###### tags: `Games For Good` `Games Art` `Collaborative Projects`
# <19096503>1J6Z1016_journal
### Games for Good (1J6Z1016_2324_1F)
### Games Art BA(HONS) L6
### Junaid Sheikh

---
#### Games For Good Journal (https://hackmd.io/@JunoFBX/H19JPKrMA)
#### Games For Good GDD (https://hackmd.io/@heljackson/rkPEDhWZR/edit)

---
# Concept Development

The concept of Games for Good prompted our group to investigate how videogames can be used as a platform for engaging a variety of audiences with important topics of discussion within society. I chose to work alongside Jack, Alex and Helena as I believed we worked well together in previous endeavours and the projects we worked on prior were a good means to understanding our team's strengths.

We began to brainstorm various key societal issues that could become a topic for a videogame, with the potential to educate a large audience or to prompt the audience to think open-mindedly while approaching sensitive topics of conversation. After brief deliberation, we decided to group up, and have each of us tackle a different element we were comfortable working with. I chose to work alongside Jack to produce environmental assets, while Alex and Helena worked together to produce character designs and the gameplay mechanics for the game.

When discussing the different type of societal issues we could aim to tackle, the ones we believed were strong contenders as a concept for a 'Game for Good' were:

- Sustainability and Environmental Awareness
- Poverty and Living Crisis
- Crime and Public Safety
- Education and Resource Development

The initial theme we pursued were Education, Crime and Public Safety, in which we began concepting a game based on fire safety procedures. The aim was to create a game with educational value that would provide an interactive experience for young children and adults to learn how to best act in dangerous scenarios. We concepted a fire escape game that would provide the player with an experience similar to 'Escape the Room' type games and would try to test the player's instinctual ability to solve problems and escape from danger.

This fire escape game concept was a valid concept for a game, however after discussing with the group, we decided to try pursuing a different idea with a stronger connection to the brief.
We decided to try tackling the Sustainability and Environmental Awareness theme as this would provide a lot of opportunity for research development and is a very strong theme to base our videogame on as these issues are deeply connected with societal and economical issues on a global scale.

---
## Initial Concept

The initial concept for our Environmental Awareness game would situate the player as the Mayor of a developing city, making vital decisions on development plans, allocating funds to various districts and managing funds that could benefit the community or benefit the economy.

The gameplay would take place inside a space station's terrarium, with alien/bug themed residents in the developing city and would have the player try to make decisions that could negatively or positively impact the residents, the environment's health and the economy. The player would be in charge of allocating funds to different areas in the city and would present them with multiple opportunity costs that could please or upset the residents and their environment.

We wanted the entire scene to be inside of a terrarium as it served as a good metaphor to describe the fragility of societal issues, the fragility of the environment and how the player's choices can visually impact the immediate environment they are in control of.

---
## Gantt Chart

I created a Gantt Chart to track my progress for development

---
## Core Concept - Elevator Pitch

Monstera is an RPG Cityscape builder game set on an alien space station that focuses on the player making decisions that could present positive or negative impacts on the environment, economy and overall health of the planetary terrarium they live in.

The focus of the game is to manage budgets for various sectors in order to create a utopia for your alien residents to be proud of! However if residents are unhappy or the environment is neglected, it could cause issues for concern.

---
## Features
There were a variety of intended features that we discussed revolving around the society inside a terrarium concept such as 'Good' and 'Bad' endings.
If the player made good choices on behalf of the environment and the community, the terrarium would flourish, which would be represented by vibrant colours, lush greenery and happy resident interactions.
If the player made egocentric choices, this would be reflected in a dull environment, unhealthy atmosphere and if too many bad choices were made, the terrarium would shatter, causing an end to the society and in effect, the end of the game.

---
# Research

After talking with the team, I began researching various topics of interest to try and understand the real world efforts of promoting environmental awareness, sustainability efforts and political decisions that have changed society. It would be useful to look at current efforts in society that tackle environmental issues such as Global Warming, Greenhouse effects and pollution in our atmospheres.

