This unit of the Creative & Digital Media L3 course required me to choose a brief, that I would like to follow, from a range of different briefs created over many yearsa and covering different areas of the industry.

 

I decided to choose BAFTA Game Concept Award as my final project of this year, as I am highly interested in the games industry. The other reason I chose this brief was that this project would allow me to showcase skills that I gained during the course as well as to express my thoughts about the subject - games.

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My client was BAFTA YGD "the leading British charity that supports, promotes and develops the art", while the YGD part of this organisation is a gaming initative for young people to explore the games industry. BAFTA YGD hosts an annual competition for young people to submit their game concepts or games.

My target audience were players in general, as games are supposed to reach as many people as possible, unless they are some of some specific genre that cannot reach more than one group. However, it was not the case for me and I wanted my game to be suitable for everyone.

This brief required me to fill an official worksheet with atleast one piece of the supporting art. Obviously, this brief asked me to not make my game concept offensive nor breach any copyright.

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My initial idea for the game concept for this brief was a simple platformer similar to the Super Mario series, with a small twist, that players can freely throw objects and enemies to use their abilities. However, this concept drastically changed with each week of researching as my idea was affected by many articles, already created products and art. Thanks to those inspiring sources I was able to modify my game concept to make it more interesting, appealing and original.

I think that my research was successful exactly because it allowed me to find a better course of thought as well as many references to use to create a product of much higher quality. For example, thanks to my primary research I was able to find out that different players enjoy different parts of games. I asked them for their opinions and experience and enquired them later to give some propositions of what they would like to see in my game concept.  All my research was just as helpful to me - both primary and secondary.

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I was able to work productively not only thanks to the research, which gave me enough information on the audience and existing products, but the plan I created during few first sessions. During those lessons I created a proposal, which included a plan showing what part of the project to start and finish and when to do so. In addition, I created a table to keep track of my progress as well as research log to be able to find sources with ease.

My action plan was not too detailed - I only put dates, tasks, resources and tools. Nevertheless, it was very helpful to me and fulfilled its role as I was never behind with work.

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I think that I have successfully used all practical skills I learned during this course; starting with use of a range of tools and software, whilst ending with different techniques used in that software. I was able to successfully use element positioning, which I learnt during other units (like when I had to create posters), to create an interesting scenery (on my art) that is both balanced (similar amount of objects and details are in every part of my art) and focused at the right place (use of colour to empathise on the most important things, like the protagonist and the antagonist). In addition, I was able to use Photoshop to colour my drawings later on in a stylish way, in my opinion. I learnt that thorough the course.

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Overall, I am really happy with the results; artwork I produced was of a very high standard in my opinion, and I presented it very well both on my website and in the BAFTA YGD worksheet. I think that I conveyed my game concept very well as well. Everything went smooth, however, I think that my art went particularly successful. I think so, as I enjoyed it more than any other part of this project and it allowed me to try new things - usually my images are not so detailed, do not use this many colours, and cover much smaller areas (portraits instead of full landscapes). I think that it was successful, because it went very well even though it was new to me and because it allowed me develop my style.

The least successful thing about this project were my reflections, I think. I could write them more often - after every few steps of doing something instead of doing it after finishing that thing. I could use more technical language, while referencing to different techniques. I was unable to do so, as I wanted to spend more time on creating graphics and because I do not know too many technical terms. Fortunately, I can solve that in the future simply by looking for those terms on the web.

Thorough the entire project I kept getting feedback from teachers, fellow students, friends and family. It was because of their suggestion that I tried different techniques while producing my images with photoshop. Thanks to the feedback I was able to improve in all areas I lacked in. They also flooded me with their own concepts, that were not particularly relevant but allowed me further understand my client and audience.

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If I had more time I would create more images to support my concept as well as produce a short animation or even a demo of that game.