Week 1

Summer Project Display Lecture.

Having created a Pecha Kucha over the summer, I needed to think of at least 3 ideas about what my final project could be based on. I decided that one of my ideas could be a medieval fantasy, where a woman is ill and it is up to her husband to look after their daughter.
However, a long time friend named Igorim betrays the man and takes his daughter away from him. This idea will be a game, which follows the mans journey to get back his daughter. However, due to the amount of time that the animation has to be for this project, I cannot create the whole game, so I will create a short demo. When presenting my idea to my peers, it became apparent that many people liked this idea in the Pecha Kucha.

My second idea was more Christmas themed, but with a slight twist – a scenario where Santa crashes whilst trying to deliver presents due to a blizzard, and he tries to retrieve all the presents in time before Christmas Day. Similarly to Idea 1, this will also take the form of a game, which will depict Santa’s journey to retrieve all of the presents and all the different obstacles he has to overcome to achieve this. Again, due to the time the animation has to be, I will have to make this into a demo, but find the idea of creating a gameplay as well as cinematic animations on Unreal Engine 4 extremely fascinating.

My third idea was inspired by the story in Aesop’s Fables “The Dog and The Shadow”, which is about a dog who carries a piece of meat in his mouth to eat it in peace at home. On his way, he has to cross a bridge across a brook. As he crosses, he looks down and sees his own reflection in the water, and as he thinks it’s another dog with another piece of meat, he makes up his mind to have that also. He attempts to grab the piece of meat with his mouth, but as he opens his mouth his own piece of meat falls out, drops into the water and is lost. When presenting this idea, many people didn’t feel like the idea was developed enough. However, my personal opinion on this idea was that due to the simplicity of the idea, it would be easier to develop and it could allow me to add even more detail to the story. This also meant that less people would need to work with me, which means I wouldn’t need to be reliant on anyone to get the work done to how I would want it to be as I would be doing it myself. This is also a reason why I would consider this idea.