Primary research
For these first two questions- I was able to gather simple information surrounding the participants, these being their age and gender identity which would contribute to the understanding of statistics within opinions linking back to these two pieces of information, for example, it was shown that most participants being 80% were male and 60% of all were 18. These pieces of information add to the details of answers that are given, such as, in this survey, more detailed answers either came from the older respondents and the under 18s. It adds to the respondent information in general and helps to place answers into categories deemed by that and can relate back into percentages depending on similar or opposite answers. The second question relating to the gender identity of the respondent is also important to gain some knowledge of the person's identity and, again, helps feed certain respondents into certain categories depending- however, in relation to this, I did not gain many people identifying as anything other than male or female, the dominant percentage being of males (80%). There was nothing, in my eyes, wrong with any of these questions and both helped me to get a grasp of the information surrounding our survey respondents.
For the third question, I believe the answers for these were relevant and helpful towards the percentages of respondents- when relating back to future answers and overall data after assessing these- however, the answer of one participant was placed in other when they merely mentioned another word for their chosen specialism which was already listed and so this means not everyone read through the answers clearly. For the fourth question, most of the responses were extremely unhelpful as these people did not go into much depth about why their positive opinion on my idea was that way, they responded with comments such as "sounds cool" and along the lines of that, only few others went into detail about their opinion, and one was also negative but did not hold a very good statement in their defense as I will mention later. On response that shined light on my idea also gave their own view of video games like this by saying "making most of the cartoon/kids style to make you feel more secure and then flipping it". Overall, this question was written out well, could possibly have gone into more depth surrounding my idea, however, at the time I did only have simple storyboards and a slight idea. Reflecting onto the answers, most were unhelpful and did not at all show opinions addressed on my idea.
Going onto the fifth question, I asked respondents to state what they would expect to see in a video game trailer for a game surrounding the same theme and genre as mine- giving them an opportunity to mention any games they know in reference, on the other hand, only few had much to say about it that added any input or other helpful ideas- going back to the similar, effortless responses that were given for the fourth question. An example of this effortless energy was "horror", "anything relevant" and "creepy mannequin" since the ideas were not expanded on, explained of why or listed much else. "Really happy scenes that slowly get more twisted and disturbing" was an answer more on the level of detailed as this helped me picture what they would expect to see, relating and referring to other games that I know with a similar theme such as Fran Bow and Omori. I believe that the question itself held no issues and was enough to gain at least one response that helped me visualize something in terms of future ideas for the game trailer I would be making. For the sixth question, this was where I went onto the colour palate options for the game trailer, asking of the respondents chosen colours and a reason as for why. Most went for darker colours such as black, another survey respondent say greyscale and two mentioned red and atmospheric colours. These helped me to an extent to grasp a colour palate visually appealing and relative to the topic, nature and theme of my game trailer. For this question I think there was enough detail in what was asked and few decent responses- there were not many who commented on the reasoning behind these choices, however, they were much more helpful than most of the previous responses from questions before.
Onto the seventh question in the survey, I went further into questioning about the colour options of my game trailer, adding about more saturated or unsaturated scenes which involves the intensity of colour- one answer was "a mixture of both", someone also mentioned that high saturation would be good for the cartoon style artwork which helped me to picture where about in the trailer I would add this, giving more ideas and helping towards the overall storyboard idea. There were also very unhelpful answers for this survey question, involving answers such as "you can't really intensify black so not really" when there were more colours to saturate that would apply into the cartoon parts. Another unhelpful answer said "any" which shows no effort or interest in my question or the help that could be given in relation to my ideas. The last answer also mentioned "unsaturated because it's supposed to be scary not welcoming", however, there are many video games, art designs and movies that show intensification of colours to make a scene feel much more uneasy and frightening in most cases- and so the respondent did not think clearly as they were answering this question. Question 8 went onto asking for any psychological or indie RPG games that the respondent might know and to list something about the game itself that intrigued them such as the art style, storyline, gameplay, assets or characters and in response to this, 3 out of the 5 respondents wrote more detailed answers. One mentioned Danganronpa and stated the colours could be used as reference, another mentioned the Turing Test as it makes you feel that you are not in control, and questions your entire persona. The last-mentioned Little Nightmares in referral to the art style of this game. All these responses were of some help to extent as they made me see from the consumers side what some people would want in a game related to mine. The unhelpful answers involved one mentioning a video game but with no description on what features they like about the game and so provides a useless answer for me. The last respondent just said "no "which was not needed as the question, this time, was optional and so could have easily been skipped by this respondent. There was not much wrong in relation to the questions themselves but a few respondants were not detailed enough or left useless responses, however, there were few that did put in the effort that was noticable and helped add and impact my own ideas at the time.
