Game Design Doc - Work in progress

After not having posted on this blog in a while it's about time I did.
What's new with the design document.

Our game is based off the game Fatal Frame II. It is a J-Horror game that follows twins that use a camera also known as the 'Camera Obscura' to kill off the ghosts that they encounter.

My role with our group is to create and design concepts to illustrate some of items that you may find in-game, an exterior and interior design of our game, the map which forms the village and the HUD.

I first off started by researching the different architects of buildings which many ghostly sightings are found and the type of buildings that there usually at. I looked at a book called 'Phantoms of the Isles' by Simon Marsden. I found this to be helpful with the insight into the settings, theme and overall atmosphere in which these tales take place. One in particular that I found really interesting was the tale of 'Baldoon Castle'. The basic story is that a women falls in love with a penniless young nobleman however her parents did not approve of this and forced her to marry another man. It was then said although many different versions have been told that later the night after the ceremony had taken place with the wedding that the husband and wife resorted to their room. Later on servants heard screams and shrieks coming from the room, investigating they discovered the husband laying across the bed bleeding and the wife crouching in the corner muttering incoherently to herself. It is said that you can now see her on the grounds of which she used to live in her white dress gown keeping a lonely vigil for her lost love, the penniless nobleman.

The other book I looked through is 'Haunted castles of Britain and Ireland' by Richard Jones. I found this really helpful as I found a castle called 'Scotney Castle', it's based in Nr Lamberhurst, Kent. Although not a particularly a big castle its characteristics really drew me in. Its style and architecture intrigues me and many who have visit the castle have often said that 'the foundation lies within a time warp' - (Haunted castles of Britain and Ireland). This castle has inspired the idea from which we wanted to have a manor house in the village. The style I feel is perfect for our game and I will be looking closer at the architecture of it.

Scotney Castle

After much research and looking at the many different castles from the book I decided that this is the one, this one being the one I am most drawn to, it's history, it's stories and the style of it.

Next on my list was to look at what makes Fatal Frame 2 what is in terms of 'weapons', the camera. Our group discussed what this should be and if it should be as important as the one in FF2. We went through the many different variations in what type of camera it could be, this being one like the one in FF2, a digital camera or even a digital SLR. This also spored off from the main character being a journalist, more of a reason to have a camera. I then suggested a Polaroid camera. I have always been fascinated with this type of camera and have always wanted to own one but the one I would love is very expensive. So I started by looking a Polaroid in which I love and took inspiration from and drew up a design for it.

This is the influence from a Polaroid Z340, a digital Polaroid camera that is modern in this day and age. After showing the group we decided that this was not the right choice to have, it was too modern, too clean looking and didn't fit the games style. I went back and chose another design more to the fitting of the game.

A standard and more camera style of a Polaroid camea

Side view with a battery

This was it, this was the style in which we wanted the style of our Polaroid to look like. Remembering a camera shop not too far from the University media lab I told the group about it, it's a little camera shop that has hundreds of second hand cameras dating back as far as the 1940's I'd imagine. After having a meeting the group me and Kai decided to take a walk down to the shop to see if maybe they had any Polaroid cameras, for research and for my own hobby. The camera shop is called 'Phillips Cameras'. We went in and found out that the guy who owns the shop has a big box full of these cameras, much to our excitement we asked how much and ended up buying one each, each one cost £10, a bargain in my eyes, the only catch is that the film is the most expensive part, 8 films for £20 or so. Getting this camera helped with research into the style of the camera but also helped in the feel, weight and  perspective of the camera.

Here is a picture:

 

My dream of having an old styled Polaroid camera is now a reality

After spending time with the camera I made a quick sketch up of it in Photoshop:

grey scale of the chosen design piece

This is our camera. It's old, it has a certain character and charm to it that I love and the others like as well as having taken the inspiration from FF2.

Scotney Castle Image