April Plan

It is now just about to become April so I have created a plan to help me get through the month and complete all my work at (hopefully) a relatively stress free way.

April Plan

As you can see from above, I have tried to plan out April as best as I can as I know it is going to fly by. By the end of week 1 I aim to have the basic draft of dissertation done (Intro, Main, Methodology). and have my Alpha game completed. I also want to start looking at my showcase and planning that with regard to business cards etc.
I will organize a meeting with my supervisor this week to help me plan out the next few weeks. I will especially need some help with my dissertation and my exhibition.

Dissertation Start

So the other day I set out my dissertation headings but it wasn't until today I actually began it. To begin with I finished off my Visual Dissertation Document to a standard that I was happy with to use to prepare my dissertation:

Visual Dissertation Document

This help me start my dissertation by adding in the relevent headings:

2.0 Contextual Review
2.1 Psychological Horror In Games
2.2 Player Experience
2.3 Environmental Storytelling

I have gone further with this and created a more direct link between my dissertation and visually planning it:

Dissertation Plan (Main Body)

So this shows roughly how the main body of my dissertation will be (the part in-between the introduction and the methodology).

I plan to continue this on Wednesday and finish an extremely rough version of it. I will then speak to my supervisor about help with the methodology before continuing with the dissertation over the weekend.

Personal Notes

At the moment it is extremely rough. I have pretty much just gathered quotes and placed them in semi suitable places. I would like to have a completed rough version done by Monday next week. I am also going to plan the month of April tonight as time is very valuable at the moment and must be used appropriately for all aspects of the project

Media Test - Level Streaming

For a while now, my game has become very slowly which has been very frustrating. I have been trying to figure out ways of fixing this which has taken me such a long time. The frustration has also slowed my progression in development as I have felt irritated. However, I have now found a solution and have finally fixed this problem!

Level Streaming
Level Streaming is an effective method to make a game much more efficient. It enables you to easily load in or out certain parts of your game. This means that if there is an area that the player cannot see, you can save rendering process by loading this part out and only loading it in when the user is going to see it.

Finding the Issue
At first I thought my level was slow due to so much lighting. I ended up deleting a lot of lights to help improve my game. This helped only slightly. Thankfully, it did not effect the ambiance of the environment too much as it was after all a horror game in which, darkness always entices atmosphere. After further reading I read that fully opaque materials can use up a lot of rendering process. With this in mind, I changed all my opaque materials to be fully visible, however, nothing much improved.

I then looked into level streaming and thought that this actually may end up solving my issues. I found this really helpful tutorial on Youtube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jqdz9n-7H_A

Using this I quicky tested in by splitting my environment in two. Apart from lots of errors to due coding links being broken etc, it worked perfectly. My game was running so smoothly I couldn't believe it!
I then went ahead and decided to split up all the extra rooms I have and have them stream in nad out depending on where the player is (via trigger boxes).

Media Test - Level Streaming

This has helped dramatically and the only issue  I occurred was in relation to blueprint references and matinee's etc. The reason being, I could not find a way to call these functions/variables in different levels. It was easier for my to just make the assets in the room that were not referenced in blueprint as the level's pieces. E.g with the levels that are not loaded in (the assets are not there) trigger boxes and matinees still sit there.) thankfully these to not take up much memory so it is ok to leave them there.

Personal Notes

This has been an extremely annoying hindrance for my process (the slow frame-rate). I am so glad that I have fixed this using level streaming. This does mean I am a little behind plan but at this point, I am not overly fussed as I am happy to have just solved this major issue I was having. I still aim to have an 'Alpha' version of my game completed on Monday, as well as starting my dissertation.

Media Test - Linear to Non-Linear Story

All along I wanted this story to be experienced in a non-linear fashion. However, I felt best to approach the development of it by creating it as a linear story and upon completion, converting it into a non-linear story.

Linear
To begin with I created my story events in a linear process, which would result in the playback of these events, happening in a linear process. I had 5 events:

1. Gravity Law
2. Mother Issues
3. Death Of A Soldier
4. Fire At Orphanage
5. Family Death

These were created in this order and therefore occured, in this order. I wanted to convert this so that you could experience events 1-4 in any order with event 5 being the conclusion/ending. In order to achieve this I needed to 're-wire' my level blueprints in order to accommodate some complex calculations.

Non-Linear

I got started on attempting to make my story non-linear and was happy to find it not overly difficult. The main concern was that in my linear story, each event, triggered some sort of change in the environment. This worked well, however, if I was to make it non-linear, I would still want the environment change to happen in the order I chose. The order being:

1. Environment De-saturates
2. Roof changes
3. Walls/Floors become a Half-State (Hotel/Asylum)
4. Walls/Floors compeltely change from Half-State to Asylum
5. Game ends

This required some careful though but it was easily managed after much consideration:

Media Test - Linear to Non-Linear

As you can see in the image above, the 'Linear (before)' image shows how each event looked before converting it. They each had a trigger boxes that would trigger the event and change the environment. Very simple and very effective. Now, the two images below that, show how it has been converted into a non-linear story. All the different trigger boxes link into the same switch node. This helped manage what environment change would happen as it would cycle through them in the correct order, alternating the environment correctly.