For question 9, I mentioned the inspirations for my upcoming game trailer and asked the survey respondents to each pick a favourite from these in relation to the art style of each- 4 out of 5 respondents picked the game Little Nightmares, most being as they did not know any of the other games mentioned- however I had the original intent on having each participant of my survey go out of their way to at least look at each of the individual art styles of the video games but unfortunately most did not do this- two picked the game without any reasoning, another stated they like the "creepy art style" and how it makes ordinary objects "turn scary" and the last mentioned because of the colour scheme. The very last respondent said they had never played any of these games, however, there was no need to play any of them, all that had to be done was a little research for the game's art style- it was not a difficult task, but no one picked up on this. Finally, for the 10th question of my survey, I related back to the previous question, except this time I was asking about what was liked of the storyline if any respondent had played any of these games (being in mind this was an optional question). Two of the respondents answered with Little Nightmares, stating either about the twists or the art style- one out of these mentioned both. Then, going onto the useless answers, one said they have not got one, but as I mentioned before the question was optional so they could have easily skipped this one and the last did mention the video game INSIDE, stating the twists interest them however they had more of a cocky persona and placed ""spoil without spoiling it"" before their answer which was unnecessary. As a whole, more of these answers mainly for the last question were useful, on the other hand, there could have been much more added in relation to why it interested them, of course I did mention to do this without spoiling it but they could have mentioned how the music develops or the scenes become more eerie- there was a lot more to mention than what was in the respondents' answers. Question 9 was one of the most useless questions as there was not much gathered here and most people did not go out of their way to do extra research, which could have been a fault from my side as maybe if I would have stated people search these games then more people may have followed that task and had written more helpful responses to this question.
Evaluation of primary research
In response to the survey answers I have very few that help me in any way as most are quite lacking in relation to quality and meaning of their chosen answers. The answers that do help me, however, are detailed responses from the most recent participants 4 and 5 that addressed their opinions surrounding my idea clearly, one had fair reasoning as to why and both even provided me of a video game with a similar genre- I noticed the data from this showed that this respondent 4 was one of the eldest, having put the over 20 answer for age, being male and the 5th was 18 being female. Out of all 5 respondents 60% were 18, 20% were under the age of 18 and 20% were 20+. The insights also show me that 80% of respondents were male and 20% were female- meaning no gender queer people participated. 60% of people put that they were 3D modelers, 20% were programmers and the final 20% chose the "other" option, putting down that they were a game developer (unsure as to why they did not just put programmer).
Most of the participants had a positive viewing of my idea for a psychological horror surrounding a cartoon-ish concept, however the game developer explained that psychological horror cannot be attempted with cheerful pictures, in their words saying "cartoon will take away from psychological horror" when this is factually incorrect as the entire point of that genre of horror is to affect you in many ways possible mentally- we can think about movies such as Midsomer that is bright throughout the entire movie but still holds a dark meaning subject to the events that occur as the story folds, Little Misfortune which is only classified as a horror, adventure game also presents that of a cute cartoon and innocent nature through-out with adult jokes featured every now and then and yet it still manages to create a dark feeling within the player as they bond with the protagonist. From this point, we can all just agree that nothing must be visually dark to be dark within meaning and there are many video games and movies that can back up this fact. You can even have video games with frightening-looking cartoon art styles like INSIDE, Sally Face and Little Nightmares and all of which have succeeded in gaining a heavy fanbase.
To continue with the helpful responses- for the 5th question asking about the respondents' expectations of a video game trailer with a cartoon-styled indie/psychological theme and the best response to this was "really happy scenes that get more twisted and disturbing" as this gives me knowledge of the respondent in their field of psychological games and it also adds to my ideas for the practical work of my game trailer. Another mentioned "story explanation and character introduction" in response to this question which made me think a lot harder about the concepts of each character I have visually crafted in my brain and how I will present them in this trailer, helping me to visualize various concept pieces to do in future.
