Final Tutorial

   I am happy to hear that my rewritten dissertation is a huge improvement to my original one (And I honestly have Fiona to thank for for this). While what I have will suffice for the time being, there are a few other things I should consider including in there. For the conclusion, I could try to make a more personal statement (Well, not too personal, I'm honestly going to try and make everything in third person if I can) about the things a game designer should consider when creating a video game with a strong narrative. Eg, "As a game designer, it would be prudent, based on the research show in this dissertation that..."\

   Seeing how Ed Hooks has been such a huge part of this dissertation, I was also suggested to add the discussion on 'ma' back in there (I had initially taken it out in fear that I would go over the word count), and revolve it around The Last of Us (And probably GTAV with Michael De Santa's character), the characters in both these games have shown example of such a principle, where they are actually allowed to sit and reflect, instead of expressing it all through words.

May Draft 9/13 be my final draft....

   Hopefully, I can quickly finish up these changes and get my friend to proofread it one last time before we  go off to get it printed this coming Friday (ZOINKS).

   As for my practical, it would be benficial to present a larger range of emotions for my characters, particularly Jessie, who appears despondent for most of the animation thus far (This would also go hand in hand with my dissertation, especially after the analyse I did on Silent Hill 3's Heather Mason and the broad range of emotions she has in the game). I coud try to add in a few creepy details too, such as a monster's shadow passing over Jesse before she comes to after the train accident. And a vignette closing in around her mother in that one scene... Also, during the opening sequences, I should give glimpses of the monster designs I did, while they won't be animated, the least I could do is incorporate more of my concept art in there somehow.

Fifth Tutorial

   A little late on this progress report so I will try to keep it brief, I believe that the positive thing about my essay progress so far is that... well, it's progressing in some shape or form, slow and steady as they say wins the race (But seriously, I really do need to pick up the pace here since I will still need some time to get the thing printed out as well as work on my practical, and I really won't forgive myself if I end up rushing on that part).

   Incorporating my discussion about my practical piece, while not mandatory, would definitely allow me to show my connection between it and the dissertation. After some consideration over the past months, writing about it in first person will perhaps not be as confusing and distracting as I had initially thought it to be. I should try to briefly mention about what I have learnt from all of this and what will be definitive in the final piece itself.

   An important area that I am missing in my dissertation is game theory, namely Agency, a concept, when applied to games, shows how much involvements the player actually has when it comes to the game itself. Particularly, when more choices are actually offered within gameplay, the more agency there actually is. This section will most definitely take up a pretty huge chunk of the essay itself considering what I have read on it so far. This concept will be incorporated into the 2nd chapter and will most definitely add more to my analysation of the examples I have decided to talk about. 

   "The Last of Us" for example, is an game that actually lacks agency and has more authorship than one might realise, based on how it is stylised, the game is considered to be more of an interactive film. Games like "Grand Theft Auto", being of the sandbox genre, allows players to be much more aware of the game's environment while embodying that virtual character, giving a rather nice balance of agency and animation. "Journey" actually has a lot of agency, from trudging up a hill to fighting against the wind. What with the silent conversations with other characters to the hiding, ducking and diving, exploration the finding of another character/player as they go against the environment, this is certainly one of the better examples of games with a high amount of agency.

   As for my practical, based on my findings and analysing of other games. What can I do exactly to make this game concept of mine empathetic to the audience? What area should I place emphasis on? Mock gameplay or the cutscenes themselves? As game gets more complex more opportunities for animation, a whole new area in itself
three strategies: Linear cinematic, Procedural animation, Customisation of animation. So which form of area am I leaning to in particular?

   I am starting to think that including a discussion on virtual worlds (Eg, Destiny, Halo, Any MMO really) will also end up taking a large chuck of the essay, hopefully there will be some way to simply briefly mention it in the conclusion, as I don't see there being enough time to thoroughly research into that area by this point in time. It would still be beneficial to include it in the conclusion, to mention that these virtual worlds from the very beginning have allowed players to create their own stories, allowing them to take control of every single little aspect that is offered to them (Even gestures), Machinama in particular makes for a good example with all the videos that they have created out from these games. I mean... there have been some really impressive stuff done out of GTAV:

Fourth Tutorial Session

   I wasn't able to attend yesterday's tutorial session due to being ill but I did write down a few questions I wanted to ask my lecturer about my dissertation:

1. How do I reference emails:Eg, 'Email Correspondence with Ed Hooks, Date'
2. Despite not really mentioning some games, can they still be listed in the bibliography?
   
