Music

The music should follow the games cultural themes like Prince of Persia does by incorporating specific relevant instruments and music styles. Far Cry two’s soundtrack contains tribal chanting that connects the game to the culture of Central Africa.

The music within the game should comprise of flutes, with vocal undertones and a continuous drumbeat that gets stronger when dangers close.  Tribal chanting of an unknown language such as that of skyrim should emerge in places. The use of recorded Aboriginal dance would be a unique addition.

Koa Character Inspiration

Crow Totem: 
Throughout history, the crow has been associated with both positive and negative symbolic meanings. The most common are:

• Life magic; mystery of creation
• Destiny, personal transformation, alchemy
• Intelligence
• Higher perspective
• Being fearless, audacious
• Flexibility, adaptability
• Trickster, manipulative, mischievous

Other traditional meanings associate the crow with bad omen, death, and dark witchcraft. The crow also carries the power of prophetic insight and symbolises the void or core of creation.

Wandjina (or Wondjina) are the Spirits (or gods) of Creation in Aboriginal mythology.

Origins ( This is to do with the origin of my game too)

There are many myths recalling the activities of the Wandjina and their creation of the world. In Aboriginal mythology, the wandjina are said to have lived during the creation period. The Aborigines believe that the world originated in what they call Lalai the Dreaming — a primordial state which is not confined to the past but stands outside time.during Lai Lai (the creation time or Dreaming), Wallungunder, the "big boss" Wandjina, came from the Milky Way to create the Earth and all its inhabitants.

 Generally the Wandjina figures that have been found are connected with the sky by most indigenous tribes. 

The Australian Aborigines believe that long, long ago the earth was soft and had no form. The features of the landscape were created as the result of the acts of ancestral spirits. It was they who made the rain and dug out the rivers and water holes, who built the mountains and levelled the plains. At a time when the stones were still ‘soft’, they built themselves ‘houses’ of stone.

There was a time when he (Wandjina) made Earth and Sea and everything. He made people. These first people were the Gyorn Gyorn. The Gyorn Gyorn had no laws or kinship and wandered around lost. 

Wallungunder, the enterprising Big Chief of the Wandjina gods, saw that he could do good with these people, so he went back to the Milky Way and brought many other Wandjinas to help him bring laws and kinship to the Gyorn Gyorn people. On the whole, the activities of Wandjina are believed to set the prototypes for each district's religion, law, customs, rites, songs and dances.

Dreamtime mythology has it that the Wandjina emerged from the clouds, and returned in that same manner.

Walaganda, one of the Wondjina, became the Milky Way. In a similar vein, certain tribesmen say the Wandjina have returned to the sky, and can now be seen at night as lights moving high above the earth.

With the completion of their earthly tasks, they disappeared into the rocks and sacred water holes in different parts of the country. As they disappeared they left pictures of themselves on the rocks. Each Wandjina wandered until he reached the place where he was to die. Although the paintings are said to represen the bodies of the dead Wandjinas, the spirits of the Wandjinas live on in much the same way as the Aborigines believe the spirits of human beings continue to exist after their death. When they died, they lay down on the soft rocks and left the imprint of their bodies on the surface; these marks are the rock paintings which can be seen today. 

At the exact spot where they left their ‘shadow’, the Wandjinas descended into the earth; since then, they have lived on at the bottom of the water source associated with each of the paintings. There, they continually produce new ‘child-seeds’, which are regarded as the source of all human life. Aboriginal people, in the Kimberley believed that even after they disappeared, the Wandjina continued to control everything that happens on the land and in the sky and sea. He gave Man to live in this Earth, this World, this Tribal Country. He put the Wandjina in the cave for him to remember this Wandjina, to follow his laws, to go about the right ways ...

