CALLUM COLLINS:
Exegesis Working Doc
GAME AND SOUND DESIGNER
week 1: Reading reflections
Maarit, Makela. Nithikul, Nimkulrat. "Reflection and Documentation in Practice-Led Design Research". Nordic Design Research Conference 2011 Helsinki www.nordes.org
This article is a good starting point for thinking and reflecting on what it is to be a designer and the processes we use in our practice. It is useful for me because it gives me a structure to use when unpacking my tacit knowledge of design.
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The paper has many good references for further information on practice-based/led research but summarises them concisely, and explains the reflective process that designers use; Reflection-in-action and reflection-on-action.
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"Reflection-in-action indicates a process in which practitioners encounter an unusual situation and have to take a different course of action from that which they usually do or have originally planned"
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"reflection-on-action includes an analytical process in which practitioners reflect their thinking, actions, and feelings in connection to
particular events in their professional practice"
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The other part I found useful was the modes of documentation described as; documentation of making artifacts, and documentation for making artifacts.
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"Documentation of making artefacts – takes place at the same time as the artist-researcher gradually forms material into artefacts."
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"Documentation for making artefacts – arises before the actual creation of artefacts when the artist-researcher is in the process of searching inspiration for his/her creation."
Manning, Erin, and Massumi, Brian. "Thought in the Act: Passages in the Ecology of Experience." Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2014. Accessed May 1, 2021. ProQuest Ebook Central.
I found this chapter very hard to read the first time I went through it. I found the poetic language and structure inconvenient and a little distracting as if it was trying to make its fairly simple statements sound more impressive. I managed to read through this poetic structure and pull the information I needed out but it was very difficult. I feel like if I can sit down and focus on the reading and reflect on it with a notepad, I might be able to understand it a little better.
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What I took from the article was the concepts of; friends and guests, axis, vibrations, and the documentation of practice in research.
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Friends of research are the contexts (books, articles, games, films, etc.) that you both agree and disagree with. They should always be around when you work. When working, the artist may invite more guests, who could become friends, as the artifact is created.
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The axis of the work can be thought of as the practice itself. The methods, ideation, and development of ideas. This axis is known only by the artist, it needs to be documented to exist. Sometimes the artist does not have an axis when making, this could be thought of as practice-led research and how it is the making itself that drives the creative process. An axis is formed but not known until the artist reflects and documents it.
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The vibrations of the work are unseen but felt. It's the connection between artworks; the accidents, the process itself. The force of thought.
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Questionnaire: Part 1
What, in detail, is your creative practice?
My creative practice is game design and development. The development of the game is the technical elements of practice; level, character, environment design. The programming of mechanics and systems, the animation of characters, the creation of assets. Game design is the thought behind each of these elements. It is why the level, character, environment is designed in such a way. It is the thought behind the gameplay, the mechanics, and how the player is going to engage with the game to have fun.
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How do you define practice-based research?
I define practice-based research as a collection of references and ideation that justifies the need for the practice to explore the idea. The practice cannot exist as research without the pre-production of contextualization and ideation.
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Why do you want to use practice-based research?
I use practice-based research because of the importance of contextualization within game design. Games are the combination of many different practices and elements, they require time and planning and if the planning has not been explored effectively using practice-based research, the game could not have the intended result, a failure, and a loss of development direction.
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Do you want the practice to help your research or the research to help your practice?
I want the research to help the practice.
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How do you think that formalized research could help your creativity?
Nothing is created in a vacuum, the ideas that inspire my practice come from somewhere and it is important to have these "friends" present throughout the practice to maintain direction and inspire new ideas.
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How do you think that formalized research could hinder your creativity?
Too much research can leave me confused as to what it is I'm trying to create with my practice. This gives me more ideas, forming more prototypes, but this also increases the scope of my project, leading to less polished prototypes.
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How do you think that your creative practice could help your research?
My research would not exist without my creative practice.
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How do you think that creative practice could hinder your research?
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Same as above?
Questionnaire: Part 2
Identify and describe four skills or techniques that you most often apply in your practice.