In order for the correct event to happen (not shown here) I had to insert a 'call function' node just after each 'doOnce' node. Each of these functions were different and would reference the different events that would happen in the story. E.g player hits trigger box ('TriggerBoxMotherIssues01') then this would call that event and play it, and then the environment would change depending on number the 'environment change' was on. So if this happened to be the 3rd event triggered in the game, it would be the 3rd environment change that would occur which is the Half-State.

Personal Notes

I was really happy to achieve this all so easily. I really enjoy using the level blueprints as it is very similar to hard coding which is something I have enjoyed in the past. I am playing a little bit of catch-up with my blogs as things have gotten slower this past few weeks. The main reason being that my games frame-rate has gotten extremely slow and has been frustrating to work with. I have now fixed this issue which I will discuss in the next blog.

Supervisor Meeting - 10

Student Name: Christy McLaughlin
Supervisor: Ryan Locke
Date: 20.03.15

Agenda

• Visual Dissertation Doc worries
• Game running slow issues
• Dissertation start

Progress Report

• Do not worry about this too much - it is merely a guide to help with dissertation/research
• Look into framerate options/other techniques to perhaps distract the framerate issues
• Start asap! Look at example dissertations to help get a start

Agreed Action Plan

• Start dissertation - look at other examples to help get started (with headings etc)
• With regards to dissertation - look at Vis Dis Doc to help although change it about so that 'horror' is the main thing to talk about
• As for game - look at frame rate, post process techniques to perhaps mask any issues/enhance game
• Look at UE4 examples and study the material nodes to see how exactly their materials/assets look so good

Personal Notes

This week the meeting took place over Skype as Ryan is unable to get himself into university. This will probably be the process for the next few weeks. It worked really well and we ended up having much more time to discuss my project. We are now approaching the end of March and I am still at a decent point in my project. It is now time to begin my presentation and come April, think about sorting showcase stuff and preparing for final hand ins. I will re-draft a plan of action at the beginning of April but for now, in the last week of March, I have some things I'd like to sort first:

For Next Week

• Start dissertation - headings (perhaps very very rough draft)
• Have game finished to an 'Alpha' level - ready to test, polish and finalize
• Possibly some more research

Event05 - 'Family Death'

This is the concluding event of my whole game. This is where the player will understand a lot more fully what is going on and who the people in the story are and their relations too each other. As I polish this up there will be a lot of changes as the story is not up to scratch so far - a lot of changes are needed in the parchments. This scene plays reference to Roseanne's fathers death, as well as me implementing her death and the foreshadowing death of the user, Dr. William Grene.

What Happens

1. You hear some sort of sound coming from a room (music/voices). You approach door and enter.
2. You enter into a room of two closed coffins and one open coffin.
3. Upon exploring the coffins, you establish that one is for Roseanne McNulty, and the other for her father - who have been referenced throughout the game.
4. You explore the last open coffin and discover it belongs to you, Dr. William Grene. You also discover much more to the overall story
5. Lot's of weird things happen at this point as the environment looses control, after a few moments, the game will end and credits will role.

Event05 - 'Family Death'

Personal Notes

This is the last week I am giving (in-a-way) to developing my environment. I want to have the level complete by Monday and therefore the rest of March and April to polish it. I am a little behind at the moment but still easily within my target.

Supervisor Meeting - 09

Student Name: Christy McLaughlin
Supervisor: Ryan Locke
Date: 16.03.15

Again, this week Ryan was absent so I was unable to see him. I do have a few concerns regarding my project so I will perhaps email if I feel the need to see him before next Monday. I wish to discuss the practical issues I am having in which the game engine is running slow and frame rate is very low. I am also concerned with my Visual Dissertation Doc as I feel I want to start writing my dissertation but not having this complete is hindering that.

Practical Issues

Just a post to make note of the practical issues I have been having recently which has annoyingly slowed my workflow. The engine seems to be running slow now at a rate that is so frustrating it has put me off working on it. I have reason to believe it is the lighting as when playing the level, it is still stuttery but when you set of a trigger to delete most of the lights, the game runs fine. I will be looking briefly into ways of fixing this or at least, removing some of the lights to help.

This is officially my last week I want to work on my game. Ideally by Monday next week, I will have a fully playable game which only needs polished.

Horror Video Games - Essays On The Fusion Of Fear And Play - Review

This book was a fantastic read. I pretty much read the whole thing as so much of it was relevant to my coursework. Some essays were of a different subject but this is exactly the kind of book I would recommend to anyone looking into horror video games. I gathered lot's of quotes which may or may not help me but I am sure most will be of some use:


Match Made in Hell: The Inevitable Success of the Horror Genre in Video Games
Richard Rouse III

Game Storytelling works best when the plot is fairly simple...but the plot is something that needs to be immediately understood and which propels the player through the whole game experience...Since horror works best the less that is explained and the more that is left up to the imagination, it maps well to game storytelling. - p16

...back-story in subtle storytelling sections involving dialog over game-play, graffiti written on the walls, very quick semi-animated flashbacks, and cryptic journal entries...This enabled us to keep the story mysterious enough that the player would be left with numerous unanswered questions. - p17

In horror, the way the audience fills in the blanks will be far more disturbing than anything a writer could possibly come up with. - p17

