During the course over the past couple of weeks, I have put time into researching different aspects of game design, different artists that I can use as inspiration and going to the barbican has broaden my sense of understanding for design and creation it has taught me to be more aware of the things around me and how little I take them for granted, I have grown as an artist in the past couple of weeks, usually I would never do a blog but there is always a first time for everything and I enjoyed most of it.

During my research process I would use google scholar to reed different books done by people in the games industry and by artist and how they overcome different obstacles that I have spoken about in my blog posts. One research bit I found the most interesting was the emotional and behavioural modelling and why that is important to have in the game, I also researched about the technical aspects of game design and the creative part, most developers spend many years researching before they start creating the game and how important that research is.

I have also learned that if you want to find out something it is not always on the internet sometimes the answer might be outside, it might be with another person or sometimes in a book, and I have taken that mindset when doing my blogs and doing my work in university, because often when you think like you can come up with very creative ideas that could become something better.

Overall, I have learned many things throughout my weeks being at university, I have learned to overcome many obstacles and make my work better so for next time I will not have made the same mistakes as I have done before in the past. I wanted to ensure that my work was up to a good standard, so I spoke with a couple of my classmates and roommates on how I can make my work better and how to ensure that I keep that consistent flow throughout all my work. So, I want to take these principles and apply them into my work so that I can become a better artist and designer, I have done things that I would not usually do, for example do observational drawings, read books and research artists so that I have a better understanding on the work that I have done. So overall, I would say that in week 1 and to the last weeks I have changed for the better becoming more pro-active and making sure my work is up to a good standard and doing these blogs have ensured me to make sure that I keep on doing what I am doing now so that it helps me in the future to overcome any obstacle or work that I will have.

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

The positives behind copyright law is that it allows peoples work to be protected from other people trying to duplicate or take their work without their permission, because of the copyright law if people do anything to break that copyright law, the persons work that was taken, they have the right to act and take action upon the person who broke that law, so this law can be beneficial to artists, writers, musicians and any other business that create creative work. The negative part of copyright is that the copyright law restricts free speech, it restricts you from, painting, doing performance, writing and anything else that people might do to create something and because of this restriction people are sometimes scared to make something new because of this copyright law.

I think that the copyright Law can be improved upon, as of right now it is not perfect and it can use some fine tuning, because right now the copyright law is very strict and it has not leniency on people trying to create new content so I think that it should be toned down a bit to allow people to be creative and give people a chance to show off their work without having to worry about them breaking the copyright law.

Is it possible to make anything new?

I think that at times the copyright law can sometimes encourage and discourage people from being creative and creating something new, sometimes copyright laws can encourage people that are protected by copyright to create new pieces of work that have not being done before and it encourages those people more incentive to create better pieces of work. On the other hand, copyright laws can discourage creativity in people that are new to a certain industry for example Music is the worst when it comes to copyright infringements because there have been many lawsuits that have gone on a long time and have cost people a lot of money.

But I think that the copyright law forces people to be different and create new things, because as time has gone on people have created new things and that is not going to change, people might take inspiration from other people but that is good because then with that inspiration people can create new things that were not made before and as time goes on more and more things will be created, I think that because of the copyright law it will force people to think differently. copyright was originally designed to restrict publishers from exerting too much control over information; today it constrains individuals from creating new works. This is because, in America at least, the duration of copyrights has increased (from 28 years in the 19th century to as much as 95 years today).
http://www.economist.com/node/2592996

This was a old high school badge before they changed it.

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

Behavioural modelling is an important part of NPC development for games and it has grown overtime. What it does is add character to the game you are playing, behavioural modelling impacts the player experience and how satisfied within the game, behavioural modelling also crosses over with interactive storytelling, the reason why this is that behavioural modelling is mainly focused on giving the NPC high levels of AI. It also creates a basis for game developer to give their game, their own twist on the game.

I do think that emotive modelling should be part of that development process, the reason why I think is that everyone has emotions, that is what makes us human, therefore if I play a game and the character that I playing has not emotion or facial expression what so ever it makes the game really dull and sometimes a chore to play and video games should not do that, as the whole point of video games is to have fun and forget about everything else and be immersed into that game universe that the developers have created. I think emotive modelling is an important part of game design, Game AI agents today do not reflect the affective aspects of human behaviour.  Sometimes games do not reflect the effects of human emotional state on an agent’s decision-making behaviour.  So, I think developers should focus more upon emotive modelling as it could have a bigger impact upon the game that they are creating.