         Yes, as well as books, articles, so long as they have impacted your research in some way, they can still be included in there despite not being cited within the essay.
3. While it is not mandatory, how do we incorporate our practical into the dissertation if we decide to?
   
         Mention it briefly in the introduction (Why am doing this research and how does it support my practical) and conclusion (Eg, Tried to approach empathetic characters as Ed Hooks has suggested) 2 paragraphs at most.
4. How did games like L.A Noire, The Last of Us and Beyond: Two Souls avoid the issue of the Uncanny Valley?
   
         Actually, L.A Noire still suffers from this, seeing as they were attempting to recreate subtle facial movement that game rigs could not pull off. Wrapping around real video footage. Beyond: Two Souls has really heavy focus on the face. The Last of Us is a little more cartoony than the rest and wasn’t trying to be photo realistic.
5. What makes the characters of Telltale Games strong in terms of empathy?
   
         It's story, environment, situation, the decision making, pushing you into that role. Emoting with them. Brilliant voice acting.  Connects to first chapter about voice actor or the animator?
6. Should I narrow things down even further?
   
         Nah.

   I was also advised to get some strong poses done for the characters in my concept, and while also incorporating them into various scenes, make it so that one scene alone will actually be able to tell a story to those that view it. And there's also the academic poster, which isn't all that bad, I will most probably be making it far more visually heavy than text heavy when the time comes to work on it.

   But yes, it's time I finish up this draft a little more before uploading it to the eStudio, next week onwards, I hope to get more work done for my practical, so that I could actually send an animatic to my music and sound composer.

Third Tutorial Session

   So far so good, while progress for my dissertation may be a tad slow on my part (Due to issues with note gathering and a little writer's block), it would seem that I am still able to keep up with the pace suggested and given to by our lecturer. I will be further narrowing down on the topic that is to be focused upon as well as combine the chapters of "Motion Capture" and the "Uncanny" (Not just the Uncanny Valley, but the Uncanny as a whole) into one (Seeing that they both link strongly to one another in many areas and examples).

   While it has initially been narrowed down from all forms of media (Movies, TV shows, video games, etc.) to video games, it would be wise to narrow it down even further to a particular genre of games (Seeing as I have already unknowingly placed a strong focus on one genre in particular, that being the horror genre) that are known for their heavy focus on narrative and cinematic. to In terms of research, to further add to my growing list of books, video games and online articles, I will be looking up a few articles from the Edge magazines available in the library (Curse their shiny paper, though), particularly the issues that were highlighting video games such as "Beyond Two Souls" and "The Last of Us". (Another game I should probably look into is the "Broken Sword" series)

   Based on my introduction, I was also told to further expand upon the differentiating views of practitioners Ed Hooks and Jamaal Bradley (Two considerably big names in the animation industry, in their own way) in consideration to the future of video games narrative. It would also be interesting to discuss the difference in rotoscoping and motion capture, not particularly on the technical areas but more so on how they effectively applied to the animation itself. I should also continue looking into video games with interesting monster designs and animation as reference for my practical ("Forbidden Siren" especially comes to mind).

   I do feel that I had already gathered a decent amount of research (Which I believe will be four pages worth of bibliography), and so right now, I seriously need to get down to some skim reading (As I will no longer have enough time to properly read through every single one of them like I did with the first few books, still, hopefully I will still be able to take some thorough notes for a few of them) and start writing more than half of the dissertation before Christmas comes around.

For my reference in terms of listing down notes from live events I have attended:
Name of the talk, Venue, Date, Event it took place in

Second Tutorial Session

   Today's tutorial session was another incredibly productive one, to say the least (I'm starting to think that 20 minutes might not even be enough for these tutorials the further we progress for this module, heh), though I am still trying to figure out how on earth I am going to write all of this down and keep all my note and research gathering in check as I work on my dissertation and practical piece. Anyway, there was a lot that was discussed upon today, so hopefully I actually remember the particularly important bits that I can make proper use of for my project.
  
   Aside from demonstrating whatever project planning and time management that we have done for this project (Which I have already shown during last week's casual tutorial), we were also had to show any sort of progress we happen to have for our practical piece. And while I didn't necessarily have any sort of prototyping to show, I did have a few rough sketches to show for today on the main character and monsters that will be featured in the concept bible (And to a lesser extent, the short animation that will go with it).

