What do you see as the positives and negatives around copyright?

It is difficult to decide whether copyright makes our life easier or more complicated. Technically without it people would have an access to the endless library of ideas, references and sounds so creating art would be easier than ever before. On the other hand would the terms “artist” or “creator” exist anymore?

Personally I think that the world without copyright would look much more interesting than now. Of course it does not define it as an unnecessary law. If there was no guarantee that artworks cannot be stolen we can only assume that artists would pay more attention to make their works more outstanding and individualistic to prevent being personised. Perspective of being defended restricts creators to choose the border constituted by the law as the final point in copying others.

The other reason why copyright limits us is no possibility to improve already existing ideas by people who do not owe them but could possibly make some positive corrections. On the other hand the worst thing that every creator can imagine is modification of their work into something they did not mean and copyright can effectively prevent it.

Important issue about copyright is also finances. It seems impossible to be a full-time artist in the world where such laws are not instituted. Although Thus Höffner made comparison of publishing data in XIX United Kingdom and Germany where copyright didn’t exist that days and it turned out that more books were published and read in Germany.

It is a tough question if there is more good or bad things about copyright because it raises as well economic, cultural and ethical questions. We will probably never know how contemporary art or inventions would look like without copyright as every attempt of removing this law would even destroy the market.

Is is possible to make anything new?

In the age of internet and globalization it may seems that we have already seen everything and nothing can surprise us anymore. Even if we come up with an astonishing brand new idea there is always something behind it.

In general people’s creations cannot be made from nothing because it is not the way how human imagination works. “We are able to create new things as the brain takes familiar pieces and assembles them in new ways, similar to how a collage is made from fragments of photos”. It means that there are thousands of neurons in human brain encoding various characteristic of objects we’ve already seen. We can combine them together in infinite amount of ways and that is how our ideas originate.

If every idea is just a mixture of things which existed before is it even possible to create something new? The answer for the question depends on what is the definition of something ”new” for us.

If we assume that “new” idea is based on the past experiences but links them in a completely unexpected way,  it relates to a lot of creations then. It brings to mind a circle because every new invention stems from the previous one.

A good example of art based on the past can be found in Picasso’s painting. His version of Diego Velázquez’s painting “Las Meninas” is at the same time a copy of the famous masterpiece and something entirely new because cubism style applied in this work was not known before Picasso.

Las Meninas (left: Diego Velázquez, 1656, right: Pablo Picasso, 1957)

It shows that basing on the past is generally the only way of creating something which seems to be new. To be precise I would rather say “unexpected” because that is the shortest definition of something new.

references:

http://www.medicaldaily.com/how-imagination-works-human-brain-creative-thinking-allows-neurons-work-406628

https://www.gov.uk/topic/intellectual-property/copyrighthttps://www.quora.com/Why-is-copyright-good

http://www.bbc.co.uk/copyrightaware/what-is

https://theconversation.com/why-cash-and-copyright-are-bad-news-for-creativity-34696

Reflect

The Research and Communication Skills part of the course was very challenging and enriched me with a bunch of new skills which can be useful in the future.

I find topics in general quite vast. There was no simple answers to the problems we discussed and I could not construct a satisfying answer to any of them without a thorough research. Each of them required a complex solution and sometimes finding sources of information was the most difficult part.

Very good thing about the essays were question pairs making me have a look at different problems concentrated on the same topic and see which one is the most appealing to me so I can expand it. I really enjoyed few of them but to be honest if I was supposed to answer all the question pairs I am not sure if I would manage with it. I found them really diversified in terms of difficulty level.

Answering for the topics I was not very familiar with such as Human Computer Interaction or Copyright was definitely not my favourite part of the course. Both of them needed a lot of research and thinking every decision through a couple of times. Nevertheless, this kind of topics was probably the most useful in my development.

The more pleasant part of essays was focused on describing the particular features of games I have already played because I was free to use any example I wanted. The work about User Interface in the game I really like was definitely the one which improved my skill of analysing. I would be happy to see more topics like this in the future because they make me look at games I knew before from completely new perspective and find some details I have not noticed before.

I have to mention the essay about indie game developers because it definitely changed the way I used to look at games. Before the course I was only admiring the graphics but this time I was forced to pay attention to creative process and see how much experiments with various styles does it cost to create not only good-looking video game, but also to adjust the style to game’s atmosphere.

As an international student I find another advantage of the module in improvement of my English language skills. It is very easy to pick up some slang words around here but there is no much opportunities to learn specialized vocabulary. Doing research of games related topics gave me a bunch of new words useful to describe my ideas and thoughts.

To sum up, I think that Research and Communication Skills module made me more engaged and experienced in different topics associated with games design. The other useful skills I learnt are analysing, researching, selecting essential points and academic writing.

