Past Update >.> - 28/03

Jerwin from our group had made a bunch of colour concepts (Thanks man!) and from looking at those, we all decided that the golded wrapper for the butter would make him look the most elegant, as well as emphasize his "high end creamy blend" status.
However, we had changed our wrapper shape into the Elvis Presley type high collar shirt as suggested by lecturers due to how we couldn't really have a bathrobe without the waistband.
We weren't too sure how we would make the folds look realistic so...
Jerwin, Zack and I had a job:
Round 2 photoshoot with butter. Jerwin went to the dairy and purchased a stick/block/bar of butter >.>;;;; (A plus being that it had gold wrapping! :D)

Front of butter - Couldn't open it fully because it already smelled bad as it was

Side view of the butter wrapping

Back of butter - raised for the butt

The back would have the brand name and logo

We did this mainly to figure out how the wrapper would have its creases and folds, meaning it would help us to make the wrapper look as natural as possible during the modelling process.

After studying the butter, we had a few design points that we knew we had to include in the final design:

Results during investigation

-Barcode at "front" 

-Might include nutritional information
-Ripped Top Half for Collar: Presley shirt
-Bottom of wrapper curls up + folds at the back for the butt
-Writing on the "back" for logo

Producer Michelle Zhen also suggested we include the slogan "Spread the Love" where Love is replaced with a heart symbol instead for the ripping effect at the end when the butter is heartbroken.

Interactive Narrative Week 5

For this week, I decided to play "The Wolf Among Us" and during my experience, I was constantly thinking about what morals I followed and what kinds of choices they lead me to make.

The Wolf Among Us is split into five different chapters and mainly involves the point and click mechanic for players to investigate around the mysterious death of a character named Faith at the beginning of the game. There are also quick time events along with conversational choices when interacting with other characters which can impact the player's narrative varying from slight to vast lengths.

The player controls Bigby who was previously known as the Big Bad Wolf along the Fables and because of his dark past, he now acts as the Sheriff of Fabletown to reconstruct his bad image. Being shown this fact alone made me consider how I would make my decisions from both my own morals along with where the character stood within society. Because the other residents of Fabletown have a hard time believing Bigby stemming from his aggressive nature, I found myself following my "no violence" policy, holding back when it came to violence in an attempt to prove Bigby had changed as an individual. Even though this killed me once during the beginning for not hitting the Woodsman with an axe, the majority of the events afterwards awarded my decisions with characters remembering my small acts of kindness during the narrative progression. Brandon Perdue mentioned, "There is plenty of reason to try to quantify a player's moral choices somehow in the game system. It allows rewards for certain kinds of activity. Non­player characters can react according to a player's reputation." Even though there is no clear mechanic gauging your reputation implemented within the game, the clear variety created for character relationships and narrative paths made it feel as if the player's moral choices made an impact. The game offers many choice situations, both small and large, to challenge the player with what they believe is correct, and also has times to test the player's patience when interrogating other characters: how long will you hold back until you bring back the wolf's claws?

Overall, The Wolf Among Us is a game which I consider a more compelling one because of its strength regarding how it incorporates the player's morales along with the gameplay and narrative. From this fact alone, I intend to continue my experience until the end with this game. :)

References
Telltale Games. (Developer). (2013). The Wolf Among Us [Video Game]. United States: Telltale Games
B. Perdue. (Author). (2011). Ethical Dilemmas and Dominant Moral Strategies In Games [Article]. http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/6460/ethical_dilemmas_and_dominant_.php

20/03 Update - Character turnaround

Our group doesn't have a turnaround yet so I drew a character turnaround of Butter for his current design. It is highly likely that we will change his clothing (wrapper) from what we have at the moment. ><

Butter

Mass Update! - 17/03

Continuing from before, I sketched a few ideas regarding the different poses Butter could use.

Pose for the camera Butter! ><

Where will your butt sit?

I also designed a few plates with one idea in mind: make it look cringe worthy. To give this effect, I added multiple patterns filled with hearts, roses and flower petals to make it look as if Butter prepared this lovely seat to look romantic but appears cheesy instead. My group members along with lecturers liked the bottom left design with the flowerbed, saying it fit the idea the best out of all of the plates.

Feedback Session

We had a group feedback session with the lecturers today, and we were relieved to hear that they thought we were really nailing the character down with all of the group's hard work. We had also discussed our problems with the butter wrapper which lead to ideas of it being changed into a highcollar shirt rather than a bathrobe. 

Throughout the week, a few of the other members headed to Jonathan's apartment to do some early sound recording for the animatic Mikayla and Michelle Z are preparing. (Really sad I couldn't go because it sounded like it was hilarious x'D)

Mass Update! - 15/03

The final script has been announced and the puns were approved by lecturers! X'D Many thanks to Mikayla and Michelle Z for their hard work in putting the script together along with having to come up with the vast number of puns!