Horror is also ideal for games because it presents a familiar world but with enough of a twist to make it seem fantastic and special. Horror stories are typically set in highly recognizable locations that players can identify but which have been invaded by some evil force. - p17

A horror game can introduce a supernatural element which justifies...Yet the familiar setting of horror fiction keeps the player grounded. - p17

A popular game design device is to give players some information about their surroundings, while leaving a lot out. - p18

In an immersive game, the player actually projects himself into the experience...With the player fully immersing himself in the world, fear becomes much more intense. - p20

...it's important to keep in mind that almost all narrative video games are power fantasies of one kind or another. If too much of the player's feeling of power is taken away, in comparison to what they're accustomed to experiencing in other games, they're going to feel frustrated and hence pulled out of the experience. - p23

...the most cinematic device, the cut-scene, surely one of the most jarring immersion breakers in a game's toolbox...it tends to pull players out of the experience. - p23

Gothic Bloodlines In Survival Horror Gaming
Laurie N. Taylor

In Gothic literature, lost histories are often uncovered through the castle or haunted house in which the narrative takes place, with frequent remarks on the past inhabitants through decorations, paintings, and other elements. In survival horror games...the same elements remain. - p53

Storytelling In Survival Horror Video Games
Ewan Kirkland

...littered with narrative fragments in the form of newspaper articles, lab reports, photographs, diaries, audio cassettes, painted portraits and computer logs, accessible through both game-space and what Aylish Wood labels "info-space"...As Ryan notes, such techniques produce two narratives running in parallel: "the story to be discovered, and the story of their discovery". - p67

Written documents, an audio file, graffiti, all contribute to the foreshadowing of the level's conclusion. - p68

The design of spaces in survival horror games and the manner in which players are encouraged or permitted to interact within them are central to the genre's management of the interactive experience to fit a determined narrative patterm. - p68

To use Ryan's terminology, in survival horror video games spaces constitute the material signs or discourse through which the player mentally constructs the game's story. - p71

Just as a reader or viewer might not necessarily interpret their respective texts in accordance with the ideal interpretation, so players are unlikely to complete a video game in its initial play. - p73

In survival horror, the necessary actions which make up the "ideal sequence" of play are imbued with narrative significance: through the design and organization of avatars, spaces, puzzles, objects, adversaries, and the scattering of info space documents. Games elicit a story produced through game-play by requiring that certain narratively-loaded objects be picked up and correctly used... - p73

Storytelling in survival horror, in common with many qualities of video game narrative, is a process of uncovering not narrating (Grieb 2003: 166), solution rather than creation (Egenfeldt-Nielsen et al., 2008: 182) .  - p75

...in survival horror buildings and spaces tell stories, much like the documents which litter them. - p75

The ultimate horror of survival horror is the suggestion that, despite our strongest feelings to the contrary, we are not the masters of our own fate. - p77

Haunting Backgrounds: Transnationality And Intermediality In Japaneses Survival Horror Video Games
Martin Picard

Silent Hill is considered to be more psychological, more about characters and atmosphere, and more about giving a sense of dread, anxiety and helplessness [Perron, 2006: 8-8]. - p96

...psychological horror, a type of horror akin to Japanese horror...In order to build tension, psychological horror relies on the characters' fear, guilt, beliefs, and emotional instability... - p111

Psychological horror is terrifying to gamers due to the tension built up around the story and characters' actions. It creates discomfort by exposing common and universal psychological fears, such as the fear of the unknown...  - p111

I believed that our method to invoke the fear in the player's own imagination maximizes the recipient's fear. We do not simply show scary things, but provide fragmental information and create a situation that forces the player to imagine these horrors. I personally call it, "Subtracting horror" [Stuart, 2006]  - p111

In Japanese horror, fear is not simply generated through suprise; the silence and suspense in-between the action is important too. This silence makes the player's fear build in his or her mind. Japanese horror is always designed this way [Stuart, 2006]. - p112

The Survival Horror: The Extended Body Genre
Bernard Perron

"the horror genre can easily do away with character and plot; it is the detail of the monsters, the rhythm of the tension and shocks that matter. Plot and characters are things video-games find very difficult to deal with"  - p132

...the third [-] person perspective added to the dramatic tension by allowing the player to see things that would otherwise be lost in a first [-] person perspective, such as monsters chasing the player character... - p132

Agency is the second unavoidable concept at stake. Janet Murray has influentially defined it as "the satisfying power to take meaningful action and see the result of our decisions and choices" (1997:126). - p138

Plunged Alone Into Darkness: Evolution In The Staging Of Fear In The Alone In The Dark Series
Guillaume Roux-Girard

It isn't what you see, but what you can't see. It's the suggestion; the subtle teasing of the subconscious; the lonely creaking of the floorboard resonating throughout an empty hallway; the slow advance around the corner; the swelling sense of dread as the ever-present evil that looms near refuses to reveal itself. Fear is not the adrenaline rush. It's the helpless feeling of beign alone in the dark [Fahs, 2008] - p145

The acousmatic sounds - defined as a "sound one hears without seeing its originating cause" (Chion, 1983: 19, freely translated) - populating the off-screen, induce fear because they create anticipation. - p152

