Blog Update 5

Weekly Progress Update

This week was another very code-heavy week. Which I am expecting a lot of weeks to be since this project is very technical in nature. I was able to accomplish a lot of my goals for the week, and I believe that my schedule is in a good place.

Reflection on Progress

I feel good about my progress this week. My main focus was on implementing the code and logic for the wife's movement and the dialogue system. Oddly enough, for the wife's movement, I actually ended up being inspired by the movement logic of the animatronics from the game Five Nights At Freddy's. I had looked into the game's programming in the past for fun, and I realized that the way I wanted the wife to move was very similar to what I had researched. Basically, after a certain time interval, there is a 30% chance for the wife to change to a different room. However, she will not move rooms while the player is looking at her. When she moves rooms, she will move to a random room that the player is not in. This is done to avoid making her look like she is teleporting all over the place. Instead, it's as if she's moving when you are not looking at her. 

Implementing the code for this logic was really fun, and it also felt really cool to be inspired by something from a technical standpoint. It was a moment that really made me realize how much my programming knowledge has developed. It was exciting to be able to easily make the connection between logic used from a different game and to have the knowledge to be able to write the code to implement it in a completely different context. I feel like I am becoming a better game architect since I am able to recognize other game's architecture.

Inspiration, Ideas, Readings, Research

• The Substance- Coralie Fargeat

• Five Nights at Freddy's (In a technical nature, the logic and AI of the Wife character is very similar to logic of the animatronics in the game)

Artist Profile

Although I am not someone who enjoys gore and body horror, I do enjoy horror as well as many of the aspects of the movie The Substance by Coralie Fargeat. The Substance is a French sci-fi body horror movie by Coralie Fargeat that comments on how societies value of women diminishes as they age, particularly in the entertainment industry.

Coralie Fargeat is a french filmmaker who's work is heavily inspired and shaped by feminism and her experiences as a woman. The Substance was written when Fargeat was in her 40's during a time where she felt doubts about her value and and worth as a result of aging. The Substance was created around this idea that society does not value women as they age, and that this societal pressure pushes women to destroy themselves while chasing this impossible ideal of eternal youth.

The substance is something that I have found a great deal of inspiration in. Of course, the feminist morals and storytelling are a big part of that, but there are many directoral and artistic details I'm inspired by as well. For example, The Substance has a very 'show don't tell' approach to things such as character backstories and thought processes. I really like how this makes it feel like we are looking into Elizabeth's life as an outsider, because we are. There is also a sort of fakeness to the world that helps deliver the core message as well.