Dissertation Plan

Ryan asked us to create a diagram of our dissertation layout so I created this mind map of everything my research is covered so far:

I then used the results to create the content of a rough contents page:

Creating a Horror Atmosphere in 2D Games

Contents

1. Introduction

2.  Contextual Review

 2.1 Art and Stylisation in 2D Games

2.2 The Horror Genre in Games

2.3 Two-Factor Theory of Emotion

2.4    Influence of horror film on games
2.4.1  Camera angles
2.4.2  Gore
2.4.3  Narrative
2.4.4  Use of overlays

2.5. Use of player Point of View in Games
2.5.1 1st Person Perspective
2.5.2 3rd Person Perspective
2.5.3 Player Point of View in 2D Games

2.6. Pacing and Anticipation

2.7. Character Design
2.7.1 Player Character Design
2.7.2 Monster Design

3. The Project

4. The Results

5. Conclusion

Appendix A:  2D Horror Game Analysis

Appendix B:  3D Horror Game Analysis 

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For my project I'm using a methodology of video cued recall with semi-structured interviews. I'm keen to avoid anything too data heavy like questionnaires so I'll be looking to find around 15 people to casually play test my game.  I will then interview the testers about whether they felt the game successfully conveyed a horror atmosphere and use this information to come to a conclusion in my dissertation to determine whether my proposed framework for creating atmosphere in 2D horror games is suitable or not.

Colour Script

After stuggling with colour schemes for my game and creeping on my friend Jess' honours blog I've been inspired to create a colour script for my game.

I really liked the example of the Journey colour script she posted and how it portrayed the colour palettes along side the basic shapes of the environment to help really push the mood that area was trying to achieve:

I also really liked this example of the colour script for The Incredibles and how complicated scenes are simplified in to geometric shapes:

And this is my first attempt at a colour script for Ritual:

I wanted to start of the game with a relatively "safe" colour scheme of light greens and purples mixed in with gritty darker shades to create a sort of gritty, grungy look.  In the school area there will still be "safe" light blues however the colours will start to shift to a darker and more sinister palette.  The corridor on the way to the ritual room will be very dark with lots of black overlays to obstruct the players view, literally keeping them "in the dark", with breaks of neon graffiti to serve as uncomfortably bright warnings.  The ritual room itself will be dark and red to symbolise danger and rooms with portals hidden in them will also make use of dangerous and dark palettes.  Finally, the alternate dimension which the climatic event of the game will take place in will make use of unsettling, saturated colours set off with grim black and white tones.

However I want to experiment a bit more with the colours before I finalise the script so here's some alternate thumbnails:

Hallway and Forrest 

For these I just played about with the hue of the overall thumbnail.  The first thumbnail for the hallway here looks a bit too bright and surreal though.  The other two look a bit more gritty and menacing in comparison to the original light blue thumbnail however, which is a lot more fitting for the game.

A rusty, red forest looks pretty cool however might be straying away from the relatively "safe" colour scheme I want at this point.  I also really want the initial forest to really contrast with the weird and jarring colours of the "limbo" forest environment at the end of the game so sticking to a relatively normal colour scheme might be a good idea.

Limbo

I really want the limbo environment to have a super uncomfortable colour scheme for the player, so lots of over saturated colours mixed with sinister blacks is what I'm going for.  I can't decide which one might work best though.

The inverted colour scheme idea came about when I was messing about with overlays in the game and accidentally broke it.  I took a quick clip of it which you can view here.  I really like the idea of glitching the game at this point as it messes with the relationship between player and game - the horror of the game is so real it reaches beyond the player character and messes with your graphics card!  A mechanic along the same lines as this was used in Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem where the player character was given a "sanity meter" and if it became too low the game would act as though it was deleted all the saves off the player's memory card.  This is a concept I'm really interested in and it would be really cool to explore it in my own game.

More Art Inspiration

Ian Wilding

I really like the colour scheme in this poster.  I feel the use of different shades of one colour across the entire piece is really effective, especially the subtle replacement of black with a high chroma purple.  The palette just feels really unified yet interesting.  

"JEBEDAI"

I also felt like this colour palette was really interesting.  I really like how the orange background contrasts with the black, greys and whites of the foreground and middleground.

Lynn Nguyen

I also found the subject matter of this piece by Lynn Nguyen really interesting.  The facial expression of the centre character is just so sinister and having the top area of his body completely inked with the exception of his chilling eyes and sharp teeth is really effective in creating that creepy focal point.  I also love how the characters in the background have thier faces eerily smudged out - causing the viewer question who or what they are.  The image just has a sort of creepy, cult-like feel to it.

Jon Klassen

I absolutely love this art style.  The use of simple, sharp blocky shapes with more complex gritty textures is really appealing.  Jon Klasson's use of colour is also excellent at conveying mood - I love how unsettling the blacks bleeding in to the gritty greens make the scene on the top right feel.

Francis Bacon

I've also been looking at the work of Francis Bacon a lot lately.  I read somewhere that the creature designer for the Silent Hill series took direct inspiration from his work - particularly the twisted humanoid imagery you can see in the first two images here - "Crucifixion Studies" and "Portrait of Lucian Frued".  I personally really like the last image here; "Study After Velazquez's Portrait of Pope Innocent X".  I love the chaotic lines streaking across the entire composition and the contrast of the cold purples, blues and blacks with the golden yellows and how distressed the subject appears, gripping on to his chair.


