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Stuff to find

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Development

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Pitch sheet & game cover

A mock up game cover of what one could look like for a consul I think the game would suit. I think the reason I chose Nintendo Switch is because many of the games I consider peaceful and calming is on there.

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Pitch sheets

Looking at pitch sheets and sheets that showcase games elements will hopefully help me when creating mine. I really need to understand the important elements of a pitch sheet as I have never really made one before.

 My hope is that i can create one hat contains enough interesting explanation to make it something that would be appealing.

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Puuung

The illustrator here makes beautiful art and animations showing the simple things, this is something that should be more common. Not everything romantic or memorable has to be a big grand gesture or something hyper real.

As they say in the caption of their live that they have on constantly, the small things can emit the most happiness and love despite being often overlooked.

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Alternative Dimensions

Alternative dimensions, the multiverse, parallel universes where do all these ideas originate?

Alternative dimensions are able to exist without a universe within it and multiple universes can exist within the same dimension.

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What Remains Of Edith Finch 

This game follows Edith Jr exploring her abandoned childhood home, searching for clues on the family curse. The pregnent Edith wants to be able to explain her family to her future child as she is the last of their lineage. 

Throughout the game you play as her late family to learn their stories, with every story learnt a new set of drawings and dates is added to the family tree in her journal. The whole game is shown in first person so as you travel through the house and play through the families stories you do so through their eyes.

Thanks to the following of the family tree there are rooms that are frozen in time and untouched from how they would have been long ago. This allows for the house to play around with the aesthetics and eras that influence all the rooms. The variation of rooms makes it a game you want to keep playing to see how the next will look especially if you enjoy interiors of houses.

The game released in the year 2018 and in following years won a handful of awards for their storytelling and art.

As the player we are left never knowing if the three generation curse ended with Edith or if i continued, we do not know if it was even real or just superstition the grandmother bought upon the family.

The game itself is very atmospheric even when the story it is telling becomes unlikely or a bit silly you remain invested because you need to know what happened to the characters and this keeps you invested in all of the stories.

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Little Misfortune

The team behind the game was quite small as is the case with many indie games, but even with the limits they took on multiple roles in the development of the game to make it happen.

Little misfortune is an indie adventure game that was released   in 2019. The beauty of the game is it's cutesy deceiving look in comparison to the contents and story of the game. As the game itself follows a young girl on her path to the afterlife which you don't find out about until the end. The game is also considered a fantasy horror game which I  feel is a more accurate description of the style of game.

The style of the game has light linework framing both background and characters, usually in a similar colour which makes everything in the game look so much softer despite the dark story of the game.

A lot of games with similar styles and soft colour pallets came out around this game did. The look this and games like ‘Sally Face’ had were quite popular in indie ‘horror’ games around 2014-2018.

The game take about three hours to complete the story of it, but that is simply complete the story to gather all the ending and get the game to 100% it would take around two more hours rounding it up to a five hour game.

The character you play as is also one i find to be beautifully made. The character is only 8 years old and due to the homelife she lives her only escape is within her own imagination, which is why when she is scared she simply throws glitter to make things less scary.

The search for eternal happiness that Little misfortune is on is a much deeper subject than she is aware and she wants nothing more than to give this happiness to her mother, despite their bad relationship.

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Rockstar Games

Rockstar games have the choice for senseless violence in almost all their games. As a game company they have certintly made a name for themselves since being founded in 1998.

Some the their biggest franchises, GTA and Red Dead Redemption both have the options to play story mode, and a freeplay.

Rockstar is a huge company subsection with over 2000 employees. They are a subsection of the company Take-Two Interavtive.

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SuperGiant 

All of the gameplay within their games is usually shown from the same angle which allows for a clear  view of both the character and the surrounding world. This does mean that the gameplay between all of the games are similar, which is both a hold back and staple to their games in a way, this is as it makes the gameplay alike and can be considered boring or repetitive though it also give a signature look.

Their game hades earned game of the year in 2021. The game  has absolutely beautiful] character designs. The character design and artstyle is the main thing that pulls me toward games made by SuperGiant, this as well as the stunning soundtrack the games have makes for an amazing experience. 

A game having a good soundtrack will improve it without a doubt as it helps with the atmosphere and the sound design will assist the visuals.

There games are a visually stunning masterpiece and playing them is a treat to the eyes. Thanks to their signature style which os bought by the same artists: Joanne Tran, Morgane MalvilleCraig Harris, and Jen Zee. The two do an amazing job every game with everything from the lineweight to the colours and lighting bringing the look to a perfect style to life. Their team is made up of 22 people who all get a personal mention and description on their site.

Transistor is one of the games i have played personally and thoroughly enjoyed, While at first the mechanics of the game are a bit confusing to get used to, or at least were for me who skipped the explanation, they work very well within the game and the games world. I also just absolutely adore the art within the almost cutscene stories telling parts of the game.

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Harold Halibut

This handmade narrative game s made by the German game studio Slow-bros. Each scene was first thought up, written out and then sketches. They had a set architect, who built the scenes to a 1:10 scale using materials from welded metals, ages woods to children's clay. The sets would then be aged to appropriate levels, they were then ready to use. The final product would then be 3D scanned via photogrammetry, meaning the product can be assembled in 3D software and within the game engine Unity lighting and atmosphere can be added.

The handmade aesthetic of the game happened simply because of the lack of knowledge and practice the team had on the 3D software that could have gotten the same results in a different way. As the game idea progressed they realised what a great opportunity a truly hand crafted game could become if executed right.

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Why Do We Play Games?

Playing games is different for everyone. For some it is a hobby, a way to distress and for others it’s a competitive sport, some their job.

When we say games we all tend to think of one specific type of game, often video games or board games. Certain games have certain purposes such as calming farming games where you gather supplies to progress.

Games are a controlled form of freedom, they allow us to lead a life outside of our own. This freedom is incredibly alluring to due to the fairly formed way we all live.

China's Video Game Rules

New strict limits has been placed on how long young people can spend online playing games in china. Gaming has been described as something people become addicted to just like a drug, the only difference being the accessibility. Strict rule changes like this limit has caused shares in the biggest game company in the country to crumble.

While these kind of rules serve a purpose I cant imagine they are overly effective, lying about your age online is really quite easy or simply using someone else account. Unless they simply have different ways to setup gaming accounts than what i'm aware of there would be no real way to prove true age.

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PEGI Ratings

The PEGI system is a categorising system used to show what age groups games are deemed appropriate for.

A 12 PEGI rating would imply a game has non realistic looking violence but still contains the idea of violent acts, which can only result in minor injury. Where as a 18 rating shows gross violent acts that have no motive and can be performed on seemingly defenceless characters in game.

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The weapon of fear

Fear has been used as a way to control people since forever. The idea that one charismatic person is all it takes to control many is something quite scary in of itself.

A big historical example of this is Hitler and the Nazis who used fear to push their racist and anti semantic beliefs on the people they had power over. Their attempt at ethnic cleansing was so drastic and horrifying that the effects of it are still apparent today with both medical effects on survivors and the lost history of families of survivors.

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Boring real world stuff

The real world contains things like hidden societies and groups in power almost behind the scenes that we never hear much about. A an example that’s well known is the church of Scientology.

A lot of religions have at points in history been up against one another weather it be for land, power or simply due to disagreement. It’s still quite the Issue in some places in the world and religion is still prominent in the western world and creates bias but it’s not as big and issues in many places of the western world as it was say fourth years ago.