Research 1

Summary of idea
• I am making concept art for a video game which is set in the medieval era and it will have a dark fantasy genre feel to it
and it will also include monsters and demons. The story will be based around a vengeance story and the world around him
in some places will be dying and in others will be prospering. The video game camera would have been based over the
shoulder of the character you are playing as and the art style will be pixel art and somehow I will try and make it look 3D.
• I am making this concept because I feel as if it would further my understanding of the industry and how different roles
work with in the work place also I would like to try my hand at story telling as it is something I have wanted to do in the
course but didn’t realise that it would count towards my final grade.
• It will be for 16-25 year olds who are male predominantly and they come from a middle class back ground. My secondary
audience however will be for 26-33 year olds who are female and they come from the upper middle class background.
• It will appear on platforms such as the PlayStation, Xbox or PC if it was ever made, however though it won’t be made and
thus it will probably just appear in word documents and Photoshop documents.

Mood Board Demon Analysis 1
• The demon at the top left is called Azazel he is from the x-men universe the design that they used to depict him as a character is a cross between the devil and black beard the
famous pirate also called Edward Teach, but in the universe he is father to night crawler who looks very closely related to Azazel, but either way all of these people and characters
are classed as evil at one point or another this is further reinforced by the colour scheme they use for the character which would mainly be black and red the two colours most
associated with evil, the design of the character is also very angular which it needs to be to stand out but also when you look at designs for enemies and bad people with in games
comics and animations pretty much all have an angular design. Also the fact at how he is in the middle shows that he has all the respect of the people around him and also that he
demands respect from them but just as a general design idea the smile that they gave Azazel is on the verge of being demented showing that a smile can be evil is something you
don’t see to often in designs also other areas that show off the character looks evil are the sharp claws, the arrow head tail, the pointy teeth with in the smile, the pronged beard
and the tricorn hat with sharp points at the end of each prong and he also has piercing orange eyes without pupils. He is also wearing a pirates outfit shown by the cuffs of his
sleeves the fold over of the collar multiple times and also the buttons down the middle of the shirt and obviously pirates were classed as evil. He also speaks like a pirate as if he is
trying to plunge the rest of the world and the known universe into a time of darkness and despair and as of what it seems like he is the captain and that he is talking from a
leaders point of view. For this character they did pretty much everything they could to make him seem evil that is pretty much all of the context I can gleam from the image
however in the information at the bottom of the image they give us a bit of story behind the character and he leads a fleet of demonic pirate ships and that he was going to take
them to heaven and take all of their souls he was only stopped because night crawler sacrificed his soul to bind Azazel and his ships to Earth.
• The middle image at the top is of a comic book character called the violator and the comic is called Spawn Violator is one of the phlebiac brothers and is sent to watch over the
hell spawn while they harvest evil souls for this character they used two main colours yet again which would grey and red, the other they include are yellow and black all of which
could be construed as evil and demonic when you look at the image. He looks as if he is a mixture of different animals just a few of them being ants, flies, snakes and apes. It is
quite creepy as its mouth looks as if it can unhinge its jaws and open its mouth like a snake would, I also said ant because of the violators two massive pincers near its mouth and I
said fly because of the eyes as they are crosshatched and red in colour and I said ape because of the shape of the body I was going to say human but it looks like a natural resting
ape but the only other way it could look like an ape is because of then bone structure but then to make it even more terrifying than it had to be they added claws like a gargoyles
and made the teeth inexplicably sharp like a crocodiles and then yet again they made it look even scarier by making it look malnourished making it look as if it is pure nightmare
fuel, when you look at the image it looks as if it is almost the perfect killing machine with eyes that can see like a fly which is a lot surprisingly it has massive teeth an unhinging
jaw and tusks/ pincers it also looks as if it has a massive tongue and it looks as if it is spitting acid into its own mouth and yet again it looks as if it is smiling, it also has massive
talons, it looks also is if you can see its spine through its head and it also looks incredibly malnourished. When I look at its bio it looks as if there is still more to this character such
as he is unkillable, he can also shapeshift, possess people and breath fire and apparently there is still more that this monster can do and when he takes human form he turns into
a clown what could be more scary.

• The image at the top right is Iron Maidens mascot he is called Eddie he is an undead monster, he appears in all their merch and covers for their
albums sometimes he even makes appearances on stage when they went out on gigs he also appears in their animations but I chose Eddie to be there
as he has had run ins with the beast a devil like entity and beat him which is the head at Eddie’ hip but the main reason I chose him is because he
shows a more human side of being evil and yet also having a human or relatable side that people can understand which is something that rarely
anyone ever looks at when it comes down to evil characters the issue is though is that if you make the devil relatable you make the bad guy seem as if
either he has good intentions or that you will have a deeper connection to the demon rather than the character facing the demons. That is really the
only part that I wanted to talk about Eddie for but when you look at the image you see a lot of black blue and red. He seems quite scary but cool at
the same time because he has a guitar strapped to his back and he has a bottle in his left hand but he also has spiked spaulders and at the right side
of his hip there is a disembodied head and instead of a belt he is wearing chains.
• At the far left in the middle the image is of a monster in the Witcher 3 which is called a sylvan. This is a fat monster that looks like a devil it has list of
other names such as deovel devil willower puck and yaksha. These creatures usually have goat's horns on the head hairy legs with cloven hooves and
a tail with a tassel, these creatures are tolerated as they are relatively peaceful and they enjoy playing tricks and solving riddles but they are also
useful because they can fertilize fields and scare off birds for humans. In the image I chose however this sylvan has a name he is called Fugas he is ill
tempered and he acts as a sort of bouncer in the game even though Fugas looks more like a devil than the other sylvans as he has black and red
coloured skin and his eyes are orange which I have mentioned before as a sign of being evil in traditional media he is also quite bloated which I guess
brings out the greed with in the character, the character also has massive arms horns and pointed ears which all look as if they would belong to a devil
also his eyes are quite discoloured as the white part of a normal eye for him is black and his pupils are orange/ yellow he also has vanguard braces but
apart from that his only defense is his fat and his beastly strength.
• The image next to the Sylvan is of a cat and dog who are also in the Witcher 3 game in the hearts of stone DLC where one of the characters added to
the game is Olgierd Von Everec and Iris Von Everec the latter is dead but the cat and the dog were actually summoned demons by Olgierd Von Everec
to protect Iris but she killed herself and as the story goes these two demons wish to be freed from their service to Iris Von Everec which means you
have to kill her ghost and take the flower which is keeping her alive so you can either free them or bind them eternally to Iris’ corpse and the house
this in itself is quite spooky but as the visuals tell you they are demons in a cat and dogs body this is shown by the colour scheme they have which is
all black fur and orange eyes which inherently is quite an evil sight if you are superstitious but what makes it even more weird is that they almost
shrouded by a fog that surrounds them and they also have another friend that Olgierd summoned called the caretaker which is patch work human
who has no eyes mouth ears or nose and he fights you with a shovel this guy is even more weird as there is no real amount of backstory for this
character and all you know is what you see which is that he takes a human form he always wears a cloak and he uses a shovel to fight you and he can
also use the same powers that the wraiths can use with in the main game.

