Episode 14: Bad End

At my time of writing this it is 2 minutes past 3 and I feel that I will not be able to complete the game. I’m going to be honest here, I spent the last two weeks with a focus on designing character sprites, drawing them and photo shopping them. I created characters I was happy with, ones that I felt would be fun in a multiple choice story context. The aspect I fell short with was the writing, which I left towards the last minute. I spent hours trying to plan possible scenarios and ended up being completely overwhelmed by the labyrinth of conversation that lay ahead of me. I started planning the scenario a few hours ago but struggled to get anywhere in particular, this being due to the fact that I started backwards, created character sprites before I had anything written. This was an extremely stupid thing to do, but due to my lack of technical knowledge when it comes to photoshop, it was the only viable option.

It would seem that I have wasted countless hours in photoshop over the last few days, to create characters for a game that would never exist. Instead being completely depressed by this disappointment, I’ve decided to learn something from it. I learn that in the world of contemporary media, it is impossible to work alone. My selfish ego and over confidence is what let down this project, one cannot make a game alone. It was stupid of me to dive in with no knowledge of programming in the first place without even asking anyone else if they would be interested in working with me. I chose what seemed to be the cowards way out, but what became the task of champions. This was a project with limitless potential, unfortunately this potential could not be realised, and the sad thing about it all is I’m the one who destroyed my vision, I watched as my empire came crashing down around me, powerless to quell the flames of failure.

Perhaps I’m being too hard on myself. So I’m going to focus on the positives. In this project I developed

l        My Photoshop Skills

l        My drawing skills, when it comes to emulating Japanese pop art.

l        My approach to media theory

l        My blogging skill

This is a sad end to a happy project and I’m rather deprived of sleep, so I’m going to keep it brief. You cannot make a computer game alone, you can not live alone.

Ah well, heres hoping I can get a referral of sorts, in any case I’m going to try and finish the game over summer.

Episode 13: Sprite Bonanza

[Please note that all of these images where horribly compressed by wordpress (more like wordCOMpress), so the colours aren't nearly as vibrant as they should be, plus they've been a bit squashed inwards, thus ruining the images. This is irritating, but I'm close to the blog deadline so there isn't much I can do about it.]

Here is a collection of all the ingame sprites. Converted to PNG so that the background would be transparent, allowing them to fit into any game environment. I cropped and resized all images to 600 pixels height, a height that apparently works best int he Renpy engine.

Again, I apologise for the awful compression rate.

Episode 12: The Pencil lines which will shape our future

Since most of my posts have consisted predominantly of words, I thought I’d mix things up a tad with a post full of images.

This post will document the process of the creation of the character sprites. Since this process was a rather time consuming one, I went ahead with it before planning scenarios and mapping stories, a mistake that would later cost fatally. I had worked out 8 different portraits for each character depending on the personalities I had given them

Tsubame

1.wry smile (default expression)

2.happy

3.laughing

4.serious

5.Thinking

6.angry

7. insane

8. irritated

Isamu

1. Grin (default expression)

2. laughing

3. Smiling + Thumbs up

4. Confused

5. Surprised

6. irritated

7. angry

8. serious

Shoko

1. Smiling

2.Grin

3) Laughing

4. Curious

5. Yawning

6. bored

7.Holding book up to face

8. Serious

The plan was to draw the characters, scan them, and then photoshop to add colour and shading. I drew the original outlines in pencil and then traced the lines I had already drawn with fine liner pen, the old fashioned way. To ensure I kept a level of consistency, I drew a basic structure for each character, with construction lines to indicate how to keep every detail level, this basic exoskeleton would be traced allowing me to keep consistent height and shape throughout. Consistency is very important for visual novel character sprites, due to the fact they stay at a central position and movements suggest animation, each sprite in an individual movement must have the same dimensions as the one before it, otherwise it would seem like the character is growing and shrinking.

1)My office space. The dual monitor setup enhanced the photoshop experience dramatically later on in the project, but for the drawing phase it existed for the purpose of reference and of course listening to louder music via my TV. Various post-it notes above my television reminded me of the order of tasks.

2) I discovered a use for sellotape, that use being to tape the current page I was drawing over the exoskeleton sheet. Proportions were carefully planned.

3) Sprites number 1 and 2 for Tsubame, as well as changing her pose and facial expressions ever so slightly, I decided to change her hairstyle slightly depending on her emotion to make the character seem more animated.

4) 0.5 mm technical pencil, the main tool of the trade

5) Decided one or two from a different angle would be pretty cool, for a tad more variety. The curtains where closed in this picture but as you can tell, it was a very sunny day!

6) To-do list, Too much to do and too little time!

7) Have to say that this was one of my favourites! Notice the line at the bottom of the sprite, this indicates the cut off line for when cropping via photoshop is required.

8) Fist of the Northstar Intertextual reference!! Forgive me Tetsuo Hara Sensei!  (I’m a huge fan of this comic) “Yoroshiku” 「ヨロシク」 is a term of greeting, but it can be used this way in a threatening manner by gang members and the like.

9) even angrier than before! love the whole Yakuza theme behind this image

10) Rather menacing. I intended the hair to allude to the shape of devil horns in this one. I found this characters hairstyle mutations rather amusing.

11) The facepalm – classic anime way of saying “I’m ebarressed” without having to say the words. “Yare Yare” ｢やれやれ」 is the equivilent of ‘jeez’ or ‘oh man’

12) like a flip book!

13) ?

14) seemless animation between the two different expressions

15) Thanks to the exoskeleton images I got an impression of scale and height with the characters in comparison of each other.

16) The lightbulb in my room was an energy saving one, so it was difficult to see the exoskeleton lines required for tracing. I invested in an overhead lamp.

I won’t show you all 24 images as my camera ran out of battery, but the aim of this post was to give an impression of the process.

Episode 11: Clash of the formats, the battle of the blueprints.

