Journal Research

I have started to carry out my research in preparation for my dissertation and have been looking at various different journals. I have also created a Google document to store all my findings (links etc) in order for an easy to find/navigate document that I can use when writing out my dissertation.

So far I have managed to find two that stand out too me:

http://gac.sagepub.com/content/6/2/103.full.pdf+html

http://gac.sagepub.com/content/6/3/203.full.pdf+html

These are titled:

• 'Narrative Structures in Computer and Video Games: Part 1: Context, Definitions, and Initial Findings'
• 'Narrative Structures in Computer and Video Games: Part 2: Emotions, Structures, and Archetypes'

The reason these two have stuck out to me is because after reading only a small part in the first article I realized that my project was somewhat different to what I had originally thought it was.

'A story is defined as:
 ... a sequence of events involving entities. A story is bound by the laws of time; it goes in one direction, starting at the beginning, moving through the middle, and arriving at the end ... the only time involved is the time it takes to read [the story], and the only order is that of the structure of the essay (Abbott, 2002, p. 195).'


'While a narrative is defined as:
 ... the representation of an event or a series of events. ... when we read a narrative, we are aware of, on the one hand, the time of reading and the order in which things are read, and on the other hand, the time the story events are supposed to take and the order in which they are supposed to occur (Abbott, 2002, pp. 13-14).'

Upon reading this I felt they my game was not essentially a game but more a narrative story. Further progression in the article (and others I read) discussed games at a level that involved characters, emotions, gameplay etc which my project will not really be consisting of. Now that I have read this I am more confident to call my final piece an interactive story with a well thought narrative as oppose to a game.

Personal Notes

These two articles have been a great find in my beginning stages of lookign at journals. Over the next few days I will continue looking at these two journal articles as well as looking at others

To Look For

• Textuality of Horror
• Creating Suspense
• Pacing an interactive story
• Horror Techniques

Event01 - Laws of Gravity

The first major event that is going to happen in my story is entitled: 'Laws of Gravity'. This even makes reference to the book from two different memories:

•  Dr. William Grene's mother Roseanne McNulty - reminiscing the time her father attempted to show her the laws of gravity by dropping feathers and hammers at the same time from a great height in a tower in the graveyard at which he worked.
•  Fr. Gaunt's rendition of a similar incident, when he seen a group of men take Roseanne's father too the top of the tower in the graveyard and beat him in with hammers.

I want to use this even to create a subtle change in atmosphere and to help develop an uneasiness in the player as the environment begins to change and odd things happen.

What Happens

1. Music is played
2. Environment de-saturates
3. Feathers fall from the ceiling
4. followed by clanging hammers
5. Two pieces of parchment are left at either end of the hall - emphasizing story

I am still toying with the idea of having the parchment information also read out loud in some distant creepy voice. I can toy with this later. For now I will be doing my best too accomplish this first event.

Event01 - Laws of Gravity

Personal Notes

This should be relatively simple as I only need to create two objects; feather and hammer. I already have the de-saturation working and music should be very easy. I hope to nearly have this complete by the end of the week.

Visualizing Dissertation

Here is a more improved version of my dissertation. I have started using Google Docs for this and has proved very helpful:

Visualizing Dissertation

Personal Notes

This is my first version of this. It is something I will be iterating over the next coming weeks as I start to carry out a lot more research. The 'Environmental Design Techniques' are based on Don Carson's article in gamusutra:

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/3186/environmental_storytelling_.php

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/131593/environmental_storytelling_part_.php

Supervisor Meeting - 05

Student Name: Christy McLaughlin
Supervisor: Ryan Locke
Date: 16.02.15

Agenda

• Discuss Last years blogs
• Mention my new hallway idea
• Question about using textures via cgtextures.com etc

Progress Report

• My concern with the blogs is that I found some of last years blogs, quite short and some a bit too personal. When I brought this up Ryan told me not too worry - that my blogs were going very nicely. I am keeping them up-to-date and showing exactly what I need to be showing.
• I wanted to ask about using the likes of cgtextures.com as I have been creating my own textures in fear of copyright and not looking as good an artist as those who do their own work. He told me that I was not being graded on my texture creation but I was being graded on how effective I communicated a horror story through the environment. So to save as much time as possible, by all means, I should use cgtextures.com and other similar resources. Of course I will be editing these textures and crediting the original picture in my dissertation.
• I never got to discuss my hallway idea due to a heavy discussion on research

Agreed Action Report

• Look at Journals - Journal of Gaming Worlds - Game Studies Online - Sage Journals
• Use Google Doc too - Visualize Dissertation - Log journals/references
• Use cgTextures to my advantage - credit where needed

Personal Notes

Another good session today. Ryan was pleased with my progress and just really wants too see my research move up a gear! So I will start looking into journals and using Google docs to store references. As well as the research I wish to test my environment so fr and progress with the rest of it.