• The image in the middle is called The Guy he is the mascot of the band disturbed this character almost always looks like a human
but a demon at the same time because he is always a “cloaked character” The Guy is also thought of as being hyperactive and
psychotic he is the embodiment of the destroyer at one point in the bands career he was considered as a spirit of vengeance which
fits in nicely with the rest of my products idea he has many powers which include super strength, flying, he can survive in space,
durability, Toughness, influential stature, he has an auto reload system for weaponry and he also has a space beam/ laser . As for
his looks The Guy looks quite demonic with him wearing a hood trousers and chains all of which are grey, he also wears shackles
and he has tones of muscle his demonic features can be narrowed down though to his eyes his mouth his face and his chains. The
chains look as if they were there to keep him somewhere also his face is shrouded in some from of black mist all you can see
through it are his eyes which are glowing orange and his smile which is also quite demented and twisted. He also looks as if he has
leading role in some sort of army of the undead and he also looks as if he has respect of everyone with in the image kind of like
Azazel but with less demonic attributes.
• The baron of Hell is one of the demons in the game DOOM in other words they are annoying bullet sponges which adds some form
of difficulty to the game ,the baron of hell looks as if he is part goat part human shown by the hairy legs and the horns sticking out
of the top of its head and the rest of the body looks as if it is human but very advanced when it comes down to muscle no wonder
they keep ripping people to shreds but this is effectively what a demon from the bible should look like it has got all of the
characteristics except for the tail and the pointy ears, which is to say that he has red skin, massive jaws, green eyes, tones of
muscle and great big talons as nails and then there is the goat part which means the horns and the hooves and muscle structure in
the legs all of this makes them a terrifying adversary in any game they are in.
• Then there is the most classic demon of all time called Death or the Grim Reaper he is effectively a wraith/ specter that wields a
scythe that can cut your soul from your body when you die to take you to the underworld he is effectively a floating skeleton
wearing a cloak wielding a massive scythe and sometimes he is depicted as also holding a lantern to show the way to the
underworld. Which is exactly how he looks in the image I decided to use for the example the colour scheme is fairly dull but it gets
across the imagery you want to be getting across to the viewer the colours are just black and green and there is a sort of mist that
always follows death around like almost all other specters or demons.

Mood Board Settings Analysis 1
• The image in the top left of the mood board is classic desolate area mountains everywhere and nothing else but a character however it is quite
interesting as the setting uses curved mountains as if that was where mountains used to be but got carved up by some sort of super weapon. As
always there is a human being in the middle of the desolate area to create some sort of way of showing the height and size of the area. Also the
textures for the mountains are fairly rough which means that it would have happened the carving up of the mountains was fairly recent. The main
colour scheme is brown grey and blue which are quite earthy but also very dull and to add yet again to the feeling of desolation there is only one
person in the image showing that there is very little in the way of civilization in the area.
• The image in the top right is yet again a classic desolate setting with what seem like what is left of mountains and also a flat floor with some weird but
cool textures on the floor. The colour scheme is quite weird because it makes it easy to sense what kind of area it is but then you have added in some
colours other than earthy ones and it gives it some sort of life that it didn’t have in the other similar images. The colour scheme uses brown yellow
and orange, the orange and the yellow gives it a completely different feel to the image almost as if it is supposed to be a happy event in the eyes of
the artist but it feels a bit contradictory to do this unless you are going for the divine peace idea with in the image.
• The middle top left image in the mood board is another desolate land however it goes for a less luscious final fantasy 15 look with those kind of
massive naturally made stone bridges randomly strewn across the lands in both this image and final fantasy 15, however this image makes it a bit less
hospitable by adding stalactites almost everywhere in the image and yet again there is one lonely person showing how inhospitable the area really is.
The colour scheme he decides to use include earthy colours and dark colours which is exactly what artists should use for desolate areas as it is kind of
what people expect and they will completely understand what they are looking at within a few minutes, the specific colours they decide to use are
orange black and grey with all different shades of orange and grey.
• The middle top right image depicts luscious forest their use of colour is cool here because they use a lot of light and vibrant colours but the image
itself includes lots of weird and wonderful ideas because they must be coming out of the forest which is behind our point of view, which is shown in
the image by adding lots of nature such as mushrooms and trees and they are starting to enter this eerie area with lots of mist destroyed buildings
and uninhabited islands, to make the most use of the image they decided to use green and orange as their main colours with a bit of blue mixed in as
well they use the light green to mark out areas of unease like a sort of horror game would by giving the mist some sort of colour they have made it
very weird and makes people feel uneasy. They use orange as a sort of light source within the certain areas where they reside in the image but it only
gives off a low amount of light yet again making it feel eerie and uneasy. As usual for a horror as well they make it so you can not see what is
underneath the water which immediately makes me think that there is something underneath the water which has the potential to be quite
dangerous.