[Please note I also wrote this two or three weeks ago on notepad, but I’m currently in the process of panic uploading since its past 3am]

I’m going to be completely honest here, I finished the other deadlines that where bothering me a good few days ago and have been recovering from what I like to call “end of term displacement syndrome” a syndrome that I made up to replace the word laziness. But now, the weight of the project is hanging over me, and since its something I’m passionate about making, I’m willing to go a few nights without sleep for the sake of game creation. Todays blog post is about what format I will be compiling the game into, during the course of today I intend to do some basic writing and start drawing character sprites, a task I aim to finish by the end of the weekend (this includes image manipulation/colouring).

I had originally intended to make the game using flash, while importing illustrations I have edited via Photoshop but at the moment I have my doubts. Flash is a great program but I would have to battle the monster that comes with it, the monster by the name of ACTION SCRIPT. As exciting as its name sounds, I’ve got to admit its a very intimidating thing to learn and I don’t really know what to start (though I am willing to start, don’t get me wrong). I discovered an alternative a good while ago, a free license platform for use with visual novel games named “Ren’py” which would simplify the process. Ren’py still requires a knowledge of coding, but all of the needed coding is available on their website. Ren’py allows for distribution and commercial product releases as long as they are credited in name and offers all of the features available to commercial visual novel games that can be found on the playstation 2.

Their is no shame in using an engine to make something, the original Visual novel games are created via the NScripter engine, which unfortunately doesn’t support English language script. If I had more time to look into it and time to wait for Japanese Nscripter referene books in the post I would have liked to make use of it for the sake of authenticity.

I’m going to look into the pros and cons of both flash and ren’py in an attempt to decide which one I should use.

Flash Pros

●Action Script allows for unlimited potential and an extra layer of originality

●Can be accessed online, has multiplatform functionality

●Can store a large amount of information

●Multimedia functionality

●Compatibility with an ipac (though I have abandoned the prospect of Ipac connectivity, this is just incase I plan to go back to the original idea)

●good for animation

●Supports Jpegs and MP3s

●has its own image editing software

Flash cons

●Action script is difficult to use

●Not made for visual novels, the engine itself would require a lot of programming, and the multiple choices would require a lot of programming

●Their is no manual that explains programming in simple terms, and all of the books I have looked into in the library are pretty dense in information, its difficult to search for the information you need

●Steep Learning curve

Ren’py Pros

●The engine is made for the creation of visual novels

●Multiplatform functionality, works on windows and macs

●Can store even more information than flash

●Supports JPegs and MP3s

●all coding is clearly accessible on the website

●Simple to use

●allows you to focus on the writing and illustrations rather than worrying too much about coding

●Easily renders art from other sources, and makes the placement of that art simple

●Can make games that feel authentic, depending on the amount of effort put into the making of that game.

Ren’py Cons

●Wouldn’t be as challenging to learn to use as flash

●limits you to visual novel standards, you cannot go beyond that type of game

●Image editing is completely stand alone

I’m leaning more towards Ren’py due to its user friendliness, but in the future at some point I would like to learn the ins and outs of Flash.

Episode 10: “Characters and talk of writing is all well and good, but what about the gameplay god damn it?!”

(This was actually written 2 weeks ago, but I’m last minute uploading to save some marks) The deadline draws very near, and unfortunately due to various other work commitments, I’ve had to take a brief break from the development project. But fear not all shall be madeup for as I post this backlog of blog posts which have been laying about on my desktop in notepad format that I have forgotten to edit.

Gameplay, the ultimate buzzword used by reviewers since the late 90s to try and brainwash the gaming public into thinking that the games they play are different and individual in comparison to others, despite the fact they borrow tried and tested formula’s from other genres. Now as a gamer (just to clarify I despise the online ‘gamer culture’ and the term ‘hardcore gamer’ but I feel Gamer is the best adjective to describe someone who plays games) I have always been drawn to games which emphasize simple game play. And games these days attempt to be too complex and loose focus in doing this, this is exactly why I have yet to attain a Playstation 3 or an Xbox 360. Modern games and modern genres perplex me.

The games that resonate best with me have particularly simple gameplay. Shenmue outside of its fighting sequences simply had you pressing buttons dependant on timing, and exploring areas using nothing but the Directional pad to walk and the A button to talk to people and investigate things. While the gameplay is relatively simple, this allowed for the game to have depth in other areas such as the living breathing world it presented, full of digital people with their own schedules, its story and characters. It proves that a game can be compeling without particularly complex gameplay. Another genre which does this very well is the Visual Novel.

A visual novel is something that most Western gamers are unfamiliar with outside of the ‘Pheonix Wright Ace Attorney’ series of DS games. A visual novel is essentially a digital book with an interactive element (well interactivity at its most basic, the making of choices) allowing for multiple choices and paths in the story, the visual element means that a great deal of attention is placed into how things look, with backgrounds, character sprites and Image cut scenes. The character sprites are often 2 dimensional and digitally coloured. A lot of Japanese visual novels feature manga style illustrations (due to the cheap yet effective production values), this is not always the case however, as a company named Chunsoft makes use of real photographs and digital manipulation. The games also make use of mood dependant background music and sometimes voice acting to add an element of emersion (though a subtle element). Visual novels exist in many genres due to their versatility as books, though that potential is not usually tapped into that much. In Japan you mostly find visual novels of the adventure, mystery, horror or romance genres.

Here is an example of a fight scene from the popular adventure game ‘Fate/Stay Night’, where main character Emiya Shirou battles a heroic spirit from the past, the (casually dressed) king of heroes Gilgamesh. The scene manages to be effective despite its lack of visuals, it helps more if you understand all of the complex magic terms that the writer introduces during the course of the game but the music, voice acting and visuals convey a certain atmosphere. Interestingly enough, to add to this atmosphere the PS2 version utilizes the dual shock controller to add force feedback, the controller rumbles whenever a fight is taking place in the text in harmony to whatever weapon sound effect can be heard. The writer of the game is a novelist named Kinoko Nasu, who happens to be very good at describing fight scenes and building characters. An element of his writing is lost in the (unofficial) translation, his fight scenes have a certain nuance to them in Japanese. Interestingly enough, the original PC version was devoid of voice acting yet still manages to be effective due to the dramatic nature of the writing, of course after listening to Gilgamesh’s awesome voice, I don’t want to ever go back to playing it without voice.

