the main points of its story speed as fast as possible through every stage and find now 7 chaos emeralds (6 originally in the last game ) and stop Robotnic from taking over the world for the second but not last time. But now with a brand new character a young sidekick called tails the fox is teaming up for this adventure able to help his partner in saving the animals and the world in this new installment. Being a game from 1992 the story was told through the manual and box cover in general but even if not read, it gives a basic concept and tells its story. The story relys on you making it through each level as fast as literally possible while taking out enemy's and avoiding spikes and other environmental hazards as you go on this is the games main focus and does a really good job at it as you the player are encouraged to go fast your encouraged to be exploring for the 7 emeralds to reach the final stage and it leads up very well to the final moments of the game it really invokes excitement towards the final battle as you've proven your the fastest and that you've achieved the difficult task of finding the emeralds to allow super Sonic to fight the final battle and it feels very rewarding as you make it with the final ending cutscene of Sonic and tails flying on their biplane with all the animals theyve saved throughout the multiple zones you went through. otherwise the story in general is fairly basic but enjoyable for the time as game-play really overlapped story back in the day.

Interactive media -Never alone Week 2 entry 1

Never alone

Does your chosen game(s) make user input feel meaningful in terms of story direction and progression? Why or why not?

This week I played the game Never Alone a game I've actually been waiting to try out and I instantly began enjoying its beautifully crafted art style, which gave it a amazing look and feel in the story making you feel your in this time in such a harsh environment making you feel tense in certian situations I.E polar bear chases. With our young protagonist Nuna and the narrator speaking her journey as she meets a unique fox that can communicate with spirits of the Alaskan natives. From here we start our journey into the unknown and thats what makes this game feel special, the unknown as your lead through this story to guide the protagonist through this adventure with the help of the spirits of the wild. In a way you feel like your part of those spirits helping the child and fox making the harrowing journey escaping polar bears, the villain throwing fire and other obsticals like the environment. Even though personal input is very limited like trying not to die, smash ice, move objects and so on its more on a personal sense as you manage your way through puzzles to proceed as you want to know more you want to see more so your curiosity and thoughts lead your way making you think and enjoy the narrative which makes the player feel involved as since you have to go forward to move the story it does it in its own way. This is the players goal: proceed and learn about the nature around you in this story driven game of a myth by the Inuit peoples.

The games story direction is only one way theres very little freedom for the player to get innovative. All I can really do is move and switch between Nuna and the fox allowing them to progress as well interact with environments. However the cut-scenes give a creative and interesting art style that feels unique and has a personal character that some games of these platfromers dont normally get and is full of self discovery of a peoples past that will easily become enjoyable and informative with easter eggs and behind the scenes interviews. Giving to the myth of its people its a story of symbolism, spirits, culture, myths and self discovery.

While Story progression was very liner as choice wasn't really seen throughout, Never Alone



Upper One Games (Developer). (2014). Never Alone [Video Game]. United States: E-Line Media
http://animation.onlearn.co.nz/pluginfile.php/1460/mod_resource/content/1/Juul%2C%202001%20-%20Games%20telling%20stories.pdf

Production stuido status 3/3/16

today our group has decided to begin working on our concepts via clay and sketches,  we managed to change a few parts of puns in the script and things seem to be heading to a strong start so far