Mood Board Setting Analysis 2
• The middle left image is of a snowy forest with some sort of river running through it there are pine trees all the way around the
image and there are also some shrubs in there and there are some rocks and then there is a boat near the middle by the way the
artist set out the image it almost feels as if the area has been abandoned for some time as the small row boat has been covered
with snow and yet no one has even wiped the snow off of it yet. It looks as if they have good command of colour as they use a
small variety of colour and yet somehow it feels as if it has a much wider variety f colours used in the image. The colours this artist
used are green brown white black and grey and yet it feels as if there are so many more colours in it maybe I am just seeing shades
of those different colours. The issue I have with this image though is that it looks a little bit too artistic as I have seen woods and
forests covered in snow but it has never looked like it does in this image so maybe if they got rid of some of the elements of the
image such as the boat and some of the rocks but add some similar textures I believe it would look a lot better.
• The middle right image is yet another picture of a luscious forest this time however it is not horror based this time it is just very
artistic rendition of how it might look inside of a forest but this image looks fantastic with its great use of space it looks as if it was
almost a real forest with all the wild flowers trees rocks and the stream running down the middle. They also had a great and wide
variety colour which they had quite good control of they used colours such as red yellow purple green brown grey and black they
also used all different shades of all of these colours except for the purple and the red but I believe that some of the textures look a
bit light and I believe that they should have made the texture stand out a bit more when you look at the rocks.
• The bottom left image is of a massive dungeon both of the images that I used for the dungeons are fairly similar so I will analyze
them together just like most underground areas within all sorts of media it uses earthy colours but sometimes they also add an
eerie quality to the dungeon to add a sense of fear to the viewer however in this image that I picked out neither of which actually
obtain this quality because I don’t think that it is really necessary to add horror to something which would already be thought of as
a dingy place that no one would really want to visit, so the danger is already partially expected when ever you visit tomb or
dungeon when you are playing a game, but they use the space quite effectively almost making a massive maze which the most
dangerous part of going into dungeons getting lost that is. I digress sorry. The main colours they use quite a small variety of colours
being brown yellow blue grey and black.

Mood Board Protagonists Analysis 1
• The top left image is of the protagonist from the Witcher series called Geralt of Rivia he is a scarred character from a race of
people who were created through magic experiments they are technically unfeeling, unflinching killing machines and they are sent
out into the world to kill monsters for contracts but Geralt is usually when it comes down to the games either against kings or
working with them because of some of the instances in the books that dictated it had to be so, but the core of the character is
mainly just kill monsters for coin that also includes terrible humans such as bandits and cannibals. Geralt belongs to one of the
many Witcher schools which include the griffin the cat and the viper, the bear, the manticore, the crane and the wolf. Geralt
belongs to the school of the wolf, the school of the wolf train their pupils in just about every form of combat and they were also
taught how to use very basic forms of magic his path through both the games and the books are littered with betrayal vengeance
and violence and that has progressively shaped Geralt as a character with in the story.
• The top middle image is a game called Thief it is a game filled with stealth an obviously being a thief the main characters name is
Garret and you run around in a sort of steam punk realm but in the medieval era, as a child he was recruited into an organization
called the Keepers, which was an organization of thieves where he learned to steal more effectively however he left the
organization called the keepers to steal for himself from the rich where he employs all the skills he had learned from the keepers
he has scars on his face and a mechanical eye with an optical zoom that is all that is known of the characters backstory and his
apparel uses a cloak his main weapon is a bow and also his knowledge of magic and shadows.
• Dead Cells protagonist at the start of the game is found dead in a dungeon decapitated and a sort of slime monster takes control of
the corpse and runs through levels killing all in its path to the bosses and then killing them as well that is pretty much the story
because the backgrounds and settings change by being procedurally generated meaning they have about 10 different
backgrounds/ settings to play through and they will be chosen at random. The main character does not have a name as the main
character can’t speak however he has some armour on at all times and his head looks like a slime however in some of the images
you will see of him his head will just look like a fire and it burns more intensely towards the middle thus looking brighter but he
looks great in the ads and the game.

Mood Board Protagonist Analysis 2
• At the bottom left of the mood board there is the main character called shovel knight from the
game shovel knight even though this version of shovel knight is nice and rounded and almost
looks 3D the actual shovel knight from the game looks incredibly similar to this version but it is in
a pixelated art style. Shovel Knight had a friend that he always used to adventure with I say used
to because Shovel Knight goes into self imposed exile until he had heard that there was a new
powerful dark being called the enchantress and she has captured Shield Knight so Shovel Knight
decides to start adventuring again to save his friend and they end up defeating the enchantress.
But as for the aesthetics pixilated version is great with all the separate armour pieces standing out
the main colours that they used were blue yellow grey and brown.
• At the bottom right of the mood board there is character from Ryse: Son of Rome, with the main
character being called Marius Titus, the story starts of with your family and bunch of bandits, the
family has been a prominent military family and they lived in Rome somehow the bandits made
their way into Rome and murdered Marius’ whole family except for him you decide to take
revenge on the bandits and they found out they came from Britain where Marius finds out that
the Romans were at fault for killing his family and thus takes revenge on the emperor and his
family. As for the aesthetics he dresses like a normal posh guy in roman civilization and then
further into the game he starts to wear a legionary outfit and then further on it turns into rags
when he returns to Rome to kill all of the royal family including the emperor.

