1980's to 1990's and The Golden age of Arcade

In between cold war riots, Margret Thatcher riots and pretty interesting fashion statements time was found for the Golden age of arcade, an era few people would struggle to not name a game from and with Space invaders being credited with ending a crash in the market in 1977 largely caused by PONG clones flooding the market. Riding on this success and Asteroids there was a new innovation of games on the market with the appearance of pop icons Pac-man, Donkey Kong and Mario along with platform games, fighting games and shooters. The arcade had begun generating billions in revenue annually with the number of arcades doubling between 1980 and 1982 (Wolf, 2008)

Pac-Man was also credited with expanding the target audience, bringing a large influx of female players into gaming. Frogger also proved effective at interesting girls in games. (Herz. 1997)

Ever the turbulent industry it was once again rocked by a market crash in 1983, again with poor quality clones playing a major role. This crash dealt a particularly hard blow to the North American industry bankrupting many companies and causing major loses for Atari, who were not aided by their massive commercial failure of the ET game which was only worth burying the unsold cartridges in a big hole in New Mexico.

At the end of this crash and alongside the rise of PC gaming came the NES reviving the home console market after its release in North America in 1985, the industry began to once again recover bringing the now still popular franchises of Zelda, Metroid which brought players back behind their TV screens. Ultimately this began the end of the arcade genre and the rise of new genres such as American RPGs Metal gear solid and Dragon Quest and Japanese RPGs Final fantasy and Dragon warrior.

By the 90’s PC gaming continued to rise with multiplayer usually via modem to modem and by 1995 Activision was beginning to build PC units especially suited for gaming and working on creating games in 3D environments such as MechWarrior 2 (ckmogo). On the console front Nintendo and Sega with the Mega Drive being the big rivalry at the time but it was also the emergence of the handheld console with the Nintendo Gameboy remake the Gameboy Pocket.

Getting to the late 90’s I’m finally old enough to vaguely recall it without the need for too much research and reading as a starting point. In 1994 Sony hit the console market with the Playstation, 1996 saw the arrival of

the Nintendo 64. While the Nintendo 64 was a machine for cartridges the Playstation games came on CD-ROMS, allowing games to add bigger files with more cinematic elements and higher quality sound, as a result by 1998 Metal Gear Solid was one of the earliest games to contain full voice acting.

While the 80’s had been harsh to the consoles towards the end of the 90’s they’d come back fighting, bringing with them masses of titles, Sonic the hedgehog, Doom, Tomb Raider, Pokemon, Resident Evil, Half-life etc. etc, a very long list of games that started the franchises that are still going strong today and nearly 20 years on are still taking our money.

Wolf, M. (2008). The video game explosion: a history from PONG to PlayStation and beyond. ABC-CLIO. p. 105.

Herz. J. C (1997) Joystick Nation. Abacus.

(ckmogo) This Is "The Gamer's PC" 1995 (2009) [online video] Available from:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FPOuR1CTJss

http://www.classicgaming.com/features/articles/computergaminghistory/

Getting into Immersion Pt 2. Interactive Storytelling.

Before looking at current examples let’s start by backing up through history for a better idea of when games and story began to mesh together. Early games from before the late 1970’s had little to no story. Games both lacked the graphics power to display large amounts of text and the memory to store it so what could be achieved was limited. One of the first examples of games coming into storytelling was ‘Colossal Cave Adventure’ in 1976. A text based adventure this was basically a book that being a game allowed for the interactive dimension, in which the player could interact and navigate with the text based environment with short commands such as ‘Get lamp’. (Ryan, 2014)

It would have been a different
movie if he'd had barrels to throw

Years later in 1981 Nintendo produces the first game to tell a complete story via cut scenes with the Donkey Kong arcade game (GWR, nd) but even with this, with only one monkey and no typewriter is wasn't going to be Shakespeare. The story was simply ‘Donkey Kong has kidnapped the princess you better go find her’ and while it’s not much it was a start and it got the message across just as well as cinema managed with its lady stealing giant ape except this time you got to be the one to knock it off its tower (when you say it like that it sounds awful but I’m sure you get what I’m saying). Also simple as it is, ‘save the princess’ has been the overall goal of almost every Mario game from then onward just with more to the story, more locations and a spikier ape like creature to do the kidnapping.  

