If you compare my original idea to my final product, it has changed considerably. Even though it is natural for you to change your idea as you progress, the product still keeps the original story, and backstory, whereas my actual making of the novel has changed, along with the actual gameplay. It has changed in the sense that my original plan was to make a graphic novel with minimal interactivity, and loads of drawing, but I now have made a Graphic Novel which has a lot of Interactivity with minimal drawing.
Most of my research was based around horror, and psychological aspects of products, this was because my theme for my game was Japanese Horror. Â Originally, I had a huge list of research in which I wanted to make myself do, but towards the end of the project, I realised that this was far too much for me to do, and it included many games and films, and I realised that researching into 5 different films (including watching them) and playing 5 different games in the same timeframe, was going to be too much for me to do because I would then have to individually analyse them, and this would take time away from me that I could be doing for my production, so I decided to reduce the amount of films, and games that I would research into.
I did a lot of primary research such as going to the library, and giving out and analysing surveys; and I feel like this was very successful. Going to the library and getting books out that helped me with creating the graphic novel, and another book that helped me learn to draw Manga and Chibi (the style I chose to draw.) As for the surveys, I had 54 people answer my survey, so I had a very successful outcome with this, and my survey was sent out to help me with my concept art, character profiling and the ending of the game. Whilst also finding out what my target audience thought about horror â because of this, I could then create media product that my target audience would actually want to play. After collecting the results, I created a survey analysis document and analysed each question in depth, including graphs and a paragraph explaining how I would relate this research to my own work.
 With the second question of the survey, I asked what the target audience thought of the names of the character and to use their imagery skills and tell me what they imagined when they heard the name of the character, from their imagery, I created the characters in the target audienceâs eyes. For example; I asked what they thought of the name Allura, and many people said it reminded them of a girl with blonde hair, so I made Allura have blonde hair as I wanted the characters to relate to my target audience. I also asked in the same question what they thought of the personality of the character could be by the name, and I got a few different answers for the feedback. Again, for example, I asked about Sakari, and many of the target audience said that they thought of the name to sound sophisticated and intelligent, so I used this as a trait for the character profiling of Sakari. Last I asked about the outcome of the game, and I asked about what could be the ending to one of the characters, in this I wasnât looking for good and soft endings, I asked the target audience to think about death, and I got some crazy ideas, in which I used some of these extreme ideas, such as someone said âdrowning in a dishwasherâ they didnât give any context but I still used this as an idea, because they had given me the basis of an idea, I finished off the idea. And I felt like this worked very well because I had gone into the target audienceâs mind for a split second, and did what they thought would work well. Â
I made many different pre-production material; such as Proposal, Gantt chart, Navigation Maps, Concept Art, one sheet and the Design Document. The Proposal was done at the beginning to give outline on what I was planning to do; it has three sections â Review, Project Concept and Evaluation. The review section outlines my skill set, and what I feel like needs improving, for example, I put that I was least confident at Flash but I was doing my graphic novel on Flash, even though at first , I thought this seemed stupid of me to do something in a program that I had least confidence in using. But I also did this to boost my skills in using Flash, because in order to make my novel, I would have to overcome problems with the novel, and learn about coding in Flash which I knew nothing about. I also did this because I wanted to give myself a challenge for the Final project, as I didnât want to just stick to Gamemaker like I had done previously.
 The second part of the proposal was the concept of my project, in this, I communicated clearly to the person who is reading the proposal my concept and what I was intending to do in the project, but in the outline I put that the novel will be heavy on visuals and the outcome of my novel was the complete opposite, it was focused heavily on the sound and the text. I feel as if my One Sheet communicated my idea more visually rather than the text that was placed on the document but I feel like this is really good because the layout of the one sheet catches your eye and makes you want to look more into the idea. Continuing in the same style as the one sheet, the design document communicates my idea very well, and to me, is very thorough and tells the reader everything they need to know about the game that I have decided in the pre-production stage of the novel. Finally, the Gantt Chart, I feel like I did not follow this very well because my time management is poor, the first half of the Gantt Chart was followed very well, but after coming back from the half term, I struggled to keep up with the Gantt Chart, doing things that were meant for later on, in that lesson instead of doing it in the other way around. And I feel like I really need to improve on my time management, and I will continue to try and improve on this by making Gantt charts in the future projects in year two.
For the production, I made an Interactive Graphic Novel on Adobe Flash. I originally wanted to make it a graphic novel with many panels, with one single button that every time you pressed it, it would reveal panel by panel. But with this, I thought it wouldnât suit my target audience as much as a multiple choice novel. I thought that doing a multiple choice, choose your own fate novel would be so much better for the audience because it was more adult like, and involved the reader a lot more. Also with the fact that I wanted the novel to affect you psychological and a normal graphic novel would not do so. I also asked in the survey about what the audience thought about the novel being changed the choose your own fate multiple choice novel, and 80% of the audience thought it was a really interesting and good idea, so I decided to go for this in the final production stages. My original idea too was to keep colours at a minimal amount, and I have kept this, I have only used black, white and red throughout the novel, but at the start, there are blues and pinks to indicate the characters genders in the character selection screen.
I could have improved my production 10 times better if I had given myself more than a week and half to create the novel, because this meant that I had to rush the novel, and fit a lot into one lesson which meant I spent a lot of my lessons stressing and constantly working to my full capabilities. And this soon made me burn out quickly because it was constantly on my mind all the time.
Next time, I would give myself at least 3 to 4 weeks to do the novel, and I would give myself much less time to do concept art, and be stricter on myself. I would also ask for more help when I needed the help with flash instead of spending a lot of time trying to do it myself, but this also improved my own skills in finding my own solutions to my problems.
Throughout this project, I have learnt how to use Adobe Flash, and learnt how to use Illustrator and Photoshop to a higher level. Because I didnât have any knowledge in flash before starting this project, I had to learn from scratch, and use a lot of trial and error. I also learnt how to construct posts more professionally, and more thorough. I have become more confident with my work as all of the projects have progressed which I am very proud of myself for, as I started this course with the smallest amount of confidence in myself. My favourite part of the project was the drawing aspect but also the research side of the project. I loved researching different themes for my project, because these themes I enjoyed to read about, thus making it enjoyable for me to research. I also enjoyed the drawing aspect because Iâve always used to enjoy drawing, and Iâve improved extremely on my drawing skills, and because there were no drawing guidelines to meet, I could draw however and whatever I wanted.  Although, I enjoyed drawing, I still struggled a lot on drawing as if I couldnât draw something, I would give up very easily. And again, when I started drawing, I struggled to finish the drawing off, so I came up with a good idea of missing out the face; I missed out the face because of two reasons, one being that I struggled with the actual facial features and two, I thought it would look much better without the facial features.  With all these skills, I will take them along with me up into year two, and continue to improve on these skills, as this will help me achieve a higher grade, and more professional looking products, along with a portfolio full of work that I am proud of.