Mood Board Summary
• I would like to be able to use the wide variety of colour that they used with the desolate
and luscious backgrounds. I have specifically investigated it because usually when it
comes down to colours with in certain areas I always stick to pretty much two or three
different colours and just use different shades and this will help me in my project
because it will help me to expand my horizons when it comes down to the colour theory.
• I would also like to use the common devil design for a few of the monsters I will be
trying to create . I decided to look into this as I have never really created any characters
which had other shapes and physiology to humans so I need to get a better
understanding of monsters and demons if I want to be able to draw them properly and
that is also how this research will be a boon to my project.
• I think that I could also use the common idea of using scars to create back story and
foreboding and make the character as staunch as possible. I did this research because I
haven’t done much story writing before so I believe that if I can get a general layout of
what the character is like before I start designing the actual character in Photoshop
otherwise I would have no idea of how to sculpt a story around a bunch of random
images other than creating the characters first and then having the story make no sense
when I complete it. This how this research will help my project.

Mood Board Bibliography
• Matthew Funk, SYFY Wire, 31 Days of Halloween: 12 diabolical comic book demons and devils, https://www.syfy.com/syfywire/31-days-halloween-12-diabolical-
comic-book-demons-and-devils
• Yuri Shepard, ArtStation, desolate landscape, https://www.artstation.com/artwork/k9Vv2
• Max Hermanns, ArtStation, Desolate Land, https://www.artstation.com/artwork/6oDNN
• Tristan Pasteur, ArtStation, The Desolate Lands - Environment Concept, https://www.artstation.com/artwork/Kak8GR
• Wojtek Fus, ArtStation, Mushroom Forest, https://www.artstation.com/artwork/58XW4P
• Leah Augustine, ArtStation, Snowy Forest, https://www.artstation.com/artwork/aRynYR
• Alexandre Martin, ArtStation, Landscape Forest Unreal Engine 4 ///, https://www.artstation.com/artwork/BmQPmm
• Louie Woodhouse, ArtStation, Unity Dungeon, https://www.artstation.com/artwork/PmaYRr
• Simon Barle, ArtStation, Dungeon, https://www.artstation.com/artwork/3r3n2
• Chris Meyer, ArtStation, Runner3 – Shovel Knight, https://www.artstation.com/artwork/y5Vb5
• Florian Reschenhofer, ArtStation, Ryse: Son of Rome – cinematic, https://www.artstation.com/artwork/5yY1
• Michel Donze, ArtStation, Dead Cells Bad Seed, https://www.artstation.com/artwork/lVQBVV
• Valeriya Kim, ArtStation, Alucard from Castlevania: Symphony of the Night fan art, https://www.artstation.com/artwork/dOW5B3
• Richard Schmidbauer, ArtStation, Lethal Running Art, https://www.artstation.com/artwork/EVmw0K
• Marco Plouffe, ArtStation, Hollow Knight Tribute Illustration, https://www.artstation.com/artwork/NPymP
• Marco Plouffe, Keos Masons, Keos Masons, https://keosmasons.com/

Existing Product Analysis
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c0i88t0Kacs&t=2s
• The Witcher 3 Wild Hunt is a game made by CD Projekt Red on the 19th May 2015 for PS 4, Xbox one and PC, CD Projekt Red are most well known for their production of
the game series known as the Witcher which is massively popular shown by the fact at how they sold about 20 million copies of the game as of June 2019 and it has been
put up for awards in gameplay, narrative, world design, combat and visuals and it has also been praised by many as being one of the greatest video games ever made.
This game setting is in the northern realms which includes a lot of countries but as of the game it includes three main areas Velen, Novigrad and the Witcher stronghold
of Kaer Morhen. As for the Southern realms they are ruled by the Nilfgardian Empire which you don’t get to see in the game. The other areas you get to see In the game
is White Orchard, Vizima, Skellige and Beauclair. Just like Hyper Light Drifter this game is a world filled with monsters this only happened in the world of the Witcher
because of an event called the conjuncture of the spheres, which effectively means that this dimension and another one crossed paths and the monsters came through
into the world of the Witcher, the main monsters you will find at the beginning of the game are called ghouls, there are also some others called drowners and rotfiends
which you will find frequently throughout the game. To give you a short summary the game is about a Witcher named Geralt who is looking for sorceress named Yeneffer
of Vengeberg in White Orchard, where he was contracted to kill a Griffin on completion the man who gave Geralt the contact told him where Yeneffer was she was in
Vizima with the emperor of the Nilfgardian Empire called Emyher var Emhries who tasks Geralt to find his daughter Ciri this one of the areas where the game decides to
split off from the books. Geralt is told to look in Velen Novigrad and Skellige to find Ciri Geralt doesn’t find Ciri in any of these areas but he finds all sorts of enemies who
had tried to kill Ciri including the Wild Hunt and the Witches of Crookback Bog. Geralt also finds out Ciri is being helped out by an elven mage who had been transformed
into Uma via curse, when you free the elven mage from the curse, he tells you to find Ciri on the Isle of Fog just off of Skellige, where you find Ciri and bring her back to
Kaer Morhen to fight off the Wild Hunt who have been chasing Ciri for her Elder Blood powers. Anyway they prepare for the upcoming assault on Kaer Morhen all the
allies you have helped in the story and all the remaining Witcher’ of the school of the Wolf, during the siege the eldest member of the school of the wolf called Vesemir
gets killed driving a wedge between the other Witcher’. For this Ciri wants revenge so she takes Geralt to kill one of the leaders of Wild Hunt and also she kills two of the
three Witches of Crookback Bog. After this they prepare to take on the rest of the Wild Hunt and kill their leader this happens in Skellige with the help of both the
natives and the Nilfgardians you win and then it comes down to the ending and it depends on how you treat Ciri on what ending you get but there are three different
endings. It is a long game. Most of the game you spend looking at Geralts back or over his shoulder meaning you are mainly playing as Geralt from a third person view. He
is also wearing time/era appropriate clothing with armour made of metal and clothes made of cloth and linen. This product appealed to their audience because they
finally made the game open world and not making it a linear area based game where you have to fast travel between the worlds which slowed down the flow of the game
dramatically. The other massive changes would be the interface which still slows down the flow of the game but not as much as it used to. Then there is the massive
changes to the design and how the game looks which is fantastic using different kind of effects to constantly improve them however if you play the game with low
processing speed the game will both lag and also not generate the textures needed for viewing the game in its intended state.

