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.

• Geralt is a fantastic character in his own right when it came down to the books and the Netflix series however it was taken to a whole new level by CD Projekt Red and the Witcher 3 Wild
Hunt. The main aesthetics that never change are his body, the neck, the face and to an extent the hair. All the rest is customizable with in the game so Geralt can change easily to what
the player likes the most, also the other main thing is that he never really covers his face with in the game. As a general rule though through out some peoples playthroughs on YouTube
they either go and wear the light clothing and choose a majority of the nice options in dialogue, or they wear the darker clothing and go for the more dark and sinister options when it
comes down to the dialogue. This shows that the colour scheme in itself is just really a reflection of how the player wants to react with in the game the fact at how the game is an RPG
makes it easier to convey this. The main reason why I brought up the covering of the face is actually quite a big thing as well. As this usually indicates that they want to hide their true
identity and in more cases than not that sort of production technique is used for enemies in video games or at least in the older games that used to be the case but now, they decide to let
both the colour scheme and the story telling aspects tell the player who the antagonist and the protagonist are. So now it can be quite difficult to tell between the two especially if
betrayal is a big part of the games story. Just to make it clear though most characters if they are wearing light and bright colours usually means that they are the protagonist of the story
and if they are wearing darker colours they are usually the antagonist but if they are anywhere inbetween it is more often than not just because they are morally ambiguous. For example
Geralt in all of the trailers he is seen with usually light clothing or sometimes he wears more earthy colours however that is more of a design choice than colour orientation and so you
know that he is the protagonist of the story. Where as Eredin from the Witcher 3 wears a full heavy metal armour set which is black he also has his face covered most of the times Geralt
and Eredin see each other also his armours colour is black, all of this pretty much says he is a classic villain because most of his armour is very angular as well which also confirms he is
quite villainous by the looks of him. If you think fantasy Darth Vader who is an elf and uses magic instead of the force you pretty much have Eredin. As this game is an RPG though the
game as expected has to be a 3rd person view over the shoulder however now with most games like this you can do a full 360 degree turn with the camera and still see what you r
characters front looks like also that is the side that you tend to see with in the menus anyway but most of the old games where they had a 3rd person view would never actually allow you
to look at the front of the character that you play as. However though this idea can be turned on its head with some certain superhero games such as the batman series as the joker sure
he has quite an angular body but he wears mainly all light colours and always has a smile, but Batman is like the complete opposite he wears all black clothing and never smiles but his
body design is quite smooth and rounded.

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 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. The game developers have done it this way because it is both a good way of furthering the plot and it also makes it quite easy to distinguish who your friends are and
who your enemies are. 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 think that my audience would also enjoy it because of the sort of story I will be using and how it would further
the story I put forward for the concept of the game.
• 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. The game developers did this to make the menus
easily accessible and even easier to use. 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. I think that my audience will like this because it would make the game easier and more
accessible and easy to use.
• 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. The game developers did this because then it is easier to create certain factions and
differences between the groups and thus it makes conflict seem more realistic with in the story. 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. I think that my audience will enjoy this feature
because it adds more to the story and at the same time it adds some form of difficulty to the gameplay ( to say it adds conflict ).
• I would also like to be able to use some of the RPG ideas where you can tell what the character is like through the storytelling for example Geralt has been in all 3 Witcher games
and his character has developed throughout all of the three games as he becomes more experienced throughout the games you can see how he has grown as a character if you
look back to the first game and play through them all. The game developers did this because it is an easy and effective way to further the story and all the characters at the same
time. I would like to use this however I don’t have any existing products that can be related to what my story is going to be like this time. My audience will probably enjoy this in
this game however I won’t be able to add it to my game as there aren’t any other games I could relate to this story idea I am using.

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

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 the lightsaber is a
one shot kill at the beginning of the game.