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

One of my favourite video game is The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt created by CD Projekt Red has very connected and complex open world and different elements and it always changes every time that you play the game, and the game revolves around the decisions that your character ‘Geralt Of Rivia’ does and that is all up the player decisions made within the game. The Witcher 3’s AI is very complex and very well done there are monsters in this game and they react to everything that you do, at times if you don not want to face the monster head on its own lair you can always try to lure them into a town/village, but it is extremely difficult and at times monster would know when they are in danger and they tend to flee back, even at times the towns people would also help or some of them would run away, which I think is awesome. There is time even animals and monsters fight each other in the distance and that had nothing to do with the player, the world has a mind of its own and it can sometimes be punishing or rewarding and that is makes the game fun to play, overall, this is a living world, it interacts with itself as well as with the player. One AI element that I would change is the combat between human’s opponents as it is very easy because they always do the same thing and it is very easy to counter, so the way I would change is that the humans adapt and find different ways to kill you rather doing the same thing every battle and making it easy.

https://www.dualshockers.com/the-witcher-3-cm-explains-advanced-ai-and-why-decapitations-might-not-be-physically-accurate/

Select one game of your interest and explain why it has a good/bad game UI

One game that I really enjoy is the Witcher 3 The Wild Hunt, When the game first out the game’s UI was not at all bad, but it was not the best the wild hunt had received many updates and patches throughout its life span, but a huge update came about when CD Projekt Red was about to release their final DLC they decided to change the UI. For me a good UI is simple, clean and easy to navigate around they are important to me in game because I do not want to have to spend time learning the way the UI works, that is not the reason why I purchased the game, I purchased the game to play not spend my time in menus, that is why those factors are important to me when it comes to a good user interface, and CD Projekt Red really cleaned up their UI (as seen below) and it made the game much better and you can customise your character to the way that you wanted it to.

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

HCI is re-examining itself. No longer just about being user focused, it has set its sights on pastures new, grasping a significantly more extensive and sweeping arrangement of interests. From passionate, eco-accommodating, encapsulated encounters to setting, constructivism and culture, HCI explore is evolving apace: from what it takes a gander at, the focal points it utilizes and what it brings to the table. Some portion of this is as a response to what is going on the planet; pervasive innovations are multiplying and changing how we experience our lives. We are ending up more associated and more subject to innovation. Our reality is getting to be suffused with advances that can possibly significantly change how we live. PCs now barge in on our lives and additionally vanish into our general surroundings; they screen and guide us; and they pressure and additionally help us. They are progressively winding up some portion of our surroundings, out in the open spaces, for example, Airports, car parks, and shopping centres and additionally in the private spaces of our homes and workplaces. As a component of this change, our brains are broadening more into the world. It is typical for individuals to utilize online logbooks to remind them to send a birthday card to a companion and Google data on their portable amid continuous discussions at supper parties. The future has a long way to go, as it will take a long time for humans to fully augment themselves and become an android.

https://www.computer.org/web/computingnow/archive/september2014

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

The indie developer that I have decided to talk about is ‘Hello Games’ they are the developers that created no man sky, the reason why I decided to go with Hello Games is because they created an indie game but they made it like an AAA game and because of that this peaked a lot of interest in a wide variety of people, including people that only play AAA standard games, since its E3 2014 debut this game got a lot of people excited in the game. Since this being an indie developer, the game was published by Sony therefore giving it a AAA price and it was given a lot of high profile marketing therefore ensuring that a lot of people know about the game so that there is more a higher chance that more people will see it and increasing the amount of copies sold.

The reason why No Man Sky peaked my interest is that it was a big project for the developers and the game took a long time to develop, also the game got a lot of its inspiration from science fiction writers for example: Isaac Asimov, Arthur C. Clarke and Robert Heinlein, their work was considered fantastic, vibrant and unexplored and the developers took on those pillars and put it into their games and this got me excited because this game could be really good as I am a huge fan of science fiction so this game would be right up my alley but unfortunately the game did not live up to my expectations, as most of the planets were a copy and paste and most of the time you would be doing the same thing over and over game and this got very repetitive and I stopped playing within an month as I got really bored and there was no end game content and nothing to grind towards, this game really let me down, the developers are still updating this game to its full potential but there is still a long way to go but I will still give it a chance.