Secondary Research
Video game Trailers
Images from the Little Nightmares 2 trailer:
Game Research
Little Nightmares 2:
This puzzle platformer from 2021 has a unique style involving realism and horror, it donates part of this style through its short teaser trailer- enticing the viewer to pre-order with its mysterious and dangerous atmosphere. Within this trailer, the textures of each model are also a feature of realism and present the viewer with stunning graphics, also used as another means of getting them to purchase the video game. Within the topology; the trailer begins with a warning- labelling the game as a 16 (teen on the American trailer) then transitioning to the character Mono within the hospital level, then showing the company name "Tarsier" who made the franchise. It then proceeds to show the gameplay as well as text showing critic reviews and ratings before finally showing the title and its release date. The texture work for Little Nightmares- surrounding the 3D models- is heavily detailed, many objects appear very realistic compared to the real-life references such as the flooring, water, counters and walls.
For the theme of Little Nightmares, it surrounds a colossal-type yet claustrophobic universe that contains horrifying beings and creatures, its main theme when discussing the storyline is hunger as the protagonist, Six, is constantly hungry after each of the five chapters, however, hunger evolves quickly from something small to something horrifying in itself. The scale of this video game is, as mentioned previously, quite broad in terms of the story's universe yet in certain areas- such as the places filled with enemies or pipes you can travel through are quite claustrophobic. The first game sells at around £20 or less, the deluxe edition being slightly more, the DLC for the game "Secrets of the Maw" is around £5 and the most recent sequel is £25.99 or £49.99 for the pre order deluxe that contains the game, soundtrack, a small DLC, a figure of Mono and Six as well as conceptual artwork from the concept artists. It did well financially as the first game was already a major success in its obscene and claustrophobic atmosphere, the antagonists that chase after the main character and its storyline.
Surrounding the historical context of the video game, its currently a head cannon (fan theory), however, it is most likely that the universe is based in World War two or around it as a lot of the areas appear old and themes within the game suggest strong and dark allegories of the holocaust and the deaths of soldiers within war.
Images from the INSIDE trailer:
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Game Research
The style surrounding this adventure, puzzle platformer surfaces the dark and allegory of capitalism through dull, agoraphobic areas that populate this universe. It conveys the corruptive nature of humanity whilst allowing you to play a protagonist whose existence comes in between the midst of a dark project. The topology surrounding the video games trailer begins with a rating of "mature" telling us the aimed audience is for people ages 17 and up, then showing various areas of the game before, after a few images, showing the companies name, and then giving us a first glimpse of our protagonist and a bit of gameplay. The gameplay shows us the protagonist running through different areas before stopping to view inside something all the non-player characters are also viewing before the camera finally pans out to reveal its title. There is also a teaser trailer that came out a few months before the final one in 2016, starting off with an office filled with people, flicking to dialogue and then back to various areas of a lab with people testing something we, as the consumer, do not know, then showing its title.
For the texture in this video game, the various 3D models that scatter and fill the map are filled with detail that shows us the objects cleanliness, texture and scale. Most of the models and textures of the flooring capture the rain and the moisture of the ground during the rain itself. The theme surrounding this game was, as mentioned before, capitalism according to various head-cannons and through its representation of zombie-like non-player-characters that are featured in few areas around the beginning of the game. For the actual story itself, the game leads you through a corrupt universe, confused of what is happening or the actual goal until the protagonist is stuck within the middle of an experiment gone wrong. The scale of this video game in terms of its universe is quite large, expressing a more agoraphobic yet lonely type of universe in few parts of the game. The game is priced around £15 and within the pack of both Playdead's games (the company who made it) INSIDE and Limbo it costs around £20. There is also a special edition that features the ps4 game sold on its own with various prints of the concept artwork and a scale figure of the experiment shown at the end of the game that stands at around $375 dollars. I believe the main theme of this game that made it sell well was its eerie visuals, pacing of the storyline and how every scene connected through audio and smooth transitions as well as the obscurities it presents through various metaphorical meanings.
For the historical context, I believe INSIDE is supposed to represent an alternate/metaphorical version of our own universe currently, so it is during the 21st century.
