Scrap/Recycling research

During the winter holidays, I have been gathering resources for my next project, revolving around the idea of recycling, during this time I have been gathering photographs of surfaces and waste, I have also watched a film called Soldier and played a game called Machinarium to look at different ways that scrap can be used and how it is used in forms of media such as films and games.

Machinarium

Machinarium is a point-and-click game developed by Amantia Design, which is also known for the Samorost series, the game is based in a world which is full of scrap, metals and plastics make up the landscape and the characters have similar characteristics, they are robots that look like they have been put together using the scraps of metal that cover the landscape, the buildings that have been built also have a similar feel to them.

The game follows a single robot on a quest to save his friends, which were kidnapped by a group of bullies which call themselves the brotherhood, the game uses drawings to portray the story, the robots do not speak, but make noises instead, the noises indicate a certain feeling that the robots are feeling at certain points or the noises indicate if the character needs to do something to access another area.

Machinarium appears to use a surrealism art style, this is shown in the outlandish environments, using items such as clocks for buildings and showers for fountains, the game appears to have been drawn by hand, using rough lines that go well with the feeling of the environment.

Soldier

Soldier (1998) is a film following a soldier called Todd 3465, a man trained from birth to become an inhuman killing machine, though the film does not focus on it, a large portion of the film is based on a disposal planet, in which waste is disposed of on the surface, with a group of refugees from a ship that crashed years ago and they have been left to fend for themselves, the refugees have built a village from the remains of the ship and with some of the waste that is dumped on the surface, the village itself is largely made up of metal scraps that seem to have come from the ship, they also show that most of the stuff is recycled and reused to grow food and repair the homes and other forms of shelter.

Recycling Research

Recycling is a process in which waste materials are re-used as new products, minimizing the waste of potentially useful materials while reducing the consumption of raw material and energy used to turn the raw material into a specified product, this in turn helps to reduce the volumes of air and water pollution and lower the high levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.

Recycling (a short story)

Recycling is a book by Stephen Livingston, which loosely relates a relationship between a mother and their daughter to the concept of recycling, it shows how the mother acts as if everything is waste due to the past, while the daughter is trying to help her see what can be reused instead of just tossed away.

Timeline of Consoles (Reupload)

Unfortunately, yesterday when I originally uploaded the timeline it became incredibly pixelated so I am re-uploading to try and solve the problem

Inventories

As my first assignment is about survival, an inventory is a good way of keeping track of all the items needed such as food, tools and resources so I have chosen a few games which make use of inventories to come up with some ideas.

The first game which has an inventory is Skyrim, it uses a fairly simple, if sometimes cluttered, inventory using a weight system, it has separate menus for things like items or spells, which then provides sub-menus to make it easier to navigate through things such as weapons, armour, scrolls, books, ingredients and potions.

Even with the sub-menus the UI can feel cluttered sometimes, especially when holding a lot of items, making it more difficult to find a certain thing.

Skyrim's inventory uses a weight system, more powerful items can sometimes weigh more, making you think about what you want to take with you, in some situations, you may be forced to drop items when exploring as going over the carry-able weight causes the player to become over-encumbered, making it very difficult to move around by disabling running, sprinting and also disabling fast travel.

When browsing the inventory you can see what the item currently selected looks like, you can freely move the object around on a point, you can also zoom in to take a closer look at the item, this is especially useful due to some items having important information on them, using the zoom on a book or note will allow you to read it.

 The UI will tell you important information such as how much weight you are carrying, how much you can carry, how much an item weighs, how much it is worth and how much damage the item will deal if it is a weapon or how much damage it will absorb if it is a piece of armour, it will also tell you if there are any enchantments on an item and, if one is there, what the enchantment does.

There is also a quick menu, which allows you to access favourited items quickly mid-game, it is extremely helpful during combat as it allows you to change weapons, armour and spells that are equipped and also allows you to use potions or poisons.

The second game I chose was Borderlands 2, the inventory is a limited space inventory, which allows you to carry a set amount of items, regardless of shape, size or type, though the limit is upgradable shortly after the beginning of the game, the inventory features up to four quick slots for weapons, a slot for an active shield, active grenade mod, active class mod and active relic, there is also the backpack which allows you to carry up to 27 slots for inactive items .

The UI is fairly simple and not so easily cluttered, due to the item limit, it displays important information to do with the items such as the damage rating, accuracy, rate of fire, reload time and clip size, it also displays an effects change and damage if applicable, along with extra bits of information such as a weapons zoom, ammo consumption and if the weapon is a disposable one.

The items name will be different in colour depending on the rarity of the item.

There is also a little extra 'badass rank' feature which allows you to modify stats of weapons slightly, this feature can be disabled.

My third and final game of choice was Torchlight 2, this game features a tile inventory, it allows you to easily sort the items in the backpack and also supports drag and drop for things like equipping items and storing them in a chest or trading between pets or other characters.

The UI for Torchlight 2's inventory is more helpful than in other games, due to when hovering the cursor over an item or weapon, it shows not only the information of the highlighted item, but for the equipped item or items that are used in a similar fashion as well, allowing you to compare items similar to the currently equipped ones much easier, it also tells you if the weapons use fast or slow attacks, if they have any empty sockets for augmentations, what augmentation effects a weapon has, what damage type the weapon will deal and how much damage it will deal.

You also have a pet in the game which has its own separate inventory, you can equip it with things like collars and tags but the pet can also be used to carry items back to your storage in town or as extra storage during a dungeon.

The things such as collars and tags can upgrade the dogs combat efficiency by improving damage, health and regeneration.

Goodmorning, Mr. Freeman

Hi, my name is Sam Leach and welcome to my blog!
I am studying computer game design in the hopes of entering the computer games industry, I hope to gain knowledge of what it takes to become a designer in the industry, I wish to gain knowledge with game engines and improve my artistic skills.

The game I played recently was ArmA 2, I enjoy this game due to the realistic nature of the engine as it has been used for things like military training and also the huge choice of mods, one of the best known being DayZ.