• 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. The developers did this because people want to see and buy games
more often than not now with explainable occurrences with in the world also most audiences now want games like days gone with zombies and factions but it is more believable
because they use some science behind it and they also give you certain thoughts on how the world has gotten to the way it was during the videogame. 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. My audience will enjoy this because it will have some semblance of realism with in a pixelated art style which makes the production easier
for me whilst also letting my audience enjoy the art
• 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. The
developers did this because they wanted to create some sort of mystery with in the story and it also gives a more enjoyable story in the way of this. 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.
My audience will enjoy this because it links into real issues that we have at the moment.
• 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.
The games developer did this because it adds more to the story and the attack animations added to the game. 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. My audience will enjoy this for the realism of the designs however I want to be able to do
the animation with the amount of time I have set aside for the production of my project
• The other big thing behind this game is that it was crowd funded in both ideas and money as for the ideas I am already getting ideas for the story through the interview questions
but Hyper Light Drifter is a great game in the way of it is pretty much exactly what people wanted at least all of the people put their ideas into the games production and so it was
a great hit with quite a few people. The game developers did this because they knew it would be something that the people would want to buy when the game was completed as
they crowd sourced ideas. I have looked into this because it is incredibly similar to what I have already planned on doing as I don’t really have a plan for the plot which is why I
asked those particular questions. My audience will enjoy this because it is their ideas being put towards how I make my story instead of using my own ideas.

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.

• This is yet another RPG game but in this game there aren’t really any dialogue options so you can’t really
interpret what your character is like also it is set in such a dark time period (being medieval) it is just quite
difficult to distinguish who you are supposed to relate to more the enemies of which you are killing or your
character as quite a few of the designs look very human in nature but on both sides are dead people the
enemies are dead people and you are a dead person, so you are the lowest of the low as you couldn’t even
rekindle the fire so you are reborn as ash and your character which is supposedly the protagonist is sent to
kill the lords of cinder but oddly enough in this game I believe that you are technically morally ambiguous as
there is little to no character development and all of the story telling told through the world and the items
which you collect as they tell the story of the land rather than the character which is easier and shows off
the plot much easier so they made needlessly difficult to follow the story. What makes this game special
though is the fact at how you can choose whether or not you are the protagonist or the antagonist at the
very end of the game it asks you whether you want to become a hero and rekindle the fire so the world can
live on as it is, or you could let the fire go out and become the lord of darkness and become like the dictator
of the world. So you can see why you can remain morally ambiguous throughout the game as you are just
following orders to kill everyone but then the end of the story is left up to you as to whether you want
everything to end or free the world from its current situation. As in all RPG games though you can change
your character to look like whatever you want with in reason of the games apparel and most of the games
clothing is very dark or they use very earthy colours so there isn’t much in the way of being a decent being in
this game at least if you were thinking of being pure through and through. The only thing that really
distinguishes you from some of the enemies is that they sometimes have a very angular design where-as
your design more often than not is smooth/ flat.

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. The game developers did this because it adds an
extra layer of difficulty to the games and to an extent it also adds some enjoy ability to the game. 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. My audience will enjoy this because it
makes the fighting more believable and it also adds a layer of difficulty to the already existing difficult part to
the game.
• 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. The game developers did this because it makes
it easier to stand out exactly what you needed to kill/ all the bad guys. 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. My audience won’t
really enjoy this as a part of the game as it is something people rarely pay any attention to so I will probably
still do it but it won’t improve the popularity of the product if I use it or not.
• 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. The game developers did this because
it added extra layers to the story. I have done research into this because I need to get better at the story
writing. My audience will enjoy this because now games always have some sort of overarching plot devices
so it would be seen as a poor story if I don’t involve them.

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 made by someone who has quite a bit of money to be able to pay for all of those games so I would say he would be upper middle class or somewhere in the middle class, he is male and he also
seems to be socially conscious type B.

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.
I believe that he is middle class, male and is balanced as a psychographic.

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.
I believe that it is a middle upper class man, whose psychographic is socially conscious type B. There is way too much complaining to be balanced which are usually
the people who leave reviews.