Moving on from these, the world seems very undecided on what story telling in game constitutes and researching has left me somewhat more confused than before I started. It’s all well and good to come from these points such as Donkey Kong to where we are now but what I've found is the debate that just ‘a game with a story’ is not the same as ‘an interactive story’. This is a debate that actually made me question the point I was trying to make when starting this, was I looking for good storytelling in games or games that pull off an interactive story. This left me sat there stumped for a good long while of what I was actually looking for. Thinking it over interaction with the game and its story was what I originally wanted, to put the fact you have control and freedom within the story environment to use. This swiftly opened up many more debates surrounding it.

A story can’t be interactive if it linear. It’s not interactive if it’s scripted. Yet games that have this in abundance are receiving praise for their interactivity. Beyond two souls received a lot of praise, with the official PlayStation magazine calling it ‘an essential purchase for interactive-drama fans’ (Iwaniuk, 2013). Beyond received a lot of love, love I get the feeling in the result of Stockholm syndrome because to me it was essentially a film that held me hostage because it occasionally needed me to tap a button. If that was just to make me feel like I was actually of use to it or because the quick time events were all that stood in the way of it being shipped as a game rather than an animated film I don’t know but while it was different and I thought it was pretty good as a movie but having me tap a button at scripted points to check I’m still watching is far from an interactive player experience.

Games will always have a level of restraint, if the game doesn't have a dance option then there isn't going to be any dancing (modding community not included), you can’t get past the need for things to be programmed in but I don’t think that has to be a major hurdle. Despite my view of beyond two souls I disagree that a game can’t be linear and immersive, it’s more about how involved you get as you follow the story. I’m not talking get from A to B and shoot anything that moves but something that gives you a level of freedom within its story. Half-life achieved a nice in-between of the styles of Quake and Metal gear in terms of little story or dumping a large amount of information in your lap. Half-life began to allow you to decide your own level of involvement and immersion, you could be a man escaping from a secret base during an alien attack or you could look deeper and discover a bigger story full of conspiracy. (Hodgson, 2004)   

I found this again with Deus Ex: Human revolution, again you follow an overall linear story but talking to the right people, going off the map provides access to more information and gives the feeling off more story on a larger scale. Basically non-linear gameplay within a linear story.

To conclude this creating immersive, interactive environments in games doesn't seem easy, especially when the accepted view on what that is exactly seems so confused and cloudy. There doesn't seem to be one right way to do it and some do it better than others and to offer Beyond two souls some redemption even if I don’t think it worked it took a shot and tried something new, which is a good thing in an industry so uneasy about going off the beaten track.

Ryan, M. Emerson, L and Robertson B (eds) (2014) The John Hopkins guide to digital media. Baltimore. John Hopkins University Press.

GWR, nd http://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/records-5000/first-use-of-cutscenes-to-tell-a-story-in-a-video-game/

Iwaniuk, P. (2013) Beyond: Two Souls review – an essential purchase for interactive-drama fans. (Online) PlayStation official magazine UK. Available from: http://www.officialplaystationmagazine.co.uk/review/beyond-two-souls-review-official-playstation-magazine/

Hodgson, D. (ed) (2004) Half-life 2: Raising the bar. Roseville CA.Prima Games.

Critical Studies Workshop

I've never enjoyed writing mainly because I find it difficult so I’m happy to take all the help I can get hence I was quite eager to attend the critical studies library workshop.

The biggest things I took from it was an actual idea of referencing, after glancing at some of my own work and having no idea what I was talking about and where it became quite obvious why it needs to be done correctly so I corrected that where I could. I was also advised as I stared at a blank paper plate I was meant to fill with writing to try talking into a Dictaphone to see if that organises and collects my thoughts more.  

The day ended with a look the role of an art director and at image painted to industry standard in two hours looks like, a concept that was only slightly overwhelming. I always knew that my drawing pace needed work but not quite to that extent.