Behavioural modelling is an important part of NPC development for games. Should emotive modelling be part of that development?

Games development most often uses the simple form of Artificial Intelligence which is called behavioural modelling and is very important part of NPC’s creation. NPC’s are mainly just the background characters in games so their only task is to play the role regardless of circumstances, emotions etc.

The more developed form of AI when computer pay attention to intentions and emotions is called emotive modelling. First projects of the artificial emotive intelligence comes from late 90’s. One of them is  dr. Breazeal’s project called Kismet. It’s main aim was to align psychological elements to make robot understand people. Nowadays there are a lot of attempts from companies such as Google to improve emotive AI and introduce it into our homes as personal assistants but this could also be translated into games.

Kismet robot

First attempts of introducing emotive artificial intelligence into games design comes from 1985. Game called Little Computer People was released by Activision. The main task of a player was to take care of the generated character which had limited range of needs, emotions and behaviours. This type of games was becoming increasingly popular until The Sims came out in 2000 and it was a smash hit proving that people are very eager to play with intelligent characters.

The Sims

Emotive modelling of non-playable characters (NPC) could have really interesting impact on different types of games, although game mechanics would not be the same anymore. Imagine the RPG game where every NPC tries to solve quests and kill the same enemies.

In a study made by Deep Mind researchers there were AI „agents” competing against each other in 40 million rounds of a game about picking up fruit. In the future scenarios with less apple to collect they became more aggressive and started to fight. It proves that in a game with emotive modelling of NPC’s with the same goal they would attempt to eliminate each other.

It turns out that emotive modelling is very interesting tool in few games such as life symulators but would not work in other types of games.

Consider your favourite video game. If it contains AI controlled agents how individualistic are they and there behaviours, and, how might you set about improving them?

A requirement of every good game settled in an open world are non-playable characters which are both individual and related to the environment. It is very difficult to match this two features and that is the thing game developers often struggle with.

Well-known example of NPC can be found in The Elder Scrolls V – Skyrim. I mean adored city guard which became even famous because of his lack of individuality.  Each town in Skyrim world has loads of city guards but for some reason (probably laziness of developers) everyone looks exactly the same. Designers obviously tried to conceal this flaw by covering their heads with helmets but identical behaviour, voice and sayings reveal that it’s absolutely the same character. Also their mechanics does not differ at all. They run in the same pace, fight the same style and have the same amount of health points. The only distinguishing feature is the colour of their armour associated with town’s coat of arms but it doesn’t make a big difference.

There are a lot of ways to increase the level of variety among the city guards in Skyrim. One of them is obviously creating some more 3D models of guards with different faces and body building but it requires a lot of work. I wish that in the next parts of The Elder Scrolls game developers are going to record more voices, maybe create some more versions of the armour and make their mechanics differ. Changing their sense of humour, sayings and attitude depending of which part of country guard defends seems to be a good idea also.

Even though there is a lot of flaws in Skyrim guards everyone finds them so cool and being identical and bad in mechanics just make them very recognisable on the field of RPG games. It makes me insecure if the points suggested by me would improve them or rather spoil the inimitable atmosphere of Skyrim.

references:

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/oct/12/video-game-characters-emotional-ai-developers

http://news.mit.edu/2001/kismet

https://howwegettonext.com/the-boundaries-of-artificial-emotional-intelligence-aa10583302dc

https://qz.com/911843/googles-ai-got-highly-aggressive-when-competition-got-stressful-in-a-fruit-picking-game

Select one game of your interest and explain why does it have a good/bad game UI.

Common belief says that the three factors which make the perfect game are stunning graphics, good gameplay and perfect sound, although this description is missing one important thing: well-designed user interface.

An example of good user interface can be found in the Polish game The Witcher III: Wild Hunt. There are three levels of interface. The most basic one contains the most useful information during the gameplay such as health points, super power charge or level progress. All of them are represented by various bars and symbols so it is impossible to mistake them. In the other parts of the screen there is a clear map with player’s current location, weather forecast, list of active tasks and icons of quick equipment.

Witcher III Wild Hunt

Entering the second level of user interface means that the gameplay will be stopped but it is still convenient to go there during the combat. Player can choose super powers and see all of the active effects.

Witcher III Wild Hunt

The third level of user interface is very vast and consists of several different screens. The inventory panel is very compelling because every single item in game has its own wonderful illustration. There is also a 3D model of our character so it is easy to decide if new clothing suits him from this panel. In the other sections we can find the list of quests, extended version of world map, information about characters, bestiary and much more. The design of interface is black and very simple with only a few ornaments and subtle graphic in the background.

Witcher III Wild Hunt

To sum up, I think that The Witcher III meet almost all requirements of perfect user interface which are visibility, affordance, feedback, simplicity, good structure, consistency, tolerance and accessibility.