## Academic Research

### Public Sector Spending
I decided to look at the UK's Public Sector spending reports of years 2022-2023 to understand what various sectors receive in funding.
The departments with the highest allocated budgets according to HMRC Public Spending Statistics were Health and Social Care, Education, Defence, Transport and Energy Security (disregarding external spending for other neighbouring countries). Environmental budgeting was among the least funded departments, which prompted me to consider how this could be changed and what decisions in other sectors could be made to indirectly benefit the environment.

According to resources published by HM Treasury, "Seven of the ten departments increased in spending whilst spending in three decreased," *(HM Treasury, Real terms public expenditure (£billions): November 2023)* With this information, it can be highlighted that Environment Protection, Education and Health were the public sectors that received a reduced funding.

*(Real terms public expenditure (£billions): November 2023)*

It can be suggested that spending in the environment sector is not strongly supported compared to other sectors and that other sectors are prioritised because of the necessities required at that time.
Rather than trying to push the concept of moving more money to the Environment Department Group, it would be wise to consider how efforts for other sectors could passively resolve environmental causes of concern such as pollution and wastage.
Transportation is a sector that receives a large budget for its department and is a contributor to pollutants, so the budgeted finances for the Transport sector could go towards the development of electric powered trains, trams and vehicles for wide use across the country. As an indirect means of improving the environment, this could prove to be something to represent in our videogame for sustainability and environmental awareness.

*(Public spending statistics, HM Treasury, November 2023)*

### ULEZ Environmental Scheme in London
After looking at Public Sector budgeting, I decided to investigate the political efforts for tackling environmental issues in the UK, of which the biggest change to the social community was the implementation of the Low Emission Zone (LEZ) and the Ultra Low Emission Zone (ULEZ).

Since the implementation of the ULEZ in 2019, significant changes to environmental health have positively impacted the localised environment in London. Within the first month, "compliance rate for vehicles was 95.3 percent, an increase from 39 per cent in February 2017" and in addition, "nine in ten cars now meet the ULEZ standards" (Section 3: Key Findings, October 2023).
The ULEZ scheme has provided a means for tackling heavy congestion in large cities and restoring the environment by reducing emissions. As an environmentally focused political scheme, it has worked well, however it has caused disapproval from the residents within the city due to fares obtained by travelling through the boroughs of London.

Adapting the information from the Gov.UK website and the ULEZ First Month Report provided by the Mayor of London, it would be interesting trying to adapt various scenarios for the player to act on behalf of a city. There will be constant opportunity costs to evaluate and it would be of great value to use examples such as the ULEZ implementation in London in our videogame. We could have various decisions where the player is tasked with allocating funding/passing Acts that could benefit the environment but reduce resident happiness marginally or choosing to ignore certain societal problems and promote more direct approaches to tackling the most current issue.

---
## Thematic Research

When considering thematic research, we decided on collectively looking at various art styles, game mechanics in existing games, the portrayal of environmental issues in mainstream media and all advertising relating to environmental awareness and sustainability. As a reference point, I thought it would be wise to create moodboards with variety for influences to inspire the aesthetic for our 'Game for Good', in which our entire group collectively settled on the baseline of toon shading/cell shading and stylised art for our designs.

For more specific reference points, I chose to look at Environmental adverts in real life, trying to understand the messages they portray. From the few that I was able to find prominently used in the UK, a lot of these advertisements have intellectual undertones, pushing the audience to think deeper than the core issue. This would be an interesting concept to bring forward when creating designs for the cityscape the player is in control of.

*Moodboard of Artistic representation for cityscapes, town builder videogames and natural landscapes in videogames.*

*Moodboard of Environmental Awareness Adverts and multiple campaign ads promoting the widespread narrative of saving the environment.*

In regards to current games that we felt connected well with the topic, we decided to look at a variety of videogames that captured a strong connection to the environment.
The strongest examples of videogames that captured relevance to sustainability, environmental awareness and poverty that I decided to look at was Plasticity, Don't Starve and Season: A letter to the Future.

Looking at Plasticity, it is a platformer about a plastic-ridden world and focuses on the choices the player makes in order to save the environment. The main character is prompted to make decisions relating to improving the conditions on the island by removing waste and is often challenged to think about the impact of decisions they make when coming to solutions to various puzzles in the game. There is a compelling narrative of which the game continually asks the players if they are acting wisely during opportunities given. As a whole, the game manages to display a strong connection to environmental awareness and provides a vague plotline for the player to interpret, which can be very similar to how people percieve their actions in the real world and the effect of those actions towards the environment.

