Level 5 : New Mentality

After 2 weeks of struggling with the ins and outs of coding among other things I decided I needed some guidance to send me in the right direction.

So here we are after discussing with Josh and some independant creative thinking I am now feeling more in control of the situation. 

Firstly I have firmly come to grips with the contextual side of this semesters work and have the vast majority of my Design Practitioner essay done with the final chunk and amendments left. I have also began arranging some research into the creative methods of some design practitioners in my field which will make up my independant study report. I will also report useful parts of the Alien Apple lecture which was put on in class into this. Though Alien Apple are a concept art company so they don't strictly work in design and narrative there proximity and association with the games industry means the more general advice they gave was very useful.

Then comes the Unity, in which I am now feeling more comfortable and productive. I will make no allusions as to me being an expert, however I now feel myself slowly getting to grips with my own work (rather then just following tutorials exactly. I especially feel this in regards to understanding scripting, though my skill at writing script my still be far from ideal I now feel relatively comfortable understanding Javascript when I see it. Through discussing with Barry I decided it would be simpler for the moment to make my game first person for ease of use, with the potential to change later once I'm more adjusted to Unity. To this end so far I have made a simple first person player controller who can walk around a plane. Within the plane I have put 2 different polygons in different colors, these will be placeholders for the animals in my game. I have also scripted a basic projectile mechanic for the player controller, this will hopefully become the creature catcher later in development. 

So in terms of what I'm up to now I am feeling in control and motivated again. As far as contextual goes I plan on finishing my design practitioner essay this week and get well into my independant experience report by the end of the week with the intention of finishing the essays by the end of next week. This will leave me easter to concentrate on Unity. My next particular task in Unity is developing basic movement for the 'creature' placeholders which for starters will just move back and forth. I will then move onto the capture mechanic, at which point I can start refining the game til I'm happy with it.

So there we have it Steve is thoroughly back in the building and feeling that energy again. Let's just hope 2 weeks in limbo hasn't cost me too much, but for optimisms sake lets say i'll be fine. I always tend to prescribe to glass half mentalities anyway so its all good.

Peace Out

Bonus Stage - Pokemon

For the second of my narrative/game-play studies I have decided to take a look at one of my all-time favourite game series, Pokemon. I think that given the similarity in story within each new instalment in the series it is appropriate to study the games as a series rather than one particular iteration.

The reason I chose Pokemon is because it’s a series many would say has little in the way of story, however I think there is something more to Pokemon which returns to the intrinsic/extrinsic narrative theory. The usual formula for a Pokemon story is catching and training Pokemon and battling your way through 8 ‘Gym Leaders’ until you reach the Elite 4, while stopping the machinations of an evil gang of criminals. It is true this cycle is repeated through each generation but to me the ‘story’ of Pokemon comes from the Pokemon you catch and raise by your side.

The Pokemon you catch are individual to you they appear in the same locations in everyone’s game but only you know how difficult they were to catch, what moves you’ve taught them and how they battle. This may seem a sentimental reading of the game but I believe it’s the one the creators intended to put across. Everything from the tone of dialogue in-game to the themes in the cartoon show which aired with its release , emphasis was always put onto the relationship between you and your Pokemon. When Pokemon first came out it started a world-wide craze for kids everywhere, those kids are now young adults most of whom regardless of their dedication to the current series still hold onto their nostalgic views of the Pokemon themselves. I think the main reason for this is the variety Pokemon presents right from the beginning players we’re presented with 150 Pokemon to choose from, within which everyone had their best and worst Pokemon. Few people don’t have any add to the infamous discussion of which ‘starter’ Pokemon people chose out of Squirtle, Charmander and Bulbasaur. What especially intrigues me about Pokemon is the fact that it almost contradicts a regular paradigm of video games, in that the player character isn’t really the main focus of the game it is the titular Pokemon which are .

Pokemon is a series which evolves only slightly in terms of narrative and gameplay throughout generations, though the core of the game remains the same. The main difference in each generation is the addition of more Pokemon, which provides an even greater scope for players.