Getting back into the flow of it

This summer has been a great learning curve for me, it was spent working as a QA Tester at TT Fusion, a sub-studio of TT Games, in Wilmslow. While working there, I got a taste of how it will be to work within the games industry; I met new people and got a valuable insight of the inner workings of game development. 


As should be expected, I also sunk a good portion of my free time into playing games. There was a heavy focus on games that invoke a sense of nostalgia (I'm looking at you, Sonic Mania and Crash Bandicoot N-Sane Trilogy!). 

I love this knuckle-head echidna

Last week I also took a trip to EGX, where I was able to play lots of up and coming AAA and indie titles, as well as getting the opportunity to speak with developers who were proudly showcasing their work.

As September draws to a close and after a brief reflection on the last couple of months, it's finally time to get my thinking cap on for my next year of dedicated study. Masters was kicked off with a short talk about the research side of the course, where we were given an introductory brief and a walking tour of the local architecture and history of the city. 

The other segment of the day took place in the studio where I'm going to be spending approximately 80% of my time in the coming months. A showcase of previous students' work was shown to us to give us an idea of what we should strive for, what kind of work gets top marks and different ideas of how to format this work.

What I took from this is that - as well as working to better their abilities in their chosen field (or even exploring something new) - each student had a subject or a question in mind when they created their work. This lead me to think of a couple of questions of my own that I would be interested in answering. The reason I chose the following questions is because I feel I will be able to expand on my interest in character design (and maybe even some narration!) and also focus on theoretical writing.

The first question I had in mind was "What makes a good mascot character?". This question was sparked as a result of wanting to expand my repertoire of art, I felt this question might help me to branch away from humanoid designs. With this I could explore design, symmetry, a memorable character silhouette, colour theory and even consider how a target audience or demographic might affect marketing and advertising with a mascot character.

This leads me on to the second question I had thought of: "How does marketing and design change from East to West?" - this question was derived from the first one, but this one has a greater focus on the cultural impact a character or game's design might have on how it is presented or even the in-game context of characters or subjects. For example, a game that is marketed as cute, bright and inherently romantic in Japan could be released to the West under a more gritty guise with an angle geared towards characters who are more cool and more muted colours might be used.

I think it's important to constantly strive for inspiration, even when I feel like I haven't done much. As such I aim to update this blog at least once a week with new things I've done. That could be something small like games I've played or a new level I've tried; something I've seen around me on a walk or visiting a point of interest or even movies I've watched that have made me think about something. For now, I'm going back to my Switch to get some "inspiration" by getting annihilated in Splatoon 2 and Mario Kart 8 Deluxe!

At least I can't lose in Amiibo photo mode!