Now visual novels offer a lot of in game choices, although usually these choices lead to predetermined paths in the game. In reality these choices give the illusion of choice due to the fact that some paths can only be unlocked after completing the game a certain amount of times and the fact that the sequences to unlock these story paths are extremely binary and sometimes pretty easy to discover. I want to create a visual novel which places importance on choice and consequence and instead of giving the illusion of choice, I want to give meaning to choice. I feel the visual novel is the perfect medium for highlighting conversation in a game, due to the importance placed on text. Also due to the intimate nature of its presentation. You can only see one or two talking character sprites on screen at a time and of course if you are having a conversation with someone, you’ll only be paying attention to one or two people at a time, making for the perfect conversational hyper reality. Of course, in the time frame of 2 weeks I will not be able to gain access to professional voice actors but even without voice you can make a pretty emersive visual novel depending on how convincing the writing and characters are, just like with any book. Of course the main advantage to a visual novel is you can make it interesting to both avid novel readers dependant on the quality of the writing or people who don’t even read dependant on how intersting you can make the visual cues. The viusal novel is very minimalist when it comes to animation, the character sprite usually changes emotion every line, but thats about it. To get past the minimilist animation you need to make a set of interesting character sprites with enough range. I mean look at Gilgamesh during the sequence in the video, he may be stationary, but his range of expression and his characters facial emotions make him look like an eccentric, a mad man. The right range of expression can make up for any lack of animation.

I’ve decided that for simplicity’s sake, I will make this game into a visual novel. My character designs are already based around Japanese anime style designs and I quite enjoy writing large amounts of words, so I feel that my idea would translate very well to this medium. The visual novel is a no thrills gameplay experience, it doesn’t care about an interesting style of play so the gameplay is at the bare minimum so that you can focus on the story,the atmosphere and the characters of the game, the world of the visual novel.

Episode 9: The Joys of (character) creation. My greatest weapon, is the pencil, the paper and the keyboard!! Part 2

Since my favourite influences, Shenmue and Afterdark come from Japan, I’ve decided, what better place to set the game than Japan? So this game will take place in a cafe in Japan? I’d be able to create more interesting characters that way and it seems according to the names I’ve chosen, I’m actually pretty good at making up meaningful Japanese names that fit characters! The following post revolves around character descriptions and illustrations. You may wonder why the characters are illustrated in Japanese anime/manga style? Well I’m going to get to explaining that in the next post as it relates to the engine of the game I plan to work with.

Planning these characters put me behind schedule slightly, I’d planned to have gotten a lot more done by today however, character creation it seems, cannot be timed to a precise science. It takes hours of writers block, artists block, surfing the internet for inspiration and then ending up stuck on stumbleupon and most importantly finding myself accidently reading from my pile of Japanese comics and novels, located next to my keyboard and empty mug, drained completely of green tea. Procrastination was the enemy, or rather the cause of the distraction was my own over ambitious expectation of how I’d react to the schedule I’d written down in my notepad.

I traced my earlier method of character creation as seen hours ago in episode 8, however the added pressure of having to draw the character from nothing added a new exciting, time draining dimension to the process. Thankfully, I’ve finished the character design process. And I’m going to list the created characters for your reading pleasure.

First of all I listed all kinds of characters, until I found 3 different people that clicked, it seemed to me that these 3 (well 4 if you include the main character) would be perfect in a cafe setting. For some reason. I fleshed out the characters and then drew them.

●三宅燕（みやけ・つばめ)「Tsubame Miyake」２1歳
☆Young woman with a cool attitude often mistaken for someone connected to the Yakuza
-The family name Miyake sounds for “3 Houses” as in 3 different Yakuza groups (well, I’m making a bit of a loose connection here, but you can certainly imagine 3 different houses of Yakuza living in the same village right?)
-Tsubame means Swallow (The bird)

●Personality
Has a calm and cool personality, although not easily angry, when angry she shows it. Seems to act coldly towards people she doesn’t know but she is kind and very friendly towards her friends and those she respects. Due to her assumed cold personality and looks she is often mistaken for a member of a Yakuza family

●Looks
-Cold expression
-Wears traditional Japanese clothing (short kimono)
-dyed blonde hair, medium curley hair

●Quirks
-Talks in a blunt and tomboyish manner
-Always says what she thinks
-very stubborn

●Likes
-Spring
-Mahjong
-Samurai, Yakuza and Monster movies
-Jazz music

●Dislikes
-people who lack courage
-assumptions
-modern technlogy

●Goals
-To find people who aren’t intimdated by her
-To convince people that she isn’t actually that intimidating

The idea I had when creating Tsubame would be someone who would be capable of causing interesting misunderstandings for a fairly amusing story path. Still in the middle of planning scenarios, but I feel that Tsubame has potential, she would certainly make for an interesting person for the main character to converse with due to her everyday troubles, yet her stubborn refusal to change for the sake of it. I also wanted to create a strong, yet at the same time fairly amusing female character. From the way she dresses and her dyed hair she brings an air of abnormality to her surroundings, which is important for my theme of “Changing a social space”, she doesn’t seem to be the type of person you’d expect to want to spend some time relaxing in a cafe. I like that. When it came to searching for a hairstyle, I’ll be honest, I searched google for photos of Japanse hairstyles until I found one that would match the character, I then dyed it blonde.

Also, Jazz music, Mahjong and Japanese movies are awesome hobbies!

For my next character I wanted to add a troublesome element to the setting, an explosive personality. Which leads us to my second character.