Well now it’s an Easter of putting these workshop notes to use and catching up with the blog tasks for me.

Industry job requirements

For this task we were set to find a job request for a role we’d be interested in filling in the future to get an idea of the standard and requirements industries are looking for and give us a clearer picture of what we’re aiming to achieve on the course.

I went with a listing for an environment artist, while I’m a huge fan of characters and character art when it comes to making things myself I find I’m much happier with environments and they are what I spend a large proportion of my time in-game stopping to look at.

(Colour coding probably isn't the best way to do this but it’s the easiest way to organise it to make sense to myself to avoid this turning into a much bigger rambling wall of text so, red would be something I’m nowhere near, blue what I’m already working on improving and regular black something I think I can already do)

This ad is for a senior environment artist for Sony in one of their London offices

“We are looking for an experienced and highly motivated Senior Environment Artist to join our world-class development team working on our next generation PS4 titles.”

Job Responsibility:
- Creating environment and prop assets to a high level of skill and ability within a predefined art style

- Able to take ownership of distinct areas & work through complex areas of work with little to no supervision

- Proactive in being aware of industry knowledge and highlighting examples of technical and quality benchmarks in current environment asset creation

- Ability to independently plan, brief, review & integrate outsource environment and prop work

- Contributes to ideas for development of the environment department, projects and team

- Able to identify personal growth and be proactive in following a self-development plan

- Mentorship to junior environment team members

- Proactive in driving internal communication and inspiration within the environment team

Knowledge and skills:
- Very high level of modelling, texturing, and UV mapping skills including high detail modelling techniques in Maya, Zbrush, Photoshop (or equivalent 3D and 2D programs) with an attention to modelling relevant detail when creating environment assets

- Strong understanding of the principles of form, composition, colour and lighting.

- Ability to independently plan, brief, review & integrate outsource work.

- Strong creative and technical problem solving skills. (who could deny it with my amazing colour coding system?)

- The ability to meet deadlines and to work to a technical and time budget for assets.

- Strong time management abilities, able to self-direct and maintain a sustainable predictable art delivery process.

- Ability to highlight examples of inspirational work that pushes technical and quality benchmarks

- Able to take direction and feedback from the team Supervisors and Directors.

- Proactive and self-motivated team player who works well in a collaborative environment.

- Excellent communication skills - artistic, verbal, and written.

- Flexibility & the ability to learn new skills over time.

Ok so overall there is very little black text there. My employability currently consists of willingness to learn and receiving feedback which is generally the minimum for every university student. 

All the red pretty much highlights my two biggest weaknesses, communication and management. That is honestly no secret, it's always been that way. Over the years I've used a lot of methods to get myself organised and while they work for a while they've never stuck more than a month or so. The only solution I have for this one is to develop some damn willpower for a change. 

As for communication, especially verbal it's something I'm always working on and a factor that's dragged me down for years. My work suffered all through my foundation course from an inability to communicate with and ask for help from tutors. While it caused all these problems believe it or not that's an improvement, go back a couple of years and I couldn't catch a train alone without someone to buy my tickets so I didn't have to talk to the conductor. Written communication doesn't come easy either, I'm one of those dyslexics who could sit there for hours sometimes trying to put thoughts into words without success. I've found coping mechanisms to help organise my thoughts (amazing colour coding) but while this helps me I'm never sure if what I end up with makes as much sense to others as my systems do to me.

And finally all that blue is pretty much what the course is trying to help me to do and what I'm already trying to work towards, it's almost as if the course structure was written to be industry standard, funny that. 

But how to go about turning all those requirements into black text? I think the biggest thing to sort out with all this is communication and with some hard work everything else will follow. I have no problems taking criticism but never actively seek it so my work never really varies from the ideas I have and the problems I see so I should try to talk with the other course members more and use the DMUGA Facebook account more often. The up and coming group projects will also be a good opportunity to experience working in a team for the first time on an art based project and is a good starting point for fixing some of those red issues, since while practice probably won't make me perfect it can make me better.  

