Animated Narratives - Week 5

This week I wanted to reiterate on the work done in previous weeks.

Week 1 the focus was on creating a paper-based game for the purpose of generating story premises. I created different categories and options for worlds and character. I drew random cards to prompt an idea and brainstormed a premise for a story. To reiterate on my existing ideas I wanted to consider how some elements in my story could be swapped out and if it might create more interesting possibilities. I decided to consider how the story options would change if the laboratory environment was swapped for a game room/rumpus room. I was inspired by the Lego Movie, where the kid plays in his dad's Lego room, but the Lego is not meant for playing with, it is used in a serious way by his father for his business.  I like the idea of an environment that begs for playful interaction, but in fact it is under strict control and play is prohibited (which makes it even more irresistible).

Week 2 the focus was on creating a narrative architecture through the world that I built, by creating options in the environment that a player can interact with and create a narrative. I want to revisit the ideas I came up with and consider more options for interaction that could result in different character development. I looked at references of physical games, outdoor games, game equipment, to conceive of things that could resemble game objects to add into the strictly controlled laboratory.

Week 3 I started looking at different expressions for the main character that could change as the character develops. I was mostly focused on facial expressions. I put the main character into different imagined scenes in the game for context to test different states of character development. I want to continue this exploration by considering body movements and postures for the character.