As is the case with horror films, the silence...puts the player on edge rather than reassuring him that there is no danger in the immediate environment, increasing the expectation that danger will soon appear. The appearance of the danger is, therefore, heightened in intensity by way of its sudden intrusion into silence [2004]. - p153

To trigger sudden events is undoubtedly one of the basic techniques used to scare someone. However, because the effect is considered easy to achieve, it is often labelled as a cheap approach and compared with another more valuable one: suspense" (2004). - p159

Patterns Of Obscurity: Gothic Setting And Light In Resident Evil 4 and Silent Hill 2
Simon Niedenthal

The emotions resulting from enforced player vulnerability - a hallmark of the survival horror genre - as experienced within the narrative themes, player tasks, and virtual architecture of the game worlds, offer a new venue for exploring the depths of fear, terror, and the sublime that were first plumbed by writers such as Anne Radcliffe, Edgar Allen Poe, Matthew Lewis and H.P. Lovercraft. - p168

One key way in which survival horror games create tehir emotional effect is by maintaining a state of player vulnerability. - p170

...obscurity is one means by which the appraisal period is extended, and the player is frozen in a state of uncertainty, in which action is considered but not yet possible...Often this is accomplished through strategies of visual obscurity related to darkness, atmosphere, and spatial occlusion. - p173

Dark environments are a cliche within the horror genre. Therefore, it is important to reiterate that darkness is only one means of creating obscurity that lends itself to the sublime terror of the survival horror genre. - p176

Hair-Raising Entertainment: Emotions, Sounds, And Structure In Silent Hill 2 And Fatal Frame
Inger Ekman and Petri Lankoski

Regarding the early horror film, Whittington mentions how sound became one of the main tools for maintaining narrative cohesion in films that otherwise would have lacked tension and suspense... - p181

The emphasis on sound has remained important even as the genre has matured. We suggest a reason for this resides in sound's ability to tap into emotional responses in a way that is extremely powerful, yet subtle enough to escape our conscious attention. - p181

They aid story comprehension by selectively attracting attention to events which are important for understanding the story... - p185

Power and Dalgleish suggest that fear relates to situations in which a person perceives that their personal survival, or their objectives are in danger. - p190

...the games further create anxiety by playing noisy and unpredictable environment ambient sounds. - 193

Daniel Kromand (2008) points out that horror games also tend to use "false alarms." Thus, when the usefulness of a certain sound has been established, it is sometimes used in vain, just to make the player more alert. This uncertainty of the functionality and role of sounds contributes to the deeply disturbing effect of sounds. - p194

Our analysis suggests that sounds are essential in shaping fear through goal-related evaluations...A particular sense of unease is created with sounds that cause contradictory evaluations: loud sounds accompany actions that would best be silent... - p197

Complete Horror In Fatal Frame
Michael Nitsche

Upon completion of the game, the player is left with no increased understanding or reward; it is unclear whether survival or a "happy ending" was achieved. The avatar could possibly be dead. Instead, finishing the game provides relief from responsibility and escape from its horrors [Hoeger and Huber, 2007: 156]. - p216

Gaming's Hauntology: Dead Media In Dead Rising, Siren And Michigan: Report From Hell
Christian McCrea

"Horror video games' emulation of white noise, photographic blurring, and celluloid imperfections, produces the uncanny impression of an older, ghostly or undead analog media seeping into, contaminating and enveloping the digital" (Kirkland, 2009). - p222

The Rules Of Horror: Procedural Adaptation In Clock Tower, Resident Evil, And Dead Rising
Matthew Weise

...the process of which I'm speaking is creative, not prescriptive. It is an authored process, by which conscious choices are made in how to change, manipulate, and re-arrange elements of an existing media text so that it conforms to an author's interpretation. - p239

...process of abstraction, by which certain elements are chosen to be modeled in a game system while others are omitted (Juul, 2007). - p239

Procedural adaptation is the term that I feel best encapsulates what video games do when they codify the conventions of horror texts. - p239

Watching someone run from a serial killer and running from a serial killer oneself are not the same experience... - p241

Reanimating Lovecraft: The Ludic Paradox Of Call Of Cthulhu: Dark Corners Of The Earth
Tanya Krywinska

The "cookie-crumb trail" device, as I will call it, provides game designers with a means of controlling the order in which a player encounters events, the predictability of which can mean that that cinema-style shock tactics can be more easily employed. - p274

The trail...can be played with to create shocks, surprises, work up a strong sense of trepidation and in many cases function as a means of acting as both environmental story-telling and warning of terrors to come... - p274

While the sound or other cues in cinema prompt the spectator to imagine they have to act, in games it is incumbent on the player to act on what they hear and see. - p275

...its interiors, is exceedingly dingy and run-down, the overall effect of the decaying-chewed-toffee colours is to give the player a sense of claustrophobia, underpinned by the presence of many boundaries that restrict the player's explorations. - p280

Personal Notes

This book has been fantastic help. A major influence (maybe) was the discussion of 'Procedural Adaptation' which means taking a book/film and adapting it into some sort of game. This is something I have done and may use this within my research or project title. The first page of this particular chapter had some nice descriptions.

Play Dead - Genre and Affect in Silent Hill and Planescape Torment

Link:

http://www.gamestudies.org/0301/carr/

spooky noises are an excellent way to give us the creeps as "the spatial indeterminacy of sound means that auditory illusion can be even more disconcerting than either optical or visual ones" (Ree, 1999).

