Evaluation

I believe that I succeeded in fully researching a wide variety of relevant topics in order to correctly inform my final product. My research was both systematic and focused – I had at least one subpage dedicated to each of the elements we were required to submit, however I think that if I were to do my project again I might have liked to go into more thorough detail about background design and 3D modelling. Not only did each topic include subheadings/elements regarding target audience and marketing, but I went into great analytic detail on the specific demographics associated with my chosen genres. In regards to the required balance of primary and secondary sources during the research process, while I had prepared a focus group and survey, I did not end up writing about the results, which caused a noticeable lack of primary sources. While I regret not including these primary sources, I believe that my experimentation in later subpages, plus my personal observations and illustrations, meant that I did not fully miss the mark for this specific tick box. All in all, I believe that my research was effective, well-presented, and overall organised and easy to understand.

When it comes to my development and pre-production, I went into it with a very intentional and direct mindset, which did not leave a huge amount of room for experimentation and development – I did go into thorough detail about each stage of pre-production, and in the end I think that I did produce a wide enough range of different concepts and ideas for the mark scheme. I also went into great detail (perhaps more than I needed) about the world-building and arcs of each character, and while it may have been slightly more detailed than required, it gives you intricate insight into their backstories, motivations, and character traits, which are all things that might affect the eventual product. By looking into their backstories and designing their physical sprites at the same time, their motivations and traits can be fully integrated into their designs, and vice-versa. By creating moodboards first and foremost, before even thinking about the setting and backstories, I am creating a game that focuses itself foremostly on the characters, and not necessarily on the role they play in the world or story. This then links back to research I conducted on target audience, and how fans of visual novels generally hold aesthetics and good character arcs above the setting or even the overarching storyline. By conducting my pre-production in the way that I did, I have integrated my storyline into the characters themselves, and of course the characters are the most important aspect of a dating simulator. This is also beneficial for those reading through my Google Site, as it means that you get to know the characters in a systematic, organised way that prioritises the most important aspects of their characterization. The being said, if I were to go back and do this stage again, I might have included more in-depth preparation for more aspects of my production, such as my poster or my backgrounds. I also might have made a more clear “synopsis” (since of course this is one of the production requirements) as while the plot and character arcs of my game are documented in great detail across this section of my Site, it isn’t really concentrated in a tangible way.

Finally, my production was executed with little to no effort from me, given how thorough my pre-production had been at rounding it all off to the point where I was fully ready to create my final assets. A lot of my production seems to have, at first glance, been executed with little to no specified research (for example, at no point did I specifically research and experiment in depth with pixel art or Blender), however this is because I am mostly going off my previous knowledge, and so researching and developing on things I already know about would be redundant. I’m not sure if this was a mistake on my part, and of course there is always more for me to learn about on any given topic; however, for example, it hardly seems necessary for me to do a full section of research on Blender when for the most part my background production consisted of me dragging pre-made assets from BlenderKit into scenes. Moving on from this, however, one thing that I think really saved me during my production process was the screen recordings – in previous projects I have not used this software, and have simply resorted to screenshotting important moments, however screen recording has been invaluable for being able to show my production process in its entirety, including the inevitable parts where I fail and troubleshoot, without having to use hundreds upon hundreds of words to fully explain it. I’m sure that it will also be of great help to whoever comes to mark this, as it can help to fill out gaps I might have missed in my explanation in a fun, effective way.