Fern Griffiths

Over the following weeks, I’m going to be making an experimental point and click adventure game based upon folklore.  The purpose of this experiment will be to explore the way that games can be used to introduce a serious topic to players who normally don’t like playing serious games or games with a serious message.  Serious games, or games that tackle serious topics, don’t always appeal to all gamers as a result their important messages don’t necessarily reach a wide audience.  By using folklore and the point-and-click genre I hope to be able to introduce a serious topic to a wider audience.

Whereas most games to do with folklore focus on fighting the creatures my aim is to create a non-violent adventure game where the player helps the creatures of folklore rather than killing them.   The narrative of the game will revolve around helping the creatures of folklore.  I am currently undecided as to what serious topic will be explored by the narrative but as the gameplayer involves helping creatures I am considering exploring either an environmental angle, mental health angle or a form of representation.

Alongside research into the folklore and serious topics that the game could potential be used as platform to explore;  I’ll also be researching potential art styles for this project.  Alongside experimenting with a serious topic through the lens of folklore, I also want to experiment with the art style.  Folklore isn’t an unusual topic for a video game, while other games do use the topic of folklore as their inspiration very few also use an art style that closely links with the topic. My aim is to create an art style that matches the folklore theme in order to make the game visually appealing and hopefully appeal to people who don’t normally like serious games.

All these topics, especially the topic of folklore, are quite large so my plan is to spend the next couple of weeks researching these topics and then use my research to further define and develop my idea.  As folklore is at the heart of the concept, I’ll start by researching this topic as this will help to dictate the overall direction that the project moves in.