Current Investergation

We have decided on a few aspects of the game which is my chosen route of investigation over the next few weeks:

* We need a map for the player to be able to see at any time, or at least some of the time. Due to the constraints of the screen I need to find a way in which the viewer can just view segments of the map. Need to think about the best way in which to achieve this segmentation. As there is no keyboard the usual method of pressing minus and plus cannot be used.
* The screen of the IPAQ needs to be looked at. The size 5.5cm/7.5cm does not leave much to be worked with. The colours will be important as well the contrasts. As the game will be played at night (to reduce sunlight problems, reflections etc) this is also something which might possibly cause issues.
* All of the clues will have to be entered into the programme by the player. This means setting up a ‘password’ style flash page. This in itself is not a problem however the way in which the player will do this is. Again lack of keyboard means that there will have to be another way around this. First thoughts are drag and drop, but then there’s the screen limitations etc.
* The Hourglass animation which will be on the screen when nothing else is, to show the passing of the time and to remind the player that there is a limited time span. Have figured out how to time it so it can last an hour however it relies on JAVA which I’m not sure the mobile Flash can support. Have no idea where this information can be found. Another way would be to not use JAVA and find another way around the time issue. A clock would be simply, however the animation of the sand running out is causing me sleepless nights. I might have to resort to just using a simple timer/clock which is going against the original design. Or simply having an animation of the hourglass which bares no resemblance to the actual passing of time. Every 15 minutes a ‘real’ timer will flash up as well as a voice file telling you that you only have such and such time left.
* Illustrations of the ‘other reality’. Due to the screen being so small, and the design verses sound issue which I will go into again at a later date, there is only going to be a few drawn illustrations. Although I agree with this (The viewer can hardly run around and be staring at the screen at the same time) I would have preferred less movement and more design and narrative but that’s just me! Most people will be interested in the puzzles and not how it looks (How people disappoint me…) However going back to the main issue; these will be drawn from taking the surrounding landscape and changing the buildings and the way it looks. I need to research this and decide what is going to be in these drawings. Preferably I would take my inspiration from the narrative, but the narrative is not going to cover aspects like this. So for example we want an illustration of the docks while you are walking along. The river will be there and the walkway but everything else can change. Have being toying with a few ideas. Pirate ship on the river, boats coming and going (easy to animate) People walking past etc (Mostly using stop frame animation – Simple drawings put in a sequence to represent time passing) Anyway need to research this.
* Film aspects: we won’t be filming the people speaking for a while however I want to look into effects to make them blend in more with the illustrations. Was very very briefly toying with the idea of rotroscoping them, which would be great, but having already done this before, and nearly driving myself mad in the process, plus there simply isn’t enough time, this has being abandoned. But like I mentioned I would still like the style to be vaguely similar. The original idea was to have them filmed on a mobile phone. This was to give the viewer the sense of the urgency in which they were made and the general DIY feel of the game. I would still like to keep this idea- however make slight changes so it can fit in more with the general design. Possibly just a Victorian border or simply a ‘browning’ or sepia mask to keep the colour schemes generally the same.

This is where I have got to. All this work, apart from the illustrations will hopefully be resolved in the next few weeks. Once I have gathered rough SWF files of all my ideas I will try them out on the IPAQ and see how it all works.

I will report my findings.