Don't Starve is a survival game that puts the player in a harsh and difficult environment with the aim of surviving against the natural elements and wildlife that could present danger. The more important value that this game presented for me was the art style and the environment representation in the game. There are a variety of interesting foliage designs, biomes, critters and creatures all associated with all the different areas.

---
## Core Gameplay

We collectively came up with the idea of having several districts within the city, each one having its own focused sector. We collectively agreed that each sector needed to have a dependency on agriculture efforts, an education system, a health and medical system, power stations/grids and city infrastructure.

Each district would have its own representative, such as a supervisor builder alien for the Construction sector, a medical alien for the Health sector and so on. These various representatives would engage with the player and in dialogue options the player can be prompted to provide funding for certain projects or refuse support.
From a design standpoint, we wanted to produce an alien society, with these aliens being reminiscent of creatures in our world. We thought it was a good idea to base our characters in the game to be based off critters and bugs as these tend to resonate well with children and could provide a good source of inspiration for fun and complex designs for the aliens and their lifestyles.

---
# Production Development

## Concepting
I began concepting ideas for a simplistic and futuristic society that could exist in a spacial terrarium. I wanted to focus on the natural environment concept as Jack and Alex would be working together to create the space ship and the cityscape, so I created some concept art for grasslands and rural spaces that might exist outside the main city. These areas would be natural spaces that the player could terraform to create new living areas or use as space for new projects that may or may not harm the environment.

*Concept art of a rural space outside the main city.*

*Concept art of grasslands outside the city, with potential to be terraformed by the mayor (player).*

---
## Primary Research
I decided to visit the Manchester Museum's biological habitat exhibitions with my group, where I was able to gather a variety of photographs that would prove to be useful when modelling as I would be able to use them as a reference point for terrarium foliage, plants and crop designs. I was able to photograph a variety of exotic flora, as well as some photographs of bugs which would have proven to be very useful for the group to use when designing characters.

*Photographs from the Manchester Museum's Biological Exhibit - photographs of various terrariums with foliage and bugs.*

---
## Collaborative Feedback

After visiting the museum, I spoke with Alex about potential character designs and designs for transport and suggested that we create vehicular designs based off the bugs as their natural form and habitats lend a good source of inspiration and validity by design.
We both agreed that various bugs could be designed to represent a sector. For example a Dung Beetle vehicle design could be for Construction, a grasshopper/locust vehicle for Agriculture, a Stag Beetle vehicle for Security and Public Defense and a Dragonfly for Aeronautics.

Alex proceeded to create a variety of iterations for vehicle designs and I was able to provide some feedback on his designs to make them more cohesive. We discussed colour palettes for the vehicles and the possibility of certain parts being interchangeable, especially for construction and agricultural vehicles.

The bug designs for the vehicles linked well to our theme for sustainability and environmental awareness as they would represent the natural wildlife that exist as part of the ecosystems they thrive in. Creating bug-themed NPCs and vehicles would be a good representation of our 'Game for Good' due to the distinct connection to nature and a safe ecology.

*Record of discussion for vehicle concepting in our group teams platform.*

With regards to collaborative efforts, we were constantly communicating our ideas in person, so a lot of the ideas we discussed would be reflected in our group's output.

---
## 3D Models - Environment

After visiting the Manchester Museum on Oxford Road, I was able to gather sufficient primary research to begin modelling 3D assets for the environment for our game. Below are some modelling process photos and renders of the models in Arnold Render.


---
## 3D Models - Textures

After modelling variations for my plants for the environments, I began texturing all of the models. I made sure to create different iterations for the plants and foliage as well, so that if the player's environment is healthy, they will have a boost to the health of their crops, plants and overall environment.

With regards to the texturing process, I wanted to reflect environmental effects of the player's decisions on the wildlife and natural foliage. If the player was to create a healthy and environmentally friendly cityscape, the player would be visually stimulated by the healthy glow of plants and vivid colours of these plants. However if the player chose to not consider the environmental toll of their decisions, the plants would begin to show discolouration, bruising and wilting. This would help connect my game assets to the original theme of environmental awareness which is the leading theme for our 'Game for Good'.