(me:) But man recently has not followed the laws, and gone about the right way, which in my game has lead to the the rising darkness in the world, that has infected the spirit realm itself. Koa is the crow spirit but is also a type of Wandjina, as our many of the spirits within my dreamtime world. I feel that maybe I should stay away from the topic of Wandjina's as they are sacred figures. However I do not intend any disrespect, and always have them in a positive light. The protagonist Koa lives in the spirit world and is himself a spirit, he is based upon the Native American Crow Totem as well as the Aborigine Australians Wandjinas, he was designed with Australian cave paintings, and tribal paint as inspiration.The protagonist Koa is based around two animistic belief systems, that of some Native Americans & Aboriginal Australians.

Character Design: Koa

Koa's Colour Script

Alien Isolation

The_Cast_of_Alien_Trailer
The link above shows a trailer in which all the original actors are voice actors for the game and are saying what they think about the game, I found it really interesting. You can play as Ellen Ripley, Dallas or Parker in the crew expendable.
Below are extracts from an IGN game review of Alien: Isolation, for research into the world of alien.

Alien: Isolation proves one thing more than anything else: things you can’t see are far scarier than things you can.  A theme that rang true through the entire game,

What really made Alien: Isolation shine when compared to other survival horror games was its atmosphere.  Isolation may very well be one of the most atmospheric games I have ever played.  It felt like it was a carbon copy of the distinct 1970’s tone in the original movie.  During the first few minutes of the game, I immediately noticed the old computers that were supposed to look futuristic in 1979 when the movie was made, the drinking bird toy on tables, and the sound effects and music that were used in the movie.  All of those things combined laid the perfect foundation for what is to come -- a scary adventure from hell, just like the one the crew of the Nostromo went through.  I was utterly amazed each and every time I found something else that I recognized from the movie.  Playing Alien: Isolation is literally like getting to be in the movie.  Props to The Creative Assembly for staying true to the franchise.

Alien: Isolation is everything that I hoped it would be.  It nailed the atmosphere of the movie by using several assets from it, the story was a direct sequel to the first movie, and the Alien was incredibly scary throughout the entire game.  Other than the minor issues like the horrid save point system and the Alien being magic, The Creative Assembly did a fantastic fantastic job by releasing such a polished game.  It felt true to the Alien franchise throughout the entire game.  I really hope they are able to work on a sequel for Isolation in the future, and possibly turn it into a series like the movies.

The Book Of Alien Extracts

Below are some extracts from The Book of Alien by Paul Scanlon & Michael Gross, which I own and contains a lot of information about the film and what the directors and artist thought about it. I searched through it looking for bits that related to my presentation which will be on coherent world-building. All these extracts are what I thought may be useful, so I wrote them down for research.

Ron Cobb “I like the challenge of designing a spaceship right down to the fuel tolerances and the way the engines function” he says. “Films are ideal for at least demonstrating the premise. It’s an excitement I have to communicate.”

A crew go to explore a huge pyramid on the horizon, they scale it and find an opening on top, and a volunteer lowers himself down the hatch,

He finds a giant chamber that seems like a tomb, or maybe a place of worship. There are a weird statues and some sort of hieroglyphics (which later prove to be representative of the Alien reproductive cycles). This of course, is where the Alien spores lie waiting for someone to come along.

The sequence offers a thoughtful contrast among three cultures human, Alien, and the unfortunate space jockey.

It was up to H.R. Giger to design the planetoid surface, the derelict ship, and its pilot. As he would do with the Alien itself, the Swiss surrealist applied his very personal vision to the designs. He calls it “biomechanics,” and the simplest definition might be “half-machine, half-human.”

But the response that Giger’s style evokes is much stronger and more complex than that. The derelict’s interior – running more than forty feet from floor to ceiling and taking up almost an entire sound stage – has something uncomfortably familiar about it. The cross-ribbing running up the walls, separated by a median structure like a spinal cord. The entrances to the derelict look sort of sexual. Someone once wrote that Giger’s work could be called “machine age eroticism.” But here’s the punch line: none of it looks human.