For Next Week

• Using google docs - create a visual document for dissertation
• Research into a few journals - make use of storing references
• Start developing first event of story - 'Gravity Law'
• Get a few people to test my environment - initial level

I am now at the stage where everything is needing some form of attention so it is important for me to time manage efficiently. Tonight I am going to do my final polish of the bedroom scene. I will then leave this until around April until I finalize it for good. I will begin developing the rest of my environment. I want to test this room and get some constructive feedback that I can then apply to the room and the rest of the environment. Research is hugely important so starting tomorrow I am going to begin with that and get myself a good amount of research over this next week.

Drawing a Texture To The Screen

Now having finally got my 'story' assets in place in my environment, I needed to figure out a way for them to be looked at by the player (Magnified to the HUD). After lots of researching online I figured out I was going to have to somehow use the 'drawTexture' node function. I discovered this tutorial that helped a lot with this. This tutorial uses the 'drawText' node but I was able to adapt it to my needs:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jWVUr-i5zaM

With this I managed to get the picture to appear once you entered a trigger box and pressed the 'E' key. Unfortunately even when you left the box trigger, pressing the 'E' key would still display the image:

I then fiddled about with the blueprint and managed to achieve my desired result. This next video was meant to show off the blueprint itself - as it displays what is happening (useful for debugging). Unfortunately the screen capture software I used did not capture this. So in this next video, I am pressing the 'E' key quite often, and as desired, the picture only displays when I am in the trigger box.

I then went ahead and used the same technique, for the other pieces in my environment. At the moment, the images are still rough but at least the functionality works! At first this did not work until I used a 'sequence' node to allow the 'eventDrawHUD' node to connect to multiple outputs. The good thing with this is I can add to it very easily which should help, later on in my project.

Using Trigger Boxes

Blueprint For 'DrawTexture' Function

I am very pleased with the outcome so far. It takes an irritating amount of time to figure these sorts of things out but once they are complete, it helps a lot. I am spending one more day on this bedroom before moving on with my environment. I will definitely be coming back to this but I'd like to move on so I feel more comfortable that my overall environment is nearer completion. What I will look to do in this one day is really make these textures that appear to the user look fantastic as they are a high focus point. I will also fine tune other features of the room.

Personal Notes

Ignoring completing my own lighting, sound and perfecting each asset in the room, I am pretty much finished this part of my environment. As I progress with rest of environment, I can apply the skills learnt so far and when learning new skills - sound etc - I can come back to this part and edit it. This next week I will be asking testing participants to play the environment and see what they think. I will be mainly looking to see if they engaged with each interactive piece in the environment as well as understand who they are and why they are there.

One major thing I still need to look over (which is for my hallway) is the changing of meshes. I noticed an idea of making a wall opaque and therefore having another one appear in it's place. i will be looking at options for this as I think it will really enhance my environment.

Last Year's Blogs

I have been looking at last years blogs - as recommended by my supervisor - and I have noticed a few things:

• They are very personal - much more personal than I would of expected (in terms of writing)
• They seem surprisingly short - not as much posts as I had imagined

I want too check that my blog is going down the right line. I am a little worried I have too much posts however I was told to blog as much research and practical stuff I could. I have seen my blog improve over the year as at the beginning, it lacked in direction and structure. I have managed to have more of a structure and for the rest of the semester I would like to improve on the information I write and try and be much more 'professionally' critical when looking at other pieces as well as my own.

I feel that one thing I am lacking in blogging is when I look at other media pieces. I have looked at games and some films but I never seem too blog about them. I know this is important and I look to catch up on the ones I have not done and make sure I blog about future practices.

Visualizing My Dissertation

Even though I feel it's early days (for dissertation) I was recommend to visualize it and put it on paper. I am a bit unsure as to whether I have done this correctly but I have still given it a shot. It has helped me link and relate certain features of my project that will be useful when writing out my dissertation. As this is a huge writing piece, it is critical to plan out how it is going to be tackled and I feel this (iterated a bit more) will help a lot:

Visualizing Dissertation

Environmental Storytelling

• Using Environment To Tell Story
• Suspenseful Horror
• Pacing The Player
• Encourage The Players Interest
• Immersing The Player

I want to double check that I am on the write lines with this task as I feel I may bit a bit of tangent with it. As for my dissertation, I plan on beginning it on the weekends in March. By this time a comfortable amount of practical work will have been achieved and I can start to split my workload onto the dissertation. Keeping it only for weekends and then in April, I can re-assess my current status and apply myself to wherever is needed in time for final hand-ins.