Discuss how technology augments human abilities. Reflect upon the implications of the future of HCI.

Humanity becomes more powerful every decade. For example few years ago we were not able to prevent some diseases but we do now. The reason for that is obviously not more skilful people but rapidly developing technology.

Human-computer interaction becomes a significant part of almost every field of life. Starting with very basic abilities such as programming a dishwasher, people are more attached to technology but also able to do more complicated tasks. Furthermore, having a smartphone increases our multi-tasking, and gives us completely new abilities such as continuous connection with other people, GPS navigation in our every step and access to endless source of information which basically set us free from remembering everything.

If we try to look further, we can predict that human-computer interaction will reach even higher levels. Scientists assume that the next big breakthrough after smartphones will be smart tattooes connected to human’s nervous system. All security problems will be resolved with this invention. Another future must-have of every household is the „assistant” which bases on artificial intelligence and organise all life instead of people, take care about their health condition and needs.

Smart tattoo

In the future a lot of our duties will be handled by computer and it means that people will have more free time and possibilities to focus on issues such as art, relationships and personal development. If we take into account the approaching inventions which will help us to develop our interests it is possible that people will become even more creative, skilful and inventive. Both art and science are likely to be considerably expanded in the upcoming decades.

references:

https://www.interaction-design.org/literature/book/the-encyclopedia-of-human-computer-interaction-2nd-ed/visual-aesthetics

https://careerfoundry.com/en/blog/ui-design/the-future-of-human-computer-interaction-whats-next/

Click to access a9cc94292332faee0b9e741bc93419d155a5.pdf

Choose one of the indie designers / developers and outline why there work and approach is of interest to you.

Indie games are usually created for the very narrow group of viewers. The reason for that are obviously huge studios with advanced computer equipment and hundreds of workers, which monopolise the game market . Although it does not mean that it is not possible to create exciting games in a small team.

An example of game considered by me as one with the most stunning graphics was made by only few people and it is called Samorost. It’s designer Jakub Dworsky is definitely worth attention because his way of design is very unique.

Samorost 3

Samorost 3

He takes an inspiration mainly from the style of traditional east European cartoons and animations. The other thing which influenced his career was old primitive games such as Goblins.

Baron Prásil, 1962

Jakub Dworsky puts great effort to make every game have exceptional and original art style. For example he was not happy about his perfect hand drawing in the game Machinarium so he drew all the graphics using left hand. When it comes  to Samorost, decision about the final art style was very difficult. He tried to create fantasy world made of photos, the next idea was to do it with pencils, after all Dworsky mixed photography and drawing which looks truly magical.

In my opinion Dworsky’s works are very inspiring and hope-giving. His design process is an evidence that working on graphics in games doesn’t mean to be a craftsman sculpting one of thousands objects. You can still create incredible things and be an artist in small indie projects.

What do you think could be the most exciting indie projects that are in development?

These days almost everyone can create their own game so there is a variety of indie projects in development and finding the interesting one can be challenging.

The one I’m looking forward the most is definitely The Last Night by Odd Tales. The game is being made since 2014 and the major changes have been made since this time.

The Last Night

The Last Night

The main inspiration for the developers was games such as Another World (1991), Flashback (1992) or Oddworld (1997). The other source of inspiration was the variety of Hong Kong city.

The distinguishing feature of this game is an art style which basically is a pixel art style but because of the enormous amount of lighting and shading layers it gives an impression of being realistic. It is worth to mention that developers mixed the twentieth-century way of design with modern technology of animation to get completely new effects. The movements of characters are based on the recordings of real people. All of perfectly matched pieces make a wonderful atmosphere of dark cyberpunk.

Everyone misses the old times of great 2D games but people are getting used to new standards of graphics and mechanics. I think that it is exactly the product which will fulfil this gap.

references:

Select one example to outline the key concepts of the interactive narrative genre?

It is not very challenging  to make up an interesting story and grab people’s attention. The completely new level of difficulty starts when you are supposed to write an interactive story. How many storylines can be developed from the same beginning and remain thrilling? It depends on skills of a storyteller and the form as it can be a book as well as movie or game.

One of the most interesting examples of interactive narrative stories is „Life is Strange” directed by Raoul Barvet and Michel Koch. Main character has to make series of difficult decisions and then face the consequences of them. She has a special ability to rewind the time but usually attempt to change the past makes things even worse. If you try to go back in time to hide car keys and save someone from car accident it is possible that in the future other people using that car won’t be alive.

Life is Strange

Life is Strange as the most of interactive narrative games is very emotional. It is up to the player to save someone’s life or lose one of good friends.  You should investigate other character’s life to make sure that your choices are right. Due to the interactivity players feel very responsible for their choices and feel connection with game characters.