Personal Task: Getting into Immersion

I'm a huge fan of stories, in books, in film, in comics, via poorly reconstructed charades whatever the medium I enjoy storytelling and as medium of storytelling I think games are really good for it and have a lot of potential to be better. Good stories are immersive and video games have the power to be one of the most immersive media out there, I've lost count of the number of times I sat down to play a game in the morning to then realise it’s midnight and I’m sat in the dark. I've said this opinion to number of people and the replies range from agreeing with it to looks of pity for my clearly disillusioned mind.

I’m an avid reader but I find a game can a lot of the time be more successful at getting information across to me simply because it uses visual communication. While reading A Game of Thrones I constantly found my immersion breaking at parts were the author was adding a lot of heavy details to set a scene. There would be a tense confrontation between to characters when suddenly focus would shift from them completely to describe in detail the dinner the servants had just brought in and books are stuck with that issue, since they usually have no other way to get the image across but with more words. Games are a lot simpler, a quick visual image and your brain registers there’s food there and with that done you can quickly get back to the characters. 

Yup. Bread, cheese, fruit, Done. Now let's move on with our lives.

Of course that’s the kind of thing that film and television has over books but games also have another dimension to that since you can actually interact with the scene. Unlike a film where you watch the scene as some kind of invisible floating spectre with no input but usually with a game not only am I going to watch this dinner scene I going to knock over all the wine goblets, because I can!
The use of multiple endings and choices is also a bonus that games have. Everyone I have ever met has had a moment where they’re screaming at a movie protagonist to not go outside to see if the coast is clear after there was quite obviously a psychopath nearby a moment ago. Naturally the actor on screen does not care about your wise and sage advice because you have no control over this pre-recorded person, but that does not have to be the case with games. This protagonist is bound to the will of my directional pad so there will be no heroic, death wish antics on my watch, I’m going to crouch behind this chair until the madman goes away.

Though games are by no means a perfect tool for the job and they bring a lot of issues especially with content size, the capability limitations and the amount of freedom and control you can give a player before they inevitably mess something up. As technology develops games are gaining more and more potential to be amazing storytelling devices and while some aspects are doing a wonderful job I’m of the opinion that a lot of it is being handled nowhere near as well as it could be.

The Good, The Bad and the no longer so ugly Architecture

Bad News

Starting off with the bad news, my digital painting needs a lot of work. Up until now my graphics tablet was really more on a novelty for quick doodles but with our first introduction to digital painting I realised I have a bit of a hill to climb, possibly a mountain.

Two days to illustrate a joke that
really wasn't worth the effort.

I've attempted painting in Photoshop a lot but for small things, usually a quick illustration for a joke a friend makes but they've never had to be visually correct or have correct lighting so when it came to trying to include that I was having a tough time. 

Given enough time I think I can produce digital work to a possibly acceptable standard but it's a case of producing much better work and a lot faster.

Five minutes to make, all day to
texture.

Good News

Things are looking better over in 3D. Looking back over work it's nice to see clear improvement especially with the initial modelling, I found I was able to model a lot of simple street furniture in under five minutes also re-made and improved the phone box from the texturing lesson way back at the start of the first term but this time multi-sub, bump and spectacular maps included so it's not just a red box. 

But the biggest stand out for me was returning to the architecture project. I finally got around to starting to remake it from scratch and it was nothing like the nightmare it was back then. Modelling took two hours as opposed to two days, cut the tri count down by 1000 just through competent modelling and not a n-gon is sight. It's not finished yet but it's leaps and bound better than the original and how I ever got it done without layers the first time round is a mystery to me.

Welcome back now back to work

2013 2014
I've only written the wrong date twice so far, I'm impressed with myself.

With my long lie in's back in 2013 it's back to it. Probably didn't keep as busy as I should have over Christmas but the next 2D project means I'll have lots of sitting around Birmingham, most likely in the rain to make up for it.

Pen, inks, war artists and an excuse to watch Ridley Scott films. Ok maybe not an excuse but I'm using it as one. I'm normally hesitant with more permanent and less controlled media but it's actually nice to get away from pencil now and again. I'm finding this to be an interesting project especially since it's two weeks long meaning I have time to head home and work from locations in cities other than Leicester.