Sunday, 20 November 2011

Clarification of Intent - Manhattan Project

Over the course of the last 3 weeks my ideas for this Apple iOS game have vastly evolved. I knew from the beginning that I wanted to produce a game that would encourage people to be more responsible in their use of energy. I had read in the book Fun Inc. by Thomas Chatfield that an architect was looking to create a fully remote controllable virtual 3D home. This home would be able to viewed in real time and identify where the utilities in the home are being used. These could be accessible via the Internet, and connected through social media in order to create virtual neighbour hoods. I wanted to gamify this concept as I thought it had true monetary potential.

I feel that I wasted a lot of time looking into technological capabilities on whether it would be possible to create, when I should have been drawing character concepts and writing a plot for my game. Subsequently my game has only really fleshed itself out in the past week. I decided I wanted to give it a distinctive 1950s feel and style, and after speaking to Chris, we looked into how I could work the idea of saving energy into a fun to play game. The nuclear age was of particular interest to me and so Chris suggested looking at the 1953 world fair in New York. This spurred me on to look into 1950s sci-fi styles and how I could base my games plot within this 50s sci-fi era.

I then went on to look at retro modernistic art styles in games and was naturally drawn to the fall out series. In particular I looked at their brotherhood of steel design document., and the series' overall art styling. My plot then developed to be that similar in Portal where you are kept contained in a space against your will in order to conduct an experiment on the human psyche. The game has an AI system which narrates your progress and provides company in an otherwise isolated existence in game.

You cannot leave your home and so any items you wish to purchase have to be accessed through the Order Display on the Containment3000. As you gain skills in game, you gain more knowledge by tricking the AI into letting on secrets about the experiment that you are part of. You can increase your electronics skills in order to hack equipment and gain extra features in the game.

Eventually you become skilled enough to outsmart the AI and escape your home. The game provides the player with a set amount of energy to use each day and it is this practice of allocating energy to certain tasks that I would hope begin to adjust people's thoughts and habits in real life towards their energy consumption. After all everyone wants to save money!

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Robin Silcock

I am a Second Year Games Art and Design student at Norwich University of the Arts. After exploration of a number of roles in my first year, I am now looking to graduate as a 3D Artist with applicable skills in Maya, Mudbox, ZBrush and Photoshop. I understand that my skills in this field are not there yet - but I aim to achieve this goal through consistently working through the programs in my University and Personal Projects. I love to be busy - I have always had a lot of things on my plate since the age of 7 where I successfully balanced school with Ballet, Tap, Horse-Riding, French, Piano and Singing Lessons! In the same fashion, my university schedule is just as hectic and varied; I am a Peer Mentor to first year students, Student Rep for Second Year, and President of the Enterprise Society. Like I said, I love to be busy! I am a Games Hippie - so to speak - I believe that Games if designed and harnessed in the right way, will be able to help solve many of the global issues we have today - even if it starts off in a small way. Just look at the positive effects that Facebook and Twitter have already had... When navigating my blog;
  • Works in Progress - This section is a constantly running account of all my current projects - personal and for university. It will contain reference images and website links and sometimes less than coherent posts, so be prepared!
  • Finished Pieces - This is where you will find my more polished artwork. Looking for help with Maya? Check out the posts tagged "Maya How-To's"