Week 8 Reflection

This week has been a turbulent one with a lot of ideation and prototyping for our Portage Experience idea and a realisation as a group that we have the game we wish to run with. Despite exploring a lot of varying ideas and concepts, brainstorming and visualising, I've been hung up on the concept of the existential experience that can be had with Portage.

Although the method of portage and the term has been used to provide the team with a foundation to the game of a journey, personally I have preferred not to consider the actual actions of portage while ideating for a lot of this week after the rules were defined on Monday and the essential experience had been defined. The essential experience, for me, being the most important element to define and understand as is explained in 'The Art of Game Design: A Book Of Lenses" by Jesse Schell.

It was towards the end of the week after finishing our initial work on Portage and felt like we had to work on the other ideas that it became apparent this definitely was the idea to work with. Defining the rules for the other ideas and beginning to work on those felt as though I was working on them for the sake of exploring other ideas. There was no more passion for them and the draw of the Portage project felt too strong.

As a team we discussed that we should focus on the idea that feels right and that has a solid foundation. Now I can really focus on working on building a library for the sound effects which we might need for this style of game. Also, looking at the 3 important themes that stand out from this experience being; Personal, Environmental and Mindful, I can work with Adam's research to find sounds that consider these experiences.

I will look into the study of AMSR and the effects of sounds on people, as well as observe audibly, the natural sounds which occur in the boreal forest. I will also work towards locating as many interactions as possible for the player to come across, either with animals, sounds, or the environment to provide to the team to discuss what they could become in the game space.

This week I have also been trying to record the discussions we are having and taking note of the tasks we should each do and how to go about them. [See Sketchbook 1, page 11]