Project Refinement & Direction

I've gone back over the lecture and seminar notes for the past three weeks to help focus my thoughts. I feel at the moment that even though I have a strong idea, I have so many things already in mind that I could do, but I can't prioritise and get to actually doing anything besides reading.

The first lecture was an overview of fourth year, and the second was about academic research. Now obviously, throughout this project I want to get better at the skills associated with my chosen field, but I knew before that it shouldn't drive my project, and that the topic shouldn't be superficial. I feel that my idea revolving around companion characters in games is good for both academic and personal research. It involves the area I'm interested in, character design, but it's also a topic in games that I can see that can be explored intellectually and academically. When talking about the forms of research, obviously artistic research will be my main source, but it's highly possible I'll have to dabble into others. For instance, humanities or scientific research, like psychology in terms of the player experience. The notes also talked about research paradigms, which is a way to describe different philosophies, or ways of thinking.

The third lecture discussed theories, which are used to provide a framework to analyse and understand art and media. The theoretical view we take can influence how we interpret artwork, so I think this is an important area to look into. From the examples we were given, I can already see how they would influence my way of thinking, such as aesthetic theory, semiotics, interactionism etc. I already have plans to research shape and colour theory for character design, and I think focusing on reading up on these topics will help identify practical activities I could be doing that have a formed purpose.

The first seminar, while in week two, was about the non-linear research process and developing aims and objectives. This, along with the jellyfish exercise, really helped me clearly define my research domain and topic, and got me thinking of directions to go down. The second seminar was about developing critical frameworks for our research, which the literature review will focus on. It should consider key theories and ideas and how they could be applied practically. The third group mentor exercise was to do a practice pitch presentation in a small group. This helped in terms of formatting my thoughts from the jellyfish into a proper presentation, and the feedback from peers was insightful as it got discussion going.

So now, I've taken the notes above and tried to define my project idea by its standards.

What?

Domain & Topic

Companion characters in games.

Initial Research Aim

To investigate the effective use of companion characters in games, and what influences their design.

Initial Objectives

- Critique existing video game products using companion characters and conduct case studies to record the findings.
- Evaluate industry standards in character design pipeline process and methodology to help inform my own.
- To be continued...

Why?

I believe this is a valuable topic to investigate due to both academic and personal reasons. Character design is an interest of mine, and my own preferences in games revolves around those that have strong characters and story, believing that they are what evoke the strongest emotional responses, and are a key factor in bringing a game to life and giving it personality. I've observed narrative and aesthetic have become increasingly popular for games in the last few years, and that companion characters are a current trend. However, there has been some mixed reviews of games that use such mechanics, and I want to know why, and how that can be improved.

How?

Lectures have shown that theories and critical frameworks will be important in researching and developing work for my project. I'll start off by fully examining how existing products have used companion characters, then looking at the relevant theories and methodologies they have used to inspire more in-depth research for those topics. With these in mind, I will begin practical exercises by using the knowledge I have gained.