- Sound is clearly so important - yet another reference!

Silent Hill is a horror game, it aims for intensity, tension and fright, and its ability to generate such affect is fuelled by its more directed gameplay.

- Perhaps linear gameplay is useful in order to direct a perfect horror sequence

The game is set in everyday places - cafes and gas stations, schools and hospitals. The ordinariness and familiarity make it all the more disturbing when things turn nasty.

- This is why I wanted mine to begin in a hotel and slowly change

This was an odd article as it was comparing two games which is much different to the dissertation style writing I will be completing. Still, I have now caught up with all these little articles I found and can now continue with my research.

Improving Computer Game Narrative Using Polti Ratios - Review

Link:

http://gamestudies.org/0801/articles/hall_baird

This article is making reference to Georges Polti's 36 Dramatic Situations, which are 36 different situations that can be typically found in any story:

http://www.changingminds.org/disciplines/storytelling/plots/polti_situations/polti_situations.htm

and initially propose the theory that if people can explain what is going on in terms of at least one of Polti’s units then the object that they are engaged with can be labelled a story.

- How this article is deciphering between a story and a game (initially)


There may not have been a lot of quotes that I thought were useful to me from this article however, I did find it interesting. This is due to the method of creating their very own ratio to decide how good/exciting a game's narrative is. It might be worth me looking into this ratio and applying it to my game and see what I come up with.

Polti Ratios (Taken from article): 

Level of Drama(LoD)= P/E
Variety of Drama(VoD)= U/36
Involvement in Drama(IiD)= U/(M+5*C)

1 Identify as many Polti units as possible P.
2 Identify (roughly) the number of events E.
3 From P, identify the unique units U.
4 Count and categorise the characters as major M or minor C.
5 Plug all these numbers into the Polti ratios.

Second, how do we think about improving these ratios? To improve the ”dramaticality” towards the Polti-ideal story we want P and U to increase as much as possible while E,M and C are minimal. We propose the following five steps:

1 Eliminate irrelevant Polti’s units with respect to the story.
2 Propose additional units with justification to increase M.
3 Consider the implications of proposing these units on the number of characters (M and C).
1 Reach some sort of satisfactory trade-off between additional units and characters.
2 Plug the new numbers into the Polti ratios and compare the abstract reconceived story with the original story.

We now give a worked example of exactly this sort of story reconceptualisation, taking an input story for a computer game, manually extracting our metrics, considering how to increase our LoD, VoD and IiD, and factoring in other constraints. We then present a later version of the story which has been created for this computer game.

Article (Not of any use)

Article 1

Is It Possible To Build Dramatically Compelling Interactive Digital Entertainment (in the form, e.g., of computer games)?

Link:

http://www.gamestudies.org/0101/bringsjord/

This was nothing like I expected. This was focusing on AI and the idea of compelling gameplay through AI. I am hoping the next article will be of more use.

Article 2

Loading The Dice: The Challenge Of Serious Videogames

Link:

http://www.gamestudies.org/0401/woods/

Again another article which I perhaps misunderstood when reading the title. Serious games is discussing learning in games and in this article specifically, simulation games

These were just a couple of articles I read in the hope of finding some interesting information regarding my project and my research. Sadly I found nothing.

Dynamic Lighting for Tension in Games - Review

These next few blog posts are going to be on articles I have yet to right up about. This first one is about lighting in games to create tension.

Link:

http://gamestudies.org/0701/articles/elnasr_niedenthal_knez_almeida_zupko

While many lighting principles can be borrowed from film and theatre lighting design theories, the interactive nature of games distinguishes them substantially from film and theatre. Game environments are dynamic and unpredictable due to the interactive freedom afforded to users within the world, thus narrative context, users’ positions and perspectives within the gameworld-crucial parameters to the calculation of lighting-cannot be assumed.

- Lighting becomes much more complex when designing it for game levels

One key way in which survival horror games create their emotional effect is by maintaining a state of player vulnerability, often by suspending the player in a state of incomplete knowledge. The perceptual conditions for this state of vulnerability are enhanced through visual obscurity. Obscurity supports a sense of vulnerability (uncertainty) and is thrilling because it is makes the object of terror indistinct. It should be noted that the opposite of obscurity is not light, but clarity; thus, obscurity can be produced by anything that thwarts clear perception: darkness, atmospheric phenomena (such as fog) or occlusion (blocking by architectural objects).

- 'Vulnerability' is something I keep coming across - key feature for tension in games. Obscurity in game is also important. I may look into fog within my environment, to enhance the atmosphere.

Personal Notes

It is clear that when reading these articles, I am only finding little bits that are of any real use to me. This is because they go extremely deep into their specific research that it is far too unnecessary for me to go that far when I am looking into something different. However these articles are giving me some bits of useful information and reading.

Visual Dissertation Doc Update

Old Visual Dissertation Doc

Old Visual Dissertation Doc

New Visual Dissertation Doc

New Visual Dissertation Doc

I am having a lot of trouble with this and feel like I really need to to be complete so I can properly start my dissertation. This is something I will be addressing to my supervisor at our next meeting so I can really get started with it all.

