View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by Cardinal Scholar TRANSPLANTED A VIDEO GAME A CREATIVE PROJECT SUBMITTED TO THE GRADUATE SCHOOL IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE MASTER OF FINE ARTS BY BEN FULCHER BRAD CONDIE—ADVISOR BALL STATE UNIVERSITY MAY 2019 TABLE OF CONTENTS List of Images 3 Abstract 5 Statement of the Problem 6 Review of Influences and Literature 11 Description and Images of the Artwork 23 Conclusion 30 Exhibition Statement 31 Bibliography 32 1 List of Images Figure 1. Seth MacFarlane, Scene from Family Guy episode 1, “Death Has a Shadow” January 31, 1999. http://familyguy.wikia.com/wiki/Kool-Aid_Man (Accessed November 7, 2018) Figure 2. Robert McKimson, title card from Daffy Doodles. 1946. http://cartoonresearch.com/index.php/robert-mckimsons-daffy-doodles-1946/ (Accessed November 7, 2018) Figure 3. Marcel Duchamp, L.H.O.O.Q. 1919. https://www.toutfait.com/unmaking_the_museum/LHOOQ.html (Accessed November 7, 2018) Figure 4. Yves Klein, Le Saut Dans Le Vide (Leap Into the Void). 1960. https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/works-of-art/1992.5112/ (Accessed November 7, 2018) Figure 5. Yves Klein, Zone de Sensebilite Picturale Immaterielle (Zone of Immaterial Pictorial Sensibility). 1959. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zone_de_Sensibilit%C3%A9_Picturale_Immat%C3%A9rie lle (Accessed November 7, 2018) Figure 6. Namco, Katamari Damacy. 2004. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katamari_Damacy (Accessed November 7, 2018) Figure 7. thatgamecompany. Journey. 2012. https://www.dualshockers.com/journey- community-celebrates-fifth-anniversary-nostalgia-event/ (Accessed November 7. 2018) Figure 8. Image of hand-made props for Transplanted. Dining plates, a CD player, headphones, a broom, and a toilet can be seen. Objects were made using modeling clay, acrylic paint, and various household materials. Figure 9. Proof of concept image of the bedroom from Transplanted. Boxes in the room have not been opened. Figure 10. Image of Elaine puppet from Transplanted video game. Elaine was hand-made as a stop motion puppet. She is the main protagonist, and the image shows the character in her initial outfit. Figure 11. Proof of concept image of the bathroom from Transplanted. Figure 12. Proof of concept image of the living room from Transplanted. 2 Figure 13. Proof of concept image of the kitchen from Transplanted. Figure 14. Image of the final dirty version of the bedroom. Figure 15. Image of the final clean version of the bedroom. Figure 16. Image of the final dirty version of the bathroom. Figure 17. Image of the final clean version of the bathroom. Figure 18. Image of the final dirty version of the living room and kitchen. Figure 19. Image of the final clean version of the living room and kitchen. 3 Abstract For this Creative Project I have created a stop-motion video game. The game is compiled using the Unity game engine, and all assets are created by hand. The narrative of the game is about a young girl who moves to a new home after graduating from college. She quickly develops depression and never finishes unpacking her boxes. After a year has passed, she receives a mysterious plant in the mail. She begins taking care of the plant, and in turn, the plant helps to motivate her to take care of herself and start unpacking all her literal baggage. The character will unpack four rooms, each aligning with a stage in the Transtheoretical Model of change. The game mechanics are simple, with a focus on accessibility to an audience that may not be familiar with many video games. The goal of this project is to create a video game that is visually unique, while also serving as a conduit for empowerment through learning how to elicit change on a personal, internal level. I am combining the media of stop-motion animation, visual story-telling, and video game development in order to create a playable game. My goal is that this project helps to elevate the medium of video games and animation into the sphere of fine art. This Creative Project is a collaborative effort where I have worked with Emily Thornton, a fellow graduate student. In working together, we have been allowed the ability to work on a much larger scope. While working together we have also learned critical communicative and group working skills that relate to the standards of traditional video game and animation industries. 