   Having shared whatever sketches I have brought in today, Annabeth kindly reminded me on the importance of how a good story should have a metaphor, and that these monster concepts should actually represent something. For my project, I do actually have an idea on what my monsters are meant to represent. As I continued sketching out concepts, I began to realise how they all tend to revolve around religion, and that these demons and distorted images of saints could possibly represent a possible rapture even, in terms of the storyline (At this moment, I am constantly thinking about movies such as "Cloverfield" when it comes to the situation that takes place within the story, but it definitely is an interesting idea where only a small selection of human remains).

   Breaking away from the stereotypes of most horror games is indeed a challenge, so the next best thing to do is to find someway to go about it where these well known traditions, stereotypes and tropes can still be applied effectively. Taking the ordinary and giving it the twist it needs will be one of the biggest challenges I will have to face during this project.

   I was also advised to do a little study on video games (So there are definitely a lot of playthroughs to watch over the next few months, this data can also be added to the appendix of my essay) and collect data by looking into what my competition is doing, what tropes have been used over the years with most horror games, regardless of what horror genre it is (Why is the dark scary? What are the origin of these fears?). What locations (Subways, Shopping Malls, Motels, Museums... Hospitals), tools and situations are the most used? This will help further develop the design bible and story building (As well as something to reference in the essay).

  In terms of literature research, I was referred to the site Gamasutra and magazines Edge, Retro and Imagine FX that should be available in the library.

First Tutorial Session

   Considering the fact that my mind has been all over the place in the past few weeks whilst getting this dissertation together, I felt that I was finally progressing in a better direction during today's tutorial session with Annabeth.

   Despite the fact that we have narrowed it down to video games since my presentation (Instead of attempting to cover all forms of media, though they still could be briefly written about within the dissertation), there are definitely a lot of areas that can still be discussed upon from there.

   I was gently reminded that it should be the acting that I must analyse in this dissertation (A good reminder seeing as I tend to go off topic way too easily), and not the premise of the story (Granted, that can be mentioned if it adds to my argument), otherwise, I should simply be focusing on screenplay writing than acting in animation.

   Other games that I was referred to are 'Eternal Sonata', 'Ni No Kuni', 'Shenmue', 'Team Fortress 2', 'Ico' (Seeing that it was also mentioned in Ed Hooks' book), 'Shadow of the Colossus', 'Journey' (Unique for their lack of dialogue), and particularly, 'Thomas was not alone' (Regarded as one of the most uniquely empathetic indie games around, the game is unique for its minimalistic approach (Think "The Dot and the Line"), which makes one question just how far they can remove you from that emotional marker. The quality of the movements of these 'characters' give off a special sort of performance hardly ever seen in most games. But another question that comes to mind is whether the voice over contributes far more to the game than the animation does?

   I should definitely focus on more recent game titles (Seeing as I have to show how far games have come along as well as how much more still needs to be done before they can reach the same level as empathy as contemporary animations in other medias), but old game titles from past consoles can also be briefly mentioned in a background write up on the progress of games.

   While I do believe that there are a few good examples where games with heavy dialogue can still tell a good story, exposition is still considered a no-no when it comes to successful storytelling for games (And quite frankly, not many can pull it off).

   All these indie games tends to lead to another interesting question, about why is it that independent game developers are much more successful in producing as compared to major game studios, while both types of studios definitely have their hits and misses, indie games are faring much better when it comes to presenting games as works of art as compared to bigger studios.

   Another game that Annabeth referred me to was 'Brothers - A Tale of Two Sons', which could be use as my argument against Ed Hook's statement due to its quality acting and performance. These following games have a more unique style to them and are necessary for comparison with more realistically styled games. And while 'Heavy Rain' and 'Beyond: Two Souls' have already been listed under my list of references, I feel that it is necessary to have a much more thorough look into Quantic Dreams' works due to their specialty in motion capture technology and heavy focus on dramatic narratives (And so 'Fareneheit' and 'Kara' also comes to mind by this stage).

   I also still feel that interviewing Ed Hooks (Or at least asking a few questions) would benefit me in my research, to see how much his opinion has changed since his book was first published. The only issue I am presently dealing with at the moment is figuring out how to properly word what it is that I wish to say to Mr Hooks, while I disagree with some of the things that he has written, I most certainly do not want to come off antagonistic in any way. In the meantime, I definitely still have a lot more books to read up on, but at the same time, I should probably consider what questions I should actually ask before I run out of time.