Audience Research
This is a review for Kill Bill part 2 where the reviewer liked the movie but slated it in a few different areas.
The reason why I decided to look at kill bill is because it is one of my examples for a revenge story I used in Subject Research. I observed that they didn’t really
like the film for the reasons I thought it would be good because of its overarching revenge story but instead they preferred the drama and he also thought the
revenge and violence was quite weak as the reviewer must have had a massive blood lust going in to watch this film.
I have never watched this film so I don’t really understand it except for I do know the plot to an extent and I would have expected a lot more gratuitous
violence.
I believe that this reviewer would be from the middle class and I believe it is a man but I don’t know and I also believe that the psychographic will be balanced.

Audience Research
This a review on the film The Punisher from 2004.
The reason why I looked at The Punisher is because it is yet again a film that I thought would have a fantastic revenge story with lots of gratuitous
violence and I have seen this film before so I know it has this as a core part of the story.
I see that in the review they really enjoy the story they don’t quite explain why but they enjoyed it probably because of the violence and then
there was the fact at how he enjoyed the comics and really like how they adapted it to film.
The reviewer seems like he is a male middle class person who is socially conscious type B.

Audience Research
The review is based on a film called Gone Girl
I decided to look at this review for the film because it is pretty much through and through a revenge story however though I really didn’t like this
film sure revenge is a thing in it but beyond that it lacked something which made it boring and so it lost my attention about 30 times.
In the review the reviewer pretty much says the same as I said it is far too long, difficult to follow and the main plot is almost completely
unbelievable.
I believe the reviewer is an upper middle class, male, who is socially conscious type B

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.

Sales for Shovel Knight
• Shovel knight had fantastic reviews on just about every platform that there
is on metacritic the lowest review score was 85/100 on PC and the highest
rank was 92/100 on the PS Vita. It also won multiple awards including best
independent game award and Best platformer award and there are more
that they have won and they have been nominated for even more. The
release date of the game was June 26th 2014 and by December 4th 2014 it
had sold more than 300,000 copies across all platforms, as of June 30th
2015 the game had sold 700,00 copies overall and as of December 14th
2016 they had sold 1.5 million copies all over and then when the DLC
dropped in 2018 they had sold around about 2 million copies. The reason
why I involved rankings and awards is because there is a direct correlation
to how many sales and how people view the game.

Sales for Dead Cells
• As of 2019 Dead Cells had surpassed 1 million sales in copies reaching
almost 2.4 million sales in copies over all platforms. The game was
released in August 2018 and it was in early access on Steam as of May
2017 and they are planning on releasing the game on IOS in the
Summer of 2020 showing their belief in their product and how well it
has sold. The worst metacritic score this game achieved was 84/100
on IOS and the best review score it got was 91/100 on Xbox One and
the best publication review was from IGN with a 9.5/10. This game
has won Best Indie game as of 2018 and it was nominated for 4
different awards as well including best action game, Ultimate game of
the year, Best Visual Design and best Indie game in 2017.

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
• The revenge usually starts off by the protagonist loosing something to the
antagonist except for Berserk and James Bond to an extent because Berserk takes
two seasons to get around to the revenge part of the story as the rest is pretty
much lead up to the second and third season and as for James Bond he can be set
on a revenge story usually by ½ or ¾ of the way through the story. In the way of
getting revenge though can vary with in most of these films, animations and
games though it culminates into the more violent option which usually ends in
murder however revenge can be as simple as keeping secrets from someone and
then there is also disguise and masking which can be seen as literal or
metaphorical depending on the story. An example of these features could be
Gone Girl as it includes all of the examples of revenge I have talked about being,
disguise, masking, secrets and murder. I’m sure other stories use these
conventions twice as well as Gone Girl but it was the only that came to mind
immediately even though I didn’t really enjoy the story even though it does
achieve what it sets out to do as a story and it makes a majority of the viewers
feel uneasy about the experience.

