The project has begun, the time for work is now.
One of the first things we decided as a group was our individual roles, with mine being Art Director (along with Mushu). After the initial formalities of group organisation we quickly started throwing down some ideas to see what stuck. The two ideas that were the stickiest turned out to be The Circus and The Mansion.
The Circus
^ circus moodbaord ^
^ mansion lobby moodbaord ^
This was one of our first ideas, and my personal favourite. Scanning down a list of Victorian entertainments the images conjured by the Travelling Circus; of brightly coloured circus tents, wild beasts and travelling performers seemed the most inviting. We were able to quickly identify the potential this setting had, e.g. we could each have our own tent to work on which could then focus on areas we personally enjoyed more. Going with this individual tent theme, we each went off to gather resources on our chosen tents/acts.
During our critical studies lecture with Emma, I realised that our pretty little circus scene lacked objective for the player. So I had a thought, what if the player had tasks to complete at each of our tents and a goal to achieve at the end of it all. A different style of task could be given at each tent, a jumping puzzle or a riddle perhaps. The overall drive could be a lost item, and who loses more items than children (and cares enough about said item to scour an empty circus in search of it).
^ circus moodbaord ^
^ circus cart sketches ^
The Mansion
The Mansion was an accumulation of our remaining idea scraps. We took a list of Victorian methods of entertainment, such as Ouija boards, playing cards, keeping exotic pets, children's playrooms and assigned each of them to a room in our mansion. The idea was that the player would make their way through the house, experiencing each form of entertainment. While this concept included many different forms of entertainment, I feel it lacked the open-ness of the circus idea, with it being set within a building and so there was less to experiment with.
^ mansion lobby moodbaord ^
^ ouija board room moodboard ^
With our two ideas decided upon, we set out to gather resource, create sketches, scribble on moodboards and jumble it all together into a presentation for our tutors.
