All posts by Georgina Foord
Filters
Video Game design Cover
Game Design Sketch
CSP 1 & 2: tomb raider and metroid
Video game design
- My intent for my product is to make an all inclusive game for people of the age of 15 and above. My game is about a detective who has moved from LA to New York to sort out the latest case; a serial killer on the loose. As the game progresses each clue reveals that the killer is actually another version of the detective (who has DID) and each morning he forgets the previous night. The game ends where he’s faced with the big decision of handing himself in or running away whilst he can. The cover I’m taking inspiration from is Tomb Raider.
- The dominant signifier will be similar with the main character being the centre of the cover. He is the main protagonist and his name is also included in the title. At the top of the front cover I have a masthead of the Xbox 360 banner to show what kind of console this video game it is used for. My cover has bright purple colours whilst the style model I’m following (tomb raider) has a bright gold, this makes the game look so much more enticing and encourages customers to buy this product. The main title has the same layout as my style model in the sense that the writing is over the dominant signifier and written in a font which corelates to the story line. F or my back cover I have written a blurb, which is my anchorage, to give context of what the games about but I’ve also left enough details out that it interests the consumer to buy the game to then play it. To make my product more realistic I’ve included a barcode (code) and some company logos, as well as the games rights on the back.
- My Games cover is reactionary in the sense that a male plays the main character and he is in the centre of the cover, however my game could also be considered radical because the game is about a quest but with no female character playing a damsel in distress nor using her as a trophy. The game is simply about the main character and his discoveries which end up being about himself and only rarely involving other characters. It could also be considered radical in the sense that the main colour of the background is pink/purple which aren’t typically seen as a manly colour and would often be associated with a female character.
- My product would be made by big companies such as Xbox, PlayStation, Nintendo. It would be consumed by audiences of 15 and above as the plotline is for more mature audiences.
Representation
Task 1:
Male Gaze– This is how viewers engage in visual media. “The Male Gaze” suggests a sexualised way of looking that empowers men and objectifies women. In the male gaze, women are visually positioned as an “object” for heterosexual male desire. Her feelings, thoughts and occupation are less important than the male desire.
Laura Mulvey- Laura Mulvey is a British feminist film theorist, best known for for her essay “Visual pleasure and narrative cinema” which was written in 1973 and published in 1975.she took inspiration from Sigmund Freud and Jacques Lacan concepts in which she hopes to use as a “political weapon”. She uses this to argue that Hollywood inevitably put the spectator in a masculine subject position with the figure of the woman on screen as the object of desire and “the male gaze”. According to Mulvey, women are coded with “to-be-looked-at-ness” and states that the camera positioning and the male viewer constituted the “bearer of the look”, meaning that women are purely there and with everything they do it is for a males pleasure.
John Berger- “Ways of Seeing” is a 1972 television series of 30-minute films created chiefly by writer John Berger. He begins by exploring the history of the female nude or the status of oil paint, his landmark series showed how art revealed the social and political systems in which it was made. He also examined what had changed in our ways of seeing in the time between when the art was made and today.”
Task 2:
Representation of POC in video games
- “characters were often cast as caricatures, with exaggerated, grotesque features…”
- “Latinx characters have often been portrayed as gangbangers and drug dealers”
- “…most games feature white protagonists.”
- “a scene in Pakistan displays shop signs written in Arabic, even though Pakistani people speak English and Urdu, not Arabic.”
Why diversity matters:
- “I think we need to back away from this focus on one type of consumer or one type of developer”
- “The industry traditionally projects an image that is young, white, straight and male”
Laura Mulvey- visual pleasure and narrative cinema:
1.”ultimately, the meaning of women is sexual difference.”
2. “the beauty of the woman as object as the screen space coalesce; she is no longer the bearer of guilt but a perfect product, whose body, stylised and fragmented by close-ups is the content of the film.”
key language- 19 definitions
Semiotics:
Sign– something that could stand for something else, e.g words, drawings, photographs.
Code– Technical, written and symbolic tools used to construct or suggest meaning in media forms and products, e.g. camera.
Convention– Generally accepted ways of doing something.
Dominant Signifier– The main representative of something.
Anchorage – Words that go with an image to provide context.
Ferdinand De Saussure:
Signifier – Stands in for something else.
Signified -Idea being evoked by signifier.
C S Pierce:
Icon – A sign that looks like an object/person, e.g picture of a lamp.
Index – A sign that has a link to its object, e.g smoke and fire.
Symbol – A sign that has a more random link to its object, e.g colour, shape.
Roland Barthes:
Signification – Structural levels of signification, meaning or representation.
Denotation – The most basic or literal meaning of a sign.
Connotation – The secondary, cultural meanings of signs; or “signifying signs,” signs that are used as signifiers for a secondary meaning. (what its associated with.)
Myth – how words and images are systematically used to communicate cultural and political meanings, in texts such as advertisements, magazines, films, or TV programs.
Ideology – codes that reinforce or in agreement with structures of power.
Radical – Something that challenges dominant ideas.
Reactionary – Something that confirms dominant ideas.
Paradigm– a typical example or pattern of something. (collection of something)
Syntagm – an orderly combination of interacting signifiers which forms a meaningful whole. (sequence of signs)
banner
Semiotics:
Iconic sign– the lamp, newspaper
Symbolic sign– (random sign that is shared through agreement. e.g colour)- letters, red font, the shape of the design
Indexical sign– shining a light on media
induction task evaluation
- The intent behind my induction task was a newspaper article aimed for the majority of the public. The article shows the everyday life of a police officer and the many situations they handle which aren’t always spoken about. It brings an understanding to the job but also to the people; the kind of person you need to be.
- My induction was supposed to look like a newspapers article but ended up looking more like a poster. This was because of the arrangement of pictures, it looked more like a collage. I used real headlines and pictures from cases my mum had worked on which made the piece look more vintage and valuable. I used the colour purple to boarder the back of the words so that they stand out and draw the reader in more. i used cut out old-looking words and spelled them out to word an eye catching quote. “I only had three bullets left- and on the very last one I shot straight through the two pound coin.”
- I represented my mum in a positive way for her profession and to the public. This was quite radical and challenged the dominant stereotypes of police officers, who are normally seen as power hungry and authority driven. This is only a small majority of them. It helps people to understand what happens with this sort of job and the kind of situations they experience. It also helps people who may be interested in this as a career path.
- My product would be made by a local niche newspaper company and aimed at an audience within the area. It could be bought from local stores for £0.60p.
- I think the interview part itself was good and met the criteria. However I think the presentation should have been much different and the pictures should have been more organised.
Media Forms
| MEDIA FORMS | CHARACTERISTICS | EXAMPLE | |
| 1 | Television | – Could have adverts in between. – Has storyline/plot. – Can be live and not necessarily for entertainment. | Game of Thrones |
| 2 | Magazine | – pictures – designed for the majority. – advertising of products/things. | vogue |
| 3 | Newspaper | – non- fiction. – written for majority. – very political. | Daily Mail |
| 4 | Radio | – advertising of locations/things. – audio – | Breakfast show |
| 5 | Social media | – open source – | |
| 6 | Advertising | – public – commercial – short | Moonpig.com |
| 7 | Film | – expensive -characters | Spider man |
| 8 | Music Video | – performance – characters – auditory | congratulations (Post Malone) |
| 9 | Video Games | – interactive – private – | Halo |