Progress Presentation 04

Progress Presentation 04

Feedback On Presentation

• I have come on a lot since last time
• Work is looking good
• It is fundamentally Production Design that I am looking at - quick look at that maybe
• Look at how I am going to build up events etc - like a graph, agency should be going up and down
• Fellow student recommended looking at Tanya Krzywinska

Personal Notes

This was another really good presentation. It was said that they see great improvements in my presentations and my work so I am pleased with that. There was not really any concerns they had regarding my project so I find that comforting too.

Where To Go From Here

On the feedback I got it's clear I just have to keep going at the pace I'm going and keep my targets in mind. Still looking to have this finished by March so April can be used for testing and polishing.

Event04 - 'Fire At Orphange'

This is the last major event before the concluding part (which will be completed next week) This event makes reference to the fire at the local orphanage caused by Roseanne's father. This will be a very dramatic scene and ideally be quite disturbing when experienced. The reason for this is when I read it, I found it quite an unsettling scene.

What Happens

1. You enter a room which is a dormitory. Upon exploring the room you discover a few pieces of note paper (explaining a part of the story)
2. When you leave the room, the door shuts and you hear screaming and see smoke coming from the door.
3. Upon entering the room, you see the whole room is on fire - smoke everywhere
4. You leave the room again and the hotel hallway changes once more
5. The hotel hallway now becomes, an asylum hallway

Event04 - 'Fire At Orphanage'

Personal Notes

This will be bringing my piece to an end (next week will be final event). I want to make sure this fire scene is visually fantastic as it has a lot of potential. I will be much happier once everything is done and I can then focus my time, purely on enhancing the project as oppose to creating it. - Knowing that it is complete to a certain degree will be much more relaxing.

Supervisor Meeting - 08

This week our supervisor was unable to attend the meeting due to injury. However I have decided to still set my tasks for this next week.

• Complete Event04 - Burning Orphanage
• Re-do Visual Dissertation
• Complete journal articles found
• Create First draft Dissertation
• Write up PT
• Books/Journals relating to new Vis Diss Doc

Sadly I fell a little behind plan last week so I really want to catch up on myself this week. I do not feel behind but felt I did not carry out as much work last week as I have done in previous weeks.

Audio/Music in Games

This is a review of two articles I found:

Article 01

Sonic Mechanics: Audio As Gameplay

http://gamestudies.org/1301/articles/oldenburg_sonic_mechanics

The definition of a game provided in Rules of Play is "a system in which players engage in an artificial conflict, defined by rules, that results in a quantifiable outcome" (Salen & Zimmerman, 2003, p. 80).

- definition of a game

This article did not seem to have much on what I needed. it focused heavily on sound which might be useful later on in my project, however, I do not think I will be going that deep into audio/music.

Article 02

Subjective Measures of the Influence of Music Customization on the Video Game Play Experience: A Pilot Study

http://gamestudies.org/1102/articles/wharton_collins

Mark Grimshaw has extensively studied sound and immersion in the first person shooter genre by using sound on/sound off subjective and objective tests, arguing that sound effects contribute to immersion (see, e.g. Nacke, Grimshaw and Lindley 2010). Kristine Jørgensen (2008) has likewise shown that sound influences the functional aspects of game-play, as well as the emotional connection to the game world.

- The importance of sound

Experienced game players would typically recognize this important role that music can have in alerting them to dangers or providing other information about the game.

- Inexperienced gamers may not be aware of this

‘Katherine’ found herself getting involved with the game, yet discovered she was more anxious “like there was something around the corner that the music was building up to.” However, unlike some participants who found the anxiety unsettling and a potential impairment to game-play, the heightened anxiety was felt by this participant to immerse her more in the game

 - music setting the atmosphere and helping immersion

An important (if unsurprising) finding of the study is that altering the music in a game changes meanings, actions, effects, and emotional response to the game. By varying the songs or altering the order of the songs, players not only experienced different immersive and emotional states, but also considerably changed how they play the game.

- Shows the importance of music style and selection when composing and gettign music for your game

Personal Notes

These two articles were very much intended for focus on music/sound in games. Even though this is a bit distant from my topic, it still provided some interesting points and ideas.

Narrative, Games, and Theory by Jan Simons - Review

This was a very in-depth article regarding narrative, games and theory. A lot of it was just too distant for what I was looking for - it was leading into psychology etc. At this stage it is important for me to home in on the areas I need to look at. Later today I will be re-doing my Visual Dissertation Doc, and looking to start preparing for my dissertation.

Link:

http://gamestudies.org/0701/articles/simons

According to ludologists, the major difference between games and narratives is that the former address “external observers” who apprehend “what has happened,” whereas the latter require “involved players” who care about “what is going to happen” (Frasca, 2003b).

- These definitions of narrative I keep findign always seem to be interesting

When we compose a narrative, especially a narrative based on memory, we usually try to represent “how things came to be what they are,” and the end is prefigured in the beginning. But when we read a narrative, even one in which the end is presented before the beginning, we adopt the outlook of the characters who are living the plot as their own destiny. Life is lived prospectively and told retrospectively, but its narrative replay is once again lived prospectively (Ryan, 2001).