Life is Strange

The ending of interactive narrative stories is obviously never defined. Players can earn satisfying ending by playing carefully and reasonably. On the other hand it is much more fun to introduce some chaos into the world of game and see what happens.

does the interactive narrative still have a role to play in video games today?

In the past people’s understanding of games was completely different. It was not always connected to visual aspects as it is nowadays. Instead of this people made up various games based on their imagination. That is how interactive narrative genre began and presumably it will never end.

Even though player’s preferences changed, echoes of interactive narrative stories are still hearable in few types of games. It is easy  to notice that modern RPG games become even more interactive than ever before. Obviously it has always been a part of games such as The Elder Scrolls or Dragon Age to create and develop your very own specific character, explore whichever part of the map you want and resolve the quests in the way you like. The thing that became expanded in terms of interactive narrative is dynamic of player’s choices. For example in the Witcher III the most significant dialogues have limited time to answer. The main idea of the modern narrative video games is to design them as impulsive as the real life is.

Witcher III Wild Hunt

Playing the next type of games I want to mention is similar to watching movies. Telltale Games studio made a great job translating such titles as The Walking Dead and Game of Thrones into games. This way of narrative opens the story of well-known characters to completely new levels because the only thing that player is supposed to do is making key choices. This type of games is most likely going to be developed in the next few decades. Every year Square Enix, Quantic Dream and some other studios working on interactive narrative video games releases even more thrilling and fascinating scenarios.

In general, interactive narrative has still significant role to play in video games and is being expanded every year but it is mainly related to games based on adventures, open world or advanced scenario.

references:

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/EnvironmentalNarrativeGame

https://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/191861/Should_games_have_stories.php

http://www.gamestudies.org/0101/juul-gts/

What were the key ideas of the Bauhaus?

It is hard to say how architecture , design and art would look like today if there was no Bauhaus. Famous German art school had a huge impact on these areas, furthermore influenced the development of modernist architecture and reinforced abstract tendency in art. Significance of the Bauhaus stems from innovative ideas and radical changes of views on different fields of art.

Bauhaus building, Dessau, 1925-1926

The key concept invented by members of the Bauhaus is functionalism which have become constant element of space design. Functionality was not only based on human body measurements but also psychology as they thought that emotional needs are no less important. In Bauhaus school of art everything, including value of modern architecture, depended on human being. People get such an architecture to which they matured. They found out that space arrangement influences the way of how people act and think so they aimed that whilst designing.

Repetitive forms have been introduced and elements enabling various combinations have become crucial. There were minimum of decorations, although all the space was occupied. On the other hand architecture regulates relations between nature, technology and humanity and it was carefully considered. Therefore, placement of the building was not random and windows constituted important issue as they can relate landscape with interior.

House am Horn, Weimar, 1923

Members of the Bauhaus put great effort into integrating all fields of art and creating an aesthetical  and technical unity. Moreover, all divisions between artists, craftsmen and industrialists blurred. The concept of an architect as creator of buildings turned into designer of community living and that is why this role is now so relevant. Thanks to the Bauhaus architects have become as well artists as scientists.

Do you feel that the ideas could have an influence on contemporary games design?

Innovative ideas of Bauhaus art school influenced almost every field of design. The reason for this is that the core thing about their activity is not creating any specific style or theme but completely new approach to perceiving the world. This approach can be translated also into games design.

One of the most visible similarities between Bauhaus’ ideology and contemporary games design is where the main inspiration comes from. In both cases it is human. Houses we live in must be suitable to our needs, as well as games we play. The way they are designed is driven not only by abilities, but also emotions of users. Psychological aspect of design was very important for the members of the Bauhaus and so do games designers who involve our emotionality in their creations to keep players on the edge of their seats.

The other thing which could have an influence on contemporary design is functionalism. We can observe the limitation of unnecessary things also on the field of creating games. There are no unexplorable levels and needless rules in games. Everything matches together and even the least element of gameplay is involving.

Usage of repetitive forms in projects of the Bauhaus could have inspired some of games designers. There is full bunch of games on the subject of matching similar elements and solving puzzles such as Tetris, Bejeveled etc.

Bejeveled 3

Vague division between members of the Bauhaus reappears among games designers. Their job demands advanced skills in various areas such as writing, mathematics and art. If someone takes care for only one a little part of game then he is not a games designer in whole meaning of this word.

Taking all this into consideration, it is certain that the Bauhaus school of art have a huge impact on contemporary games design. Even if not directly, a lot of modern ideas have their source in the Bauhaus.

references:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bauhaus

http://www.theartstory.org/movement-bauhaus.html

https://www.bauhaus-dessau.de/en/architecture/bauhaus-building.html