Last week on Friday as a class we visited the US2020 Stem N' Art Expo. To start we talked to a panel of professionals asking questions on how they got to where they were in life and what inspired them. Then we got to take quick 5 min one on one conversations with other accomplished people who used both Stem and Art for their job or research. After that we played around with some robots during lunch then went in and walked around the displays of several Art and Stem companies that wee showing of their work at the Expo.
As a student is was relatively fun to get to go and look at all the options there were for careers in the Arts and Stem areas. I liked being able to talk one on one with people in those fields but in the "speed mentoring" section of the day I did not end up talking to many people who were actually in the gaming or even design field. One thing I learned while I was at the Expo was how the shape of triangular waves effects the sound of a synthesizer. This knowledge will help me create better music for my games and be able to create better feelings and atmospheres with my music.
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Whenever you start a project it is always a good idea to state the problem you are trying to solve first. This not only allows for greater creativity in solving that problem, but also sets clear criteria to judge how good proposed solutions are. Stating the problem helps keep everyone on the same page while your working on a project which makes for better coordination throughout the project.
One time I didn't state my problem first during a project was the career exploration, tabletop game project last year in scientific visualization. In this project I skipped straight to the solution; I really wanted to make a card game like Magic: the Gathering. This instantly narrowed the creative space I had for the project. Since i was set on this one idea it cut off any other, possibly more innovative, approaches we could have had. Also without defining the problem I had no way of knowing if my solution had actually even solved the problem causing me to go back and refine the idea later in ways that should have been done in the beginning. The last and most crucial consequence this had was that it caused a lot of confusion among our team. Most of my team members had never even played Magic before. IN the end since I hadn't defined the problem I was forced to do much more work than was necessary even though in the end the project turned out ok. The theme of Pokemon is working hard to make a team that covers all weakness will triumph in the end. This truth-based theme is more or less the core of every main stream game in the series and can be seen extensively in the tetrad of aesthetics, mechanics, story and technology used in the series.
Aesthetically the game may not seem to directly lend to this prompt however it does in many ways. Whenever you look at your Pokemon during the game if you do not have a full party it will remind you of this by leaving blank spaces which encourage you to go out and work hard to catch a whole team. Another way the aesthetics lend to the theme is by having a cartoony feel to the art work of Pokemon which helps you easily identify the different Pokemon in your party and encourages you to catch many different Pokemon as opposed to filling your team with just one type. Mechanically the Pokemon games use a system of weaknesses and resistances to require careful team building. If a player is not careful their team could get demolished by a single Pokemon of the wrong type so while forming teams the player needs to make sure all his/her weaknesses are covered which in turn lend itself to Pokemon's major theme. The level system in the games also lend to working hard to build a strong team through grinding. Story wise Pokemon also strongly supports its theme. This can be seen in the series the player is always fighting an evil "Team" who is normally trying one way or another to take over the world by stealing Pokemon they did not work to get. At the end of the game when you beat this "Team" it reinforces the fact that only those who work hard to create the best teams of Pokemon will win in the end. The game also encourages you to go beyond the story by offering post-games that allow you to form your dream teams. While more indirectly, the technology of the Pokemon games due lend to the games theme as well. Since it is a game that wants you to spend long times working to train your Pokemon they put it on mobile devices to make it so you can train your Pokemon anywhere at anytime.After all it would not be Pokemon without be able to both curl up in your "reading nook" with it alone and also take it to the "arena" and try the teams your so proud of against your friends. |
AuthorSamuel Henry is a Senior at DSA in NC. He has 3 years of prior experience in the game design pathway and he's looking forward to becoming a great game designer. The views and opinions expressed in this blog are solely those of the author and do not represent those of Durham School of the Arts or Durham Public Schools Categories
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