Source Analysis - Creating Emotion in Games (D. Freeman)

After doing some research in week one, one book in particular looked to have some useful content that could help our project in terms of the player’s emotions toward characters. After borrowing the book from the library and having a brief read through the contents page, I discovered that there were a number of chapters discussing game NPCs.

The full downloadable .pdf version can be found here

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Discussion - Source organisation?

As we build up a list of sources, I think we'd be best to find some way of organising them.

Should we list by quality/how useful the source is? Or by the field of the source?

Like Lewis said, we'll have quite a few by week ten (or even week three at this rate) so we should figure this out beforehand. Character and Game case studies break easily enough into their own sections, so they shouldn't be a problem.

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Discussion - More succinct case studies?

While it is good to have this much written this soon it is a fact that most of these case studies are for our benefit more than the lecturers'.

What we are looking for in these character studies is not details on the character but what traits make them interesting to players. If it gets to week 10 and we have to trawl through 12k words for a few useful lines about what makes interesting/believable character we're going to regret it.

It's really good work thats been done so far though, it's just a little bit too much good work.

Any thoughts?

PS. This is being posted here because I will be far too tired to say this in any meaningful capacity tomorrow and it will be nice to show us using the blog for meaningful discussion.

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Source Analysis - Better Game Characters By Design (K. Isbister)

As part of the teams research into non-playable characters in games, I borrowed the book 'Better Games Characters by Design' written by Katherine Isbister. I've created a three page document analysing certain areas of the source that are relevant to our project.

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Character Study - The Gman (Half Life 2)


As a part of the team's study into NPC characters, this week I researched the enigmatic Gman, from the Half Life series. The full case study can be found here.

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Who are we?

Team Fable is a group of five students working on their 'Level 3 Team Project' at the University of Bolton.

All posts and work uploaded to this blog will be monitored by assessors and all content will count towards the teams final mark.

What is our aim?

Our project aim is to research the usage of non-playable characters in games and investigate what drives player reactions to them.

By researching into this, we hope to evolve storytelling in games by defining the characteristics players find most compelling in NPCs, ultimately leaving with more engaging characters.

What are our roles?

The team roles are as follows:

Kyle Cherry - Research & Documentation.
Lee Sparkes - Human Resources.
Lewis Morgan - Level Design Lead.
Adam Parker - Art Design Lead.
Stephen Austin - Testing Lead.

Despite having specific lead roles, all members in the group will contribute to all areas of the project.

Contact

  • Kyle Cherry - kc1gcc@bolton.ac.uk
  • Lee Sparkes - las1gcc@bolton.ac.uk
  • Lewis Morgan - lrm1gcc@bolton.ac.uk
  • Adam Parker - ajp1gcc@bolton.ac.uk
  • Stephen Austin - swa1gcc@bolton.ac.uk