Sure, it isn’t supposed to be human, but persistence of vision teaches us to recognise familiar humanoid structures and patterns. Giger takes these patterns and skilfully combines them with mechanical images. The end result can be profoundly unsettling. Giger modelled the planetoid surface with real bones, bits of motors, pipes and wires, using plasticine as the equalising agent. The end result was a curious, surreal and vaguely threatening environment.

 Giger’s concept of biomechanics is fully realised in his designs for the film, as these interior and exterior drawings of the derelict ship demonstrate. In biomechanics, machines appear to be organic; organisms have a mechanistic quality. And above all, says Giger, “I like to work with bones.”

 Why are there three forms of the Alien? Ridley Scott offers this explanation: “I would have loved to have a third dimension on the creature, including the fact that there was a civilisation and that maybe the derelict ship was a battlewagon, or a freighter that was carrying either its own kind of weapon from A to B, and something went wrong. But without that, you still have to put perspective on the danger of the thing, like showing that even its reproduction is frightening.

“I try to put that across in the end sequence. I want to show that the Alien has a limited life cycle, like a butterfly. And within that period of time, once it decides to expose itself – to coin a phrase – once it jumps out of the egg, it has to reproduce and spread as fast as possible, maybe in a cycle of only days. And so in the last sequence, you see slime emanating from the Big Alien’s body because we’re trying to convey that maybe he’s sealing himself in again, like a cocoon. Also by that point he has to be provoked to attack, because he has to get on with his life cycle.

Dan O’Bannon “the whole idea is that they have a very complicated life cycle. They have a spore that contains what amounts to an ambulatory penis, and they require a host to reproduce. And when a host approaches the spore, this thing springs out and attaches itself to the host and deposits eggs in the nearest available orifice and then dies and fall off. And then it grows to maturity with incredible speed, it’s tremendously hungry, and it has a need to reproduce.”

“But the creature that pops out onboard the spaceship has never been subject to anything at all except a few hours in the hold of a ship. And therefore, quite literally, it doesn’t have an education. The Alien is not only savage, it’s also ignorant.

Swamp concept

This is what I would have liked the trees in my level to look like, to have been large with huge tangled roots. The idea was to have the roots forming a type of natural labyrinth in which the character would venture through avoiding the swampy water. This piece was an experiment in way and was painted in watercolors. This idea led to what became my front cover concept piece.

UI Design

Within my game the protagonist has a number of powers that he must earn and collect to help him in his Quest. I have been looking at the UI from games for some power/ ability menu's, Here are a few that I like the look of and think could work within my game, if changed to my games style.

The one I Love the most Is below from Bioshock Infinite. 

The use of the system is easy to use, you rotate around the wheel to which power you wish to equip and then select. The selected power will show in the middle, and can also be seen whilst in game.

I love the style of these Icons as well I imagine there based on early american culture e.g tattoos.

My style to go with the rest of the game will be more tribal symbol style.

Here is another example of stylised power symbols, these are the elemental symbols from the Soul Reaver Saga. I really loved these designs, and they are incorporated within the game such as in the architecture and art, sometime to giving you hints to use certain elemental powers on specific objects in order to complete a puzzle or open a door, in that way my game will be similar to Soul Reaver. The actual UI for the selection of what element you use is actually not great in my opinion, its is basic and easy to use but there doesn't seem to been any effort put into its design. See below, its just a simple ring with the power selected at the for front. The symbols are different here as it is another game, the first I think. 

Below is my iteration of concept designs for the UI that would show the powers you have obtained and which you can select. I wanted to go for a very symbolic themed UI system, I settled on the idea of having hand shapes instead of circles. So I looked into the classic hand symbol e.g. push here symbol. I then found a more stylised version of it. I went on to experiment with that, by adding a finger as my character has five fingers and a thumb. I made six versions using this hand and experimented with the look but ended not liking it to much. I went back to my sign design which is the blue hands, the fingers are splayed out and I feel that gives it a more interesting look, especially when all 8 face outwards. I choose 8 as thats how many dots aboriginals have around they're symbol for the sun (believed to represent the planets)

Here is the final outcome for my UI power menu design (below is another iteration). This radial menu would come up when holding down a button e.g. the left bumper. The hands rotate around the radius, and the highlighted purple icons show the power that is currently selected. At the beginnig of the game only one hand would be shown in the radial menu, however you gain a new power each stage and they will be able to be equipped from this menu.

