The Direction of Art .: Task Se7en :.

First of all i'd like to apologise for the rushed posting of two weekly tasks on the same day and secondly i'd like to apologise for falling behind to the degree that i'm rushing to catch up. In this task i've been asked to look at the Art Director role in a games production team. I guess that the Art Director in a production team is like the manager in a football team. The managers all have good football experience but you don't see them on the pitch. Same applies for Art Directors if my theory is correct. After years of experience in creating game art you let the young guns take over and survey things from the sidelines, using your experience to make sure everything runs smoothly. It's the Art Directors responsibility to ensure the team works together smoothly and efficiently. From the link supplied by Mr. Powell its easy to see that you need to stand out in what you do to be accepted in the Art Director role. Problem Solving skills, Communication, and Timekeeping are all of key importance for the job aswell as an impressive resume/CV and portfolio . . . there was me thinking Game Design would be a nice, non-competetive industry ^_^.

The Art Director in a games art production team is responsible for the young upcoming/wannabe game artists and it's his/her/its job to allocate each member certain jobs in response to each members strengths and weaknesses. For example one member of the team might stand out above the rest in 3d modelling and it would be the Art Director's job to pick up on this and take advantage of his strengths. It would be poor supervising if the concept artist ended up modelling the characters and the modeller was stuck doing market research. Therefore being able to pinpoint people's strengths would be of key importance in order to succeed and create a well-managed productions team.

Art Direction is quite similar in alot of fields such as Gaming, Films, Magazines etc. All are responsible for certain things like the projects art budget, keeping the initial idea, making sure the production team works together etc. Experience in the specific fields are a must and I guess its this that seperates the different types of art directors.

[What qualities do you think you?d need to develop if you want to become an Art Director in the future?] Communication! This quality is a must and it's the thing employee's would be looking for as soon as you walked into the interview. Good communication and leadership are extremely important qualities when it comes to leading and keeping together a production team. You need to be someone the members can come to but you need to ensure they respect you and appreciate that your the production leader. These two elements would need to be developed should I wish to become an Art Director in the future. At the present moment I don't really show any signs of good verbal communication or any leadership qualities but these skills can be developed through university, work experience, and a confident frame of mind.

Gameplay? .: Task Six :.

Gameplay put simply is the way in which the gamer interacts with the elements in a game and the games ability to command the gamer's attention. A game that captures your imagination and attention would be considered to have good gameplay although since we're all unique little flowers opinion and preference plays a heavy role! As they say one man's meat is another man's poison, a game that one person rates highly could be considered to have poor gameplay in another persons eyes. Its an age old argument that applies to pretty much everything in the world. If we were all robots ... boy, then we'd see some results!

Gameplay is an important element in Game Design for me. I wouldn't say I don't care for graphics and sound because that would be a blatant lie, everyone likes good graphics, it makes that gaming world oh-so-realistic. Graphics are nice but not as important as gameplay in my eyes. I like to feel involved with a game and interact with the elements it presents. Preference of Gameplay is never set in stone, I feel that mood can change your preferences easily. One day i'll feel like a god-sim because I want to feel dominating and superior, and the next i'll want to take on the role of a WWII soldier because I want to vent some anger on AI opponents. Personally I think unbeatable gameplay lies on the shoulders of a well-designed MMORPG. ( Here we go again lol >.< ) I've just recently started playing Guild Wars due to the Halls network blocking my precious WoW ports but I think this game has good gameplay and playability. There's something about striving to become better than thousands of other subscribed gamers that just makes me tick!

I would think that Game Design is a long winded process therefore hard to pin-point the "leading lights". I can imagine that a company would do market research into what's hot and what's not, current technical limitations etc and then forward that information onto a design team who would mould and shape that idea and pass it back to the funders who would like or dislike the idea. If anyone should claim the spot light I would say it belongs to the teams Art Director. This figure has the responsibility of channeling everyones ideas into a potentially succesful game. Although this director is the overlooker of the project I would not say it was entirely all his responsibility. The work load of the game would be distributed between the different members of the team and possibly different work teams.