Images from the Fran Bow trailer:
Game Research
This point and click puzzle game features a horrific and saddening story of a young girl at years old witnessing the corpses of her dead mother and father, basing its story's theme around her escaping a mental asylum, getting her cat Mr. Midnight back before finding her Aunt Grace. For the topology of the game trailer from back in 2015 begins with the company name, showing slideshows that feature dialogue that hint at the first turn of events before transitioning to actual gameplay and back to the dark events taken place at her house. It then features more gameplay of different areas and characters before showing us the game title and release date. For the texture within this game, it is all featured through 2D artwork and does not feature 3D models, the artwork for the environments, characters and assets are very detailed but to a cartoon-type style and so not fully realistic.
The theme of this game is focused on the psychotic expressions of a young child who has lost her parents and has been put under medication named "Duotine" that affects her perception of the world and its 5 different realms. Adding to this, the video game is very expressive in horrific ways and so its genre is horror/psychological horror. The scale of this click and point video game is small in terms of size and can probably be completed in four hours or less, level wise it can take around half an hour for the longer levels such as chapter 3 and 5, especially if you are going to analyze various background objects, characters and complete side quests for achievements. Its price is around £10 for the full game but it also has a free demo that is available on steam. The theme of this that made it do well financially was its dark themes on trauma, the fictional, yet disturbing, visualization of medication and its puzzle-based story. I also believe its unique artwork by Natalia had a part to play in this.
The history of this game itself centers around the 1940s and for the game's development, it had a very early demo on the play store around 2014 before finally being released as a full and improved game in 2015.
Art station for Little Nightmares 2
Concept art by Arnt Jensen (PLAYDEAD founder)
Concept art for Fran Bow
For the entirety of my secondary research, I added consecutive detail through-out, making sure to provide reference images, their links and descriptions about each that also refer to the various topics, assets and information about each video game- I also mentioned the game trailers of each of these which was my main theme as of my final piece being a game trailer itself. There could have been a few more images added for the concept part of the research, however, I am impressed overall with my descriptions for each video games' trailer and the analysis of their storylines/themes. There was also a lot added in relation to my bibliography for the secondary research as I added many images from each video game to provide images from each of their trailers. There could have also been more information that involved me referring to how each game worked as an inspiration for me and my idea of creating a game trailer, how I may take inspiration from concepts, storyline and layout to add to my own trailer and I could have gone into detail about this. There was an issue, on the other hand, within my own time management and so other work was instead focused on during this time.
Colour theory
Colour theory is the concept of human-computer interaction through colour itself, acting as visual communication- for example, when presenting emotions, it is done through specific colours to emphasize these emptions and bring them to life, also creating colour coordination for various assets in video games. These can then share a reaction with the viewer/player through emotion, mood and behavioral change. It is simply the concept surrounding the emotional effects and colour indicators of specific assets within video games to separate each of them for human understanding. As an example, the colour green is used to represent the health bar in most video games, associating the human brain with green to symbolize positivity, health and nature. Red will be the opposite of this, it is sometimes a colour used for other features in games such as a layout of an enemy, it can be the shown colour for a low health bar also to show the player their character is dying, red helping to present danger. It is also a very sensitive theory as if you add too many colours this can clash together and confuse the player so it's best to keep the colours to a minimum. Colour schemes are used within this and these are taken from the colour wheel which holds primary, secondary and tertiary colours- there are also various ways of getting colour schemes from these. For example, you can use a monochromatic colour scheme which involves the same colour in various shades, tints and tones, this colour scheme is much easier on the eyes and so creates a more soothing reaction. Another scheme is called analogous, this is a dominant colour surrounded by those similar that support it, these supportive colours help to create a visually appealing aspect. Complementary is another colour scheme which involves more shades of a specific colour that consists of only two contrasting colours, this scheme is most important when the goal is to attract the viewers' attention. As mentioned before, each colour creates a specific feeling and holds various meanings- red being used to attract attention, representing love, anger, energy; orange representing fun, energy also; yellow being happiness, attention, warmth; green being growth, success, nature; blue meaning trust, comfort, peacefulness; purple for luxury, wisdom creativity; black for mystery, power and finally white symbolizing health, cleanliness and innocence.
