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Vlog one...

First in the framework, Fear, a concept which could benefit from its own framework. I'll look into what makes certain designs scary and what makes others unsuccessful. Next, fun. This is some scare acting knowledge I picked up in the haunt industry. If your character cant be scary, always be funny. Comedy in a unexpected environment becomes uncomfortable in the drop of a hat. Not to mention, comedic characters leave a mark on consumer's minds for longer. and finally, realism, this part of the framework serves as the final reality check for these monsters. How likely is it that these characters, step out, and onto the of there designed fictions and into reality.Is it's anatomy even possible? and how hard of a creation would that be? as Granlund's research shows, with a good monster, It's easy. (Granlund, T., 2020. Developing a Virtual Monster into Reality.)

With these 3 frameworks working in tandem, It's easy to see the similarities. Consumers play horror games, and go to haunted house for a multitude of reasons, including fear, fun and a sense of realism. 

With my vision set on just one game after some thought, my project is at a good point, with lots of work to be done sure, but my interest is high and Im expecting some good quality work to be created.     

Vlog two...

The Bunker's Beast

When I started this project I planned on looking at monsters from a multitude of games, then I decided on one series, Amnesia. And after some research on the monsters within the franchise, I decided on one game in the series, Amnesia The Bunker. already this projects scope has gotten smaller and smaller. Hopefully it'll make the project stronger. I have secured a way to play this game and will do my first and possibly second play-through in week 9.

Anyways, Amnesia, The Bunker, is a 2023 survival horror game based almost entirely inside of a large WW1 bunker. Without spoiling (My simple idea of the) story, your character wakes up from a injury suffered in battle, in a large underground bunker seemingly alone. As you wander through these bunkers looking for answers (and hopefully escape) you slowly learn are not truely alone. See, within this bunker there lies a large, snarling beast, who is set on finding you, for reasons unknown.

The Beast's character design strongly follows, two of my three major frameworks, easy to guess which two Im sure. The first is fear, the beast invokes a strong psychological fear in the game as you start to piece together what happened to form this beast. As The Beast only shows itself ever so often, any appearance it makes is terrifying especially as within the game if you are caught by The Beast, you die instantaneously. The creature's form and personality closely relate to the second framework, realism. 

The realism of this character design relies mostly on understanding of The Beast's backstory, as we learn, The Beast used to be a fellow soldier in the war before he mutated due to a certain pool of contaminated water. This one piece of evidence is a terrible thought. The fact that this creature used to be just like us is a nerve racking feeling that is both real and unimaginable. Yet as we look upon The Beast we notice all of its near-human attributes, it legs almost completely human except for the rat-like claws. the hands the same with long claws replacing the average man's fingernails and its head also close to human with some major changes. With this sudden realisation how close we are to this monster it all feels that much more real. 

as discussed above The Beast scores highly on 2 of the 3 monster design frameworks. Fun is only part of the framework as a back up for fear, as we learn in the horror industry, if we cant invoke fear, create comedy instead. as the fear and realism are so high in this monster, the attribute of fun is not required 

Overall in my first overlook, The Beast receives a high score, With a 5/5 in fear for the psychological and physical elements it possesses, a 0/0 for fun as this monster doesn't need this frame, and a 4/5 for realism for most of this framework relying on backstory and not obviously noticeable design choices. Receiving a current score of 9/15

Final Blog...

Horror Game Monster Design and Haunted Attraction Monster Design

Introduction

Amnesia, The Bunker is a horror survival game released in 2023. Made by Frictional Games, this horror game features a particularly terrifying monster called The Beast. The Beast is a subhuman, sub-rat monster that either crawls low to the ground or walks on its hind legs towering over its victims, with large claws, a rotting husk of a body and a ghoulish face, the Beast is a truly intimidating monster who poses a great threat to its victims. The point of this project was not only to investigate the Beast but to compare its character design to a monster of my own design, Hex, the Blighted Claw. 

Hex is a character of mine used at Heartstoppers Haunted House. Hex wanders the attraction scaring paying customers. In my DA I compared Hex's old form, and then using tips from the Beast’s design I talked about the improvements I made to  Hex’s own redesign.  Using an analytical framework of fear (How "scary" is the monster), fun (How comedic or fun is the monster) and realism(How "real" is the monster), I found what makes inherently good monster design for both characters.The beast and Hex the Blighted Claw are two wonderfully terrifying monsters. Now more evenly matched, thanks to inspiration in form/shape and mannerisms/personality from The Beast, Hex is much more intimidating. Amnesia has taught me more about what makes a monster truly terrifying and I'm honoured to have been inspired by such wonderful character design.

During the creation of my DA I had done the ratings for The Beast, Hex 2023, and Hex 2024. The Beast scored a 5/5 in fear, a 0/0 in fun, and a 4/5 in realism, giving it a total of 9/15. Hex 2023 scored a 4/5 in fear, a 2/5 in fun and a 2/5 in realism. With an overall score of 8/15. And the newly revamped Hex 2024 received a 5/5 in fear, a 1/5 in fun, and a 4/5 in realism. 2024 Hex receives a 10/15 in its final monster design framework score.

