Finalizing the final project

 Final Project 

    For my final project I am wanting to create a single piece that contains an aspect of each of my past projects.  Originally I wanted to re create and combine my corridors in to a single long play through with audio description. After further reflection though, I would rather do a single transition that includes all these aspects so I can see clearer how these aspects change the emotional impact of a transition area, and whether these aspects do indeed improve that impact.

Play through video

 Video for Semester 2 graveyard play through : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zIwXz89T7OA&fbclid=IwAR2QrOXErRhoufkjVEtFDQszx0D2mvcGVw3gfbEMFvGa5NEEINm5ReIVHvA&ab_channel=YasmineBrough

Reflection

 Conclusion and Reflection 

During this project, I feel I managed to achieve my goal towards testing, as a means of exploring more ways that I can use the 'Sense of the self'. I feel I have learned more from this semester then my previous both practically and in theory. 

I intend to carry on this project to my third semester, but focusing it towards a final piece that strings all the things I have learned into one demonstrative piece. I aim to do one play through rather than multiple test levels as it is not experimental in that same way - it is a culmination of my tests. 

There are problems with my testing, similar to other projects. Due to the current situation, its difficult to get players to play test so my tests feature a small sample size, which means I can not set up a specific 'control' group in the way that I would like. My playtester sees both the first and second levels in tandem, which could skew their feelings and results. I've learned some interesting ideas and observations through this, even if the results aren't very thorough.

Graveyard levels Test

 Testing 

I got a player to play through both levels and then interviewed them. 

In the first level, the test player stated that it was quite a somber atmosphere. They felt that the indirect nature of communication from the owls only made them want to talk to them more, driving them forward. The player noticed after the first two sets of spirits that they were only speaking with each other. She felt the atmosphere was quite bleak but somewhat relaxing. 

In the second level, she noticed instantly that they were no longer in pairs and this time were alone and could be interacted with. After a few conversations with the owl spirits, she noticed the heads were following her and stated that she was instantly unsettled. She added that this was the main feature that made her want to run through the rest of the level. She feels she had a strong reaction to this because she had gone a while in a false sense of security, and the change was noticed naturally. Catching that movement in the corner of her eye made her feel more unsettled. 

I asked which of the two levels she preferred for atmosphere and emotional impact. She said that it was by far the second level, however she does not feel that she would have gotten the same impact if it was not for the first level setting that atmosphere up.  This was the part I was most intrigued in, as realistically other than in a testing format, repeating the same area in that way is not standard practice for games.. However, there may be ways in which I can use that tactic to set up a similar response in a singular map. 

Owl Graveyard Final Scene

 Graveyard scene completed

level 1

First level entrance. By Yasmine Brough

Discussion between first pair of owl spirits. By Yasmine Brough

Lonely owl spirit. By Yasmine Brough

Bridge leading to cross road. By Yasmine Brough

last owls discussing narrative. By Yasmine Brough

level 2

Second level first owl interaction. By Yasmine Brough

Owls Heads turn to face player. Background town. By Yasmine Brough

Building my final levels, I noticed that I could see the practice level in the background as a sort of silhouette. This gave the impression of further life and energy in the world, which I realised was something that had been missing in my scene. I decided to add this intentionally and build a small house scene in the distance. 

I could expand on this further in future projects with an external environment, adding towns or mountains in the background.

Owl spirit scripts

  Level and scripts

    

Furthering my designs of the level layout, I created the draft scripts for the stories and figured out the locations that I wanted for the player to meet the owl spirits.

First Level

The first level is the level where I want the player to meet the owl spirits that communicate with each other, rather than the player. I'm interested in testing the level of interest the player shows towards picking up on the narrative and what atmosphere this creates in the transition area. 

First level map By Yasmine Brough

First level script By Yasmine Brough

Second level

 The second level is where the owl spirits will be on their own - able to see the player and be interacted with. The owl spirits can speak directly to the player now. However for the script I still want certain aspects of the narrative to be interpretive; such as who the player character is. In this map the owl heads will always face the player and will turn to face them no matter where they are. This makes the owl spirits in this level a lot more focused on the player directly. I am interested to test the players emotional response to the contrast between the two. 

Second level map By Yasmine Brough

Second level script By Yasmine Brough

Practice map

Practice map By Yasmine Brough

Putting my assets in to UE4 I created a small test area so I could see how everything looked together and to work on the blueprints. 

Owl Spirit By Yasmine Brough

The owl spirit in the test map was originally 'lit' in UE4, giving off more shading and different hues on the mask that I felt were quite effective tonally. However, I changed this to be 'unlit' while building my first level because the appearance became more striking. The pupils gave off a better effect in this way, and the mask being bright white drew attention towards the owl spirits. 

Level Designs

 Level Designs

     The first designs for the graveyard layout were very square. I liked the idea of keeping it this way so that the environment looked spacious despite having a more linear path through it. I designed it this way so that I could keep everything feeling enclosed and have everything more spaced out. However while researching graveyards I felt that the ones that were more spacious felt empty. Although this in itself can be a good emotion to convey in the scene I started to realize that I would have to block the player of from the majority of the scene to keep the tone between meeting each owl spirit. This encouraged me look further in to graveyards that had more obscure shapes.  

First Graveyard level designs By Yasmine Brough

First graveyard level designs By Yasmine Brough

Image From Graveyard Records

   

After seeing images such as this, I loved the imagery of the graveyard being in sections. This helped keep everything more spacious while having little scenes in each area. In the image of this gate, for example, I really liked the way the path wasn't directly forward and was to the side. This meant the first impression would be of a little uninterrupted area. I updated the designs for the level to match this form of layout. 

Layout re-design By Yasmine Brough