Context of Practise 2: Study Task 3, Part 1

Context of Practise 2

Study Task 3: Reading and Understanding Texts

• For Study Task 3, I found an article of an interview with one of the concept artists, Simon Kopp, who worked on the games Ori and the Blind Forest (2015), which is a game relevant to my research area. 
• My annotated analysis is displayed below:

• Some of the key concepts he is trying to communicate is how society has impacted the way developers visualise games. He also talks about using visual representation to help explain, explore ideas and additionally, enhance the gameplay, by making it visually easier to understand.
• Some key quotes are, "A visual representation can make a lot of things clear," "have a clear visual when you're working in a team," "Its really important to have a good colour key from the start," "Visuals have become way more important," and "Most indie developers stray away from 3D or at least realistic 3D, for a very stylized look," all closely related to how visuals in games have significantly change for audiences and that it is easier using a 2D, stylized aesthetic than a 3D, realistic one, which is favoured by a lot of the Video Games audience.
• Examples used by the Simon Kopp are 'Ori and the Blind Forest', 'Mooncrest', 'Albion Online' and 'Axculho' which are games he has worked on. He also mentions The Lord of the Rings as an example of world building and storytelling without the needed visuals.
• A lot of indie developers have used a 2D stylized approach, such as the developers Team Cherry, when working on Hollow Knight and Studio MDHR when working on Cuphead. Both of these games were also evidence of the visuals being important, but arguably for the games themself, as the style was part of the game-play. This is something I can triangulate and explore with Simon Kopps' opinion.
• Finally, this overall can be related to my theme because it explores how aesthetic in games have changed but not from a gameplay and visual standpoint, but also explores that visuals can offer more for the developers financially. Using certain aesthetics in a game doesn't have to be just for the storytelling aspects and this is something I can triangulate between in terms of a 'society vs. aesthetics' idea.