Skill A: Programming
Skill B: Grey boxing (Level Design)
Skill C: Asset creation (2D/3D)
Skill D: Lighting/Postprocessing
What is your strongest skill set? (A, B, C or D). Why?
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My strongest skill would be programming (A). All the other skills I use are only implemented if the mechanics I have programmed work. If the prototype I have programmed works, then I will go through each of the other skills in that order to complete the prototype.
What is your weakest skill set? (A, B, C or D). Why? Is this a skill you need to hone further to achieve the aims of your research project?
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My weakest skill would be level design. I understand how to create a good level in the pre-production stage, and how to teach the player how to play the game by slowly introducing new mechanics through the level design; However, I struggle to get this knowledge into the production stage of the project.
Is there a skill you do not have that you need to complete your research project?
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I don't have much experience creating dynamic sound effects in games which is a crucial part of this research project. I am currently researching different tools and techniques I can use to implement sound effects in a game, currently, I am exploring the tool FMOD which seems to be the best tool for the job.
Ideation: Level Design
Fast mapping
Fast writing
The level design process usually starts with the ideas of mechanics and systems the player is going to engage with. These mechanics are what drive the level design and the flow of the game. Once these mechanics are established (not all of them just most of them). Then the designer can begin the process of grey boxing. This involves using grey boxes, or temporary art, in place of the actual art, to create the level for playtesting.
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At this stage the playtesting should be mostly trial and error with small changes to the level being made as the playtester discovers what they can and cant do.
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Can the player finish the level or get past a particular obstacle?
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Once the level is complete and the player is able to get through it, the grey boxing is used to now analyse if the player can actually enjoy the level. The level should be challenging but not too challenging. This all depends on the mood of the stage/level.
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Is this supposed to be a hard part of the game where the player has to try again and again to get it right? Why is this?
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These are the questions that the designer needs to ask while designing the level at this stage.
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After the level has been tested thoroughly, the art assets can be designed and implemented into the level.
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week 2: Reading reflections
Candy, Linda, and Ernest Edmonds. "Practice-based research in the creative arts: Foundations and futures from the front line." Leonardo 51, no. 1 (2018): 63-69.
In this text, Linda Candy continues to collect the writings of other practice-based research theorists and reflect on new discoveries, as well as providing clear descriptions of how practice-based and practice-led research are presented.
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• "If a creative artifact is the basis of the contribution to knowledge, the research is practice-based."
• "If the research leads primarily to new understandings about practice, it is practice-led."
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Using examples of other practice-based PhP, Linda Candy proves that practice-based research does not conform with traditional research, however it is still research and that the practice and the artifact of that practice are critical to the reflection and documentation of the research. The artifact and the evidence of it can generate new knowledge within a wider context, not just personal insight.
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Hamilton, Jillian. "The voices of the exegesis." In Pre-Conference Proceedings of Practice, Knowledge, Vision: Doctoral Education in Design Conference, pp. 340-343. The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, 2011.
In "Voices of the exegesis", Jillian Hamilton discusses the various elements of the exegesis including the importance of the author's paradigm (the positioning of the research), as;
"the writer of the connective exegesis cannot adopt a singular, objective, third-person voice."
The position of the artist is integral to the creation and reflection of making in art and design, however, the exegesis is still a formal presentation of research and as such;
"The author must also contend with adopting and integrating a range of writing styles: from the high academic styles of theory, analysis and exposition to the explorative, intimate, first-person accounts of the diarist, reporter, and reflective practitioner."
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To keep these multiple tones and styles of theory cohesive, Jillian suggests the author uses different strategies to transition between the 'I' and the 'it' of the research; 'I' referring to the methodology, practice and reflection and 'it', the field of inquiry and the data.
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"designers must also incorporate the voices of others that are reflected in the quantitative and qualitative methods used to evidence outcomes and research claims–such as user needs analyses, focus groups, trials and usability testing. Embracing these responsive voices requires another econciliation of the personal, and often informal, speech of others and the objectivity of the ‘data’ they provide"
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The importance of the polyvocal is far more than simply the backing up of assumptions and methods; the 'voices of the exegesis' are an integral part of breaking the structure of academic text, which has been predominantly that of the "privileged voice and centralising powers of institutions."