●渡辺勇（わたなべ・いさむ）「Isamu Watanabe」１７歳
☆Hotblooded delinquent with a heart of gold
-Watanabe is a common Japanese Surname
-Isamu uses the kanji for courage, and is a pretty cool name

●Personality
Speaks without thinking, fighting is his solution for most things. Despite this he is very high spirited and trys his best to be sociable towards those he trusts (he usually trusts anyone who doesn’t annoy him too much or start trouble with him).

●Looks
-short spikey hair and thick eyebrows
-Wears a custom Gakuran (Japanese school uniform) with the top button open. The gakuran is embedded with patches and has 熱血 (hot blooded) written on it.

●Quirks
-Can change from happy to angry or angry to happy in an instant
-Can’t recognize Sarcasm
-is out of touch with current affairs
-has a habit of calling people bro

●likes
-getting into fights
-cats (such a juxtaposition!)
-drinking green tea to calm his temper
-skipping school
-baseball

Isamu
●Dislikes
-Street gangs
-dishonest people
-spilling his tea

●Goals
-to try and calm down a bit and cause less trouble
-to quit school and try and get a job at his favourite cafe, they denied his request to work full time, so he sits in the same spot every day until they give him a job as a show of tenacity.

Through Isamu, I wanted to create a character who could get angry very quickly, to add a bit of difficulty to conversations with multiple paths. Hes a nice guy, one thats fairly easy to befriend, but at the same time he isn’t affraid to start a fight with you. While he doesn’t seem to be the most likely patron of a cafe, he has his reasons and he isn’t too out of place.

The good guy delinquent is usually a staple character in many Japanese manga, characters with a strong sense of justice, but a distrust of authority. According to urban legend, apparently if you have the top button of your uniform open in Japan it means that you are looking for a fight. When I first drew him, his hair looked too similar to Ryo Hazuki’s (the protagonist of Shenmue), hes kind of a more volatile version of Ryo Hazuki.

Since I have two characters that seem out of place in the setting, I decided that my 3rd character should be able to blend in naturally with the space of the cafe.

春雨書子　（はるあめ・しょこ）「Shoko Haruame」１９歳
☆ Hyperactive fan of reading and writing books
-The first kanji in her name means “Book”
-Haru Ame litterally translates to Spring Rain. Because reading is an indoor activity.

●Personality
Bright,cheerful and intelligent girl who appears shy at a glance but is actually very talkative

●Looks
-Disheveled long black hair with a middle hair sticking upwards
-Wears glasses
-really cheerful when talking/unaproachable when reading

●Quirks
-Talks very fast and while most people talk in sentences, she sometimes talks in paragraphs
-references examples from fiction when talking to people, talks about characters as if she knows them
-always brings a mountain of books to the cafe
-speaks in Osaka Dialect

●Likes
-Reading books of all genres
-Writing books
-Talking
-Coffee
-Classical Music

●Dislikes
-Television
-Manga
-Sleeping
-phones

●Goals
-To write a great book that changes the life of at least one reader
-To make more friends

Osaka dialect may be a bit difficult to translate into English, but to set the scene, its an informal and very friendly warm dialect (really, its just something I’m making note of for my own mental image I am making during character creation. Talking about characters from books as if she knows them is the kind of thing I have a habit of doing when I tell people about the books I read. I’m continuously reminding people about how “Yang Wen Li is an excellent strategist” in Legend of Galactic Heroes (which annoys my older brother to no end!).

She seems to fit in will to the cafe setting, yet at the same time bring in some eccentricity, her route is certainly going to be fun to write, due to the fact I’m going to get to reference a load of books I like and be able to add some high speed fun dialogue.

I’m going to stick with 3 non player characters I think, as too many would complicate the creation process, you’ll understand even more when I go in depth with a description of the games engine and the creation process I would need to go through, especially in terms of drawing and colouring character sprites.

The final character design is for the main character, which for now is just a name and an illustration

主人公介（しゅじん・こうすけ）２０歳 Kousuke Shujin
-Shujinkou is Japanese for “Main Character” and when read in the Japanese name order his name is Shujinkousuke
-”Suke” is a common name ending, so his name would literally be “Main Character-suke”

As you can see, he looks like me, because hey this is my game, why the hell not! Although the game is mostly first person, the choices will all be in character, the kind of choices I would make in the certain situations. You could say that this is lazy, or even vain, but its better than just having a blank passive main character. I’d be able to write based on how I’d reply to these strange characters, which would help make the writing a more fun process for me. The important thing is the degree of choice and the presentation of non-linearity.

Episode 8: The joys of (character) creation. My greatest weapon, is the pencil, the paper and the keyboard!!

Character creation

Before I start, just a note to all you readers out there. Do not be affraid to leave comments! This may be a university project blog, but I want to make full use of blogging as a medium. I would love to see some comments, it helps me know that people are actually reading and that makes me feel great. I’d be very happy to see your comments and criticism! Be you a lecturer, fellow student, a freind or a random wanderer from twitter.

According to what I’ve read from aspiring writers on the internet, character creation is a very daunting task for some. Many writers have a tunnel vision like problem wherein all they can is an interesting story, but when it comes to creating characters to populate that thriving world known as the story, no matter how fascinating they struggle. This may seem unconnected with the project at hand but I read Haruki Murakami’s Afterdark a few weeks before the weekend had begun and to be honest I was moved by it. His characters seemed to come to life and I didn’t particularly care for the story (as excelent and post modern as it was), I just wanted to look into the lives of his brilliant character. For a few hours after finishing afterdark I felt empty, no longer would I be able to follow the lives of Mari, Takahashi, Kaoru or any of the other misfits. No longer would I be able to fell as if I was part of the collective omnipitent being which acted as a passive narrator. This left me with the feeling I wanted to write something with powerful characters, that focused on characterisation rather than having a point storywise.

Afterdark made me want to write my own novel, I’ve been progressing on writing the novel at a slow pace but I have completed the most important phase to me, the creation of characters. The novel itself may not be connected to my project, but it did teach me how to carefully carve personalities into my characters.

