Action Plan & Meeting with Ryan Locke

In this weeks group mentor seminar, Lynn and Brian showed us examples of past works critical frameworks as a cyclic development process. I thought doing my own initial cycle and framework would help me see the bigger picture and plan out my project easier as a whole. Now obviously, this is going to change constantly throughout the year, but seeing it more laid out like this will help convey what I intend to do. The framework will help me analyse others work, and then use that criteria to help inform my own designs. In a way, I've already started identifying themes of influence in companion character games, so I'm off to a good start.

I had a meeting today with Ryan, as he showed an interest in my idea on companion characters in games in the presentation last week. Our talk started off with reaffirming what it is I'm researching. I think from this I've come to realise that while I'm looking at companions in general, I'm mostly looking at duo characters, so this dynamic will be different from three characters or larger teams, and should start referring to it more like that. I think looking at other companions will help inform the research on the whole, and the differences between how they're designed and used is something I'm going to look at.

I talked about my growing interest in duo character hierarchy, the typical roles and archetypes expected, and how that influences the character's relationships and gameplay. I went on to how I've been reviewing games so far; defined by examining their character design, their story and interaction, and the co-op gameplay. Our talk helped develop this to the framework you see above, which has evolved to design, gameplay, relationship and compatibility.

I've also identified a strong distinction in games with duos in terms of target audience, as in many cases there's two humans in more realistic art styles and genres with a mature subject matter, and then there's either two creatures or one with a human, and these are often more cartoon-like in style and aimed at children. I mentioned I was going to do another exercise based on existing characters, and instead of changing their roles, I'll change their genre, and see the effect it has on the art style and target audience.

Ryan said I'm off to a good start in categorising the character types and why they're formed like that, and that my progress is really good. He said I was confident in talking about the subject, which actually helped boost my confidence. I still feel a little stagnant, but the practical work has had a positive impact on me.

I should note that I have said in the past that I'll be doing case studies, which I have studied, but not focused on too much at the minute as Robin will be giving a lecture in the coming weeks on how to write them, so I'll wait until then before fully working on them.