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Going further than polyvocal text, the polythesis is another powerful tool the author can use to combine different voices and perspectives.
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"polythesis: an understanding that comes out of the interplay of voices rather than merely their co-presentation"
Fast writing 2: part 1
Reflection on Fast Writing 1
My practice relies on the relationship of sound and level design being effectively communicated to the player. Each element/stage of the level design needs to respond and evaluate sound as if it were a core mechanic in the game. For example, the technique of grey-boxing could be applied to sound design, making use of temporary sounds and iterating on the sounds in unison with the level.
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Reflection after feedback
The central question I pose in this question is: How can I effectively communicate the relationship between the sound and level design of my game to the player?
The outcome I think will happen is:
To achieve this outcome I will need to explore the level design process and reflect on how the pipeline can be influenced or adapted to suit a multidisciplinary approach, that of sound and level combined. I need to look at other references to understand how this might work in the real world. If it is possible, and what are some of the negative effects of these hybrid techniques. My hunch is that the use of temporary sound to rapidly iterate on the sound design during the grey boxing stage is that these temporary sounds will influence the final sounds. I believe this hunch comes from the film industry where a temporary soundtrack is used for scenes during the storyboarding and even the production stages and as changes are made visually to the story, the soundtrack is forgotten and can even become a mainstay; the temporary sound has been cemented as the sound for the film and so now when the real soundtrack is composed, it has to match the temporary one, creating an uninspiring/bland track
I would like to avoid this scenario and I think I could be done as long as the sound is iterated on with the level. This way the sound changes and reminds the designer that this is a living thing that needs to be developed too.
Some examples, that come to mind where I can take inspiration are flower by thatgamescompany, where the designers of the game paid close attention to the sound design and adapted the level design to suit the sound. This is a good start but the development is still one-sided; the level design is being influenced by the sounds instead of the level influencing the sound. The goal of this idea is to have both techniques/elements treated equally during the design process.
Ideation 2
How can the relationship between sound and level design be effectively communicated to the player?
While it would be adventitious to have the entire game thought out and conceived, this is unlikely. The designer will need to respond to the changes in the game dynamically, and as such, level design and sound design can change at any point. This is why grey boxing is an effective technique for designing a level. It takes far less time to develop the grey boxes and temporary assets to create a functional level.
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However, how does the sound influence this process?
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Sound needs to be treated as a mechanic in the game. When the player has an ability/mechanic such as double jump, the level needs to be designed to accommodate this mechanic; the level should have jumps that use this feature and jumps that do not. But sound is so much more than a mechanic; it can both influence and be influenced by the level design.
For example: in a typical shooter game, the sound is used to tell the player where the enemies are and what their teammates are trying to tell them. It is also used to build tension and engage the player. However, the level, characters, and enemies have already been created and polished. The level design is influencing the sound design.
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In the game , flower, by thatgamescompany, sound design is what influences the level design. Each flower was given its sounds and through playtesting, the flower placement was refined to make sure the sound was perfect.
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1 Sentence Statement
The iterative design process of level design, using grey-boxing, needs to effectively address the sound design to communicate the level progression and tone to the player.
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week 3: Reading Reflections
Candy, Linda. "Reflection Through Research." The Creative Reflective Practitioner: Research Through Making and Practice. Routledge, 2019.
This text by Linda Candy, builds on the previous points of the other article above, however, the focus of this chapter is the reflective nature of practice-based research. She points out that practice-based research is not only effective at producing new knowledge, it is also useful for the practitioner to reflect upon the nature of their practice.
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"Reflection through research can provide a rich source of new understanding about the nature of creative practice for the practitioners themselves"
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One of the draw-backs of practice-based research is the;
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"extra effort required to continue creative practice and, at the same time, carry out research, can be a difficult experience, especially in the early stages."
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Despite this, it is the practitioner's mindset that allows them to look more deeply into matters rather than accepting things at face value. The practitioner is always looking deeper and by using the tools, methods and techniques, the practitioner can apply this mindset to research.
Anable, Aubrey. "Touching Games." Playing with feelings: Video games and affect. U of Minnesota Press, 2018.
