What I did during my time in the Scholastic Collab

The Parsons Scholastic collab was a great lesson in large group design. The professors, Isaac Souweine and David Langendoen, brought a rough concept for a monster battling RPG for children 8 to 12 years of age to the class. During the first several weeks we spent time in small groups refining the concept and coming up with different manifestations. Some ended up in the final document others missed the mark, but as a whole all helped to steer the direction of our game. During this phase I first worked with Scott Hartman and Cicek Neftci. We came up with several variations on concepts we felt would make good additions to the games core design. These themes included duel identities, monster collection, and player taking the role of a monster. I than worked with Karim Carreia. Our goal was to take some of the concepts garnered from the first concept round and develop a holistic game concept. Our concept centered around a players moral choices. This concept missed the mark, it was geared towards an older crowd than our target demographic, though it was a valuable exercise and helped solidify the concepts of customization and player choosing there game experience for me moving into the next phase.

Our professors took all of the concepts from the previous rounds and funneled them into one cohesive concept. From this point forward we would be split into groups with specific functions: Art, Interface and Game Design. My request to be put into the game design group was granted. I worked with Nancy Wei on further developing the presented concept. Nancy and I had a lot of fun developing the concept and creating our design presentation.

For the final phase of the project our goal was to come up with a game brief. Here individuals focuses narrowed on flushing out specific aspects of the design. I spent most of my time developing the branching quest structure.

Overall this class was worth taking and I am satisfied with the output.


From the begining


Scholastic hiku
for explaining what I did
game design monster

The Hartman Experience

Awesome Interface
Player Room Illustration
All of this Scott made

What?

Matt's Work Haiku

Interface design?
Map illustrations? Quest view?
The catalogue? Yes.


* I worked on the interface design with Scott. We came up with the solution of map access and the final functionality of the nodal quest view. I also completed the illustrations for the map, designed the interface background/frame, the catalogue design, and was the lead presenter for the project.

Cicek and Carolina (continue)

The fun part of the process was the interpretation of Phillip’s story. Cicek and I tried to stick to the narrative as possible and imagine spaces, colors, shapes, and objects that will help bring the story to life. The design choices were always influenced by how the characters occupy and interact with the space. Our design process was a constant sketch iteration process, based on 2D space views and perspectives, which gave the illusion of 3D spaces.

We think that at the end the biggest learning experience we gain was working as a “little team” inside a huge team. Decisions sometimes were difficult to make, and keeping a unify visual language was as well. Not all the work was produced as a team and a lot was “lost in translation”.

At the end, all that is left to say is THANKS ALL!!!

Carolina and Cicek

As a part of the visual design group we were mostly responsible in coloring the overall game and designing the worlds. Carolina made the raw designs for the world and I destroyed her artwork with color :)





Next to that Carolina also designed the moodboards for the game, which carried different color palettes for different elements (character, world etc) of the game. And finally I messed around with a small animation of the transition of the mirror.

Game Design - Phase 3 Process Documentation (Nancy)

Week 1
- Went over new game document, discussed what to keep, what not to keep, and decided on monster suit classes and general story direction
- Listed out Player Room specs and brainstormed on Realm Map navigation (first stage realm map navigation)
- This was when Philip's 42pg document was created :) went back to edit game documents and incorporate story (ex. mirror/closet)

Week 2
- Further discussed the gameplay as it relates to narrative with discussion or feedback from class
- Created a document on the social aspect of game, and worked with Philip to tie narrative to game

Week 3
- Listed out all important game specs for PowerPoint (preparation)
- Revised social aspect of game through class feedback and critique (evoked more questions)

Week 4
- Listed out PowerPoint slide orders, key points and necessary arts for visual design team (group discussion)

Final Weeks
- Worked on putting together presentation PowerPoint
- Helped with Graphic Design team (3 graphics with references to Philip's sketch)







Philip's Sketch