Research Proposal & Supervisor Assignment

Today was the hand in for the Research Proposal. I finished my final polishing in the early hours of the morning, uploaded it to Blackboard, then went for much needed sleep before I had to make a physical submission by 4pm. Interestingly, what I've learned from this particular written submission is that I need to start making my sentences more compact even as I write them, as by my first finished draft I had 4662 words for a limit of 3000, plus or minus 300 - the final was 3112 without references and titles etc. Before I would have thought actually getting the word count would be hard, but I was wrong. Very wrong. Editing was worse. Trying to combine thoughts and use less words without loosing the impact of what I was saying was difficult at first, but comparing the two editions I can clearly see the final was better in terms of readability and concise quality, so in the end I'm pleased with it, but wish I could instinctively do that in the initial drafts next time.

Link to Research Proposal.

We were also assigned our Project Supervisors earlier this week and I'm with Ryan Locke, which I'm quite pleased with as he seemed to show genuine interest in my topic in my first presentation and talk with him. So, I organised an unofficial meeting with him before the holidays, and we met yesterday for about an hour on the 12th. I wanted to go over my plan of action and what I've done so far.

We started off looking at my Proposal as I wanted another opinion on a little content, as well as section layout and appearance. My research aim had started off as "To investigate the effective use of duo companion characters in games, and to research what effects their design.", but it hasn't changed since the start of the semester, and I felt the wording wasn't quite right or was too general. I described my project the best I could, saying it revolved around form and function, of how I can justify the use of duos to make them successful and fit for their purpose, and how a lack of this breaks the flow and immersion of the game. Ryan agreed with the wording, as design should be the priority, and "use" sounds too mechanical. He suggested it was back to front and should be more along the lines of "... effective design of duo companion characters and their use...". Otherwise, he said the rest looked fine, but to just perhaps introduce the idea of duos rather than general characters in the beginning a little earlier.

I briefly described my strategy - what games I picked for my case studies and why, the design theories and pipelines I've investigated, my practice-based research, how my critical framework is applied to these, and my idea for the mix and match final outcome. He said that it sounded interesting, and asked if the results would feed back into my designs, which they would given the right time frame. I said I wanted time left to do a nice final piece, possibly taking one of the most popular pair sets and modeling them, which I'm unsure about it as I've never modeled a character before, or at least a digital painting as I'm much more confident in it.

I feel the questionnaire concept tests the characters design, but also covers others aspects from my critical framework in theory. Ryan agreed it's all about the design and process, and I shouldn't worry about post-production stages too much. He said modeling is a good skill to show off, and as a learning objective is good in the sense that it's a further process in design from the transition from 2D to 3D, to getting that final pose and in-game look. He recommended ZBrush, as it's quick to build a mesh, and easy to iterate on renders, but 2D is also important. He asked about the importance of gameplay elements as it's a part of my framework, but I replied the project is mostly about design, but the theory of player interactivity is relevant while practical application is out with the scope of the project. For instance, a character's role might be reflected in their design etc.

Overall, Ryan said my research sounds solid, and was impressed with the amount of work I had done and the attention to detail in my planning and investigation, that I was thorough and going in the right direction. He said there's little to worry about, that my Proposal seems tight and it looks good aesthetically. I think this meeting went really well for a first proper talk about my project, and it seems I'm doing something right!

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Feedback Update
We got our grades back on the 6th of January, just as I was rushing about to catch a train, so it was quite a hectic moment when I opened my email. But I got an A! An A. For a written submission. I don't think that's ever happened before, it only went as high as a B17. I'm incredibly pleased with that, disbelieving I may be for a while, and think it's boosted my confidence about this project. As usual, in the Rubric we got feedback from Robin Sloan to go with it, which is as follows:

"The introduction is a good place to lay out some of the research context for the reader by giving examples of notable character duos that proved to be particularly memorable. This wouldn't be an analysis, but would give the reader a sense of what kinds of characters interest you.

The literature review touches on a range of concepts that will eventually form your critical framework. These are all of relevance and will enable you to critique character duos effectively, provided that additional literature is brought in to support some of the less well developed sections. For example, the sections under Player Interactivity draw only from games as examples, but could look to the game design literature (as well as character design for games literature) in order to build a more substantial understanding of the associated theories that relate mechanics to character design. In the dissertation, it would be great to see the review extended to bulk out all of your identified sections. Freeman and Solarski are great sources earlier on, but Ibister, Tillman, and others are also useful, as are the game design theorists Schell, Zimmerman et al.

The overall research proposal is excellent but look to extend the review to include sources in support of all of the identified sections, as this is essential to the framework. Also note that a framework really ought to be in place prior to conducting the case studies, with the case studies more of a means of testing your framework, detecting weaknesses etc. You can then reflect on the framework, make adjustments if needed, and put this into action in your practice based research."

I agree on many points Robin makes. My introduction was still quite a general approach to character design and duos, and an example or two would have been better as it would show, not tell, what I'm talking about. The topics I was discussing later on in the literature review were underdeveloped and did lack evidence to support my points as I had done previously, mostly due to Player Interactivity being less important and not as thoroughly researched, but will seek to improve on for a deeper understanding. Authors like Tillman and Schell are already on my to do list, but I will look up the others. In a sense, my critical framework has been formed before the full case studies, as so far they're more of an overview, and have been developed to its current state because of my findings, so I think it's at a good stage. Overall, the feedback is quite positive with improvements I understand and agree are needed, so I feel quite confident in tackling the dissertation.