Genre and Gameplay are important factors when designing elements for games. You want the elements to appeal and hold the audiences attention and you want them to relate closely to the game's genre. From experienece I would say that puzzles are a good element to use in action games to break away from the mindless gun blazing titles and add an interesting degree of challenege. A good example of how genre changes certain elements in the game would be to look at Silent Hill. The graphics, mood and gameplay is all based around a high-tension horror genre and everything works together like a well-oiled machine.

The Sharpest Lives are the Deadliest to Lead .: Task Cinq :.

(Five)

Ahh the joys of catching up with my weekly tasks (i.e. i'm an idiot!). This week/task I have been asked to look into New Games Journalism or NGJ if you will. Since i'm catching up with blogs i'll miss out the personal rant and skip straight the task in hand!

New Games Journalism seems like a good occupation, especially for someone who's passionate about games (like moi). Some could argue that the passion is stolen from gaming once you begin writing about it for profession rather than for pure enjoyment. I think there is some justice in this statement but I also think it fuels people's interest and gives them a reason to continue playing and writing. The best journalist tend to be those who display such passion towards the subject that they care not for moral restraints. I don't know why but that really does it for me ... like my Radio presenters and my comedians, the best ones do it for themselves and end up becoming great. Anyway back on topic. Journalism reminds me of blogging ... a very subjective form of blogging.

I can always remember the journalists for a nintendo magazine, can't remember the name for the life of me, because they were very personal in their writing. It seemed like they really enjoyed what they were doing and would share their personal views with the reader. It made me laugh because they would trash-talk the official nintendo magazine as much as they could ... always a good thing.

The Games Journalists must face certain issues or restrictions while writing their reviews. Child friendly magazines are of course going to set language restrictions. But I consider sometimes how far a company will go to make their game look good?! Would they sit back and let bad reviews go through if they want their game to top the charts? I don't think so. Football games come to mind! How can a NGJ possibly give the latest batch of football games their mark of approval when they're EXACTLY THE SAME AS THE FIRST F*%?!^G VERSIONS THAT CAME OUT ON MASTER SYSTEM?!? What's different? Better graphics? A new coloured ball? Less annoying commentary? (Less face it! Going 5 minutes into a game is enough to make you slam the controller into the wall and put the TV on mute!!) No! What I think is that they're slipped a lil' summin extra to praise the game just to see it rise in the charts. Makes me sick, honestly. Don't get me wrong ... I love my football ... (although i'm about ready to go over to London and shout at West Ham Utd ... gotta love em) but the games suck. The gameplay doesn't change, all that changes are the players! Oh god, I really can't get into this otherwise i'll be ranting for days!

As with any job, the only "real" drive to continue is the green. So this begs the question, who pays off the journalists?! Oh yea, yeah! They do it cause they love games! The fact is we're all human ... we only do something if we get something in return! Like they say: give with one hand and take with the other! It's the rules of life! Freelance journalists will most probably sell their works to random magazines that take their fancy or offer them the fattest pile of moneyz! Journalists under the employment of magazines would be under a salary, most likely commission based with the added notes of greedy gaming companies (again, just a hunch) but what about the mad bloggers? Why do they do it? It really does baffle me ... maybe the theory of human workings has been corrupted?

Anyway, that's enough about New Games Journalists, i'm starting to get a headache! Next we go onto Gameplay which i'm quite looking forward to after my football game rant! Mwahahah *cough*. I would end on a catchy quote but they've become a little too mainstream for my liking.

Ukraine 1 - England 0 .: ??????? ?????? ??????? :.

Wow, feels like I haven't blogged in ages! Luckily the desktop is better at remembering my logins than me! In this task i've been asked to look at the current history of gaming. I guess before I delve into the facts of what happened and what changed it would be a good idea to begin mapping out my personal gaming history. I am doing a gaming related course afterall so I guess it makes sense!

Instead of listing every game i've played, how far I got, and how much I like them better than the next person i'm just going to detail the important games that really changed gaming in my life. I just reread that sentance and realised how sad I sound ... *sigh* onwards!