Existing Product Fighting
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GsXmpHgGdiM
The fighting is very unique as it incorporates multiple different ways of fighting the first one being with the swords the easiest way to play the
game and you can give buffs to your swords by adding certain oils to damage the kind of creature you are fighting more than a normal slash
would do and then there are potions which can heal you or deal extra damage and then there are decoctions for certain enemies which will
mean that you take less damage from them and deal more damage towards them in general. Then there is yet another easy way to play the
game by using signs which is technically magic which you use at the same time as using your swords the magic symbols are called Aard, Yrden,
Igni, Quen and Axii, all of these have five different levels of using them which you can update through the level up system the same goes for all of
the physical attacks. Aard is used for pushing back enemies and putting them off balance and if you upgrade it enough you can make your
enemies fly. Yrden is used to slow down enemies and also to keep ghosts and vampires in one place to make them easier to kill. Igni is quite self
explanatory you effectively create a flame in your hand with magic and send it towards your enemies this will work on any human or anything
with fur. Quen is used to create a magical shield around Geralt this works on everything always use this on death march mode makes the game
easier. Then there is Axii which is used to confuse your enemies which can make them stand still for a certain amount of time if you upgrade it
enough you can get creatures and people to kill their mates for you this works on everything. Then there are the throw able/ leachable items
such as bombs and then there is the cross bow. There are multiple different bolts for the crossbow and there are multiple different bombs, with
different effects which can involve poisoning, bleeding and burning damage and you can also buy skills to improve your chances of hitting
someone with a critical hit and also how much damage you would deal with them. Then there are the basics which is the dodge and role
mechanics. There are also different mutagens which you can apply in the skills area of the game which can give Geralt additional health, sign
intensity and physical damage dealing, and all of these mutagens can be upgraded by adding more of the same mutagens and after that you can
add a multiplier effect to the mutagens by putting the same colour skill next to the same colour mutagen which increases Geralt’ chances
further. The animations are also fantastic it is almost as if they used motion capture for quite a bit of it, during the fighting cutscenes they
definitely used motion capture however even though in the game play it looks as if they used more unrealistic bodily movements for someone
that size so it must have been animated with a bit of help from some real people maybe doing motion capture or just being filmed and worked
around the film. Just as a side note the art is fantastic they use a realistic art style and make everything look so mythical and some people just
buy this game to look at the art for the game and some people sure they like to play through the game but they have a lot of people just getting
lost in the fanaticism and majesty of some of the areas with in the game.

Existing Product Summary
• I would like to be able to use similar sort of plot points as it is a vast story with tones of different
endings for even the small side quests never mind the big main quest stuff, it also has a lot of
vastly of different characters and you can instantly tell what kind of character the character has as
soon as you meet them for the first time unless they are trying to keep it a secret. I have done
research in this because I really needed to get better at writing stories and I have never decided
to create a story with multiple different endings and it will help my project by making my stories
better.
• I also like the upgrade tree so I might if I have some extra time I will also design a skill tree with
extra bits and pieces that will help kill things more quickly which is interesting in itself I also
believe that it would be a good idea to have multiple different ways of killing your enemies like
you can in this game. I have done research in this because I really enjoy the fighting and the
aspects that it can bring to the story and this will help my story creation by looking at different
aspects of my game that could be influenced by the story.
• The fantasy genre it self is something I would like to take away from this game as well as what the
setting is like with having different warring factions fighting over a certain area like a continent or
just being incredibly vague like this game is just involving north vs. south. I decided to research
this because I needed to come up with different settings, countries and continents. This will help
me with my creative process when coming up with ideas for countries and continents.

Existing Product
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nWufEJ1Ava0&t=25s
Hyper Light Drifter made by Heart Machine on September 6th 2018 on Nintendo also the production was funded by Patreon so that would be a reason
for audience appeal as they also got a say in what went into the game. The location/ area they are in is just another world filled with beasts and aliens
used to inhabit this world until they all died out and no one except for your character has alien technology the down side is though is that he is dying
from an unspecified disease. The angle from which you view the character is a third person view so just imagine a top down view and then angle the
camera down a bit by about 20-30 degrees and you would get the angle you are viewing the main character from. The effects used in Hyper Light Drifter
are a lot of fantastic lighting effects I mean there is the obvious stuff such as shadows but then in this production they also use a bit of feathering at the
edges of some stuff as well as using small amounts of Gaussian blur, they also used some inverted colours in a small part of the game and as usual they
also use different opacities, layers and I might be wrong but I think they also use masks as well, in this game there are two main types of mechanics
which is the fighting side of the mechanics and there is a puzzle mechanic part to this game. There isn’t much post production wise unless you mean
sound effects music and programming but most of that is being created at the same time and sometimes I think you can put them together at the same
time during the production. They use lighting really well in this game just like Dead Cells they have a lot of shading with a wide variety of colours, earthy,
dark and light being the main ones but there is one big difference between Dead Cells and Hyper Light Drifter when it comes down to lighting Dead Cells
uses darker colours predominantly where as in Hyper Light Drifter they use more light colours and with those light colours they use some glow effects
around some of the enemies and around crystals which gives off quite an eerie effect in the process. The composition is fairly hard to differentiate from
the background and the foreground as they are so close together but like the last one I think the characters and things you can interact with are in the
foreground as well as the crystals and some other attacks from other enemies, of the visuals and in the background is the map and things such as trees,
grass and lakes sort of stuff. The costume used for the character Is a sort of futuristic knight or wanderer with weird alien armour, the props used in the
game are swords bows other weapons and other objects which you can pick up like levers keys and the sort.