### Loose Leaf Piles

### Foliage

### Wheat

### Wheat Patch

---
## Environment Renders

*In Engine render of cityscape terrain with the main character, foliage and buildings.*

*In Engine Render of our space-ship environment with the central terrarium housing the indigenous foliage, housing and NPCs.*

*Arnold Renders in Maya of the M44 Locust and farm terrain, depicting the Agriculture sector.*

---
## Final Gantt Chart


As the weeks progressed, I made sure to keep adding to my progress report to see how well my workflow compared to my original predicitons. My initial gantt chart that I used predicted that my progression would be relatively fluid and constant. However the actual gantt chart for my progression in this project can show that at various stages I chose to revisit or rework on certain aspects of the project to try and produce work with a stronger narrative and connection to the original thematics for the project. I chose to revisit the Research stage at one point because I needed further information on creating a good, believeable environment for our game.

Due to a lot of technical issues during weeks 7 and 8, I was a lot slower on progress, and so my work progression became delayed until the weeks after where I was able to fully finish off assets for the environment.

---
## Future Development
Due to a variety of project obstacles, we had to revise our decisions for the production and implementation of some of our assets. The main game file lost some data, but we have collectively finished our aims for the project in terms of modelling, texturing and rendering our game assets. We also have developed UI designs, and conversational camera renders of what the game would look like as a playable executable.

*Encountered some issues whilst developing the project.*

In terms of future development, I would have spent more time creating foliage, trees, a variety of crops for agriculture and so on. With more time to develop the gameplay, we would be looking at developing cutscenes for NPC dialogue in which the player will get a stronger insight on the effects of their actions and would be able to converse about project development. These gameplay mechanics would prove to be very useful in providing the opportunity for passive storytelling features to be used.

---
## Conclusion
With our 'Game for Good', we focused on technical art to provide the visual experience of an environmental awareness focused game with secondary themes of solving sustainability and poverty issues. I believe that the collaborative efforts of my group and I have managed to produce a strong start towards a game that could be used to educate people about the fragility of the environment and how vital steps could be made in order to improve the condition of the ecosystem that we live in. The point of our game was to bring awareness to the effects that the governing power can have on the environment and spark more interest in engaging politicians to care for the environment.

In relation to the original theme of creating a 'Game for Good', the game serves as a platform for engaging the audience in learning about environmental impacts and the impact of budgeting on large scale decisions. If we were to further develop the project to create an even stronger connection to the brief, we would begin to develop the plotline of the game, creating a story that engages the player while focusing on environmental impacts and possibly creating story arcs that occur during good path and bad path decisions.

---
## Reference List

### Academic References
*Public spending statistics: November 2023 Total Departmental Expenditure Limits, 2022-23(£millions) (2023).*
Available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/public-spending-statistics-release-november-2023/public-spending-statistics-november-2023 (Accessed: 03 March 2024).

*Public spending statistics: November 2023 Real terms public expenditure (£billions) (2023).* Available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/public-spending-statistics-release-november-2023/public-spending-statistics-november-2023#about-this-release (Accessed: 03 March 2024).

*London-wide Ultra Low Emission Zone First Month Report (2023) Section 3: Key Findings.*
Available at: https://www.london.gov.uk/programmes-strategies/environment-and-climate-change/environment-and-climate-change-publications/london-wide-ultra-low-emission-zone-first-month-report (Accessed: 08 March 2024).

### Books
*The Legend of Zelda: Breath of The Wild Creating a Champion Artbook (2018). Japan: Dark Horse Comics, LLC.*

### Video Game References
*Indie Games - Plasticity (May 2019) Plasticity on Steam.*
Available at: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1069360/Plasticity/ (Accessed: 02 April 2024).

*Klei Franchise - Don’t Starve (April 2013) Don’t Starve on Steam.*
Available at: https://store.steampowered.com/app/219740/Dont_Starve/ (Accessed: 02 April 2024).

*Adventure Games: Season: A letter to the future (2023) SEASON: A letter to the future on Steam.*
Available at: https://store.steampowered.com/app/695330/SEASON_A_letter_to_the_future/ (Accessed: 22 April 2024).