Week 21 - Shop Fronts!

So as I was saying last week, I've been working on the concepts for shop fronts to use. I also worked on a few paint overs for how the street could look. Whilst designing the shops I tired to make the shop names relevant to parts of the story or just directly to Lewis Carroll. Now though, we've realised we're mostly going to be making modular shops with perhaps two or three shops that you'll actually be able to go inside.

   The ones we're going to focus on making use of are the Apothecary, the Florist and the Cake shop, because we'll be able to use these as points of interest. For instance, in the Apothecary there might be the 'Drink me' bottle, which would give you the ability to duck, and later on there would be an eat me cake which would give you the jump ability. Then you'd go through the Florist to get to the St Fridside Well.

These are the photo bashes I produced, and to be quite honest I think they're awful. I think the only thing about it that's actually any good is the road; I think that would be a good sort of material to be using. 

   We came to realise that our idea wasn't going to make much sense. We were going to make the Quad, but we decided that it was simply too much for a starting area, so we started to think what if we scrapped the river ideas, then went from the street to the quad. We thought of making it more trippy and fitting in with the surreal theme of Alice in Wonderland, so that you'd go into the well and be transported to the Quad.

Week 20 - Trip to Oxford!

   This week we went on a little field trip! We had decided in the end that we wanted to base our idea around the theme of Oxford, and lead the player through clues that point towards Lewis Carroll's inspirations that led him to write Alice's adventures in Wonderland.
   So, we decided that to research properly we needed to take a trip to Oxford and Jonah very kindly drove us there. First we went to the Pitt River's museum, which is crammed with cabinets filled with all sorts of intriguing artefacts. I've been there a few times and I'm still sure I haven't seen everything there is to see.

   We then went to have lunch (an extremely healthy one of course...) then went to visit Christ Church, where Lewis Carroll worked when he wrote Alice's Adventures Underground. We used this opportunity to get plenty of reference and really try to absorb the environment. All in all, it was a really great trip! 

Because we had decided to base our level around Oxford, one of the things that we want to include is some shops that provide hints and clues about Lewis Carroll's inspirations. So I started to look at victorian shops.

   I had a look at these different shops and started to concept some shops! I'll show you those next week once I've finished them all!

Week 19 - Flaming Dodo!

   This week we started an exciting new project! GameCity's Alice's Adventures Off the Map competition for the British Library! I'm in a team with Lewis, Jonah, Carl, Carla and Andy, and we together are Flaming Dodo Productions! We have set up a blog where we will be regularly updating with work, which you can view here; http://www.flamingdodo.co.uk!!!

   We decided that the best idea was to start by going straight to the source material and reading the book. I found that it was free for kindle, so I bought it and spent the evening reading it with a hot chocolate.

   From then we went straight into the research stage. I looked into stylisation and various styles that Alice has been drawn in before. I looked at some drawings of the other characters, images that illustrate the setting of Alice in Wonderland and so on.
  

   I was really inspired by these so I created some quick sketches and thought about what the tunnels could be like. These were just some early sketches where I was some exploring some ideas.

   We had a group meeting and the general group consensus was that we didn't want to create an Alice in Wonderland game, and instead wanted to create a level that explored Lewis Carroll's inspirations for creating the world of Alice in Wonderland. We discussed the possibility of being inspired by games like Dear Esther, where it's audience engagement is primarily based in the environment, so the audience is left to absorb what they can from their surroundings.

Week 18 - Container City Hand in!

   The container city project has drawn to a close, and I have to say I've enjoyed creating our little dystopian universe. It's been a stressful project, and in parts demotivating, but it's all worth it to see the final result.
   We spent a lot of this time using the objects that we'd made to clutter up the level and make it really come to life. This is where all the hard work started to pay off and we reached the exciting part of turning it into a really visually appealing little world.

I drew up these sketches to give us ideas to how we could make this level interesting and look more fleshed out. I tried to think of ways that people would have tried to turn these scrap objects into home and how they'd have used anything at their disposable to build a community they could recognise and feel familiar with. So I thought of goods market stalls and a bar area where they've used spools and seats for tables and chairs outside. We had different kinds of mattresses, which we set up in some areas to seem like someone had tried to make a home in there, decorating it with old fairy lights, photo frames, and a child's teddy. 

   Here are some screenshots of certain areas to show you what I mean. I really like the bar area, and I think it makes sense that they'd have one. In a universe like this, there would need to be somewhere like a bar or whatever, something recreational for people to do because without that, a lot might question the point of trying to survive. 

   These are some of my favourite screen shots from the final level. I am so proud of my group and how much we've achieved in just four short weeks. It felt like we were making slow progress throughout the project, but now that it's all together, I  realise just how much work we've put into this. I feel like what we've produced looks really professional and like something you'd find in an actual game, which is absolutely helped massively by the sound effects that we've put in. Yay!