The idea for my novel is both a simple and complex one, its set in whats known as a manga cafe in Tokyo at 3 in the morning. A manga cafe is pretty much an internet cafe, with seperate booths, free refils and a tonne of comic books. Its not uncommon for people who don’t want to go home or travelers to take refuge in these places for an entire night, due to cheap hourly rates. Now the story actually involves two stories taking place at the exact same time, each chapter alternates which story is being told, so you get both sides of each story. Both stories involve a member of staff who works at the counter of the cafe, she is a depressed young woman, unhappy with how her life is unfolding. As a way of excluding herself from society she chooses to work nights where the only customers are usually recluses. In each different dimension this character, named Shizuka goes through the same evening, however she meets a very different person each time. The different characters who enter at the same time, the same place but in different dimensions, influence the Shizuka of that dimension in very different ways and end up changing her life for the better in their own little ways. One character is an eccentric extrovert, the other an introvert with deep insight, both with completly different ways of living.

The writing process for this was an organic one, and I had a great time writing the two characters seperated by dimensions, polar opposites of each other. Both where born as the same person, but they made very different choices and grew up in different ways. When I write a character I like to think of a brief outline and then list everything I can that makes the character.

I split these lists into several catagories and rack my brain until I can fill them. These usually include:

● Hobby
● Looks
● Personality
● Quirks
●Goals/ambitions

Hobbies are very important ways of distinguishing idenitity and personality when it comes to building characters, different hobbies can invoke different personality traits. Looks are important for helping me visualise a character, in the process I can think of new things to add what these idenitity traits could signify – if someone has messy hair, we can tell they are an unorganized person, or looks do not concern them. Personalty I don’t need to explain, but its a section that I leave for towards the end, as I already have a rough idea how the character acts, and the hobbies and looks help me build on the already existing personality outlines. Quirks are important as your characters have to be beliveable, they have to be human. As a freak who added my friend on myspace a year ago’s introduction so eliquently states “NO 1 R PERFECT”, in this instance truer words have never been spoken, or written. Ambitons/Goals are important because a character needs a resendetre, it helps flesh them out and make them seem more interesting, more realistic.

Now for the 2 dimensionally seperated characters I cheated slightly and based them on extreme versions of myself in different moods. I can be both very talkitive and very shy depending on my mood, and I stretched these moods to extremes and made them into characters. These characters are both my best and my worst sides, as well as a few added extra quirks so they aren’t accurate portrails of myself, they are more hyper-real polarities of the same magnet. I’m going to start with the extrovert, and transcribe the character creation sheet which can be found in the ideas book of my novel in the making.

Name: Yamazaki Chikara ヤマザキ・力

Personality:
-Confident
-eccentric, tells strange anecdotes
-tends to say what he thinks, when he thinks it
-playful, likes to joke around
-respects everyone he meets equally
-has a very loud voice, excites easily
-positive, doesn’t overthink anything
-doesn’t get out much so he seems uninformed about some aspects of society, but he can say wise  things from time to time

Hobbies:
-exploring places open 24 hours at late night for the atmosphere
*Manga cafes
*Convienience Stores
*Family resturants
-reading vintage manga (from 70s-90s)
-reading books without blurbs
-talking to women he doesn’t know
-making people feel happy
-searching the internet for strange facts
-arcade games

Quirks:
-Speaks informal Japanese
-Wears sunglasses at night
-gets into conversations with strangers
-drinks green tea obsessively
-stays up late at night, sleeps during the day, prefers night to day
-very hyperactive
-hates mobile phones and doesn’t have one

Looks:
-Long Straight black hair
-White jacket, Jeans, brown trainers
-Sunglasses
-Light stubble
-is always smiling
-wears a huge green backpack
-blue wristband with a pacman symbol on it

Ambitions:
-Works as a writer, but wants to write something that changes at least one persons life for the better
-to make as many people as possible happy, wether he knows them or not
-is content and happy with what he has, even if he cannot fufil his ambitions

Yamazaki is a generic Japanese name, Chikara is Japanese for power. How this name came to be is a pretty interesting anecdote in itself. A few years ago I spent 6 months on an exchange trip to Japan, during the first week and the last week of this trip I was in Tokyo along with many other European students, and in particular I made good friends with two bizarre gentlemen, one from Luxemburg and another from Germany, similarily happy to befriend, myself a bizarre british gentleman. We had a very strict curfew enforced on us by the people in charge of the programme and one day Anthony (from Luxumburg) and I had had enough of this (the rule abiding Lucas decided he didn’t really want to get into much trouble) and we had decided we wanted to go outside at night, and see a different side of Tokyo. Before breaking out we decided to dress ridiculously and employ psuedenyms. I was Yamazaki Chikara, and he was Sumiya Supreme (named after Sumiya-san, one of the curfew enforcers), we stocked up on redbull and while wearing sunglasses at night we broke out of the hotel at 3am. During this time, partially because I was in character I was struck by a wave of confidence. As we explored the 24/7 family resturants (ordering nothing but water, which was free) and the convienience stores which where flooded with an almost devine light I had no qualms with entering via action roll (as if I where Jack Bauer of 24 fame) and talking to the staff that worked there at random, without fear, telling them the ridiculous made up stories of Yamazaki Chikara. At about 5am we stopped into a 24/7 gyudon resturant and proceeded to consume bowls of beef and discuss how that was the greatest evening ever. Yamazaki Chikara’s character is too good to be true, despite the fact it was indeed true. His looks section even match how I looked at the time. Just a note, the Yamazaki Chikara in the novel is indeed British, its just hes grown attached to his pen-name.

I like to believe theirs a little Yamazaki Chikara in all of us.

On the opposite side of the coin I decided to create a version of me so introverted that he may possibly be affraid of his own shadow. I’ll explain why a bit later.