The sensation of touch is an important part of game design. The interactive nature of the medium allows for and encourages the player to engage and manipulate it, using touch. While the controller or keyboard is the main way we interact with games, the mobile touchscreen has surpassed these two tactile interfaces to become the most intimate form of tactile engagement.
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'Touching Games' investigates the relationship between touch and affect in games, using game design terms such as 'Game Feel', to identify the impact of touch and its role in phenomenological or affective dimensions of games.
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For my own project, this is an interesting article; If I want to emotionally engage the player, but don't want to research emotional responses or playtest, document and iterate using emotional feedback, then 'affect' may be the 'so what' or goal of my research.
Draft Thesis Statement:
If games tell stories through visuals and interactive gameplay, how can I design a game using ludic and narrative sounds, in unison with the core gameplay, to emotionally engage the player in the tone/mood of a game? Sound is an underused element of game design; outside of game design, sound and music are excellent narrative devices in film and animation, so why is sound not utilised more in game design? This research intends to explore the field of game sound design and discover what techniques and tools can be used to realise the potential of sound as a narrative device, and going further, engaging the player emotionally in that narrative. The artifacts that will be produced during this research will act as examples, providing an approach to sound design in games for other designers to iterate on and continue exploring as a field of inquiry.
Research Matrix:
Sound in game design
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1: Denis, Zlobin. "Ludic and Narrative sound in games." UX Collective 2021. https://uxdesign.cc/ludic-and-narrative-sound-in-games-3fc52dbbfee1
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2: Steve, Johnson. "The Sound Design of Journey." Gamasutra 2012.
https://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/179039/the_sound_design_of_journey.php?print=1
1: In this text, a model is defined to compare the uses of sound in games from a ludo-logical and narratological lens. One of my aims is to use sound with a narrative focus (sound in narratology) to use sound to direct the player through the game; this is an example of ludic sound design.
2: This text summarises one of my case studies and references other games and authors who have used similar techniques to communicate the narrative and level design to the player effectively.
Level Design
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1: Matt Thorson. "Level Design Workshop: Designing Celeste". GDC. 2017
2: Gillian Smith. "Launchpad: A Rhythm-Based Level Generator for 2-D Platformers". COMPUTATIONAL INTELLIGENCE AND AI IN GAMES, VOL. 3, NO. 1, MARCH 2011
1: In this GDC talk, Matt Thorson explains the techniques and design choices he and his team made during the development of the game Celeste, a very well-received platformer game. His level design techniques are an excellent reference and starting point for creating prototype levels that have rhythm and flow for the player.
2: Launchpad is a program for procedurally generating levels using Rhythm Groups, which Gillian Smith describes as the rhythm of actions within a level. When creating a 2D platformer, the rhythm of action is a critical part of designing "flow" and engaging the player with the pacing of the level or stage of the game.
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Narrative Design
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1: Thomas, K. "In the Games of Madness: 4 Layers, A Narrative Design Approach" Frictional Games (2014). https://frictionalgames.blogspot.com/2014/04/4-layers-narrative-design-approach.html
2: Wang, Hengbo. "Dear Diary: an investigation of emotionally engaging computer game narratives." Auckland University of Technology. (2015).
1: This first article details how Fricitional Games uses a 4-layer approach to design narrative in their games, which have been credited as excellent narrative games. The references are lacking in this article however the findings are based on their practice, their games Amnesia and SOMA being the artifacts.
2: This is a previous AUT exegesis with a focus on narrative design, through level design elements. Wang describes how he made subtle design choices when it came to each area or object in a given scene to make sure that the narrative was cohesive throughout the game.
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Emotional Engineering
1: Stephane Bura. "Emotional Engineering: A Scientific Approach For Understanding Game Appeal." Gamasutra 2008. https://gamasutra.com/view/feature/3738/emotional_engineering_a_scientific_.php?print=1
2: Erik Geslin, Laurent Jégou, Danny Beaudoin. "How Colour Properties can be used to elicit emotions in video games." International Journal of Computer Games Technology, vol. 2016. https://doi.org/10.1155/2016/5182768
1: This article presents a model that can be used to analyse how a particular design choice will affect the player's engagement and the overall flow of the game. It is primarily focused on player choice as the means of engaging the player. The model is very dynamic and well documented with several examples from other games. The process of designing this model is documented and the sources referenced so there are further relevant readings that could be helpful for my research.
