Narrative Project - Game Review II: Children of Mana.

The storyline plays a huge part in adding structure to Children of Mana. In it, the protagonist (whom you can choose from four different ones) has to defeat a resurgence of evil that was quelled 10 years ago by a goddess. Of course, because you can choose from four different protagonists, there a four different motivations within the story; Ferrik wants to be a hero like his deceased father, Tamber seeks truth and justice due to her family dying in the Great Disaster (like Ferrik’s family did), though Poppen and Wanderer don’t have strong motivations. Poppen’s could be said to be a want to talk to his mother who died in the Great Disaster, but Wanderer is the character you find more about as the story progresses. Whilst each character motivation doesn’t change the plot of the main storyline, it does add to the game in general. As with books, a good game can’t be made just with a good plotline. The story could be the most unique in the world, but without fully-developed, well-rounded characters that people can relate to and find likable, the game will fail to grip and immerse players.

Children of Mana is full of likeable characters with backstories that help to fill out the plot,
move the story forwards and give players something to invest their time in.

But the basic storyline is fighting off an old foe to save the world. To do this, the protagonist must travel around a lot to complete various tasks, defeating monsters and bosses in lots of different dungeons and taking side quests to grow in strength. This means the game falls into two of Booker’s defined storylines. 

One: Overcoming A Force That Threatens. This gives players a challenging goal to reach and a main objective to the story. Without it, players would just be running around dungeons, killing monsters and there would be no satisfying end to it. A game with an objective like this, no matter how cliche, immerses the player in the game. They have to get to the end of this dungeon, they have to defeat this next boss, they have to catch up to the evil mastermind who keeps appearing just to show them what they’re up against. If they don’t, they let a whole world down and it’ll be the end of humanity. And let’s not forget that just because ‘defeating the baddie’ is a cliche, doesn’t mean it’s not interesting (though there are exceptions I will get to later). Cliches become cliches because people like them and find them engaging. 

Despite being a cliche, having an evil villain gives the game's story a solid direction. This means
players aren't wandering through the game wondering why they're spending their time fighting little monsters. It gives players a true challenge to overcome, therefore making for a more immersive game.

The second of Booker’s storylines that Children of Mana falls into is The Journey. Due to monsters appearing in dungeons all over the world, the protagonist must travel to them in order to advance in the story by clearing each dungeon. By adding this element into the game, the developers expanded the play time, and made it much more interesting (who wants to play in the same area for hours on end?). It also provides a change of pace to the game, because yes, constant dungeon crawling does get a little dull. The change in scenery is a welcome change and gives the player new problems to think about, like how to avoid that spiky area of floor blocking the way and how to get to the other side of the room when it’s covered in slippery ice. Despite the changing scenery having players look at something new every quest, the game does get a little boring. Even though you’re trying to defeat this villain, you spend so much time in dungeons it becomes monotonous. You want to be outside fighting monsters for once, why can’t they appear in a field instead? And yes, how the player interacts with the story is more engaging than Naruto (previous review) because you talk to other characters and have more of a personal interaction with them, it can still get boring just listening to the talk, then reading your pre-set dialogue, listening some more etc. Overall I think the way Children of Mana’s story is presented is much better than Naruto’s is, but it could still do with a little bit of variety.

Dungeons,

Oh look!
Another dungeon.

Dungeons...

Narrative Project - Game Review I: Naruto Ultimate Ninja Storm Generations.

In the story mode of Naruto Ninja Storm Generations, the player can pick between different tales/stories to play though.  These stories follow the events of the actual anime and manga, which the game is based off. I’m going to be focusing on one of the first stories which follows young Naruto’s journey from getting his ninja headband to participating in the Chunin exams to trying to save his friend Sasuke who wants to join the enemy in order to get stronger and defeat his brother. 

This storyline incorporates many of Booker’s defined storylines, such as the Tragedy; because Sasuke’s older brother killed all of their clan and family, Sasuke wishes to follow a path of revenge. Then, when Naruto surpasses Sasuke’s strength and growth rate Sasuke decides he must leave their village in order to gain power. Naruto doesn’t have the power to bring him back. Also, earlier on in the game, the village’s leader is killed in battle, landing a huge blow to everyone living there.

The death of the village leader, Sarutobi Hiruzen, landed a huge blow to the people of the village.
 The emotional and physical turmoil created by his death drives part of the story forwards.

This also links into ‘Overcoming the Monster’. The village leader died due to Orochimaru, a defective ninja, launching an attack on the village. The village leader sacrificed himself in order to save the rest of the village. The evil, Orochimaru, survives however and becomes one of the main villains in this story arc, along with the Akatsuki, a syndicate after the power sealed within Naruto. They each have to be defeated once, with the player using different characters from the village to do this following the plot of the anime. In a more emotional sense, Naruto also tries to overcome the monster in Sasuke by forming a close bond of friendship in order to try and purge the vengeance from him.

Sasuke chooses to sever his bonds of friendship, instead choosing the path of revenge and losing himself to
this monster, aswell as to Orochimaru.

