Industry Practice: Evaluation
Industry Practice Evaluation
Our game has been completed and has been uploaded to itch.io.
On the whole, I am very pleased with the end product I have developed with my group over the course of the Industry practice module. Considering the brief's focus on mental health, I feel we have created a unique and interesting IP which fits strongly into the theme we have chosen. The research aspect of out project was straightforward and informed our decisions, and our frequent meetings ensured that we stayed on track as a group and managed the work we had to complete.
As for the skills I learnt in this project, I believe I have progressed in my ability to work with others as a group. The majority of prior personal and uni projects were solo: as such, being able to work in a scenario with others, and having to work with others to produce assets for a game, was an incredibly informative experience. Communication was an area of strength in our group, I believe: we had weekly meetings that informed our decisions going ahead, and consistently reviewed the work we had created. This applied to all stages of the process: we recieved feedback on environment pieces, character art and environment pieces. This means that our work was repeatedly critiqued and improved over the course of the project, helping in overall quality control and in ensuring that all work fit the desired tone and theme of our game setting.
As for my role in particular, I found that the brunt of my work occurred during the pre-production phase of our work: I worked heavily on initial thumbnail designs and wrote the scripts for the Intrusive Thoughts and Health Anxiety portions of the game. These scripts informed design decisions in the environments and characters, as well as contributed to our target audience and target market demographics, as well as the general game identity as a whole: the metaphorical and verbose descriptions of complicated feelings; a game focused on flavourfully explaining what it could be like to go through a mental health condition, instead of giving a flat description of what it might be.
I then found that my work tapered off during production: though I did create a final turnaround for my character and the final design for their environment, the majority of the work I produced was that of coding in Ren'Py. I was the only person in my group who did Ren'Py work and, to say that I began this project with no understanding of the software, feel that I did what was necessary to get our game to a functional and working standpoint. Hopefully, the function of the game should illustrate that the I did spend my time in the last weeks of the project fruitfully.
In the end, the main topic of our game was that of Health Anxiety. When developing the project we came up with a series of potential characters and stories that would involve mental health and mental health conditions: Intrusive Thoughts, Burn-out, Health Anxiety and PTSD joined together under the vague umbrella of introspection and remembrance. Of these, we created art for Intrusive Thoughts, Health Anxiety and PTSD, and used Health Anxiety for the basis of our game. If we had more time - or, at the very least, had less on our plates in terms of other projects - I would have loved to continue working on the Intrusive Thoughts and PTSD sections of the game. As it stands, though, getting the Health Anxiety portion complete served to be a big achievement and I am pleased with this progression.
Our story followed a fairly simple concept: of a faceless main character who suffers from Health Anxiety finding a biology lesson on a disease uncomfortable and worrying. Nevertheless, I feel we executed this concept in a fine and conscientious manner: not wanting to upset anyone with such worries, the disease is fictional and exaggerated, and the group reacted positively to the characterisation of Crowley, who represents the main character's Health Anxiety, and the main character themselves. It was important to us that Crowley, who is in effect the 'antagonist' of the game, not seem overtly evil or conniving. We believed this would be uncharacteristic of the condition we were displaying, and felt that it would water-down or otherwise obscure the tone and message of our game. Health Anxiety, and other mental health issues, are not necessarily 'evil'. They are debilitating and suffocating to those who experience them, but there is no malice in the condition itself. We wanted Crowley and our characters to represent that: to be anthropomorphic versions of the illness itself that exemplifies the mental response or thought process behind the condition or response. Health Anxiety, from the research the group completed, is a worrying, irrational fear of potential illness. Crowley, then, was characterised to seem almost alike an over-protective parent, worrying and whittling and trying to comfort the main character with words that only made their panicking response worse. Of everything I completed for this project, this characterisation is one of the aspects I am most proud of.
As for personal developments, I feel I have a better understanding of how group work functions in the games industry: the bulk of this understanding comes from the practical aspects of the project, in working with the others in my group to create a game, though some understanding also came from the research I made into the games industry and into the sector I seek to enter within it. The skills I have developed in this project will work towards attaining these future goals, as the skills of communication and group work are entirely transferable across the sectors I seek to enter.
On the whole, then, this project has been an immensely positive experience. Throughout the entire year I had no issues with anyone in my group and have only positive things to say about their motivation, skill and talent. It has been a genuinely enjoyable experience and I am incredibly happy with our final outcome.
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