Digital Media Project Proposal

Dear Collaborative Team of Artists,

As some of you may remember from Wednesday's class, I have two specific concepts for my project. The project, overall, is going to be as much pre-production work as possible for a video game concept that I come up with. The video game, if it were to be finished, would be in a side-scrolling/platformer format with 3-D aspects. Some points of reference for this are The New Super Mario Bros. Wii, Epic Mickey (specific levels), and Donkey Kong Country Returns. The pre-production work will include both 2-D and 3-D work. The 2-D work will include concept art of environments/levels, character(s), enemies, and possibly user interfaces The 3-D work will include bringing the concept art to life with a few 3-D renderings of characters, enemies, or levels. I will create most of my work using both Photoshop and Maya.

Now onto the more difficult part of this project... selecting a concept. I want this project to be part of the work I show for my BFA mid-program review and my overall thesis for the BFA program so a strong concept is important. Here are the two specific ideas I have for the video game:

1. Sewer
My idea for this concept stemmed from an early childhood fear of being pulled into the drain of a shower or sucked into the whirlpool of a flushing toilet. I think the concept of this game surrounding that basic childhood fear could be relatable to most people, making the connection from the player to the game stronger. Or I could just be alone in having that fear as a child, who knows! The game would encompass one main character, a child, being sucked into the shower drain and spirited away to the sewer underworld and forced to fight her way out. The gameplay would all take place within the sewer, so all the environments/levels would reflect that. I also thought there could be a specific antagonist attempting to prevent her from escaping by constantly changing the sewer environment, this could be an interesting alternative to the classic onslaught of random enemies attacking a character.

2. Lucid
This concept is all based on the ideas behind a lucid dream state that the character would be experiencing. What got me interested in this concept is the lack of control that most people have over their dreams and how someone might wake up and wish they could have changed the outcome of that specific dream. Although some people can achieve entering a lucid dream state, it would be interesting to be able to have that control within the setting of a video game. The game would include a main character, possibly rendered in some sort of neutral fashion so anyone could relate to him/her. The levels could be more creative in this concept, perhaps overcoming huge obstacles that might occur in most dreams rather than combating enemies or a specific antagonist.

I think those descriptions are specific enough, but I can always add more during the class discussion.

Thanks Everyone!

Lindsay