Ikumi Nakamura

Although I haven't played The Evil Within yet I've been really inspired by the concept art for it.  I love Ikumi Nakamura's loose lines and use of contrast in her work.  I've been particularly intrigued by the design for the character Laura - A friend recommended I check out the monster she turns in to in game (sorry for spoilers) as it's particularly scary.  I found the second image here of the silhouetted monster really striking.  The lighting is just so well done as the player sees enough of the monster to know it's going to hurt them with its threatening pose and long sharp claw-like nails, but it's full appearance is still a terrifying mystery.  Imagine that thing crawling towards you in real life!  As I've mentioned before it's the human characteristics of a monster (in this case the limbs and hair) mixed with inhuman qualities (the mutated arms and the animal like posture) that really trigger the fear factor in people, myself included.  In the feedback for my own monster design there was a few people suggesting I should add more limbs, perhaps I should make them a bit more prominent in the design.

Gameplay Footage 04-02-15

Gameplay footage of "Ritual" as of the 4th of February.  Currently everything is either placeholder or 1st pass at best.  It's not pretty but it's coming together slowly.

I've mainly been messing about with getting things to flicker on screen for one frame at a time and trying to get sounds to work.  Later the flickering images will become increasingly obvious, along with more aggressive SFX, leading to a climatic event of a chase sequence which will happen after the player triggers the portals.

I'm currently experiencing an issue where my WAV sound effects are distorted.  I looked it up and apparently it's a Game Maker bug.  It'll be such a shame if I can't get it sorted as my sound designer's worked really hard on them.  Game Maker is unable to play two MP3 files at once hens why I've had to use WAV files for the SFX (the BG wind noises are MP3).  However in the final version of the game there will only be background sounds in the forest so hopefully this won't be an issue for the rest of the sound effects.

However aside from that little hiccup the player can now interact with the "portal trigger" object (which in the final version will be a sort of spell detailing a tutorial) and interact with the three portals that pop up using space to close them.

Next week I'll hopefully have the time limit working with a countdown HUD in place.

More Concept Art - Portals, Wall Markings and Player Character

I've started taking a more Child of Light sort of approach to my pipeline in that the concept art for the game becomes to actual art assets themselves.  It works well and is very time efficient - Provided I remember to organise my layers correctly!  So here's some concept art for the portals and wall markings in the game.  I felt having bloody writing on the walls was a bit over done and (perhaps inspired by Infamous Second Son which I played recently) went for this sort of saturated, neon sort of look.  I thought it might be interesting to cross this with satanic imagery - a sort of neo-satanism aesthetic?  

These are some silhouettes I did when designing the player character for the game.  I spent far too much time on them.  Need to remember to keep my lines on my silhouette work quick and easy!

In the end I ended up with these three designs and picked the left design,  I felt the coat created the most interesting shape.  I also tried to stick to warm colours in order to contrast with the cold environments.

Player Character Animation

So this was the first pass for my player character animation.  There was a lot of issues with this version - It's very jerky and there's also too much bounce in her step.  Her legs are also weirdly placed as they're too far forward.

And this is the current version in game.  It's ok.  Still feels a little jerky and her scarf moves quite unrealistically however I'm quite pleased with how the overlapping action of her hair turned out and the general pacing feels alright.  Ideally I would have her looking to the side as she walks occasionally however time is marching on so I'll add that to the non-priority list!

  

I've also added a simple idle animation based on the above pose.  Super simple, just her blinking occasionally - but as I learned from the Global Game Jam, even just a simple animation like that in the idle makes a world of difference.  If I have time I'll work on it more, maybe add her shivering or something.

I'm also currently working on a run animation as it's currently very tedious to navigate the game environment at a walking pace so a running option felt necessary.

Programming Task List

Programming Task List

Priority
Misc:

• Add running animation/controls

•  Fix doors – Currently when the player enters the room through any door they will be spawned at a certain point in the room regardless of what door they entered the room from.

Portals:

• Create portal trigger object – triggers 3 portals to appear around the game environment.  Player must press space bar on collision to get them to disappear. 

• Add text boxes which will be triggered before the portals are triggered (this will act as a sort of tutorial)

• Add timer to portals (including a timer “countdown”  HUD) – Player will have one minute to find and destroy each portal.  When a portal is closed another minute will be added to the timer.  If the player cannot find a portal in time they must hide in one of the hiding objects before the timer runs out. 

Enemy:

• Add enemy chase sequence to the corridor area – Enemy will appear when player is a third of the way down the corridor on their way back from the ritual room.  Speed of the enemy is equal to two thirds of the speed of the player’s run.  If caught the player dies.  Chase sequence ends once the player leaves the corridor.  

Hiding Objects:

• Player can hide in certain objects - interact with space bar.  When using these objects the game will switch to first-person perspective from the viewpoint of the hiding place.  Press space to leave the hiding object.

Enemy and Hiding Object:

• If players are hiding before the timer runs out an animation of the enemy passing by will play.  If players are hiding after the timer runs out, a “death” animation will play.  

Final Scene:

• After all three portal are closed players must search for the final portal.  This final portal will take them in to “limbo.”

• As players walk towards the brother object their speed will begin to slow until they can barely move.  At this point the brother object will be replaced with the enemy.

• Switch to a final room where credits will play.