Dissertation Project Proposal

Dissertation Title - Creating an Immersive experience through the use of lighting, sound and environment.

Brief Outline of Work
An experimentation with various mechanics and methods to create tense, atmospheric environments which directly affect the way the player feels.
This will lead to a final product created in unity using the various successful methods of tension creation.

Rationale
I have decided upon this dissertation for multiple reasons.

 1. At a basic level I feel that exploring immersion will be useful for most working areas of games design. A company creating a game will want a game that draws the player in, makes them forget they are playing a game and thus leaves the player having had a good experience. This is true with all types of games and so knowing ways to engage a player is a large portion of the games industry.
There is currently a job going in Cambridge - Frontier Developments LTD
They have a description of what they desire on GamesJobsDirect.com

 - Successful applicants must have a broad experience of playing games, and be able to demonstrate a good understanding of player mentality / psychology and gameplay mechanisms
- We are looking for designers who are full of creative flare and enthusiasm and have a passion for, and extensive knowledge of, games and gameplay

(http://www.gamesjobsdirect.com/jobs/1221765/game-designers.asp) 

I believe by undertaking this project I should be successfully proving I can achieve the requirements the company are after.

2. Software Knowledge. Throughout university I have worked in many different software. I wish to use my dissertation to better learn Unity. This covers the basic software to create a game and also to learn code to a better level. I currently only know basic code and even still I couldn't do too much more advanced scripts however I would like to try and change this.

 

 I would also like to learn more advanced effects in unity. A professional looking final product would be advantageous to me acquiring a job in the field I desire.

Annotated Bibliography

 

James Newman (2008) Playing with Videogames, London : Routledge.

 

 This book has a lot of information in it covering a wide aspect of games and player experiences. Newman talks of the gaming world both inside the games and outside. Specifically he talks about cut scenes, giving the player the ability to act out the story rather than take away from the action with pre rendered cut scenes. This is quite an interesting page (52), players may often skip cut scenes to jump straight into the action.

James Newman (2004) Videogames, London : Routledge.




Another Newman, in this book he goes into a little more detail as to 'why do players play'and he discusses the use of an invisible HUD as to not intrude a players experience. All in all this book looks like it will be an interesting read in regards to my project. He also looks into the various ways in which cut scenes can be used effectively to destroy the immersive experience and make it better.













Marie-Laure Ryan (2001) Narrative as Virtual Reality: Immersion and Interactivity in Literature and Electronic Media, The Johns Hopkins University Press.


This book is exactly what I was looking for. Literally filled from cover to cover with information on Spatial presence, immersion and one particularly interesting section on Spatio-Temporal Immersion. Ryan goes into great detail about various methods which writers use to put the reader 'into' the scene. (after a short extract)  'The reader does not watch the narrator watching Eveline watch the street through the window, but by virtue of the transitivity of the representation of mental processes, she directly perceives Eveline's perception'.







Barry Atkins (2003) More Than A Game: The computer game as a fictional form, Manchester University Press.


I picked this book up to find how the fictional narrative effects the way the player would experience the game itself. I found a really good quote which describes immersion perfectly - 'The conceit that one might somehow 'forget' that one is playing because there is no collapse into illogical lack of cause and effect'
Atkins talks of Half Lifes 'deformable environment' and how this helps create an immersive experience.

Michelle Menard (2012) Game Development With Unity, Course Technology PTR

This book I have been using mainly to gather research on Unity scripting and use of the software. I can imagine myself dipping in and out of this book to get a little more knowledge on various tools.
The tutorials in this book are extensive and extremely helpful.

Project Timeline

Milestone Deliverables

Both of the above subjects will be updated in the near future when i have a better grip on how the project will be set out.

Bibliography

http://www.gamesjobsdirect.com/jobs/1221765/game-designers.asp - Last accessed 05/11/12