Final Fantasy 7 - very cliche dontcha think?! Everyone loves Final Fantasy. I won't lie to sound like a Squaresoft(/Enix) junkie and say i've been playing Final Fantasy games since they were first ever created! Final Fantasy 7 was the title in the series that I played! I think this may have been the first RPG I played and recognised too! My old friend from primary school, Thomas Reidman I think his name was ... (he got well fat after primary school, I always wonder what went wrong), lent me the game for a whole half a day and I was hooked! I didn't start the game I just played from his save data. He was stuck on the first boss (the idiot kept attacking when its tail was raised) and when I told him I beat the boss first try he demanded the game back! I wasn't too bothered, I was quite impressed with myself but I couldn't believe a game like that exsisted, it was amazing! Strategic battles rather than the ol' button bashers, interactive characters! SPIKEY HAIR!! So not only did Final Fantasy introduce me to the world of RPG gaming it also influenced my hair style and opened the door to Sephiroth related fantasies! (Kidding ... maybe)

Legend of Zelda : Ocarina of Time - What can I say? Amazing story, amazing characters, amazing damage with the Big Goron Sword that I slaved over for what seemed like forever! The best thing was ... the blade didn't break!! Loved it! Couldn't get my head around fishing though!

Harvest Moon : Back to Nature - I can't remember why I bought it but I can remember that my brother bartered with the shopkeeper to get me the game for a fiver instead of the advertised ?19. Great game, changed the way I looked at farming forever! I actually lived on a farmhouse (up until last year) and it actually introduced me to gardening which I quite enjoy! You have live in the country to fully appreciate it ... watering a pot plant every other day in Leicester just isn't the same.

That's about it for now, when the next gen consoles came out (Ps2 and Gamecube) it all changed but the influencing titles will be revealed later! Stay tuned...

The rate of gaming evolution has been on a steady incline since it began back in Task Two so I find it difficult to lock onto the key points that helped shape and develop what we consider current gaming. I think that from the late 90's gaming has been considered a serious trade and due to this the market has enlarged enormously as companies and developers add to its growth in order to fill their pockets.

[What are the significant developments facing gaming at the beginning of the 21st century?] In my opinion the biggest development that occured around the 21st century was the dramatic increase in graphical quality! Special effects in films were even more special, Disney was making 3d computer-graphic-film-thingys, everything was turning towards the computer. It was now up to the computer game industry to keep ontop of things by reeling of stunning graphics and perfect animation to drop the jaws of gamers everywhere and prove they were the daddies of computer-generated-graphics! People's expectations of games were becoming alot more unique around this era which I think is a development that altered the construction of games. Whereas Crash Bandicoot would please a large chunk of gamers with it's (at that time) good graphics, good gameplay and simple story in the beginning of the 21st century people started to develop an appetitve for better gameplay, touching plots and storyline twists! This put the pressure on game companies that now needed to satisfy the cravings of game junkies everywhere.

[What pressures does the industry face?] Boy oh boy! With the boom in technology it was up to the games companies to keep on top of this scary new technology and turn it into something they could sell! This required constant research and experimentation whilst racing against competetive games companies as they raced to capture the attention of the gaming market. With the gaming markets interests now finely defined it was up to the gaming companies to lock onto a popular genre and shoot. Going for one specific audience was risky considering they shunned other peoples interest but it was a decision that needed to be made. Afterall, making a game that suits everyones tastes is extremely difficult if not impossible. One of the only games that has managed that thus far, in my opinion, is Grand Theft Auto! There's not one single person I know that hates it! Nice one Rock Star!

One way the gaming market is different to what it was back in the eighties is that it is now one of the most competetive trades in business. Gaming companies are always trying to outdo themselves and their competition, utilizing the latest bleeding edge technology and trying to invent the most unique gaming idea possible. With dozens of companies all thinking the same thing it becomes an extremely competetive market. Argh! My brains fried, I really can't think of much more on the subject. I blame Chris Moyles' autobiography! How dare it be that gripping!!

I can't protect you without holding a sword.
I can't embrace you while holding a sword.