It's safe to say that Week 4 was a fairly challenging one. Melbourne was thrust back into a lockdown that showed no signs of ending anytime soon and everyone I spoke to was in a fairly bleak place.

I also had my studio relocated to my house (*sarcastic yay*....) which I found quite difficult and unrewarding. All of a sudden I went from being able to work 40+ hours per week at my desk, to really only being able to muster 6-8 hours for the whole week! I asked for an extension for my folio 1.

I had achieved a few things though that I was quite proud of and had developed from code framework for an app which had a visual novel element to it. Using Yarnspinner, I had figured a way to use their dialogue trees to skip between scenes. Video here: https://vimeo.com/587699808/e12218b84a, password is: kaichenlim

But then I realised that in order to progress I had to have my lightbulb idea that would succinctly explain the whole project. I felt I was about halfway there. But with all the stress of last week, it took me quite a while to figure out what to do (or even to feel motivated to work on my uni). 

Finally I am happening upon an idea which I am enjoying. The idea is to make the app a sort of "fictional app" which - in an alternate history - was developed by a group called the Australian Pro-Conscription League (APCL) in order to gather data on people. The app features a visual novel element which I think can still include the story of two people discussing the outbreak of a war. I think I should perhaps switch the focus slightly so that you now “play” as just one of the characters and have a discussion/interview with the other character. Based on your answers to the other character’s questions, you will end up with a “reading” at the end. In the fictional world, the APCL will store this data about you.

At the moment I’m really interested in government and corporate surveillance, and the malevolent online practices of governments and corporations and the aesthetics of that. I think by making a sort of parody project in this style, I can create thought-provoking material for the audience. I don’t, however, want this project to be too dark. I think the games I made in Studio 1 were so creepy and depressing, and I am really interested to not make this one the same, but it is a challenge when dealing with such depressing subject matter.

It’s weird looking back through my weekly posts already and noticing how much I talk about being burnt out and tired, and then last week I just completely couldn’t do anything! I suppose the extra lockdowns added a whole new curveball of emotions through everyone that we had to spend a lot of energy processing, but I am also learning that I can’t just grind-grind-grind my way to a great idea and great project. Sometimes I need to step back, slow down and just breathe. I am still tired! But I feel much more positive about this project now that I have my creepy idea. 

OK so we got straight back into production it felt like, which is definitely a good thing, but I found myself suddenly stressed and almost overwhelmed by the idea of needing to come up with a project with an appropriate scope that I would be willing to devote the next 12 weeks to. If I hadn’t had my experience in Studio 1 I would have found this much harder. 

For my final project in Studio 1, which I spent half a semester working on, I spent two-to-three weeks developing a concept. Initially my curiosity directed me to the Big Day Out music festival and an Australian music television channel called Channel [V]. I threw myself into these topics and only rarely would attempt to understand how they could relate to a game concept. Then I just started building a 3D map to explore in Unity and with a bit of magic I ended up having a concept that excited me, a 3D open world game set during a folk music festival that is organised by the US military stationed in Tasmania, Seaforth Folk Festival. 

The best part about this game from my perspective was the narrative. MAGI has taught me many techniques for developing interesting stories, which was a skillset I really had trouble developing in my 20s when I worked as a filmmaker, and it is probably the element of gamemaking/ filmmaking that I want to explore the most, and therefore what I want to develop further in Studio 2.

So. What stories do I want to tell? I decided a good place to start was simply with the things that are currently interesting me. Over the break I’ve read several books about war and global conflicts: China’s Grand Strategy and Australia’s Future in the New Global Order by Geoff Raby, The Splendid and the Vile by Erik Larson, Propaganda and Public Relations in Military Recruitment: Promoting Military Service in the Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries which was edited by Brendan Maartens and Thomas Bivins, and a personal diary of life in the Royal Air Force during World War 2 and beyond written by my grandfather. I also watched the film Full Metal Jacket by Stanley Kubrick which is set during the Vietnam War. To be honest I don’t think I’ve ever given much thought to war, the army, being a soldier or anything like that. My whole life has been blessed by mostly peaceful international relations and I have never been forced to do anything I don’t want to do (apart from paying rent!). A lot of The Splendid and the Vile, a historical account of life in England during the beginning of the Second World War, is made up of personal diaristic accounts from people who were actually being bombed by German planes almost every night, sometimes killing hundreds of people daily. Their casual writing style really made their plight relatable which got me interested in how my friends, family and myself might fare in a similar situation. 

Of course we are also living through a situation that is the closest to a world war that I have ever experienced: our daily movements and actions are heavily controlled and scrutinised, we are unable to travel internationally with ease, we are separated from loved ones, unemployment is high and we are constantly barraged with heartbreaking local and international news that is becoming harder and harder to process and accept. 

I think this has all contributed to me wanting to tell a story about regular people (which from my perspective is ‘people who live in Melbourne’) being forced into the army because of some global conflict. What would it actually be like? Is it possible for me to create a narrative that is engaging and absorbing enough for people like me to really start to think about how our lives could change if one of the many possible nightmare scenarios did occur?

This all sounds pretty dark I know, and the last thing I’m interested in doing is making people scared or anxious. I’m told most of my work has a sort of dark sense of humour so hopefully I will be able to bring that to this project, while still being able to discuss a complex and unsettling subject. 

Though most of my Unity games have been made as 3D world explorers with fairly basic controls, I am now interested to develop a new style of game, possibly a dialogue selector/ visual novel style. There are a few games that I am aware of in this field but I don’t actually think I’ve played any of them, so I have a bit of research to do. I think making something like this will allow me to focus on visuals and on narrative, the two areas I want to explore the most.

Anyway, considering how quickly my Big Day Out project evolved and became Seaforth Folk Festival, I am fully open to this project changing dramatically, maybe by next week! Until then I’m going to continue researching and conceptualising, with an eye on the scope that is possible within 12 weeks.