Digital Reflective Journal #2

This week i started to develop concepts for my McGuffin project and used artist research to develop them. I started out with two strong video game ideas that used a McGuffin in both their narrative and gameplay. After developing them a bit more however I found that the artist research leaned much more towards one that the other, leading me to hone in much more on this single idea. The basic concept is that the Crown of the Great Dreamer is a magical artifact that that makes the users dreams come true but at the cost of placing them in an eternal slumber. In this slumber the crown an entire dream world based on the users desires and personality. Overtime the dream becomes so powerful that it starts to leak out of the crown into the real world, causing chaos and summoning monsters bases on the users psyche. The result of this is that the player plays as a hero who is tasked by the kingdom to find the crown and make a wish that benefits the kingdom, replacing both the current Great Dreamer and their dream with their own in the process so that there is a time of peace until their dreams start leaking out of the crown. The main premises of this that the character you play as and the personality that they develop has a huge impact on the subsequent runs after that, with the wish changing the mechanics of the world and the personality changing the enemies that the player will face in the next run.

Outside of working on my project I also spent a lot of time this weeks developing my skills through workshops, with me doing further illustrator, after effects and stop motion work. With this I yet again took the greatest interest in the illustrator workshop as there was a specific tool called the merge tool that seemed to have a lot of potential for creating a unique art style out off. I also began learning Maya which was a goods experience. Personally there was a lot about the program that I didn't like when compared to something like blender, primarily in regards to the UI. I did however feel that given enough time with the program that I would get used to its quirks to the point of being ab le to make good art with it.