I have always been fascinated by what I see in life - the world around me is always filled with so many different colours, shapes and sizes. I think that part of this comes from my artistic side, that I inherited from my father, but I also think that part of it comes from my eyesight (or lack of!).
From a young age I've had to rely on glasses to see anything that's more than a few inches past my own nose. To make this easy to visualise, for those of you with better eyesight, this is pretty close to what the world looks like to me, with my natural vision:
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| obtained from: http://www.coachrobertsimmons.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/637_blurred_vision.jpg |
My eyesight is blurred to the point that I can't tell that objects in front of me even exist - the whole world is just one big blur. So when I do wear my glasses, it makes everything around me look... well... amazing! It's like stepping out of a bubble, into a completely different world. I want to take in everything I see, all the colours, and shapes around me.
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| Clear Vision by InfuzedMedia, on deviantart.com |
Continuing along that trail of thought, I want my dissertation to be about what players SEE in the world around them, and how this can effect how they feel when playing a game. Some sights will affect players in a way that they are aware of (scary monsters and such), but there are many different things that add to the immersion of a game, without the player necessarily being conscious of them (like colour). Many small design considerations all come together to produce the overall feel of the game.
One of my teachers gave me lots of advice over the summer, and gave me lots to think about. One of his suggestions was to create a style guide for a game - I think this would be a great final artefact, and would be one that would also allow me to get my drawing fix. I would have plenty of things to research, and that research would hopefully culminate in a well-thought-out concept document/style guide.
The next step is to get stuck in and do some research! I also need to decide on a clearly defined set of goals, for the teachers to be able to mark my work properly at the end of the year.
Good work so far. I would like to see over the next few weeks you firming up the scale and scope of the undertaking. What is a 'style guide' what would it contain, who would use it and why. Realistically how much can you do over the time, that kind of thing. I think that this could be set out independently of the theme for the guide etc.
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