4 Statement of the Problem Within the last one-hundred years, animation has crept into the pantheon of Fine Art as well as commercial media. With the appearance of programming blocks like Adult Swim and shows like Family Guy, animation has developed more adult tastes and more nuanced story telling devices. On a shorter time frame, the same can be said for video games. But what does it take for a video game to pass over from passive entertainment to a complex, audience-driven journey? What differentiates Saturday morning cartoons from the films of Don Hertzfeldt or William Kentridge? What does it take for a viewer to recontextualize how they view film, animation, and video games? Can a video game be a catalyst for personal growth and change? I explore these issues in my Creative Project. Emily Thornton, a fellow animation graduate student and game developer, and I are creating a stop-motion video game for our Creative Project. We are creating film sets and props, photographing real-life constructed scenes, animating characters, importing photos into a video game creation software (the Unity game engine), writing computer programs and scripts, and finally compiling all this information into a playable video game. The goal of this project is to create a video game that subverts the expectations of its medium and shows the wide breadth of expression that can come from video games. Narratively, the game follows a young girl who has just moved after graduating college. Upon moving in to her new home, she develops depression, losing all motivation to unpack and clean her house. A year after moving in, she receives a plant at her front door. In learning to take care of this plant, the girl works up the motivation to start taking care of herself. She begins unpacking old boxes, pulling herself out of her depression while doing so. 5 While the action within the game is somewhat benign, the premise goes beyond simple gameplay mechanics. The character cleans four rooms throughout the game; each room represents one stage of the Transtheoretical Model of Change. While the character is cleaning boxes and old baggage out of her home, literal cleaning will represent a placeholder for any internal baggage that the audience may have. The hope is for the player to walk away from the game feeling as if they can make personal changes in their own lives. Video games have been aligned towards fine art for some time now. Games such as Journey, Ico, and Shadow of the Colossus straddle the line between mild entertainment and visual art. These games push the boundary of video games by removing many of the traditional video game elements: tutorials, coins, health points, and maps. In exchange, these games rely on the player to test the waters and experience the game on their own accord, along with a sense of untethered freedom. Atmosphere is created in the digital landscapes, but also through emotionally charged spaces that parallel what the player character is internally experiencing. In Shadow of the Colossus, the game consists of large rolling plains, and winding mountain trails that lead to tough enemies. These landscapes foreshadow what the player will be facing and create tension, similar to the building of anticipation that music creates in horror movies. By doing away with traditional interfaces and giving the player freedom, the player becomes immersed in these game spaces both digitally and emotionally. Many of the games previously mentioned create vast spaces, whether physically or emotionally, in which the player is completely immersed. In Journey, the player is tasked with guiding a non-descript character towards the top of a mountain. Through the 6 journey, this character traverses multiple landscapes, dodging obstacles and aggressive creatures. The expected play-time is relatively short, but leaves an existential void when the game is over. At one point towards the end, the character is walking forward in a blizzard, assuming they are going in the direction of their destination. For some time the player is only holding a joystick in one direction, no enemies or obstructions are in the way. Visually, there is only snow, mechanically there is only one button being pressed. However, through the emotional landscape rather than the physical, the game places the player in a strange, new space. This use of literal and emotional landscape in order to facilitate change and response is what I am creating in Transplanted; while the character never leaves her home, there is an emotional change and growth that occurs internally. Typically, most game environments use 3D modeling software to create involved, detailed worlds. Even with 2D games, such as the original Super Mario Bros, computer graphics are utilized in creating backgrounds and objects. Instead of computer created graphics, I am working in the mode of stop-motion in order to create video game assets. While the number of games that straddle the line of art and entertainment are growing, the use of stop-motion in game design is still relatively novel. Stop-motion is used in a few video games, Armikrogg and Harold Halibut to name two, but is rarely seen in most commercial games. It is primarily reserved for films and television, and most of the medium is used in small scale, artistic, and experimental endeavors.