I will outline an idea for a revisit to a concept I developed during my time at the BRIT School. I intend on updating the idea with more sophisticated art and design skills and a more developed point of view. I am motivated by current events, a strengthening of my political beliefs. I also want to work on my burnout and rebuild my confidence by looking at my past work which I can see clear room for improvement in, meaning this project will be deeply personal.
In my original project, I did research into narrative driven games of a similar nature, air pollution, viable domed structures as well as earthquakes. These aspects were significant to my final goal which was to create a short demo. In this revisit I am not going to create a demo, so I want to focus more closely on world building and informing my design with the narrative. For this reason, I want to look more into social and economic injustice in our current climate crisis and how the top 1% can afford to escape disasters, leaving humanity behind. Some pieces of media I can use are the movie Don't Look Up and the Fallout franchise. I also want to tackle intersectionality in systematic issues, i.e. how racism, transphobia, misogyny and ableism all link which each other and poverty to create a complex and covert system that keeps wealth flowing upwards whilst common people that benefit from those systems are none the wiser. I believe this is and idea that I was beginning to discover but I wasn't informed enough to realise at the time.
I will also expand my focus towards the groups of people that reside outside the Domes, exploring the possibility of multiple concurring levels of injustice; at the same time as the people of the Domes are being abandoned by the wealthy ruling class, generations of people have been locked out, left to suffocate. I will explore how they survived outside of the Domes.
The dialogue I wrote is fairly embarrassing. My dialogue for Dean as smug and self-centred came across as childish, as it was clear I did not have a clear enough understanding on how to write complex characters. There is also a clear self-insert character in Priya, which I absolutely intend on reconceptualising. The other NPCs also have amateur dialogue which is uncharacteristic of what should be grown adults. I may explore characters by writing their interactions in script format alongside sketches. This can allow me to form some developed ideas on the characters by fleshing them out in a form that has a much lower level of commitment that an actual game demo. I will be taking inspiration from Disco Elysium on how it beautifully writes sophisticated and simultaneously unlikeable characters.
The first step will be to examine my original workflow and pick out parts I felt were strong ideas with potential, as well as sections I can improve and develop and additionally any new concepts I want to explore. The outcome will be a clearer idea of what additional research I need to undertake, as well as what artwork I will be doing. I will then create a project plan. I do not currently have an idea of time frame. As always it is important I keep an open mind towards changing ideas and be prepared to kill my darlings in the case that an idea is not strong enough. In the event that this is found by any interested parties, I would love to hear anything from you, feedback and suggestions are much appreciated <3