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.

Subject Research
• Game makers tool kit has two fantastic videos on a game called shovel
knight which is going to be my backup idea however I will keep the story
ideas but the designs for the characters will have to change. The main idea
for the story line to an extent is what I was already planning on doing
however it is a redemption mission type story which is very close to a
revenge story however in a redemption story it suggests that there could
be a positive outcome for both sides where-as in revenge stories at least
one party always suffers some form of defeat. So they are only slight
differences but in the end there is either a positive ending or a negative
ending. As I said I would have to change the characters and how they look
though as it would have been copyrighted and I wanted to use a different
art style.

Subject Research
• As for the Game Makers Tool Kit videos on Shield Knight one was talking about nostalgia however I don’t
really want to talk about that side of the game as it won’t add or take away from my idea but the other video
was on signature moves and what they added or took away from the game itself the classic/ normal version
of the game has you jumping around with shovel and being able to jump very high with both the shovel and
his jumps which was fairly easy to master and control then however they added the DLC, the first DLC they
added put a new character into the game which was plague knight whose signature move was to have a
double jump technique and saviour jump as well these jumps were incredibly difficult to master because of
their trajectory which has a much larger bump in the trajectory which means it is quite quick when it comes
to falling from a jump but it was incredibly difficult and didn’t get very much support from the people who
bought the base game. In the second DLC released they added yet another character you could play as called
spectre knight which was incredibly easy to master as it technically wasn’t a double jump it was more of a
slash and fly technique where if there was something that was floating you can strike it mid air and it will
then launch you in which ever direction you want to go which was incredibly easy to control and thus got a
lot of support from the community. Then last but not least they unleashed the third and final DLC which
included yet another playable character called king knight which uses a bash and spin technique where you
could jump on top of something and that would count towards the bash and then you could spin over to
where you needed to be, but you could also just attack something mid air and then spin in a straight line to
where you need to be, but to an extent it is fairly simple to control but they did get a lot of support from the
community for this DLC but not as much as the second DLC which saw you playing as spectre knight which
was the easiest to control because of the trajectory of the jumps but it was much more difficult to control
the king knight yet again because of its trajectory.

Interviews
• What would you expect to see from a medieval vengeance story and why?
• Weaponry of the age – Anything modern would be too jarring and not fit within the overall look.
• Dedication – The character should be strongly focused on delivering the vengeance, motived by a solid backstory.
• 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.
• Pointy Design (Eg. Horns) – Anything with points suggests danger compared to rounder designs. Spikes in games for example are always associated with as a danger.
• Ugly – Monsters in media tend to be a stark contrast to their surroundings or other characters. Having them look bad helps the audience to instantly recognise that they’re a threat.
• Dark colours – Blacks, Deep Reds, Greens, Blues all have negative connotations. Again, something we recognise easily.
• What do you think you would like to see in a main character of the medieval fantasy genre?
• Somebody strong and determined. A typical hero like character – Someone who stands up for himself, and is smart when it comes to fighting.
• What would you like to see as a plot twist with in the story and explain why?
• Sounds cliché, but the first thing I think of is having the character finding out they’re related to the antagonist. If this doesn’t work, maybe someone that the character loves and trusts closely can go against them for their own benefit, making them a traitor.
• What is the best way of presenting a protagonist in an violent way but still make them more relatable than the antagonist?
• Like the character in Dead Cells, who looks fairly menacing but is also funny despite not talking. If you wanted to use dialog, you could inject some humour into this – However the audience need to be reassured that, when the time comes, the character know what he’s doing and
can fight efficiently.
• 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?
• Their visual style could play a part in this. For example: Having their colour scheme be different, being physically darker, potentially taller than the main character. Maybe the character having evidence of being in a past conflict, like a scar on the face.