- This reference makes a good example of my project and what it could be attempting

Lisbeth Klastrup argues, performances by players in interaction with each other and virtual gameworlds give rise to “tellable events,” “which would retrospectively make good stories” (Klastrup, 2003). Klastrup suggests to speak of “the experience of interaction-in-time, a series of effective interaction events that are naturally connected” (Klastrup, 2003) - an appropriate rephrasing of Aarseth’s concept ergodic - as“story-living” (Aarseth, 1997).

- This is how my game is hopefully going to work - 'story-living'

For one thing, many narratologists would object to a characterization of narrative as a “description” of traits and events. Gérard Genette distinguishes the “the representations of actions and events,” - “the properly narrative parts of a story” - from “representations of objects and characters, which belong to what one nowadays calls description” (Genette, 1969). According to Genette,narration is concerned with the “temporal and dramatic” parts of a story, whereas description “suspends time” and “displays the story spatially” (Genette, 1969).

- Genette's remark is something that helps me see the 'narrative' and 'descriptive' parts of my story

As Edward Branigan (2006) argues:
One of the purposes of seeing and perceiving narratively is to weigh how certain effects that are desired may be achieved, how desire is linked to possibilities for being, how events may proceed. In this way, perceiving narratively operates to draw the future into desires expressed in the present as well as demonstrates how the present was caused by the past and how the present may have effects in the future (p.32).

- I might be understanding this wrong but again, I think this can relate to my project

As Seymour Chatman writes: “Kernels are narrative moments that give rise to cruxes in the direction taken by events. They are nodes or hinges in the structure, branching points which force a movement into one of two (or more) possible paths” (Chatman, 1978). In order to identify these kernel events, a narratologist must identify a story’s ending and then reason backwards in order to establish which events must have occurred in order to make the occurrence of later events possible. The narratologist’s take on a story is hence retrospective (as is the narrator’s and historian’s perspective, because in order to be able to tell a story or to identify the beginning of a historical development, one has to know how it ended (Danto, 1985; Martin, 1986)).

- This is similar to how I have developed my story and events

Personal Notes

I found this article very difficult to understand at times. It seems very professional and maybe at a level a bit higher than what I am used to. It had a lot of interesting points but at the same time, I struggled with understanding parts.

Event03 - 'Death Of A Soldier' - Progress

This event has been completed very quickly and effectively. I have started to use cgtextures.com to help enhance my texturing. It has helped a lot and has really made my environment look much better. I still feel a bit uneasy using these textures as I can't then say that this project is all my work - although I was told not too worry about that, especially as that is not what I am being graded on.

Where I Am So Far

I have managed to pretty much finish this event - to a playable level. You hear a banging at the door to which you open. A body underneath a white sheet is lying on a table. Upon entering, the door starts to continually bang shut for a while. It eventually stops and the body disappears. When leaving the room, the hotel's walls and floor states to change into a 'half-state' material which is a crossover between a hotel carpet and Asylum tiles.

Event03 - 'Death Of A Soldier' - Progress

Personal Notes

I am really pleased with the speed of this event. I am managing to complete each event faster than the previous as my skills and knowledge of UE4 is improving with every step. I am going to spend tomorrow on research and Monday on practical work for Event02 and Event03. I will move on too Event04 on Tuesday. Bit of a hectic week this week but should hopefully pick myself up again next week.

Player Agency

Article 01

A Computational Model of Perceived Agency in Video Games

http://www.aaai.org/ocs/index.php/AIIDE/AIIDE11/paper/viewFile/4083/4418

Agency, being one’s ability to perform an action and have some influence over the world,

-First line in abstract - describes agency (Very good abstract)

Many games exploit the fact that the player will see a particular sequence only once, and create an illusion of agency through carefully crafted exposition.

- Interesting remark - falls under the false pretense of "non-linear" games that have the same ending no matter what.

providing agency is wasteful if player desires can be controlled.

- Interesting remark

Article 02

Commitment to Meaning: A Reframing of Agency in Games

http://thegeekmovement.com/ktanenbaum/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/tanenbaum__tanenbaum_2009_commitment_to_meaning_dac.pdf

Without an understanding of the pleasures of play and story and the assumptions surrounding player preferences, it will be impossible to engineer a way to a solution.

- Discussing the problem with agency

proposes a shift from the notion of agency as representing choice or freedom to one of agency as representing commitment.

- This paper is taking a different approach when looking at agency

better understand game experiences where a player has limited or restricted actions, but remains fully engaged with the game.

 - Due to scale of my project, this will be very helpful to me

we are suggesting that when play and story intersect, agency is better understood as a commitment to meaning, instead of a desire to act freely.

- I am really liking this idea and approach. Much more interesting way of looking at agency

Janet Murray, who describes it as “the satisfying power to take meaningful action and see the results of our decisions and choices” [24].

is careful to qualify her definition, reminding the reader that “interactors can only act within the possibilities that have been established by the writing and programming."[24] 

- Worth taking a closer look at Janet Murray - 'most well known definition of agency' comes from her

Today, not only is it possible for unanticipated and emergent player actions to occur, in many games it is expected. These expectations have given rise to a shift in the notion of agency, away from choice and toward freedom.

