Thursday, 16 May 2013

Environment Research - Developing My Theme

So being able to pick my three most favoured themes, I have completed a small amount of research for calm, awe and fear. I have decided to develop a theme for calm, but I would like a very small amount of suspense which could be classed as fear.

Unfortunately I do not play many games like I used to do, but I know the general idea that has always appealed to me and I can catch inspiration from a few games which I will be mentioning. There use a few abstracts from one of my favourite books which has given me the most promising idea so far.

Typical you can get very calm areas with awesome ambience from epic fantasy style games. For instance take Final Fantasy 10, in the area named Macalania Woods. A mystical forest that hold many secrets but seems very tranquil.



The short scene above is a short conversation between two of the main characters 'Tidus' and 'Yuna'. The scene looks for obvious purposes calm, it's to observed and compliments the conversation that is taking place between them. The glowing lights give an almost trance like feeling, this is what make the whole scene to calming to the player.

I've always had a great idea in my head that if I was to build a simple environment I would know exactly how I'd like it. The above example is pretty close but it's dramatic in terms of reality to the forest, but it's a different universe and that is fine. I will be using a passage from book called 'The Wizards First Rule' by 'Terry Goodkind', one of 13 books in an epic fantasy series. I will include the full passage in my final work but in short the main character Richard with his companion Kahlan are travelling to a friends house which has quite a detailed description in the woods which I would like to re-create. A small house on a little hill accompanied by many pine trees and a small fire, I'm not sure that this would be sufficient but if it comes to it I will add specific details so I added to the idea.



I have pieced together the description of the house and it's surroundings and I'm sure I can create quite a detailed environment from this alone.

"Zedd’s squat house came into sight a short distance farther up the trail. A single plank from the sod-covered roof served as a ramp for his old cat. White lace curtains hung on the inside of the windows, flower boxes on the outside. The log walls were dull gray with age, but a bright blue door greeted visitors. Other than the door, the whole place gave the appearance of hunkering into the grasses surrounding it, of trying to go unnoticed. There was a porch running the length of the front.

Zedd’s “reason” chair was empty. The reason chair was where Zedd sat and thought until he figured out the reason for whatever it was that had snagged his curiosity. Richard called out but received no answer. He smiled at Kahlan. “I bet I know where he is. Out back on his cloud rock, studying the latest batch of clouds.”

The two of them walked through the tall, wild grasses that surrounded the house and up a rise to the top of a small barren hill, where the cloud rock sat. Zedd was standing on the flat cloud.

Near a back corner of the house sat a table where Zedd liked to take his meals in good weather."

No comments:

Post a Comment