Falacy of New Media / Balance
You know, I dislike being berated in front of a class. Some might even go so far as to call it... insulting. I'll ignore that.
I'm getting kind of tired of the constant and repeated equalization of the terms 'New Media' and 'Web Design'. I'm beginning to doubt that Jules Elder, the Centennial head of New Media, even knows that there is a difference. You'd think that for a writer, he'd be aware of the fundamental differences stickly in terminology alone. But what can be done?
I was thinking about flash projects to do. I don't know when we will be doing flash assignments, but I'm aware we have to do some sort of intense interactive flash piece, either this term or next, and I'm looking forwards to that.
I was trying to think along the lines of what Black Dave did last year, the only example I saw (but a clearly awesome example), of the journey of a mannequin. Not overly complicated, but engaging and pleasant -- it had a storybook feel. I'd link to it, in fact, but I don't know where it could be found... Maybe Dave'll link it. :P
So, following that lead, and going for sort of a simplified visually based game, I aimed on oldschool arcade gameplay mechanics and then follow that with sort of ethereal art -- symbolic, but meaningful. What I came up with, off the top of my head, was something I call (when I wrote it down) 'Balance'.
The idea is simple. A soul, free of a physical body, must traverse the world and grow in order to reach the next stage in its existance. Game play wise, this means controlling a glowing point on the screen with the mouse, which would move a bit like a bubble or similarly floaty, and try to collect other little colored lights. You would start off dark, or black, and as you collect other colors, you'd change colors. The idea would be to stay neutral, which you'd do by collecting all the colours equally to stay in the greytones. Eventually, the player gets bigger and bigger and becomming brighter until eventually they are white, which would be the end of the game. So nothing revolutionary there.
But my aim would be to make it very brilliant, graphically. I'd be running the game thematically on the elements (obv), and the idea would be based on how the elements impact a person spiritually. So, as the game progressed or as particular actions were taken (say a player collects a particular ammount of one element) the player would have written messages (unobtrusively, probably accompanied with audio) appear to refelct the philosophy of the event.
The graphical style I'm thinking of would be best described as ethereal, or dreamscapey. I'm not sure how complex the interactions would become, I'm thinking simple navigation of a medium sized world, but I might consider terrain or something more.
Thoughts?
- Kagirinai
I'm getting kind of tired of the constant and repeated equalization of the terms 'New Media' and 'Web Design'. I'm beginning to doubt that Jules Elder, the Centennial head of New Media, even knows that there is a difference. You'd think that for a writer, he'd be aware of the fundamental differences stickly in terminology alone. But what can be done?
I was thinking about flash projects to do. I don't know when we will be doing flash assignments, but I'm aware we have to do some sort of intense interactive flash piece, either this term or next, and I'm looking forwards to that.
I was trying to think along the lines of what Black Dave did last year, the only example I saw (but a clearly awesome example), of the journey of a mannequin. Not overly complicated, but engaging and pleasant -- it had a storybook feel. I'd link to it, in fact, but I don't know where it could be found... Maybe Dave'll link it. :P
So, following that lead, and going for sort of a simplified visually based game, I aimed on oldschool arcade gameplay mechanics and then follow that with sort of ethereal art -- symbolic, but meaningful. What I came up with, off the top of my head, was something I call (when I wrote it down) 'Balance'.
The idea is simple. A soul, free of a physical body, must traverse the world and grow in order to reach the next stage in its existance. Game play wise, this means controlling a glowing point on the screen with the mouse, which would move a bit like a bubble or similarly floaty, and try to collect other little colored lights. You would start off dark, or black, and as you collect other colors, you'd change colors. The idea would be to stay neutral, which you'd do by collecting all the colours equally to stay in the greytones. Eventually, the player gets bigger and bigger and becomming brighter until eventually they are white, which would be the end of the game. So nothing revolutionary there.
But my aim would be to make it very brilliant, graphically. I'd be running the game thematically on the elements (obv), and the idea would be based on how the elements impact a person spiritually. So, as the game progressed or as particular actions were taken (say a player collects a particular ammount of one element) the player would have written messages (unobtrusively, probably accompanied with audio) appear to refelct the philosophy of the event.
The graphical style I'm thinking of would be best described as ethereal, or dreamscapey. I'm not sure how complex the interactions would become, I'm thinking simple navigation of a medium sized world, but I might consider terrain or something more.
Thoughts?
- Kagirinai