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Mood boards: Winnal Moors

Now that I had done some secondary research,  I wanted to explore the idea of woods and the darkness as usually you are concealed by the foliage and can barely see in front of you. 

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Near my house in Winchester, we have Winnal Moors, a nature walk and reserve. I have never personally been there- but I knew that it went into the woods and so I thought it might be a good idea to go out late at night and explore it to get photos and have primary research and experience on the emotions of physically being there and create a mood board of images. I decided to go at 2AM on 24th October 2020 with Marvin (he came with because it would be safer than going on my own and I am quite the scaredy-cat).

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In the end I did take a few photos (which I will show the mood board of soon), but I found that maybe it would be better to film the experience. A visual mood board taken through videography. Marvin and I joked that it could be a found footage film if we actually did end up in an accident and I then decided to upload the videos onto YouTube in parts (I had to put it in a playlist because it uploaded them out of order):

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This is the route we took!

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With the video and the mood board of things I saw that were creepy, I really think it gave me an even better idea on how I can go about with my idea of planning out how to make my game scary and really draw on that anticipation.

 

Through the videos, Marvin and I even discuss things that I could do in terms of with my game- the idea of the jump-scare at the start (especially that I was scared by the cat), making you feel cautions and on edge for the rest of the game. I was able to keep my fears in check because I was able to talk with Marvin and try and keep myself distracted from the scary vibes of not being able to see terribly far infant of me. However, in my game, people wouldn't have that. The players would only have themselves to talk too.

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Which leads into another possible mechanic idea that I may try and explore at a later date: the idea of the game being mic sensitive. Maybe certain creatures will react to you more depending on the more noise you make while you talk. Another thing I recently saw in a game called 'Phasmophobia' - a ghost hunting game- where if you say you are afraid or don't like what's going on, the games UI takes note and targets you more. What if I did this with mine where the more scared you are- the more active it gets (though there would still need to be a base line of activity or people who are harder to scare wouldn't have a good experience).

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Another ANOTHER, thing I want to pick up on is the idea of how woods could work into this with why the payer could be there. Much like the police man idea- maybe we could have the main character be a Park Ranger (Just brainstorming- nothing is set in stone yet)?

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Overall, I really think that I am starting to form better ideas and even more concepts from what I have been able to find through my research so far. 

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New Plan of Action
  • Mood Board for ideas of environment design.

  • Explore 'Anticipation.

  • Concepts.

So, in the end, though Valkar did suggest 'Mirrors', I don't want to be influenced or make a mechanic based off it. Thus, I have adapted my Plan. I have done the mood boards, so now it'll be onto exploring the emotion/ feeling of anticipation (maybe even the psychology behind it) and maybe do some concepts based off of some of the pictures I took and the idea of gaining inspiration from Trevor Henderson.

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I am excited to continue my research into this idea and hopefully will begin to develop more and decide which location will be best. I may even ask my classmates after I've done some visual mock ups!

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Footage gathered and reflected on 24th October 2020.

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