Name: Boku　僕

Personality:
-Shy but cheerful
-withdrawn yet energetic
-tends to avoid confrontation unless it presents itself
-can be courageous, but it requires a build up
-waits for moments to present themselves
-is cautious but likes people
-has trouble talking to strangers
-puts others ahead of himself
-positive at times, negative at times, sometimes overthinks things.

Hobbies:
-reading manga and novels
-model kits
-studying Japanese
-Writing
-Psp games (one player ones, obviously)

Quirks:
-despite his introverted nature he laughs loudly
-cries at sad books
-tends to look serious even when hes in a good mood
-speaks polite Japanese
-drinks green tea obssesively, but only gets it from the drinks counter of the manga cafe if no one else is there
-likes eating cup noodles
-is actually very energetic, but lacks confidence
-is affraid of mobile phone ringtones
-when hes at a manga cafe he reads entire series’ of manga quickly and places them back on the shelf
-always lets people pass him and waits

Looks:
-long straight hair that covers his eyes
-thin rimmed rectangular glasses
-rollerneck jumper
-black trousers

Ambitions:
-To become a writer
-To perfect his Japanese so that he can communicate better with people

I’m not this bad, but when I first got to Japan I was pretty timmid, that was until I decided to ask the girl I had a crush on in class out (and get rejected) that I decided, hey, you don’t live life being timmid! And manned up a bit, but this is a hyper representation of me at my most introverted. And depending on my mood I can be suprisingly quiet at times despite my loud voice. In terms of looks, these characters look exactly the same as I did a few years ago in my head. The point is, both of these guys have very diffent personalities, meaning they have different impacts on different characters in the story. The extrovert frequently wanders around and talks to people in the story and the introvert stays in his booth at the manga cafe typing away.

He is boku, which is Japanese for “Myself”, its the modest way of saying I. He has a few pages of narration during the introduction for his dimension where he reveals he doesn’t want the reader to know his name otherwise they would eventually meet him and hes pretty paranoid about this. He uses boku when he speaks. Where as Yamazaki uses the pronoun “ore” the more masculine, informal way to refer to oneself.

This leads us to the most important character, one I created completly independently from an idea. I wanted to portray a lonley person who is strong enough to know she doesn’t need help, but secretly wishes someone will help her.

Name:　Shizuka 静香

Hobby:
-Listening to classical music, though she does not play any instraments. Her favourite composer is Gustav Mahler
-enjoys reading books and girls manga, hates male orientated manga because of its simplicity.

Looks:
-Thick framed glasses
-short bob cut (I originally wanted to give her unkempt long hair, but I felt a short bob cut would make more of an impression. And it was the kind of image I saw in my head when I thought of her character.)
-wears a hooded top that is too big for her
-jeans
-a white apron (its the uniform for manga cafe counter staff) + badge with her name written on it
-doesn’t smile much

Personality:
-Gloomy
-Not much of a talker
-Intelligent, but tends to make assumptions of people
-Gets nervous at times, socialising makes her uneasy unless she has gotten to know someone
-Negative, tends to overthink things
-always looking for the safest easiest route, doesn’t take risks
-observant, studies everything.

Quirks:
-Always leaves her tea for too long until it gets cold, but she doesn’t like cold tea.
-leaves store wrapping on books so no one can see the cover of what she is reading (Japanese bookstores do this for some reason)
-has a habit of checking customers computers after they leave the cafe
- can fall asleep at the counter from time to time
-hates riding the train/tram, walks everywhere she can.

Ambition:
-To get into a good university, and become an acomplished writer
-She failed her university entrance tests and gave up on her dreams temporarily.

During the writing process she seemed a bit of a depressing character, and I wanted to liven things up a bit. So I gave her some strange quirks to make her seem more alive. Yamazaki Chikara would be the kind of person to notice these quirks and point them out during coversation, and boku would try his best to not draw attention to them, but end up doing so. The quirks are benificial in terms of character interaction. Also, note Shizuka uses the Japanese kanji for Silent, yet it also uses the kanji for spring, suggesting that a change is imminent. I don’t list her family name becuase it is never revealed, her name is only discovered by the characters since it is inscribed on her staff badge.

Heres a quick sketch of the characters in anime style, since the novel will be devoid of illustration, these images are just for the sake of decorating this blog post a bit. The sketches for the characters based off of me are based on how I actually looked at the time and the sketch for Shizuka it seems was partially inspired by a character from an anime called Neon Genesis Evangelion, named Rei Ayanami. The character always looks sad and is a misfit to society, she has a similar haircut and expression to Shizuka but their personalities are definatly very different. Everyone in Evangelion suffers some kind of mental trauma, so its kind of fitting.

I’ve kind of cheated an already written my game characters, to expect to see posts on them over the next few days. You’re in for a treat!

Episode 7 Interaction and rethinking game mechanics

Just a quick post with some thoughts I’ve been having lately related to the project. I’m considering diverting slightly from my statement of intent.

After the decode exhibit, I left myself wondering what made the interactive installations so immersive and entertaining. They were all produced with a high amount of technical knowledge and skill no doubt, but part of the charm behind them was the simplicity and the subtle integration between digital system and analogue process. Which got me to thinking, “perhaps my idea may be a bit too complex?”. I mean the installations in Decode are really a lot more simple than they first appear. Take for example the camera that records people who stand in front of it for more than 3 seconds, all that really does is record a video and overwrite another video on a grid yet it manages to modify the social space very well.

To integrate an installation with interactive objects which have an effect on the game would perhaps detract from the games focus, the focus of conversation and micro elements of human interaction. And it would be fairly difficult to code, considering I don’t have much experience with Flash. I want people to focus on the characters and what the characters say, the excentric characters that reinvent an otherwise bland social space. By giving the user the option of interacting with  a lot of objects around them, which would act as very situational switches that don’t always work would detract from the experience. It would also detract from the degree of interaction. Lets say you where to activate an event in the game by sitting on a chair, the chair would become useless after fulfilling that function, from then on it would become a useless waste of space.
Shenmue is a very immersive game but it can be controlled very simpily with an average control scheme, especially in quicktime events which make use of a one button input system! During the late 70s and early 80s text adventure games only required a keyboard to play and didn’t even make use of images. The point is, a good game needs to focus on the games mechanics itself rather than gimmicks in relation to how the game is controlled to make the game seem more interesting. Therefore I should focus on creating a game which shows an interesting representation of human interaction, which doesn’t try to simulate or replicate but it just tries to be a bit more unusual than the conversations you’d find in reality.