Because the storyline just follows the plot of the anime, it immerses the player in the game on the assumption that they are huge Naruto fans and want to re-live the events within Naruto’s life. To an extent, this works. The clips from the anime transition into stills with a voice-over giving the player a quick overview of the story, with battles inbetween to keep them interested and engaged in the game. However, this back and forth between voiced scenes and a battle gets monotonous and predictable. Yes, the story is intricate and it’s interesting to watch some memorable scenes from the anime. Sometimes these even have a very small twist so that they fit into the game better, but overall the story mode isn’t well explained enough for people who have never watched Naruto before, and for those that have it’s just like a shortened version of the anime but with a bit of interactivity laced in. So whilst the narrative does make the game fun and interesting, it gets a little boring and tedious after a couple of hours. I think if it added extra content into the game, like new side missions created just for the game, it would be a lot more immersive.

Animated scenes play out parts of the anime.

Afterwhich, there are a number of stills with text and a voice-over to carry the rest of the story.

Between these stills are battles for the player to fight, making the game interactive.

Mechanical Drawings - Practice I.

Mechanical Drawing Practice I.
We've been asked to take photos of mechanical, scrap and surfaces for our new project: characters. Because I've never really drawn anything mechanical before, I've been practicing by copying out some of the photographs I've taken using different media:

Monday the 6th of January 2014.
Pencils and Fineliner.

Tuesday the 7th of January 2014.
Pencil, coloured pencil and fineliner.

Wednesday the 8th of January 2014.
Fineliner.

Research Task - Recycling.

Recycling Research Task.

I’ve been given the theme of recycling to research its use in the following media: literature, film, game, animation and art.

Literature: The Borrowers by Mary Norton.
In this book, a family of tiny people called Borrowers live secretly in another family’s house. They ‘borrow’ things from the residents, such as thimbles and bread crumbs to survive and make a comfortable home for themselves. By taking and re-using things that the humans in the house don’t really use or would just throw away, the Borrowers are recycling in their own way. Even though The Borrowers wasn’t written with the theme of recycling in mind, recycling does play a major part in the book as taking and re-using items is how the Borrowers survive; essentially it is their mainstay.

A safety pin and piece of string
can be used to scale a desk.

In this illustration from the book, you can see how
various household nicknacks have been re-used and given
new purposes such as the chess-piece ornament.

Film: Waterworld.

A 1995 post-apocalyptic sci-fi film, Waterworld is based on a world where the polar ice caps have melted, flooding Earth so completely that only man-made islands of recycled and re-used scrap remain. Practically everything that the inhabitants of this world own has either been recycled or re-used. 

The headgear has clearly been made out of bits of scrap
material that has been found.

Even this girl's dress has been made from recycled
materials, it doesn't even look as if it's all fabric.

The boats in Waterworld have been made from recycled
materials too.

Game: Pikmin 2.
In Pikmin 2, the main character Olimar must go to the Pikmin planet in order to find 'treasures' that will save his employer from bankruptcy. These treasures however are what most people would think of as cheap things that can be thrown out when they're not used/wanted anymore or have broken. For example, old run-down batteries and rubber ducks can gather a good price. Berries can also be taken and made into little potions that will have different affects on the Pikmin, therefore the berries are recycled in a way instead of just dropping to the ground and rotting. 

Some of the 'junk' that Olimar and the Pikmin see
as treasure.

Animation: Flip Book Animation by Tangy_JJam.
This short flip book animation shows a girl planting a tree and watching it grow and mature. But then the leaves begin to blow away, the branches following and finally the whole thing has disappeared as the leaves and the branches and the trunk turn into sheets of paper, piling up on a person’s desk so that they can write on them, only for the person to scrunch them up and throw away sheet after sheet. The girl watches in horror as more trees disappear to suffer the same fate and as it begins to rain, she too begins to disappear. From the difference in the rain at the start of the animation which were droplets, to the rain at the end which steamed and melted the girl like acid, I think it’s a safe bet to say that the rain at the end was acid rain which is created by excess sulphur in the air due to factories. Trees can help to prevent acid rain by balancing out the components in air.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ud8dSDy5lB4

This animation has a strong message: that by wasting paper (made from trees), people are destroying trees which will eventually lead to our own downfall. The underlying message is that if people would waste less and recycle more (instead of throwing paper into a normal bin that will go to landfill), we could prevent this from happening, saving trees and ourselves.

Artist: Miwa Koizumi, Caroline Saul and Laura Healey.
Using and heat gun, Koizumi heats up thrown-out water bottles, creating small aquatic-looking creatures called PETs (PolyEthylene Terephthalate, this is the type of plastic that the water bottles are made from and it can be recycled).
The message could be that despite the fact that these plastics can be recycled, they are still thrown out to go to landfill, or to blow away and end up in rivers and oceans which contaminates the environment and has started to become a part of Earth’s coasts. So Koizumi has recycled old water bottles into something more meaningful.

Miwa Koizumi's PETs.

Caroline Saul also uses plastic to create ‘bulbous forms’ by melting, reforming and colouring plastics that would otherwise go to landfill.

Caroline Saul's Bulbous Forms.

This same kind of method is also used by Laura Healey when she makes her dragonflies. The wings of the dragonflies are made out of old drinks bottles which she cuts into pointed oval shapes and then colours with alcohol inks. Once the wings have dried, she heats them over a flame so that they shrivel up (this effect can also be achieved by putting some types of plastic into very hot water). The wings are then attached to a wire frame that makes up the body of the dragonfly. By doing this, Laura Healey has recycled old plastic to make very organic looking, natural art.

Laura Healey's Dragonflies.

Illustration: Umm...
This illustration shows, in a humourous way, how things can be recycled into something completely different; the now-bicycle that belongs to a small child is shown to have been a deadly weapon that took many lives. 

Recycling can turn one thing into something
completely and utterly different.