Reflection on the Creative Process 

When I originally planned my DA I had thought I would make a quick 5 minute video essay mostly focussed on the Beast’s design with only a small portion focused on Hex. However, in week 10 I heard about Google’s newest AI tool, Notebook LM. LM is like any other writing based AI, however it bases its knowledge on your own database and not open sourced like ChatGPT. So when it was time to begin my DA, I submitted multiple PDF’s with my own writings, and The AI was now basing all of its knowledge off my work. Even more amazing is the deep dive podcast feature which is why I was so interested in using it for the DA. With this information Notebook LM created a completely AI written deep dive podcast with two AI hosts. I then used this audio as the base of my 5 minute DA. I was very impressed with the applications of Notebook LM and hope to use it more in future work.

Early on in the project I had decided I would just watch playthroughs of Amnesia The Bunker as I was (and still am) in a different continent than my Playstation. However a few weeks in I learnt my friend had a gaming laptop with the capabilities to play the game. With that, in my freetime at Heartstoppers, I would play on his laptop. It was nice to experience The Bunker first hand and not through Youtube. Towards the last few weeks I was very busy at Heartoppers as it was peak crunch period before opening night with lots to do. I pushed my schoolwork back a week or two delaying the completion of my DA, however I am still happy with my final submission. 

I also had some trouble applying all the changes I wanted to add to Hex after researching the Beast. I know I wanted to improve on Hex’s overall size and shape.  Especially to decrease the human look and make Hex more of an amalgamation. As discussed Hex used to wear relatively form fitting jeans and a textured workout shirt under the main coat. But this year after some research on the beast’s shape I chose darker, baggier pants and darker, baggier button up shirts to also fit the aesthetic of the wild west in which Heartstopper’s story is based. Hex also received speaker on its back underneath the coat which added a convincing hunchback effect as the speaker is not small, the sound effects were recorded by myself and this simulates the effect of being able to hear the beast even if you can't see it but in real life after many attempts to figure out how to attach the speaker, I found a mini backpack worked best and also doubled in use as the straps of the backpack helped hold the new shoulder pads in place. As my AI hosts said, I found the process of using unconventional inspiration for my own monster very useful. The beast was a great monster to use as inspiration as I was hoping to increase Hex’s intimidation factor but had not known how I would achieve this effect. 

Engagement and Feedback

From my first assignment the biggest piece of feedback was to clearly state the format of my DA which I then cleared up in my first blog post. When I received feedback for my blogs, I was told to change the colour of my body text (which as you can tell I have). The biggest moments when iteration was so important was in the brainstorming period, with many talks in my lectures, I found both professor and peer feedback highly useful in the incubation of my research. I had honestly no initial idea what any of this class was going to be like for me.  After a few talks I was convinced to base my work in BCM 215 on my work at Heartstoppers, one idea was sound design in horror games and haunted houses. After multiple other conversations and ideas I settled on monster design in horror games and haunted houses. By my first blog I had then decided to just focus on Amnesia The Bunker. I really am happy I got to base all of my schoolwork around Heartstoppers and more specifically my monster, Hex. This is all thanks to project iteration done with the help from my professor and peers.

Future Directions

I was really happy with my work this term but I do see room for expansion on this project. If I had more time to do this project I could spend time researching other monsters both within the Amnesia series and at Heartstoppers Haunted House. With this research I could create a wider portfolio of ratings to solidify the legitimacy of my analytical framework. And with this rating system I could rate an almost infinite amount of monsters across all sorts of mediums: movies, shows, short stories, ARGs, ETC. If I were to make this into a full thesis I would Also ask participants to rank a collection of these monsters using the analytical framework and  then graph all of these ratings to show what monsters are truly designed the best. Outside of this project the other project ideas we came up with in the iteration phase of this term are both very interesting and I imagine would be very fun and fulfilling to research, especially the art of failure in horror games compared to the art of being scared in a haunted house. It seems very niche and interesting to research. And not to mention sound design in horror games and haunts, I've always enjoyed sound design and have been doing school projects on sound and music design since year 10 and doing horror sound design would not only be familiar but super fun to research.  Again if this project were a full thesis I imagine it would be somewhat controversial as some readers may disagree with my ratings and the layout of my analytical framework. However I imagine it would make a great thesis If I had the means and reason to expand on this idea. However right now, this is where this project ends.

Conclusion

Overall this report has included many points of discussion, an overview of Amnesia The Bunker and its monster, The Beast, a deep dive into my own monster, Hex and its two respective versions, a look into what makes my analytical framework on monster design, a look into the process and tools I used in the creation of this project and finally I reviewed the challenges, feedback and future expansion of this project. In the end I solidified the idea of research being much more interesting to me if it was related to my passions. I had first learnt of this in high school but this project was both challenging and fun for me in the end. I also learnt I love playing horror games!