Wednesday, January 15, 2025

Learning Agreement for my final module XB4406

  


NAME - John Michael Padden

MA COURSE - MA Game Design

DATE - 04/01/2025

VERSION NUMBER 4


Brief Explanation / Outline of Project / What?                                                                                  

Producing and developing concept art of monstrous creatures that are representative of the symptoms of cognitive disorders, showcasing the creative process and the decisions made during the journey to craft the most successful result without displaying unnecessary traits that may be interpreted as stigmatic perceptions of those who suffer with the conditions. Leading to a collation of the research and finalised designs into a book format with some form of narrative design utilised with an adventurer owning the book as some form of an illustrative diary with their own observations of said creatures within.
Also continuing with environmental concept art for my previous space-based linear 2D platformer with levels based aesthetically on the 5 stages of grief.

Context / Rationale / Why?                                                                                                              

Depression and anxiety are the most common cognitive disorders that society can be afflicted with, currently an estimated 264 million people have depression and an estimated 284 million have anxiety, though we can still be affected by having someone close to us suffering from these disorders. However, within society, there is still a stigma surrounding people with these disorders based on perceptions created from a lack of knowledge that can be harmful to the sufferers, a game that tackles this issue by representing how monstrous the symptoms can be and allowing players to tackle them as the heroic protagonist could hopefully alleviate these perceptions, especially with some of the lesser known cognitive disorders such as dermatillomania, kleptomania, or Kleine-Levin syndrome. Allowing players to formulate new more accurate perceptions and becoming an ally to those who suffer, with a secondary potential outcome being for those who are afflicted to overcome the symptoms in a visual format to give them hope that they can also separate themselves from their symptoms and find a way forward in life, we have seen how playing video games such as 'Dark Souls' that has incredibly difficult antagonistic 'boss' creatures has had success in alleviating depression in players through its purposeful method of inviting the player to repeatedly attempt to overcome the problem in front of them finding elation and other positive feelings when the 'boss' is defeated.

Grief is an emotion that touches upon everybody at one stage in their lives, gaming and other such activities are often seen as a distraction from facing these emotions, frequently viewed negatively in terms of actions that can heal or benefit those suffering from grief. I wish to turn this convention on its head and offer an alternative through the use of knowledge gained from researching pro-social games to provide a game that develops personal tools to assist those going through grief from both viewpoints (whether you are/will lose someone/something or are suffering with a terminal illness and wish to leave behind lasting memories with a loved one through the act of a shared experience in this game).


Key Areas of Research / How?                                                                                                        

Since these projects are a continuation from the last module a lot of the preliminary research has been documented in the last learning agreement and undertaken with the evidence presented within this blog, moving forward the key areas of research will now be in how best to present my work as a finished deliverable for the degree show as well as a unique and interesting format from the standard portfolio. The main form of this will be concept art books that already exist and what I feel their individual pros and cons may be. 

There will still be continued research into cognitive disorders with every new creature I design, even more, important as I delve into some of the rarer and less understood disorders and how that can be reflected in the design or mechanics of the creatures. Discussions with therapists and seeking semi-structured interviews with individuals who have the disorders could help with more authentic representation as well as accurate information to avoid the previously mentioned stigmatic perceptions.

Intended Outcome of Project / Results.                                                                                           

To have a published concept art book full of the different stages of the creative design process for the creatures as well as the research and how it informed my decisions, alongside this will be a digital portfolio of my concept art for the space game project.

STUDENT SIGNATURE - J.M.Padden

Saturday, January 11, 2025

Continued development of Dermatillomania creature design

 Continuing on from my last blog post going through the design process for the cognitive disorder creature representing Dermatillomania with more observational drawings of the creatures linked to my design through my research.


Moving forward from observational drawings once I've exhausted that method as a resource. It increases your understanding of the anatomy of these creatures offering a concept artist the skills to modify and utilise certain features from a multitude of creatures into one cohesive design whilst retaining a sense of realism but also of fantasy since the beast is non-existing in our world. I started to create pages of really rough silhouettes and almost stick figures to figure out good poses or movement styles for the creatures, able to add and take away anatomical features much quicker due to fewer details being drawn unlike the observational drawings beforehand. Every now and then return to more detailed imagery when trying to work out how certain features may work such as additional limbs, wings, shed skin placement, etc. 


Many other concept artists such as Trent Kaniuga or Bobby Rebholz would indicate this stage as silhouetting or use other similar terminology, the method for quickly communicating ideas and establishing the overall form of a design.

Testing designsArtists use silhouettes to see if the basic design of a character or other subject is recognizable and communicates the intended meaning.

Generating variationsSilhouette thumbnails are a quick way to generate many design variations.

Communicating ideasSilhouettes are simple and can convey the essence of a subject without the need for details.

This process enabled me to answer questions about what I wanted from the design quickly in a way that research on real-life animals and other artists' work couldn't provide. For example, In the initial stages of the design process, I suggested ways in which the creature could emulate a sufferer's desire to hide their scars from skin picking by either having wings to fly high above prying eyes or be a creature that dwells within deep caverns. These quick thumbnails allowed me to experiment with the placement of the wings as well as different types of wings that could work on the design starting with leathery bat-like ones then when I began looking into the limbs of insects such as the praying mantis to allow the creature more dextrous movements to peel skin from hard to reach places I experimented with wings similar to that of an insect. Eventually conceding that cave dwelling would be more in line with the symptoms than a flying creature, but that the flaps of shredded skin may be mistaken as wings by hunters and adventurers alike.

Learning Agreement for my final module XB4406

   NAME - John Michael Padden MA COURSE - MA Game Design DATE - 04/01/2025 VERSION NUMBER 4 Brief Explanation / Outline of Project / What?  ...