The colour theory will be an important part of my work, specifically the artwork and simple concepts for it as it will involve creating more saturated pieces, followed by unsaturated and sketches without colour, making sure to add colour schemes in certain pieces to create emotional effects- it is important as each piece will give off a specific aura following emotions such as happiness, fear and sadness. For the more intense scenes surrounding fear I will use red tones, cooler blue tones for the calmer scenes and possibly black and white for the sad scenes to represent emptiness. I mainly want to use bright colours as this links back to a more cartoon-ish vibe, making these pieces high in saturation. The references for these pieces will mainly be from Omori as the colour scheme I am using is the most like this game. White will be the dominant colour for my concepts of Usagi as he is innocent during the first part of the trailer, but this will develop through-out, as will Shi be going from black to blue.
The colours I have selected for my colour scheme are red, blue, and white (followed with black), I have chosen these as, as I mentioned before, each colour will represent the emotion that is strongly felt in that scene. I will use the monochromatic colour scheme for the concepts of Shi, analogous scheme for the happy moments within the trailer, and simply black and white for the emptiness.
References:
What Is Color Theory? Meaning & Fundamentals | Adobe XD Ideas
Shape theory
Shape theory is used within character design to express certain features of the character, backgrounds and certain emotions within the characters with shapes. For example, when creating an angry character, more aggressive shapes are presented such as sharper, bolder shapes like triangles to also add emphasis to the character's presence and their personality to be visual. It is used before an actual finished piece also, starting with circular features to add detail to a simple sketch and used within the finalizing of certain pieces to create an innocent and younger look, square shape methods are then used from this to define the sketch more, these features are also used in a character concept to define the confidence of a character. The triangular shape method, which is the most dynamic out of these methods, is used for the formation of strong, angular lines- this method is very popular within antagonists to create a fear factor within the player/viewer (as this is used broadly within other forms of media than just video games). The sharper features create an uneasy, untrustworthy feeling within us as the viewer and the character itself. These are also mixed up for certain characters, for example, when creating a complex character various features can be used to present the complexities of their persona- representing an innocent character within softer, more circular shapes to their posture being squarer to represent their contrasting confidence from their shy facial features. The law of thirds then goes onto the proportions of each of the three main features of a character, being the head, torso and legs- as, for example, these may not all be equal, some characters may present themselves with a bigger head compared to their small body- creating a visually unique character concept. These feature changes within the law of thirds can also make it easier for the viewer to remember and favourite certain characters, increasing them in popularity for these quirky features. Realism versus idealization then comes into play, this is where we create a specific character concept from an image of a real person, sketching the proportions accurately to then changing them to atone to a certain style for the final piece. For example, it can draft from realism to a cartoon style that takes inspiration from other various work.
For the pieces that I will be making involving simple concepts, I will use softer and rounder shapes like circles to create the protagonist who will present a more innocent and happier look before drastically depriving him of these features to add emptiness, changing the imagery to be black and white. His simple sketches will be from circular outlines that will become bolder to keep some of the circular look,- I will then create a concept skipping in time to when he ages, defining his features to be squarer so I can then represent his growth in confidence once he plans to set out and find his mother. Before this part of the story when meeting Shi for the first time I will make it so that his hair is quite triangular and square to show his defensive side from being left alone in the forest. For the other character, Shi, I will present him to be slightly triangular in areas to show the uncertainty of his character as Usagi will be unconfident and on the defensive.
References:
Shape Theory In Character Design – Richard's FMP blog (wordpress.com)
Design theory
Design theory addresses the structures of the design of a piece, the communicated message for the viewer and this involves the analysis of each part of the design including line, composition, space, scale- basically all the fundamentals of creating visually communicative content- also involving photography and illustration. For what I am working on, it will be an analysis of the structure of my game trailer, how it plays together and the possible animation that may be added.
For the game trailer, I will put together the various pieces of artwork that I have worked on, fitting into certain places dialogue that will follow some of the game's storyline, giving the viewers a brief understanding of the game's background. I plan to transition from bright, vibrant colours to black and white to present the feeling of emptiness and sudden loss of the main character before transitioning to a more tense and frightening atmosphere with darker colours. This will be structured within either After Effects or Premiere Pro. The messages that will be communicated will be of the storyline and will mainly be done through art and colour- creating an emotion and mood change towards the viewer. There may also be music added which will be taken from royalty free music online that fits the concept- this will most likely mean changing the music when the games narrative becomes obvious.