Existing products
• As I said it doesn’t really tell you where you are except for the fact aliens used to live on the planet so
I guess it is another world to ours, this could have potentially been Mars in the past as it has water
underneath the surface of the planet and so I think Mars could have had life on it way in back in the
past, but they don’t elaborate much when it comes down to the games story line. The colours used
are mainly very light vibrant colours such as pinks reds blues greens browns oranges reds yellows and
white however the game does use some dark colours such as dark brown, dark green, dark blue,
purple, vermillion, greys and black. Yet again there aren’t many fonts used in the game except for the
Hyper Light Drifter font which they made and the bigger better version of calibri which I still can’t
find out what it is. This appeals to the audience because well they funded it in the first place and
they also drew from ideas given to them by the public and so it is pretty much a fan made game and
if that isn’t good enough It has a good pixel style fairly similar to other games but different enough to
carry it off as their own design, they also have a good story in the background of all the fighting. I
decided to choose this for my product research as I really like the art and animation style I like how
the cape waves about when the character moves also the story of both the creation and the video
game story are great and as I said before hand it is something I have to improve on. There is no
speaking in the game. The music starts off quite relaxed and then they start using sharp notes like
they would in a horror game at the start of the first cut scene but for the most part it is relaxing
music until something major happens, as for the sound effects they are mainly fighting noises, grunts
of the enemy or allies and slick movement noises which I can only describe by saying it is the sort of
sound you hear when you are sharpening a knife.

Existing Product
• Throughout the game they use a mixture of light and dark colours showing a desperate fight for life (being the contrast and
also being quite literal to the story) in the cut scene where he is apparently supposed to be fighting off a disease, the main
character wears mainly dark clothing and armour which is to say that we would usually associate that with being the bad guy
but I think this isn’t the case as he was covered in darkness at the start which I think is the real enemy of the game. They use
lighting to make a distinct difference between most of the characters such as the only piece of light clothing is your red cape
and everything else is technically a beast out of nightmares they look like bears and can hold guns and other weapons, they
are all lighter than the main character is this because the main character doesn’t belong there so does that make the
nightmare-ish creatures right to attack you as you are in there territory well by game logic this makes a lot of sense but
anywhere else and it wouldn’t. They also use a fairly interesting composition so it is fairly difficult to tell a story from what is
happening in the background where-as Dead Cells used a different composition and angle to show the background and also to
show small snip bits of a story which means Hyper Light Drifter is trying to be open to interpretation by the player so you have
to make up your own mind on what happened. The props/ weapons that are used by the main character in the game is a
lightsaber type sword and a sort of plasma pistol and ninja moves even though the ninja moves are mainly for dodging and
jumping from area to area , there is not much of this that added to the story but for the fighting mechanic it allows you to use
melee and ranged. The costume that they used looks as if there are parts of armour such as they used braces around the
arms there are also I think maybe some greaves that they are using for this character and they are using a helmet of some sort
and I don’t think they use any chest armour or upper leg armour and I also think that the clothing is mainly Asian based with
the shoes and as for the cape it is just kind of cool, all that you can get from this is that the main character based around some
Asian clothing designs and that is really all it gives you.

Existing Product fighting
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_2Hk0s1ThEk
• At the beginning of the game the creatures look like bats crossed with bears there are
two different versions at the start being an unarmed version which has one attack
which is charge as seems as the enemy also has razor sharp claws and there is an
animation for the claws after the creature has passed to show where the claws would
have landed. Then for the exact same creature there are some of them which hold
guns/ rifles which look as if they shoot some sort of plasma bullet towards the main
character which is easy to dodge and you can kill them all easily in one shot as long as
you can dodge them quite easily as well. As for the main character they use a lightsaber
kind of sword as the primary weapon at the start of the game which you can slice like
the creatures can with such high velocity it leaves a mark in the air where it would or
did hit the creature and as for the other weapon the main character carries it is a
handgun that can shoot plasma bullets and kill in two shots with this weapon where-as

• I want to be able to use art style because it uses a pixelated art style which tries to be realistic to
an extent with real things such as trees and shrubs and water they all look realistic however
though even some of the more made up things in the game look realistic such as the giants. I have
done research in this because I know that I am not very good at using a realistic art style but
enjoy doing pixelated work. This has helped me when it came down to the production because it
had already confirmed what I wanted to do.
• I also want to use the fantasy genre that they decided to use and also maybe as a story element it
would be interesting to use a foreign disease as a point of interest. I have done research into this
because at the time the corona virus is becoming a real issue also the fact is that it could
potentially add a new direction to the story and where it could go from there onwards.
• I would also like to be able to use some of the ideas for backgrounds because they have some
fantastic ideas when it comes down to designs the same kind of goes for the animation when it
comes down to the slashes I would like for the game to use some sort of prolonged blade that you
can swing so fat that it can leave a trail of colour behind it. I have done research into this because
I believe that it is very creative and they all look fantastic especially when they transition into the
cutscenes.