- Moving on from agency being about choice to agency being about freedom

Gonzalo Frasca, who completely disassociates agency from narrative meaning. He writes: “the more freedom the player is given, the less personality the character will have. It just becomes a ‘cursor’ for the player’s actions.” [15]

- an interesting counter-argument for the subject

However, we need constraints in order to make interactive experiences meaningful and pleasurable.

- There does need to be some form of boundary in games

Noah Wardrip Fruin writes that this “makes conversation feel a bit less first person — sometimes more as though we’re influencing Shepard (the player character) than playing as Shepard.”[38]

- A more negative approach to Mass Effect's gameplay compared to the usual praise it gets

It is more important to provide the player with the ability to take a single, meaningful action than a dozen trivial ones.

- Important techniques when creating perhaps story elements in a game

This definition, that agency is the process by which participants in an interaction commit to meaning, is particularly well suited to interactions with narrative and story-based games.

- Suits my project perfectly

Article 03

Rethinking Agency and Immersion: videogames as a means of consciousness-raising

https://www.siggraph.org/artdesign/gallery/S01/essays/0378.pdf

When you play a game 10,000 times, the graphics become invisible. It's all impulses. It's not the part of your brain that processes plot, character, story. If you watch a movie, you become the hero - Gilgamesh, Indiana Jones, James Bond, whomever. The kid says, I want to be that. In a game, Mario isn't a hero. I don't want to be him; he's me. Mario is a cursor.î [Fullop, 1993]

- 'The more freedom the player is given, the less personality the character will have. It just becomes a "cursor" for the player's actions. - interesting argument

Article 04 - (Impact Case Study)

New Understandings of player agency used to improve digital games

*downloadable file - find via Google search: New Understandings of player agency used to improve digital games

Parsler has applied a theoretical approach to game design to better understand how the formal structures of a game create an experience that seems to the player to be ‘free’ but which – as in inherent in the medium – has significantly to be constrained.

 - Here is another definition of agency - supports previous statements

Personal Notes

For something as big as player agency, I struggled to find some useful articles however there were a few. Namely article 2 of this post - very good read and I can see myself using it when preparing for my dissertation. As for the rest of the articles, they had some bits of interesting information but no where near as much as no.2

Event03 - 'Death Of A Soldier'

This part of the story is when three young 'soldiers' bring their fallen comrade to Roseanne's house for her father to bury. Making reference to an asylum, this scene will be held in a lobotomy style room - very eerie with flickering lights.

Still carrying this project as linear (for now) this event will also trigger the hotel's transformation into an asylum by upon exciting the room - the walls and floor will transform to what I am calling a 'half-state' - half hotel/half asylum. I will create textures/materials that show both environments so it can be merged in the scene for a really interesting almost decomposing effect.

What Happens

1. Banging/knocking can be heard from behind a door
2. Upon entering the room, you see a body underneath a white bloodied sheet, in the middle of the room - lying on a table. There is blood words smeared all over the walls
3. Lights begin to flicker - noises start to happen
4. The body disappears
5. A few journal entries appear on the table - when the user leaves the room, the walls/floor slowly change 

Event03 - 'Death Of A Soldier'

Personal Notes

This event does not have too much complications too it - as for transforming the environment, I have already figured this out and tested it on the floor. It worked very well. It will be a little bit more complex as oppose to having 2 different textures, I aim to have 3 - Hotel - 'half-state' - Asylum

Supervisor Meeting - 07

Student Name: Christy McLaughlin
Supervisor: Ryan Locke
Date: 02.03.15

Agenda

• Show new Visual Dissertation Doc
• Show new Journals/Articles relating to horror techniques etc
• Show practical work

Progress Report

• He really liked the progress of my visual dissertation doc. We discussed this is detail highlighting the ares of 'player experience'. 
• We looked through the articles/journals I had found. These were specific to horror games and how to create horror and proved very interesting and brought up some interesting conversation.
• Was pleased to see more progression. Suggested that it's time to start looking at how to make the user feel uneasy - looking closer at P.T. (Silent Hill) and seeing how they achieved an uneasy visual environment

Agreed Action Plan

• For Visual Dissertation Doc look at - player experience=interaction, agency, feedback (results/progression in game)
• Methods/devices that affect player agency
• Change interactive environment to something like 'Gameworld Environment'
• Perhaps a deeper analysis of P.T. (Silent Hill)
• Look at devices for visual storytelling

Personal Notes

Was a very pleasing discussion. With regards to practical, he emphasised how important it is too make sure it is relating too my research. He was pleased that I had been doing that and wants too make sure I continue and do more of it. I mentioned my action plan of being finished by end of March - with April to polish and he is fine with that.

As for research, he is pleased with what I have - it's time to start looking more at my Visual Dissertation Doc and looking at player agency etc more closely.

For Next Week

• Complete Event03 - 'Death Of A Soldier'
• Spend one evening on Event02 (Missed out doing it today)
• Adapt Visual Dissertation Doc and research into player agency
• Research into devices of visual storytelling
• Read book: 'Horror Video Games'

I am still feeling very good about my project. Ryan was very pleased with the sound effects I had created and added to my game and this has really made me want to excel with much more. Now it's March I am going to spend my weekends purely on research/dissertation and the weekdays for practical work. - Depending on work flow, I will most likely add Friday to being a 'research day'.