Target audience considerations and Project planning [WEEK 3]

 Today my team and I discussed some themes that might be present in our game and what this means for our target audience. Our game will be an explorative game, however there will be themes of horror, suspense and violence in both the gameplay and the character designs. These themes will be mostly present in the mutated creatures you have to log that live in the jungle, the new flora that is growing in the Sahara and the survival mechanics in which you may have to hunt [or be hunted by] animals. We also discussed mechanics such as eating poison berries if you did not research the flora well enough, or other dangerous traps or locations that could cause harm to the player. The violence that is shown won't be overly graphic but the games themes definitely lean towards a young adult audience as opposed to a young audience. On top of this, the art style of the game is quite detailed and has a darker colour pallet which may not appeal to children, rather resonating more with a young adult audience. With this in mind we are leaning towards making this game rated for 16-20 year olds or young adults. According to the PEGI [2024]  ratings, our game would most likely fall under the category of PEGI 12 or 16 for the reasons stated above and depending on how violent we want the hunting scenes to be. If the violence is kept to a minimum and non realistic then it would be more likely to be PEGI 12, however if we choose to include somewhat graphic violence that would be more likely to be PEGI 16.

We also discussed as a group what we need to do to carry on developing the project. I was tasked with researching Flora that grows in both the desert and the jungle and looking at what key features of these plants make them ideal for growing in their respective climates. Once i have done my research and some observational sketches i should move on to designing some new plants to put into our game. We also discussed how these plants would look in the final game and decided for ground foliage we would leave them as being 2D assets perhaps intersected to appear 3D, and for larger foliage like trees we would 3D model them and texture them in the style created in the study i made. To keep track of all of our artwork and ideas we are going to make a PowerPoint where we can all contribute, this will also be beneficial for when it comes to pitching our idea. Each segment of the PowerPoint will be separated by role and how it fits into the overall storyline. I might also to remind me of our games structure just make a brief diagram showing the themes and locations of the three chapters of our game. Civilization, Safari, and getting lost.

Checklist:

- Environmental statement [complete]

- Mood boards and visual reference [complete]

-Mind map [complete]

-Artist case study and research [complete]

-Style guide [complete]

-Piece in the style of the artist using my style guide [complete]

- Research Plants that live in the Sahara and that live in rainforests

-Observational Drawings of plants

-Thumbnails and iterative designs of plants for our game

-Final designs for plants in our game, both in the style of Micah Lidberg and in a more sketchy style

-Flavour text about these plants? this will be what is found in the notebook the character carries around

-Maybe look into some insects

-Maybe create some insect sketches