Existing Product Analysis
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_zDZYrIUgKE
The game called Dark Souls 3 was made by from software on the 24th March 2016. this game is pretty much what they
wanted to create for the very first Dark Souls game. It’s setting is with in a kingdom called Lothric, where there are four
lords of cinder who will not go back to their thrones to rekindle the fire however they have all ran off and won’t come back
so you have been summoned to the world to reclaim the lords of cinder and send them to their thrones 3 of which have run
off yet the pigmy remains in his throne so you have been sent to kill the abyss Watchers/ Farron’ Legion and Farron himself,
you also have to kill Aldrich of the Deep and Yorhm the Giant, so then that you can either become a lord of cinder yourself
and rekindle the flame that keeps the world out of darkness and keep it safe or you can become the emperor of darkness by
watching the flame fizzle out of existence and bring back the dark age but be in command of all the enemies you have faced
to reach that part of the game. The camera can turn 360 degrees however most people play the game by looking over the
shoulder of their character because it makes the game much easier and almost as if it is a bit more cinematic than it already
is they use a lot of effects to show off how dark it is and they use way too much shadowing as an effect but when you come
up to the light areas they use very bright lens flairs for both the sun and the random fire falling from the sky. As for the
costumes they are all period effective meaning that they all come from the medieval era when the game is set. The game
also uses my favourite type of art style realistic art style which I don’t really know how to use but it looks amazing because
you can hints of both realism and fantasy together with this sort of art style and its animations for the time it was made
were fantastic some of the better animations In games around at the same time with all the different fighting techniques.

Existing Product Fighting
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vv_qryPwmig
• In Dark Souls 3 the main focus of the combat with in the game is
stamina management. Stamina is everything with in Dark Souls 3
game as it dictates how much you end up moving and how you
move. For example there are two main different types of attacks
if you use a sword which are the light and heavy attack, the
heavy attack uses up the most stamina and the light attack uses
the least there are other different items you can use to fight such
as axes and spears you can also use shields and magic to help
you along your way and now there are even some special attacks
which use up both magika and stamina. Using block with a shield
takes up a massive amount of stamina however you can riposte
the attack with your shield and it would take up less stamina and
it will give you a chance to back stab the enemy you just
stunned.

• I want to use the dark fantasy genre and also to use stamina management as part
of my game concept to add even further levels to what I wanted to use for
combat. I have done research into this because I am a massive fan of the dark
fantasy genre and I also believe that it would add a new dimension to the
gameplay if the game was ever made.
• I also want to use some of its dark effects to make everything seem much worse
than it is and I also want take the idea of having monsters overrunning certain
areas. I have done research into this because it always interested me how shade
and shadows can convey a lot of information just by adding more of them around
certain areas or characters to give them some sort of evil aura.
• I also want to use some sort of over arching plot points which they use because
the primary loops is to kill all of the lords of cinder to bring back to their thrones
but then there are undertones just saying protect yourself from everything else
that gets close to you with in the game. I have done research into this because I
need to get better at the story writing.

Existing Product Bibliography
• The Witcher, YouTube, August 14th 2013, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt - Killing Monsters
Cinematic Trailer, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c0i88t0Kacs&t=2s
• GameKiller346, YouTube, June 13th 2015, The Witcher 3 Combat Gameplay - Killing
Monsters, Humans & Cannibals, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GsXmpHgGdiM
• Alx Preston, YouTube, March 22nd 2016, Hyper Light Drifter - Release Trailer,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nWufEJ1Ava0&t=25s
• Pie Lord, YouTube, March 31st 2016, Hyper Light Drifter - Part 1 (No Commentary),
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_2Hk0s1ThEk
• Bandai Namco Entertainment America, YouTube, February 8th 2016, Dark Souls III -
Opening Cinematic Trailer | PS4, XB1, PC,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_zDZYrIUgKE
• Boss Fight Database, YouTube, April 13th 2016, Dark Souls 3: Abyss Watchers Boss Fight
(4K 60fps), https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vv_qryPwmig

Review research Audience
• My Primary audience will be 16-25 because those are the people games are
usually aimed at if there is violence in them, they will also probably be primarily
males because they are usually the gender who enjoy all of the violence and
there also may be a story that they would probably enjoy, who are from the
upper middle class because they definitely will have the money to buy such a
game and still have quite a bit of left over money, also it will be for the socially
conscious Type B because of what the story is like I believe that they will enjoy
the kill everything part and also the betrayal and revenge story. My Secondary
Audience will be 26-35 because these people are used to games and what they
will throw at the player but they keep playing games because they are both fun
and can still amaze them. The Secondary gender will be female. My secondary
audience for class will be middle class as these are the people who almost play
the most games in the world. My secondary Psychographic will be Balanced as it
is just something to relax to but they will only really play the easy games as it is
easier to relax to them.

The review is from metacritic and is of Witcher 3 from a fan of the series
He thinks that it is great because of its art style and its also like for its massive open world
however though it does take a long time to get through.
This shows that my audience really like open world games shown by how many they have listed
including Skyrim, Dragon Age and Red Dead Redemption, all which have a fantastic story which
they all picked up on as well all of them either involve a redemption story or an evolution story,
they also like the realistic art style that the games use it brings the game more to life than it
already was.

This review is from metacritic and is from a fan of the Dark Souls series
I observed that the fans of these games mainly play the games for the bosses for both how they
look and how hard they are to play. However though this specific fan prefers the fast paced
fighting that comes from Bloodborne and also they do not like the balance of the game which I
don’t really understand because I like the balance of the game.
I believe that some of his ideas are alright but I prefer the slow game play of Dark Souls to Blood
Borne and I also think that everything is balanced well with in the game.

This a review from metacritic and is from a fan of the game Hyper Light Drifter
I observed that the fans of this game they more than not mainly enjoy the game however this
guy mainly dislikes it and thinks that it is too hard and compares it to Dark Souls, and then
continuously slates the game for its fast gameplay which I don’t understand because it is quite
normal now and other game play problems.
I believe that the game is great also the fact is, is that they source funded people to do different
jobs and they also crowd funded ideas for the plot and the story.

Audience Review Summary
• Through my audience research I have learnt what my primary and
secondary audiences are. I have done research into this because it gives me
an idea of who I would be trying to sell my game to and what I need to
research when it comes down to my experiments. This will further my
knowledge of who I am going to be selling to and what exactly they might
like to see in the game.
• Also through my audience research I have learnt what entices people to
certain games and I also went into my own opinion to pick apart some bits
and pieces through the reviews. I have researched this because it gives me
certain ideas of what people are looking for with in similar games as to
what I want to create. This will help my project because it will give me
ideas on both designing and story telling with in my project as my games
take place in the same sort of genre.