2: This article discusses the role of colour in game design and how not just the colour, but the properties of these colours can elicit an emotional response from the player. Like the other article, a model is given as a result of this research article which can be used to identify and record emotional responses, not just from colour, but, the level design as a whole.
week 4:
Thesis Statement Feedback
Sound is an underused element of game design; outside of this discipline, sound and music are excellent narrative devices in film and animation, so why is sound not utilised more in games?
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[now talk about how sound is the leading factor in the design, instead of the visuals]
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Knowing this, how can I design a game using ludic and narrative sounds, in unison with the core gameplay, to emotionally engage the player in the tone/mood of a game?
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This research intends to explore the field of game sound design and discover what techniques and tools to realise the potential of sound as a narrative device and engage the player emotionally in that narrative.
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[what are the existing ideas behind the idea of pulling back the visuals and applying emphasis on the sound and how visuals are supportive of sound instead of the opposite]
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[could senses factor into this research?]
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During this research, the artifacts produced will act as examples, providing an approach to sound design in games for other designers to iterate on and continue exploring as a field of inquiry.
Updated Thesis Statement
Game design is a new and emerging academic field. As it is still young, there is a lack of universal terminology to describe the procedures and practices.[1] When game design overlaps with sound design, the vocabulary is even more diffuse.[2] Despite the lack of a formal language, research in the game sound field persists because of the artifacts produced and their documentation. This research seeks to further game sound research by producing artifacts that will serve as case studies for other designers and researchers. These artifacts will take the form of game prototypes and explore game sound design and discover what techniques and tools effectively realise the potential of sound as a narrative device, and engage the player emotionally in that narrative. This research will include case studies from developers, Thatgamescompany and Playdead. These case studies will form the basis of ideation for the prototypes and serve as a reference during iteration and development.
[1] “the common discourse about these methods is quite diffuse. Within the game industry, and to a lesser extent within game research too, there is no fixed vocabulary.”
Petri Lankiski. Jussi Holopainen. "Game Design Research." ETC Press. 2017
[2] “Academic writing about game sound, its analytical and theoretical drivers , is a developing area and this is reflected by the diversity of theoretical methodologies and the variety of terminology in use.”
Mark Grimshaw. "Game Sound Technology and Player Interaction: Concepts and Developments." University of Bolton, UK. 2011
Formative Assessment
For this formative assessment I decided to focus on the pre-production pipeline of game design, specifically looking at the level design process and the iterative design process, methods, techniques and tools I use when designing a prototype level.
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I originally recorded my entire process creating a simple prototype, and converted the footage into .gif files. The idea behind this being I could upload the .gif files and write a reflection of each part of the process. The problem; the files are too big to upload here. Therefore I have opted to use screenshots of my work instead.
Abstract:
Game design is a new and emerging academic field. As it is still young, there is a lack of universal terminology to describe the procedures and practices. Despite the lack of formal language, understanding and documenting level design processes persists because of the artifacts produced by researchers and designers and their documentation. This research seeks to further level design research by producing artifacts that will serve as case studies for other designers and researchers in the form of game prototypes. These prototypes will use different design processes from previous case studies such as; sketching, grey-boxing, and paper prototypes.
Introduction:
Game levels and their design are intrinsic parts of game design as they provide a space for the designer to set the rules of play and for the player to engage with those rules, creating gameplay.[1] Because of its reliance on multi-disciplinary theory[2], game and level design are easily confused as being the same thing, resulting in a lack of formal understanding of the role of ‘level designer’.[3] How then, can the process of level design be documented and formalised to show this separation? By recording and reflecting on the pre-production pipeline of designing a game, where the level design goes through several iterations and prototypes, the level designer can separate their work from game design by clearly defining their methods, tools and techniques. The prototypes created will focus on the 2D platformer genre of games. These games are focused on player dexterity and timing[4], which requires the designer to playtest and iterate on simple levels to achieve the correct game flow.