Developers of No Man Sky

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

One indie project that I am really looking forward to playing is Super Meat Boy Forever, this game is the sequel to the original Super Meat Boy, and this game has been in development for a while and it has been long awaited by a lot of people including me, while holding the tasteful and foolish appeal of the first (and the Flash amusement that went before it), Super Meat Boy Forever will play in an unexpected way. Rather than giving full flexibility of movement to the player, Super Meat Boy Forever is a sprinter style amusement that just requests that you control Meat Boy’s hopping and assault control. Inclining toward components that are regularly utilized as a part of versatile amusements (, it’s coming to phones alongside PS4, Xbox, Windows PCs, and Nintendo Switch), you can hop and assault as you run however levels, sliding under obstructions and again attempting to beat your foe Dr Fetus, who’s presently abducted your kid, Nugget.

https://www.redbull.com/gb-en/indie-games-in-2018

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

One example that has an interactive narrative, which in this case is a game, beyond two souls, the key concepts of this game and its interactive narrative genre, Beyond two souls first came on the PS3, this was the follow up from multiple game of the year awards for its ground breaking interactive narrative. To some people “Interactive storytelling” can be a bit of a dilemma, the interactive part of the game is done through storytelling and it is about uncovering a character through multiple choices put in your way.

Therefore the story is mainly done as a structure, a non-linear structure so that you are not always going done a set path so it is often structured  to put the person through different scenarios and almost force them to become someone that they might not be, and that might be because of the decisions that you might make in the game and that can often be at times a representation of the of the player playing the game, so in some cases its like you have given your personality to the character and a lot of people might enjoy doing the game because they how the player may fair if they were put into the game universe. Some games for example in the Dragon Age franchise the game gives players the ability to choose how the characters mortality be in the game and have different mortality affects how the game is played and sometimes so the core gameplay at times and this might get the attention of people that not played dragon age games and try and bring that player base into a new game that they might not have played but might enjoy playing because of the different scenarios that your character might be in.

Structure for Narrative

Does the interactive narrative still have a role to play in video games today? Give exemplary examples?

The interactive narrative does in fact still have a role to play in the video game industry, in fact it has a huge role as there have been games that have taken this interactive narrative and implemented it as a main game play mechanic and most of these games are well done and have won multiple game of the year awards for example: Beyond Two Souls, The Walking Dead (Telltale Games), Heavy Rain, Until Dawn, The Wolf Amongst Us and Remember Me. These games are extremely popular, and they still have a big impact upon the game industry, and I do not see them going any time soon as they type of games are becoming more and more popular, therefore the type of games will still be relevant to this day, As these games have set the pinnacle for interactive narrative games and they give inspiration to the game industry so developers can make really good  games, for there is this game that been the making for a while, Detroit Become Human and it seems like that game has a very intensive interactive narrative.

Another Narrative Structure

What were the key ideas of the Bauhaus?

The Bauhaus is one of, if not the most influential modern art school of the 20^th century. The key ideas and concepts of the Bauhaus was its approach to different methods of teaching and understanding the meaning behind art and how to relates to society and technology. The motivation behind the Bauhaus started in the 19^th century in that time people thought that art does not have a purpose in society and it was rejected, therefore the Bauhaus bring together that creativity and manufacturing and bring them together again because they were going apart, so they wanted to bring it together and create better designs and bring it back to life and create a fresh experience. Their focus was to bring together fine art and techniques to a modern society. The Bauhaus brought down the hierarchy for different types of art and placing them on a level field and leading the way for different artist. The Bauhaus is in fact all about new techniques and a different attitude and state of mind and new construction and bring them forward, because this way artist start evolving and evolutions therefore leads to unusual, new and interesting pieces of work which influenced the development of graphic design, the Bauhaus also emphasized how important simple designs were because the best designs were often the most simple, The Bauhaus often sways towards more pure forms and clean designs and that should be the main characteristic when It comes to design.

The Bauhaus School

Examples of a piece of art that came from the Bauhaus school

Artist: László Moholy-Nagy

Artwork description & Analysis: Moholy-Nagy worked with engineer Istvan Sebok and technician Otto Ball to realize the Light Prop. Uniting the artist’s enthusiasm for the look of machines, and for material innovation, it is one of the most famous early examples of kinetic art.

http://www.theartstory.org/movement-bauhaus-artworks.htm

Artist: Josef Albers

Artwork description & Analysis: Josef Albers described his most famous series, Homage to the Square, as “platters to serve colour.” He began the series in 1949 and worked on it until his death in 1976. This early version demonstrates his systematic approach to investigating the optical effects of colours.

http://www.theartstory.org/movement-bauhaus-artworks.htm

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

Yes, I do feel like the ideas could have an influence on contemporary game design, because the Bauhaus represents a movement and this was extremely important for design and art and bringing it to the modern ages examples of the Bauhaus influence can be seen in the 21^st century as seen in products such as the iPhone, as it was a simple but elegant design and when it was first unveiled it was ahead of its time, so I think the Bauhaus can have influence on game design, if designers take influence from the Bauhaus and how simplicity is often the best as there is beauty in simplicity and if designers take upon that mentality it can result to really good end products which could revolutionize the way we think about game design the way the iPhone did.