Subject research
• Revenge stories: Berserk
God of War
Middle Earth
Gun Grave
Jon Wick
Kill Bill
Gladiator
Revenge
The Punisher
James Bond

Subject Research
• Revenge stories usually unravel by having the protagonist loosing something special to the antagonist,
however though the timings can be different as to when the protagonist looses something even though they
generally lose the special thing to them at the start of the product (John Wick, The Punisher) however with
films such as James Bond and I don’t know but Gungrave to me is a similar example because they show the
ending of the back story half way through the series roughly and even though it is quite rare but some films
end up with this betrayal at the end of the film or product but this should only really happen if there is going
to be a follow up film or the revenge is concluded right at the very end. Then as in all of the examples I have
given the protagonist ends up going on a violent rampage killing everyone who stands against them until
they come up against the main antagonist and if it is a normal film or product the protagonist takes their
time to make it look good but some decide to end up killing the antagonist quickly and to me it just starts to
lose its pace which I believe that is what this kind of story thrives itself upon and when this kind of story
starts to slow down you can start to predict exactly what is going to happen, but the same could be said just
for bad story telling in general, but to me it really stands out when you start to break up the timing of a good
story it is like if you were reading a book and there was fight but your reading speed does not increase this
means that the story is not doing its job properly and the same could be said for slow paced action
sequences with in films and other media products. I propose that in my story I will be either starting the
story with the betrayal of the antagonist towards the protagonist and then have unbridled violence all the
way through the rest of the story, or I will start about mid way through the story and then start filling in the
backstory as I go even though I believe if I do this the story will become more convoluted and it will probably
even become difficult for me to remember how exactly I want to write said story.

Subject Research
• The Punisher 2004 film, is the only Punisher film I have watched where at the
beginning, The Punisher is a cop who is off duty for a while and his whole family
were killed in front of his eyes by an elite criminal organisation and then he goes
on a killing rampage through the organisation, then the criminal organisation
follow him to his hide out and send a secondary antagonist who almost kills the
main character but the fight turns in The Punishers favour and kills the secondary
antagonist and after that he had, had enough of going after the small fry of the
organisation and go after the boss where he took his time to kill everyone with in
the building and then at the end of the film, The Punisher attaches the boss to a
vehicle set to explode and he must have left some sort of gas on the ground so
that when the car exploded a fire started to make The Punisher logo and they
should have ended the movie there at that but instead they decided to show him
leaving his hideout and decided to slow down the pace of the film which it is
alright to do at the end of a product but I still believe that it would have ended
much better if it ended on the burning Punisher logo.

Subject Research
• I am planning with in my game to be able to use pixelated designs but in 3D
by using either Photoshop, Unity or Unreal it is my personal belief that it
won’t be time effective to learn these programs as I am already working
quite closely to the work schedule and if I slow down to try and learn a
new program to me I would probably fall behind my schedule and probably
won’t be able to catch up to it again. However in my spare time I believe
that if I learn it, it might be a good skill to know for university but I don’t
believe it will help my project at all so I will trying to do it in Photoshop but
I might try to create some different experiments with in unity and unreal
just to prove my point. I will also be trying to do some 3D stuff inside of
Photoshop but yet again I will probably think that it is just easier to make
2D models and try to give them certain 3D effects, to make it look more
realistic kind of like what hyper light drifter does but at a different angle
also with some different effects used as it doesn’t really do a good job of
making the game look 3D.

Interviews
• What would you expect to see from a medieval vengeance story and why?
• What do you think characteristics wise when you are told to think of both monsters and devils? 3
examples of each please and also explain why.
• What do you think you would like to see in a main character of the medieval fantasy genre?
• What would you like to see as a plot twist with in the story?
• What is the best way of presenting a protagonist in an violent way but still make them more
relatable than the antagonist?
• What can be the best way of showing of evil intent with in an antagonist whilst giving similar
qualities to the protagonist and yet still making the antagonist less relatable?

Example of Experiment
The Witcher Time of Contempt
Extract

Experiment
• When the cloaked man reached his destination it appeared to be a chapel out in the
boonies. With sword in hand he slowly marches up the stairs towards the doors, his face
covered by cloth so no one knew his face. When he reached the door he gave it a slight
knock with the end of his sword. Which no one originally answered but after a few
minutes of repeatedly knocking on the door with the hilt of his sword eventually a plump
and slightly rounded man garbed in a monks clothing. He ran back into the chapel almost
immediately after opening the door in the vain attempt to escape his predator, but in his
hurry he tripped over himself and started to crawl away as fast as the fat monk could go.
Yet for all of his attempts to escape they were all useless and he still found himself at the
end of the cloaked mas sword which quickly impaled the monks stomach. As life escaped
from what appeared to be the monk his body started to morph to a thin devil like figure
with his rib cage sticking through its skin and you can visibly see its heart beating
incredibly quickly. Yet the demon still lives with a devilish smile plastered across its face,
to free itself from the blade the demon tried to scratch the cloaked mans face who
evaded it with ease but had to leave the sword with in the demons body which was
slowly but surely failing it.

Experiment Analysis
• It was difficult to think up of ideas and I believe that the idea that I
came up with it should have been much longer and thus I think
maybe I should have added more detail to the actual chase scene
than just oh there is a predator and he is chasing the prey and the
prey turns out to be superhuman see I could sum it up with in just a
few words. So I feel as if there should have been more description
and less story with in that small little area , however I feel as if the
first example for the experiment was fantastic though because it
actually just used description as it was a sort of almanac explanation.

Example of Experiment
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=72S2aAxtZOs
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aP8c1q-uiqM

Research 1

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Editor's Notes