[1] E. Byrne, Game Level Design (Game Development Series). Boston, MA: Charles River Media, 2004, pp. 1–12.
[2] Game and level designers both use techniques such as affordance in design or colour theory.
[3] T. Karlsson, Y. Sato and S. Kurabayashi, "Investigating the Elusive Role of Level Design," 2020 IEEE Conference on Games (CoG), 2020, pp. 584-587, doi: 10.1109/CoG47356.2020.9231624.
[4] Gillian Smith. "Launchpad: A Rhythm-Based Level Generator for 2-D Platformers". COMPUTATIONAL INTELLIGENCE AND AI IN GAMES, VOL. 3, NO. 1, MARCH 2011
Documentation of Practice Draft:
Ideation:
Mapping my ideas is the most important part of my design process. During this mapping phase, I can quickly write down all the ideas I have around this prototype while asking myself questions about how I will implement these ideas into the prototype. For example, when thinking about how I can implement sound into the prototype, I asked how I would keep the sounds in time to sound good for the player. I answered this question by proposing that the player should not have control over the pace of the game and their interactions are simply reactionary. Another key part of the mapping stage is recording all of the previous games that influence the ideas I write down. Later, when I reflect on the prototype to decide if I will continue it, I will create a mood board for the game, adding each case study.
After mapping these ideas, I sketched out a level with the core mechanics I came up with within the mapping phase (jumping, bells, and exits). Once I had a level, I drew arrows to show how the player would move through the level. I continue to repeat this process for a while, creating more complex levels, adding more mechanics to the game. This is where I decided that if the game was going to save the sounds of each level and layer them together, I would need to force the speed of the game to maintain tempo.
Grey-boxing:
Since this prototype will be a 2D platformer (as stated in the introduction), I use a tilemap to create a grey-box for the level. This adds a grid system to the game that can dynamically create the colliders needed for the player to move on.
Once the grey-box is made, I created a simple script to move the player left and right and jump using the keyboard.
With the movement controls added, I can playtest the level. Based on the current jump height of the player controller, I can easily make a one tile jump.
With the player controller tested, it's time to expand the grey box and add different levels of challenge. This is also where I changed the movement controls so the player has a constant speed; a mechanic I discussed in the mapping phase. I made sure the camera followed the player, first by parenting it to the player but this made the level difficult to traverse as the camera moved up with the player. The solution was to create a script that would only follow the player's horizontal movement, this made playtesting the level much easier.
I redesigned the level a few times and once I was happy with it, I added the speedup mechanic. These will eventually become the bells the player rings to create music as they progress through the level. To add challenge to the level I added a script that would speed the player up each time they hit a bell. This completely changed the flow of the game and required a lot of playtesting to make sure the level design worked with the new speeds.
Evaluation/Reflection:
Once all the mechanics I mapped out were added to the prototype, I reflected on the prototype evaluating the flow of the level and noting down all of the bugs/problems I found by playtesting. I then started to ideate what could be added to improve the prototype.
Bibliography:
Ed. Byrne, Game Level Design (Game Development Series). Boston, MA: Charles River Media, 2004, pp. 1–12.
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Gillian Smith. "Launchpad: A Rhythm-Based Level Generator for 2-D Platformers". COMPUTATIONAL INTELLIGENCE AND AI IN GAMES, VOL. 3, NO. 1, MARCH 2011
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Mark Grimshaw. "Game Sound Technology and Player Interaction: Concepts and Developments." University of Bolton, UK. 2011
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Matt Thorson. "Level Design Workshop: Designing Celeste". GDC. 2017
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Nic Phan. "Affordances in Game Level Design." nicphan.com/post/affordances-in-game-design. 2019.
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Petri Lankiski. Jussi Holopainen. "Game Design Research." ETC Press. 2017
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Petri Lankiski. Staffan Bjork. "Game Research Methods." ETC Press. 2015
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T. Karlsson, Y. Sato and S. Kurabayashi, "Investigating the Elusive Role of Level Design," 2020 IEEE Conference on Games (CoG), 2020, pp. 584-587, doi: 10.1109/CoG47356.2020.9231624.