New Pun: "I 'AM' the cream of the crop!"

Working off the final script, there was a group discussion with the storyboard Mikayla and Michelle Z made. We all had input on details such as camera angles and how the character could be posed. It was really helpful in the way it made it a lot easier to actually visualize the animation. We were a bit worried about the timing and did make a few cuts from the original storyboard to shorten it and now Mikayla and Michelle Z are going to transfer it to an animatic.

Page 1 filled with sticky notes :D

Page 2!

Looking at the storyboard, I decided to draw a few pose ideas for the butter along with designing the plate he would present himself on.

Mass update! - 14/03

Mass update on what happened during the past week! ><

Current chosen design

Our team gathered together and we discussed all the different ideas we had for the appearance of our Butter character. It was good that we had many people working on him, because the more ideas made it a lot easier to get his design on point. In the end, our group decided to use this as the base design, while developing how his clothes work throughout this week. We had combined many different aspects from everyone's ideas. 

From that, I worked on trying to get different designs for Butter's wrapper. We intended to make it look like a bathrobe to give off the affect of a "high class" character despite his incredibly cheesy lines.

Little idea of including a heart on the wrapper for when Butter is rejected

Different ideas for Butter's wrapper

I tried to explore how the butter wrapper could be used as a bathrobe...by starting off with looking at one. For the 2D arms, our group remembered Doodlebob from the Spongebob series and got influence from that. I sketched up different designs of how the "sleeves" would work, along with seeing if the waistband from the bathrobe would look natural - later in the week, we realised a lot of us were having trouble making it look like a bathrobe without the waistband because actual butter wrappers wouldn't have it in the first place. T_T; There were also little inclusions of how the word "Butter" could be written on the robe along with the heart.

Interactive Narrative - Week 4

This week, I had decided to try the tactic game "The Banner Saga" due to being a fan of the Final Fantasy Tactics games. While doing so, the game had made it extremely clear regarding when the player encountered "choice situations" while the consequences were left uncertain. This meant that as the player, I would have to consider different outcomes and the current status of my clansmen while trying to get them to safety.

The game involves a different variety of choice situations, the most prominent game play situation being the tactical battle system. The player must control different characters with different strengths and weaknesses as they try to take down the main villains who go by the name Dreads in a turn based battle. This in itself, can be seen as a choice situation because the player must make wise decisions in an attempt to defeat the enemies with the least deaths as possible: characters falling in battle would leave them injured for the next one, making it more difficult. However, while poor choices could lead to defeats, the game had times where I found it quite forgiving as your main fighters would be injured along with a few casualties of clansmen who never play any role towards the actual narrative. Some battles appeared important for the storyline, but because I never received an actual "game over", I didn't find it too devastating apart from feeling guilty about the death of my clansmen, so it was quite surprising when I actually "died." Initially confused, I realised that it was the same in other tactical games I had played in the past. Sebastian Domsch mentioned, "Depending on the extent of information about the consequences of a given choice, the nature of that choice will differ..."(2013) Not knowing when the game would announce a "game over" made my decisions a lot more careful rather than just clicking whatever I wanted to for the sake of hitting something. "Would I need to replay the level? Even if I don't, will I have enough supplies now for my men to survive?"

More important moments of choice situations are included when the player chooses how the characters interact with each other. When controlling leaders Hakon or Rook, the player has the choice to either make the characters try to maintain peace within their respective caravans, or make them treat the other members in a hostile manner. This is done through conversations with other important characters where the player physically picks which piece of dialogue their character shall speak. Along with this, the player will also have to make decisions that would affect the morale of the caravan during their journey, meaning that they will encounter different events along the way - an example being the option to save dying bandits. I personally saved them despite being low on supplies and their backgrounds: I wanted to build my character as a hero. The impact of my decision was told a day later, as the bandits had taken a portion of the supplies and disappeared. The game gives you interactive choices to build your character into who you want them to be. Some choices aren't too relevant like a drunk clan member, while other ones could lead to major consequences such as having a strong fighter actually die. A lot of choices actually seemed to determine whether people lived or not, even during the least expected moments.

After playing the game, I concluded that player choice - no matter how little impact it may have - personally makes games feel immersive. The player gets to "craft" their character through the story, as well as having to rack their brains regarding what kinds of conclusions could await their decisions. The mysteries created from my morales were what held my attention throughout the game.

References
Domsch, S. (Author). (2013). Storyplay [Book]. Germany: Walter de Gruyter GmbH
Stoic. (Developer). (2014). The Banner Saga [Game]. Austin: Texas, Stoic