As opposed to creating an installation, I think I should focus on creating an interesting game, and then if I have time think about how I could make an interesting installation around the game I’ll reconsider later on in the project. Perhaps I’m limiting my vision, but I’d rather limit my vision than have it transform itself into an over ambitious mess.

Episode 6: Reinventing a social space + putting down the cotroller and picking up a book

I got to thinking about the idea I want to capture in my project, from my strange train journey, from Shenmue and the Instalations at the V&A gallery that inspired me my project is about the reinvention of a social space. By a reinvention, I mean something that changes how a social space is perceived. I mean you wouldn’t expect random people to talk to you on a train and thats what makes it so interesting when random people do talk to you on the train, due to how alien and different it makes the everyday experience. So I got to thinking about social spaces.

Interestingly enough, on friday during some of my free time I wasn’t really thinking about reinventing a social space, but I actually managed to instigate the reinvention of a social space myself. For a while I’d been planing on making a society at the university as a way of getting to know new people. I quite like Green tea so I decided on making a tea society, now to be able to register a society officially I needed at least 10 members, and gathering members proved to be fairly difficult as most of the posters I put up on tuesday seemed to magically dissapear. So I thought of a new advertising stratergy. My friend Tim (Tea society Vice President) and I set up a table in the middle of “The Street” inside the university campus along with a kettle and a CD player with some interesting music and we started offering free tea to whoever passed by in the hopes of getting people to join the society.

It was an interesting experience asking random people for free tea, and you’d be suprised how many people wheren’t interested (a lot of who assumed the tea wasn’t free, didn’t like tea, or assumed there was a catch. I guess In a way their was a catch since we were looking for members). But the people who did take us up on our offer seemed really happy and talkative. We were not only offering free tea, but also offering off the wall conversations. We changed the nature of the social space of “The Street” which is just a path from A to B into a place for people  we didn’t know (and of course, some we did) to be chatty and enjoy themselves, one or two non tea drinkers even came to stop by and ask what song was playing. In a way our advert for the tea society became interactive performance art, with a varied degree of audience participation.

This lead me to think of a setting for my game. While pondering a setting I remembered a favourite book of mine named “Afterdark” by a contemporary Japanese writer named Haruki Murakami. The book is about a series of seemingly unconnected stories which take place during a single night in Tokyo in which a lot of interconnected characters randomly meet each other while sinister events take place in the background. Its a story where not much happens, but there is a heavy amount of character devlopment. The scene I found most interesting takes place in a Dennies family resturant (a chain of resturants which are open 24/7). A girl named Mari is sitting in the resturant reading and an eccentric young man by the name of Takahashi sits down and engages her in a very random conversation about Chicken Salad since he recognises her from somewhere. Heres a translated extract (killing 2 birds with one stone! Finding inspiration AND revising my Japanese!) from the scene.

*****

[NOTE: The narrator is an entity called "us" who is watching the characters in real time as if through the lense of a video camera, so everything happens in present tense, which is pretty cool]

男はむずかしい顔でメニューをひとり見渡してから、ぱたんとしめて、テーブルの上に置く。
The man quickly scans through the menu once with a difficult expression, he then quickly drops it, sending it onto the table surface.
「本当はメニューなんて開く必要もないんだけどね。いちょう見ているふりをしているだけ」
“I don’t actually need to open the menu at all you know. I just like to pretend to look through it once.”
マリは何も言わない。
Mari says nothing.
「ここでチキンサラダしか食べない。決まってるんだ。僕に言わせてもらえば、デニーズで食べる価値があるのはチキンサラダくらいだよ。メニューにあるのはおおかた試してみたけどさ。君はここでチキンサラダ食べたことある？」
“Chicken Salad is all I eat here. Of course. If you don’t mind me saying so, Chicken salad is the only thing worth eating at Dennies. I have tested the menu fairly extensively mind you. Have you ever tried Chicken Salad from here?”
マリは首を振る。
Mari shakes her head.
「悪くないよ。チキンサラダと、かりかりに焼いたトースト。デニズーしか食べない」
Its not bad. Chicken Salad and crispy baked toast. Its all I ever eat at Dennies.
「なのにどうしていちいちメンユーを見るわけ？」
In that case why do you have to look through the menu every single time?
彼は指で目尻のしわをのばす。「あのさ、考えてもみなよ。デニーズに入ってきて、メニューも見ないで、いきなりチキンサラダを頼むのって、ずいぶんわびしいじゃないか。それじゃもう、チキンサラダを食べるのが楽しみでデニーズに通い詰めますって感じになっちゃうだろう。だからいちおうメニューを開いて、ひととおりあれこれ考えてからチキンサラダに決めましたってふりをするんだよ」
He rubs the wrinkled corner of his eye with his finger. “Hey, think about it. Entering at Dennies and suddenly ordering Chicken Salad without even looking at the menu, its pretty bleak isn’t it? That and being filled with the feeling of looking forward to eating a Chicken Salad at Dennies. So thats why I look at the menu once, and pretend that I’ve chosen Chicken Salad every time.”
ウエイトレスが水をもってくると、彼はチキンサラダと、かりかりに焼いたトーストを注文する。「すごく　か　り　か　り　にね」　強調する。「黒こげになる才前くらいに」。それに食後のコーヒーをつける。ウエイトレスは手にした機械に注文をインプットし、読み上げて確認する。
The Waitress arrived with water and he ordered crispy baked toast “Extremely C R I S P Y” he stressed. “About until its just about charred”. That and also an after meal coffee. The waitress inputs the order into her handheld device, and then reread sto confirm.
「それからこちらにコーヒーのおかわり、みたい」と彼は、マリのコーヒーカップを指して言う。
“Also, it looks like we’ll be needing another coffee over here” he says as he points at Mari’s coffee cup.
「かしこまりました。ただいまコーヒーのおかわりをお持ちいたします」
“Understood. I’ll bring you a refill coffee right away.”
ウエイトレスが法っていくのを、男が眺めている
The man stares as the waitress leaves
「チキンは好きじゃない？」と彼は尋ね。
“Do you dislike chicken?” he asks
「そういうわけじゃない」とマリは言う。「でも外ではチキンはあまり食べないことにしているの」
“Its not like that” Mari says. “But I don’t really eat chicken much when I go out”
「どうして？」
“Whys that?”
「チェン．レストランなんかで出されるチキン、わけのわからない薬物を投与されていることが多いから。成長促進剤だとか、その手のもの。鶏は狭い暗い艦の中に閉じ込められて、いっぱい注射をされて、化学物質を含んだ飼料で育てられて、それからベルトコンベアに載せられて、機械で首をぽきぽ折れるて、機械で羽をむしられるの」
“Because the Chickens sent to chain resturants are usually administered tonnes of unidentifiable drugs a lot. Growth Promotion Medicines, stuff like that. The Chickens are trapped inside a narrow dark cage, they get a lot of injections, a diet filled with chemicals, that and they also ride conveyer belts which can snap their necks into bits and trap their wings.”
「わお！」と彼は言う。そして微笑む。微笑むと目尻のしわが深くなる。「ジョージ．オーエル風チキン．サラダ」
“Woah!” he says. He then laughs. As he laughs the wrinkles in the corner of his eyes deepen.　”A George Orwellian Chicken Salad”
マリは目を細そめて相手の顔を見る。自分がかられているのかどうか、うまく判断できない
Mari’s eyes narrow as she looks at her oppositions face.　We cannot tell if she is irritated or not.
「でもそれはそれとして、ここのチキンサラダは悪くないんだよ。ほんとうに」
“But that being said, the Chicken Salad here isn’t bad you know. Seriously”

