Wednesday 11 March 2015

@Phil FV : New Idea/Concept Good approach?

After looking over the feedback you gave me Phil, I have had a rethink of ideas in terms of how to approach this project.

Initially my Influenza virus world took place inside the body with a invasion principal. I am keeping the invasion principal and transferring it out of the body and into a ''kid-friendly'' world. I want to make a demo/teaser of a game where the viewer is asked to select a character from a wheel of silhouettes, from this they choose the virus, the silhouette takes on its full shape and a little bit about the character is told at it's side. When they confirm their selection the screen fades and re enters with a cinematic pan of a village which contains the cell's going about their daily lives in peaceful way. Again the screen fades and re enters with a hill where the sun is shinning, the sun is then being ''invaded'' by an eclipse caused by zeppelin like ships which appear of the hill and encase the village in darkness. Screen fades again, re entering inside the zeppelin where thousands of the virus characters are waiting to be deployed. The bay doors open and the viewer is shown to have taken control of the virus and instructed to attack civilians, in doing so they have to press buttons corresponding to the way an infection attacks a cell. They succeed in infecting the cell and a message pops up telling them so. But the screen flashes red in warning and the viewers see the castle/fort where little white soldiers with shields and spray sticks run out and begin spraying the infectious cells. The screen pauses on one of theses characters as it approaches the viewer and it gives a little detail to say that they are the antibodies. At least that's the idea anyway. I am going to start with a script to get it out and structured and upload the thumbnails I have presently.

Bellow are some influence maps I put together after researching the idea around soft artwork within games. Something that would be appealing to young children, specifically to my ages group (9-11). Children now love to play games and I think it's important not to scare them too much, but at them same time make them feel interested into the concept of the game.
 I looked at different games and how their character selection screens vary depending on the level of customization available. Most MMO's and complex games high age rated games, allow a full customization that would be too complex for a child to understand. However, games like Smash Bros have little to no customization as they do allow you to change the character costumes or give them hats etc, but can't actually change their features. This is deemed ''kid friendly'' as most children just want to get in and play the game. So when I design my character selection I want to make it simple, clear, colorful and relate to the characters completely. But also give a sense of excitement and awe for the viewers.

Further to this the second influence map shows some games that are ''Kid-Friendly'' as they have simple shapes, soft colours and tones and have a ''happy ever after vibe''. The repercussions of the influenza virus is that it can be lethal if not treated quickly and properly. I don;t want to have this bad ending as children live in their own fairy tale and see life as a happy ending all the time. That's what games should be like. In my opinion, the reason why someone plays games is so that they can escape the real world. Even if a child doesn't quite get that its a nice sentiment to think about. As a child i played Rachet and Clank, Spyro and other old games, they are more appealing to younger children still over the newer games as they were easy to play and didn't complicate things.

1 comment:

  1. I think this has lots of potential, Julia - get designing - keep things simple and iconic!

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