Above is the final concept of my health bar design. Green = Health, Red Health taken and Orange = Damage. Damage means it can still come back if you get to safety or defeat the enemy. The large circle above holds the lighting power symbol, this means the player has the lightning power equipped. Powers are strongest when the circle is full, the circle becomes less full the more you use your power, it re-fills over a short time period. The blue orb represents the blue orbs/ Lucidity found in the game, the numbers indicate how many have been collected in which ever section you are in, out of how many there are.

Human Centered Design

Design is pervasive in our lives, as we spend most of our time interacting with human-made tools, objects, services, and information spaces. All these interactions are mediated through design, through structures and processes which are meant to optimize our relations with our environment. Design then is not only about form, but also about function, purpose and meaning. 

User-centered design (UCD) is a process (not restricted to interfaces or technologies) in which the needs, wants, and limitations of end users of a product, service or process are given extensive attention at each stage of the design process. User-centered design can be characterised as a multi-stage problem solving process that not only requires designers to analyse and foresee how users are likely to use a product, but also to test the validity of their assumptions with regard to user behaviour in real world tests with actual users. Such testing is necessary as it is often very difficult for the designers of a product to understand intuitively what a first-time user of their design experiences, and what each user's learning curve may look like.


The chief difference from other product design philosophies is that user-centered design tries to optimize the product around how users can, want, or need to use the product, rather than forcing the users to change their behaviour to accommodate the product.

Look at page 8 in The Design Of Everyday Things (revised and expanded edition) by Donald A. Norman.

Transmedia Storytelling

‘Transmedia storytelling represents a process where 
integral elements of a fiction get dispersed systematically across 
multiple delivery channels for the purpose of creating a unified and 
coordinated entertainment experience’. 

Transmedia storytelling (also known as transmedia narrative or multiplatform storytelling) is the technique of telling a single story or story experience across multiple platforms and formats using current digital technologies. It is not to be confused with traditional cross-platform media franchises, sequels or adaptations (wikipedia).

Taken from www.tstoryteller.com. Transmedia storytelling” is telling a story across multiple media and preferably, although it doesn’t always happen, with a degree of audience participation, interaction or collaboration.

In transmedia storytelling, engagement with each successive media heightens the audience’ understanding, enjoyment and affection for the story. To do this successfully, the embodiment of the story in each media needs to be satisfying in its own right while enjoyment from all the media should be greater than the sum of the parts.

Before expanding on how to create transmedia experiences, let’s ask ourselves two questions:

• Why would you want to tell stories?
• And why tell stories across multiple media?

Why Tell Stories?

We tell stories to entertain, to persuade and to explain.

Our minds do not like random facts or objects and so they create their own stories to make sense of otherwise discrete, isolated events and items. We naturally and often subconsciously connect the dots. And dots connected in a stimulating way we call great stories.

Great stories win hearts and minds.

Why Multiple Media?

We tell stories across multiple media because no single media satisfies our curiosity or our lifestyle.

We are surrounded by an unprecedented ocean of content, products and leisure opportunities. The people we wish to tell our stories to have the technology to navigate the ocean and can choose to sail on by or stop and listen.

Technology and free markets have allowed unprecedented levels of customization, personalization and responsiveness such that a policy of “one size fits all” is no longer expected or acceptable.

Telling stories across multiple media – transmedia storytelling – allows content that’s right-sized, right-timed and right-placed to form a larger, more profitable, cohesive and rewarding experience.

