Blog Update 1

Weekly Progress Update

This week, a lot of the work I did mostly had to do with developing my portfolio website and brainstorming ideas for my project. As far as my portfolio goes, I am very happy with what I have so far. I think my website has some solid bones to work with. I also feel pretty happy with my artist bio and CV. Working on my portfolio has been a worthwhile use of my time not only for class, but also for future career aspects. It feels like something that will be very beneficial to have as I enter the working world.

Brainstorming ideas for my project this week has been a bit more of a challenge. This is because in addition to taking this capstone class, I am also in a game development capstone as an elective for my other major, computer science. Having to come up with two capstone projects at the same time isn’t ideal, but it’s just how my schedule happened to work out. For my game development project, I plan on focusing on technical elements. So for this class, I think it would make more sense to focus on fleshing out the artistic aspects of my project more. Although, I do still plan to make a video game, or at least something highly interactive. 

Reflection on Progress

I feel like my progress this week was not entirely all that I hoped for. However, making slow progress at this point in time isn’t too concerning yet since it’s the beginning of the quarter, and I’m still in the planning stage of my project. I do feel confident that by the end of the week I’ll be in a better position and I’ll be able to progress at a better pace from that point forward. 

My ideas for my project at this point in time are still a bit vague. I think that coming up with a more concrete plan is what I’lll have to focus on now. I am considering revisiting an old project of mine from around 2020 that I never really got too far with. It  was a surrealist horror ‘game’ where I was creating the assets using real-world mediums, particularly, childrens’ art supplies. I was using things like play doh and crayons, then taking pictures and importing them into a video game engine to use them as assets. Although I mostly abandoned this project, I do like the idea of creating physical art for use in a digital environment for this class, especially because I feel like the reverse (using digital elements for physical art) is something that is more commonplace nowadays. I also feel as though the videogame industry is too focused on having hyper-realistic art in modern times, so using juvenile means to create assets for a game feels like a way to subvert that expectation.

Inspiration, Ideas, Readings, Research

A lot of my inspiration comes from video games since that is the industry where my majors overlap with one another the most. Yume Nikki and Moon RPG Adventure are two of my biggest inspirations for the project I am currently conceptualizing. Yume Nikki for its surrealist horror, and Moon for its combination of 2D and 3D art. Both are also fairly abstract games that focus mainly on exploration, so they can be enjoyed and experienced nonlinearly, which is something I want to accomplish in my project as well.

Artist Profile

As I stated previously, because of being both a computer science major and an emergent digital practices major, I find a lot of inspiration in video games. Particularly, I enjoy when games are able to incorporate elements that extend outside of the digital world. One creator who I believe does this exceptionally well is Daniel Mullins, creator of Inscryption, The Hex, and Pony Island.

Daniel Mullins is an indie game developer based in Vancouver who is known for his frequent use of ‘meta’ narratives in his games. He is also known for creating ARGs (Alternate Reality Games) that coincide with his video games. The game that I am most familiar with is Inscryption, a card game that is more than it seems. This game is inspiring in the way that it is able to string together a complex narrative using video games as a medium. I am also inspired by the use of real-world actors, and the surrounding ARGs. Inscryption is more of an experience than a game, so it’s a little hard to explain unless you’ve played it. I would highly recommend playing this game to anyone interested in the idea of using video games as a medium for art.

Although there are definitely elements of Mullins’ work I would like to incorporate into my work, I do think the work I want to produce differs quite a bit. For one, creating ARGs is an extremely extensive task. I think the scope of executing something similar is unrealistic for this project. Also, I believe the narrative structure of Mullin’s work differs from how I would like to structure my narratives. Mullin’s work has a pretty clear-cut narrative, although it takes some work to uncover what the narrative even is. I think for my project, there would be less of a clear-cut and concise plot, and it would be a bit more abstract and ambiguous, like a painting at a museum. I’d like my project to veer more towards and ambiguous art piece than a concrete narrative of a video game.