Summative Project Report

Final Designs

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What is your question?

Outline what the question is and how you will be answering the question in the essay.

In context and themes. have a paragraph explaining Lovecraft in-depth and how he is relevant Lovecraftian themes.

Restructure Chapter 4 reflective part.

Is it correctly Harvard Referenced?
Point, Evidence, Explain
Every point you make you need evidence and then you need to explain it.
Make sure you paraphrase what you're copied.

Do you understand what this essay is about? Is anything unclear?
Make a contents page and do sub chapters for each point you make.

I still have a lot of changes to make. The most important is to reference all the quotes and information I have in my essay.

V&A museum Trip: Videogames Design/ Play/ Disrupt

This weekend I went to V&A museum to see Videogames exhibition. The reason I go there is they included Bloodborne in the exhibition. I really enjoyed it, I gather some primary research from this exhibition. As a student who really want to do game in the future this trip is very beneficial, it is cool for me to see in the last 15 years, broadband, social media and innovations in digital tools have revolutionised how games are created, discussed and played. This exhibition explore the creative processes of eight trailblazing contemporary games and their makers- from a large AAA studio crafting cinematic blockbusters, to an independent team telling intimate and personal stories. Sketchbooks, prototypes, code and digital tools from the desks and hard drives of the designers offer a glimpse into their ambitious, cutting-edge work.

THE LAST OF US

SPLATOON

BLOODBORNE

We fight as a nameless hunter in Yarnham, a Victorian city crumbling into chaos amid disease, madness and death. Bloodborne's story combines variously recognizable elements from authors H.P.Lovecraft (1890-1937) and Bram Stoker(1847- 1912), especially Dracula(1897), and large- than- life attacks of the characters and enemies draw their inspiration from Japanese manga and anime traditions.

   

The character designers at FromSoftware illustrated early ideas in notepads that would be developed into full designs. Shown here are the first iterations of characters including the Hunters, Doll and the Maneater Boar. They illustrate the attempts at producing the level of horror that director Miyazaki envisaged. Alongside these creatures are ideas for the intricate weapon designs that are an integral part of the combat in Bloodborne.

The character designers at FromSoftware illustrated early ideas in notepads that would be developed into full designs. Shown here are the first iterations of characters including the Hunters, Doll and the Maneater Boar. They illustrate the attempts at producing the level of horror that director Miyazaki envisaged. Alongside these creatures are ideas for the intricate weapon designs that are an integral part of the combat in Bloodborne.

Bloodborne

"Video games tend to have a rocky relationship with Lovecraft," Super Bunnyhop noted. "They love the imagery and style of his horror, but the underlying tones that set it apart are a bit hard to convey with traditional mechanics."

After all, defeating unknowable god-like creatures as a mere mortal is completely at odds with the fatalism Lovecraft was so know for. But Bloodborne handles this differently. Yes, you can slay giant monsters and unholy beasts, but ultimately mankind remains intrinsically screwed by its amoeba-like lot at the bottom of cosmic food chain.

"Bloodborne manages to keep it subtle in a way even the official games do not," Super Bunnyhop stated. "Although mechanically you can still overcome the odds and defeat the villains in Bloodborne, the narrative endings reinforce that Lovecraftian sense of smallness, with each one revealing your character being played by the hands of greater powers."

In typical Lovecraft stories, the unreliable narrator is warned by "isolated backwoods people who the author intends to be susceptible to superstition," a cliche that remains common in horror today (and popularly satirised in Cabin in the Woods). In Bloodborne, however, the worship of terrifying otherworldly gods is the dominant religion in Yharnam. "A reversal of that concept makes for the biggest twist in how Bloodborne uses Lovecraftian horror."

Bloodborne's status-altering Caryll Runes are a reference to Lovecraft. "In Call of Cthulhu, the language of the Old Ones is not efficiently spoken. Instead, it is transcribed as runes memorised in the mind," Super Bunnyhop explained. As such, the player uses peculiar stone runes to influence their power.

Indeed Lovecraft's Dream Cycle stories involved alternate realms that could only be accessed in dreams, a common theme in Bloodborne where the player goes to the "Hunter's Dream" to level up and replenish their supplies. Later, they'll go to some nightmare planes as well.

"By having different names and rules than the official Cthulhu mythos, it can still work mysteries," Super Bunnyhop explained. "That descent from Bram Stoker to Lovecraft had me so excited because it seemed in an instant that the game's universe suddenly got larger and more complicated than before. And isn't that the point? Cosmic horror is all about realising how much more there is to the universe than can ever be experienced by all of mankind's accomplishments."

"The 'Souls' game's formula, with its brutal difficulty and its vague but concrete lore, does an excellent job at prodding the player's morbid curiosity. And so does Lovecraftian horror. In both cases, you're going to end up confused and terrified by what secrets you uncover."

https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2015-04-10-how-bloodborne-honours-the-legacy-of-h-p-lovecraft

Bloodborne Behind the scenes

Tetsu Takahashi, the 2D designer from FromSoftware said he tried to depict the dear or panic people feel when faced with the unknown, or something they do not understand. In this period without advanced medicine, plagues and disasters would fall into those categories. He also depict the darkness that is born from a damaged psyche.

Artist Reference

I brought this book call 'the art of horror' by Stephen Jones. There is a chapter talking about Lovecraft. I selected some artist from it, I think I can take inspiration from these great illustration and use it in my practical work.

Prompted by the release of a new edition from Titan Books, here's a squint at one of the illustrations for Shadows Over Innsmouth. This was the first done by Dave Carson, Jim Pitts, and Martin Mckenna, working together in 1993, each on a separate section of the image.

J. K. Potter

 Weird Tale

Weird Tales is an American fantasy and horror fiction pulp magazine founded by J. C. Henneberger and J. M. Lansinger in late 1922. The first issue, dated March 1923, appeared on newsstands February 18th.^[2] The first editor, Edwin Baird, printed early work by H. P. Lovecraft, Seabury Quinn, and Clark Ashton Smith, all of whom would go on to be popular writers,

'For the village dead to the moon outspread
Never shone in the sunset’s gleam,
But grew out of the deep that the dead years keep

Where the rivers of madness stream

Down the gulfs to a pit of dream.

A chill wind weaves thro’ the rows of sheaves

In the meadows that shimmer pale,

And comes to twine where the headstones shine
And the ghouls of the churchyard wail
For harvests that fly and fail.'

Howard Vachel Brown

Practical Review 2

So I started to sketch some pattern on my sketchbook to give me some clue what element I want to add for my character/ monster design. I summarized some theme and elements from Lovecraft in order to inspire my practical work. I drew a lot of different eye sizes and variants tentacles. These patterns can use on my character, like monster cover with tentacles or eyes. 

I haven't decided what my monster looks like. To be honest I have never drawn a non-human like monster before. I think I will try it out by putting all the pattern on and see how it goes. overall I am trying to imagine something our mind not suppose to understand. At the same time I don't just want to create Lovecraft monster, but also want to create characters like from video game. I also want to draw something I familiar with, something I feel comfortable drawing. They will be base on human figure and adding a bit of element from Lovecraft.