Types of Transmedia

The various types of transmedia storytelling can be thought of in terms of the following:
• the narrative spaces covered (location, characters, time)
• the number and relative timing of the platforms (sequential, parallel, simultaneous, non-linear)
• the extent and type of audience involvement (passive, active, interactive, collaborative) .

Prototype Feedback

A few volunteers have played my game and I have asked for constructive criticism/ feedback e.g anything I could pick up on. Most people said that they liked it and failed to give any feedback I could use to make the game better.
Here are some points which were made:

• The first 4 steps are larger than the rest, making it more difficult to climb up them
• The Collectables are hard to get, you are sometimes unsure if you got them and must turn around to check.
• Its unclear where to go
• it feels floaty

Here is what I did to fix these problems:

• I made the characters jump height bigger so the steps were less of an obstacle.
• I enlarged the hit box's on the collectable Orbs
• I moved a bright pink light which had been luring people in the wrong direction to a place that made them want to walk to where they were supposed to go. Also I made the path more clear as it was to translucent. 
• I left this as it is, I could have increased the fall speed or something but I like the floaty feel to it as it feels more dreamy. Also in the real game my character would gain the ability to hover/ glide at some point.

Changes in Concept

My idea has been constantly changing within my head, and I have not kept track of these changes nearly enough, so i'm going to try and explain myself a little bit. 

To start of with my game was based upon the idea of Lucid Dreaming and the idea that you were stuck within a dream that you could not control. The goal being to collect Lucidity to gain control of your dreamworld/ subconscious and to break your way free of the dream. So the theme was to do with Lucidity.

Now the major theme is more to do with dream culture specifically aboriginal Australians,  the goal being to rid the the world of dream-time which is connected to ours of the evil that is contaminating it.  Dreamtiime is an aboriginal belief that I have done lots of research into, and stupidly did not record it all. In my game The Dreamtime is a world that exists on the astral plane, a place that some come into contact with through their dreams. The spirits of the Dreamtime used to cross into our world and our the reason of our worlds creation. However with the world becoming a dark place the Dreamtime i has become polluted by it, the protagonist goal is to rid the dreamtime of this pollution and then destroy the Bridge that links our wolrld to the Dreantime. This is the only way to stop the Dreamtime becoming infected again. 

Map from a Re-written History

For my CS presentation I am looking at the making of coherent worlds, I feel that the best coherent worlds are those that have there roots based in reality. I saw this post and thought it was a good example of a map as well as an example of world building. The map below shows Africa as if it were ruled by the natives without Europe claiming the top half, so the countries all have original african names. The idea of Alternative Histories really interests me, as well as alternative realities such as Avatar and Alien which I will be looking at for my presentation.

There's a great novel from Kim Stanley Robinson called The Years of Rice and Salt. It's a really good alt-history "what if" novel. The basis synopsis is below:

 The Years of Rice and Salt  
It is the fourteenth century and one of the most apocalyptic events in human history is set to occur: the coming of the Black Death. History teaches us that a third of Europe's population was destroyed. But what if? What if the plague killed 99 percent of the population instead? How would the world have changed? This is a look at the history that could have been - a history that stretches across centuries, a history that sees dynasties and nations rise and crumble, a history that spans horrible famine and magnificent innovation. These are the years of rice and salt.
This is a universe where the first ship to reach the New World travels across the Pacific Ocean from China and colonization spreads from west to east. This is a universe where the Industrial Revolution is triggered by the world's greatest scientific minds - in India. This is a universe where Buddhism and Islam are the most influential and practised religions and Christianity is merely a historical footnote.
Through the eyes of soldiers and kings, explorers and philosophers, slaves and scholars, Robinson renders an immensely rich tapestry. Rewriting history and probing the most profound questions as only he can, Robinson shines his extraordinary light on the place of religion, culture, power, and even love on such an Earth. From the steppes of Asia to the shores of the Western Hemisphere, from the age of Akbar to the present and beyond, here is the stunning story of the creation of a new world.