Interviews
• What would you love to see from a medieval vengeance story?
• Personally I'd maybe like to see a bit of comedy and the rise up of an underdog. Nobody important or overly built - like a knight, but someone from the background taking a stand
for what they believe in. This could also carry the message of - if you believe in something and fight for it hard enough - it doesn't matter who you are.
• What do you think characteristics wise when you are told to think of both monsters and devils? Three examples of each and explain why?
• I don't know about three - as too many could overcrowd the story? However I think it's more important to have your monsters have defined characteristic - a good example of
this being within 'Left 4 Dead' where each character has look that reflects their abilities, whilst remaining iconic. Though I'm a huge fan of colour. So maybe have the devil as the
big bad, and an army of evil dark knights covered in purple flames?
• What do you think you would like to see in a main character of a medieval fantasy game?
• Again something iconic for the appearance, but also something terms of an underdog - so maybe having homemade amour as they're not really a knight, though are trying to
become like one. Also one cheesy one liners are something that would be cool?
• What would you like to see as a plot twist within the story and explain why?
• Maybe something of the antagonist - say they're someone close to the protagonist? But maybe you could have characters on this journey or quest where you have to choose
whether they're worth trusting - give a the audience a sense of unease.
• What is the best way of presenting a protagonist in a violent way, but still make them more relatable that the antagonist?
• A good way of this is often humanising the protagonist - through the way they look, talk and act - doing the opposite for the antagonist. Another great implication is the use of
tone light vs darl - good vs evil. But to make them seem more human, giving the character conflicting emotions towards violence can be a good way of keeping theme more
human.
• What can be the best way of showing evil in the antagonist whilst giving similar qualities and yet still making the antagonist relatable?
• The motive - make it understandable, with an immoral approach to it - a good example of this is in the first 'Kingsmen' movie with 'Valentine' - the world is heavily populated and
so many of us are poor and starving, yet he chooses to murder everyone - choosing who he deems unworthy of living. Whilst further alienating himself by usually making these
people either extremely rich of famous - so the majority of the audience would be at stake. But comedically he also can't deal with any kind of gore again humanising, with the
charisma of Samuel Jackson.

Interviews
• I would expect to see a more brutalised version of a typical vengeance with sword fights horseback fighting I think this due to the time period it is being based in being a more violent time where
conflicts were usually solved with fights, I would expect it to be a gradually building vengeance story where each thing discovered speeds up the story.
• 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:
• Monster:
• Quadrupedal creature
• Malformed appearance
• Jagged unnatural movements
• White-eyes
• Grey skin
• The reason for me thinking each of these points is because the typical monsters that are thought of are folklore like Bigfoot and Wendigo and generally humanoid creatures with more predatorial
animals based instincts and the above-mentioned features play on the fear factors of humans withe eyes meaning you can't tell where the animal is looking jagged movement making the creature
unpredictable and being quadrupedal making the humanoid creature lose its sense of humanity.
• Devils:
• Horns
• Red/Black Eyes
• Supernatural abilities (floating/ able to disappear)
• SharpPointed teeth
• Larger body size
• The reason for thinking of these features is because of most conepts and visualisations of the creatures have these features, as well as this the use of ceratin features like the larger size makes
• them more imposing on people as well as the fact that things like pointed teeth make them seem more predatory and having supernatural abillities makes them seems powerfull.
• I feel that in medieveil concepts the main character could be a large range of people however if i were to pick i would say someone that is not very well known or someone that is infamous.

Interviews
• A protagonist with a strong sense of justice who would be willing to overcome obstacles in the name of vengeance.
• I'd probably like a protagonist similair to the character from Dragon's Dogma but that's just me.
• What would you like to see as a plot twist with in the story and explain why?
• It turns out the person who was killed or whatever that invoked his desire for revenge was actually killed for a good, just reason.
• What is the best way of presenting a protagonist in an violent way but still make them more relatable than the antagonist?
• By making them violent out of frustration rather than pleasure.
• 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?
• Make the antagonist enjoy the evil deeds that he commits to but make the protagonist grieve over his evil experiences.

Research 1

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