*****

Despite the extract being set in a resturant, I was thinking of setting it in a cafe, as that is a potential place for meeting people with odd things to say. What I like about the conversations in afterdark is that they don’t progress the plot too much (a lot like the conversations you’d find in a Tarinto film like Pulp Fiction), until really the last few chapters of the book, but while they don’t progress the plot they do an excelent job at characterization. We can tell that Mari is fairly reserved, but when she does speak she speaks her mind, she is intelligent. At the same time we can tell that Takahashi is a bit of a wierdo but we like him, as he can make even the most mundane topic seem compeling and full of suspense. When I was reading this extract I was sure it would take a turn for the sinister. It didn’t really, he just has a conversation, tells her she looks familiar says a bit about himself and leaves. I want to make the most mundane conversations had by characters in my game sound interesting, I want to create a bunch of well characterized compelling wierdos. During the next few weeks I’m going to need to focus on creating the characters and fleshing out the setting. Afterdark goes to great lenghts of describing every location perfectly so that you get a very clear mental picture.

Episode 05 – The Study of Interactive art installation pieces

I went to the decode exhibit at the V&A Museum with my older brother Jamie to explore digital installation pieces, as a way of further understanding the nature behind installation pieces and to find some inspiration. I made a simple video of my favourite pieces to highlight how they worked. (also because of how fun it was synching them to classical music) It was interesting to see how different artists handled the installation process in their own unique ways

0:00-0:07 Digital Zoetrope

This piece wasn’t very interactive, but it was an engaging piece of art due to its hypnotic nature. It was very easy to stare at the Digital zoetrope for ages in an attempt to decode the message behind it. I couldn’t particularly tell. Confusing, but it did look good.

0:07-0:17 House of cards
This was apparently used in a radiohead music video called “House of Cards” and the face was singing something (probably the same song). The face could be moved via touch screen so that the viewer could manipulate the performance. This piece revolved around pure audience involvement as the face could be rotated 360 degrees in any direction

0:17-0:33 ???
Not sure of the name of this one, but what I liked about it was how it communicated digital processes as visual information. It was like watching what goes on insides computers. I found it engaging due to the fact it constantly changes and is always visually interesting to look at.

0:33-0:38 Solar
My Brother and I had a lot of fun messing with Solar. The planets on the screen moved depending on what sounds you make in front of the screen. If you shout, the planets move quickly, if you make a deep sound that lasts for a while the planets move slowly, ripple and separate into new planets at a slow pace.

0:38-0:46 ???
Not sure of the name of this one, but I like how it mixed physical interaction with electronics. Black sand on top of a white light made for an almost magical effect.

0:46-0:55 Bodypaint
Depending on how you move the paint moves. Its a simple piece, but it does look good.

0:55-1:07 Dandelion
Again, the coding involved was probably relatively simple but I liked how it combined the mundane with a fun almost videogame like interface. Use the blow dryer to destroy the dandelion. Brilliant fun.

1:07-1:22 Weave Mirror
An unconventional mirror with a time delay, each panel of the “Mirror” captures the image of whoever stands in front of it in the form of a shadow. It’s literally connected together with hundreds of wires in a very complex setup

1:22-2:06 ???
Again another delayed mirror technique, this time combining computing systems with audience interaction. The way the users image is scanned and illustrated highlights how computers work and makes them a part of the computing system.

2:06-2:22 Video Grid

If you stood in front of the camera for 3 seconds, after selecting a piece of a grid in a touch screen the grid records your reaction. It highlights audience participation, the audience are the performers. This piece also highlights social interaction and changes the social nature of the space. In a way it unites everyone in the room from different hours, and perhaps even different days. I feel that this was the strongest piece in how it manipulated space and audience perceptions.