Week 5, 15 February
- Weekly meeting with Eleni
In a short meeting after submission 1, we discussed possible routes for the project to take next. The first step was to create a rough to-do list. The list included the various designs we wanted to implement in the game, such as sound elements and unity models. We need to arrange them in order of importance and complete them in sequence, this is to ensure that even if one of them cannot be completed, the final work will not be affected too much. Currently, the idea is to complete the basic gameplay first, such as hamster walking, selecting objects, etc. and then set up different styles of impression scenes with multiple levels. Finally, when there is spare time, we can try the design of mini-games and upgrade the difficulty.
For the most important element of the game, the sound, we should start to work on more detailed sound design. For the style of the final sound design, we can do some research and references, and for the basic gameplay, we can start to try to design the sound of some objects and do some sound examples.
Week 4, 8 February
- Weekly meeting with Eleni
Group members elaborated on the new project outline and then discussed with Eleni, proposing new ideas, which included: the difficulty of the game and the setting of the levels, the impact of the player’s choices on the final ending, the form of the mini-game and the insertion mechanism, the style of the game graphics that might be referenced, and so on. After reaching a consensus, the group confirmed the content to be submitted for the upcoming submission 1.
- Online Discussion
For the content that needs to be submitted for submission 1, the group summarises what can be accomplished at this stage as: elaboration on the uniqueness of the main core of the project, the source of inspiration, the expected goals, etc.; elaboration on the interactivity of the project’s gameplay specifics, the level settings, etc.; research and reference of the project’s related content; the presentation of the unity project in progress; Meeting records, project progress notes and summary index pages in the blog. After discussion and selection by the group members, the group finished setting up the division of labour for these contents and scheduled to make the final summary and revision before submission on the 12th.
Week 4, 7 February
- Workshop with Eleni
In the first half of the workshop, guided by Eleni, the group learnt how to analyse and elaborate their own project outlines through the hypothetical imaginary project method. In the second half of the workshop, the group learnt how to use unity and tried out some of its operations with some free resources.
Week 4, 6 February
- Online meeting
The group combined each person’s ideas, using Linghan’s hamster setting as the story background, Huixuan’s core gameplay of searching for objects through sound clues, and at the same time incorporating Liyuan’s mini-game and Wenxiao’s sound puzzle, and finally came up with a new project prototype as follows:
Week 4, 5 February
- Weekly meeting with Eleni
Upload ideas to teams and discuss them with Eleni
Decided to consolidate their respective ideas into one concrete project by Thursday
Week 3, 1 February
- Weekly meeting with Eleni
During the morning presentation, Jules suggested that our initial ideas for the project were too complex, and that instead of focusing on the core elements of Blind, we should just ditch the visuals and focus on the sound elements and player interaction. After sharing our idea with Eleni, we received similar feedback that our problem was that we wanted to focus on too many things, and that each element was so complex and specific that it might not be necessary to focus on both narrative and gameplay at the same time, and that it would be easier to focus on one core element and drill down to develop it. At Eleni’s suggestion it was decided to reverse the previous project outline and rethink it.
- Online meeting
As the original proposal was not very feasible, the group discussed a few more similar ideas online, but none of them were agreed upon by the group. In the end, the group decided to each come up with another idea of their own, this time dropping the narrative elements and focusing on the gameplay and sound interactions of the project based on the references they had seen previously, and each posted it to the Teams for Eleni’s input by Monday of next week.
Week 3, 31 January
- Offline meeting
In order to come up with an initial project idea, the group decided to meet offline at the ECA’s cafe.
Regarding Eleni’s question at the end of last week, the group felt that making a sound-driven game with simple visual elements would be more in line with our needs. Based on this Liyuan came up with an initial idea centred on the element of BLIND. The other members of the group enriched this idea according to their preferences as mentioned before, and finally a rough project outline was formed. The outline included game keywords, element types, game difficulty settings, gameplay styles, and several possible story plots.
Week 2, 25 January
- Weekly meeting with Eleni
In the first meeting, led by Eleni, the members of the group introduced themselves to each other and gave their initial thoughts on the play project. Although we all chose this project, all four of us have different preferences, for example, Huixuan is very fond of horror and suspense elements, and wants to create sound design that includes these elements; Liyuan values the interaction between reality and the mediums of visual and sound, and is interested in VR technology; Linghan is good at depicting stories, and wants to create game sound that is guided by the plot as the core, and has a deep connotation; Wenxiao wants to learn more about the technology and knowledge of game sound and visual because loving playing games.
Since the group was all from sound design programme and had little knowledge of visual techniques, Eleni showed us a variety of possible references for different types of games. Some of these references did not require visuals at all, some required a simple abstraction of the physical model to build the visuals, and some required time to learn some of the techniques in order to complete the more complete visuals. Eleni suggested that we let the group talk about their needs and decide in the next week what kind of project they would like to eventually complete.
