My Pecha Kucha presentation for the BA DMP Specialist Project.

1. welcome!
to suzi’s indie-game-input-output-cinematic-experience
development-project.
suzdigital.wordpress.com

2. intro:
What is input output cinema?
input output cinema
1. Something that is put in. 1. The act of turning out; production: The 1. Motion Picture.
2. The act or process of putting in. factory’s output of cars; artistic output 2. The cinema, motion pictures
3. The power of energy supplied to a 2. The quantity or amount produced, as collectively, as an art.
machine. in a given time: to increase one’s daily 3. A motion picture theatre.
4. The current or voltage supplied to an output 4. Computers:
electric or electronic circuit or device. 3. The material produced or yield: a. ???
5. Computers: product. b. ?????
a. Data to be entered into a computer for 4. The current, voltage, power, or signal
processing. produced by an electrical or electronic
b. The process of introducing data into circuit or device.
the internal storage of a computer. 5. Computers:
a. Information in a form suitable for
transmission from internal to external
units of a computer, or to an outside
medium.
b. The process of transferring from
internal storage to an external medium.

3. inspiration:
superbrothers: Sword & sworcery ep
superbrothers sword & sworcery ep
refers to a style of pixel artwork dubbed refers to a fantasy subgenre refers to a vinyl record containing up to
‘rustic 21st century minimalism’. characterized by swashbuckling heroes. 37 minutes of music.
“
It’s a mix of laid-back exploration, careful investigation & mysterious musical
problem-solving occasionally punctuated by hard-hitting combat encounters. S:S&S
EP is an unusual genre-bending effort with an emphasis on sound, music & audiovisual
“
style that has been positioned as ‘a brave experiment in Input Output Cinema’.

4. why??
Nathan Vella- Capy Games
“If your game is made for players, it’s probably not made for
anyone else.”
“
I think iOS has taught developers to
try and make games for everyone, but
by focusing on everyone it means that
you’re really not focusing on anything at
all.
A game is forever cursed by being
called a game. Mechanics are not the
be-all and end-all of a project. I believe
that Sworcery would have been just as
and was less linear. Those things are
“
successful if it had no puzzles or combat
almost strictly there because we felt we
had to put that kind of thing in the game.

5. gravity concept
360° gravity for a 360° world
point=point_direction(x,y,1850,1850);
image_angle=point+90;
Screenshot from a gravity test
made in Game Maker.

6. early “game” concepts:
doodles, drawings & diagrams
Codename ORBIS: Latin for World
This image is an early game-world
concept depecting the layout of
the and objects contained within
the overall game.
game design
document: “
“
The game follows a young forest
sprite as he journeys across a
strange dream world...

7. specifically specialist
(so what am I actually doing?)
For the specialist project, I will be creating an interactive
demo, which will act as a trailer for a game for Windows. The
type of game created will be inspired by Craig D Adams’ cryptic
“input-output cinema” genre-a user-controlled experience with
emphasis on narrative, dialogue and visual importance rather
than using typical game-play elements.

8. (...and how am i doing it?)
game maker
“
“
Game Maker was initially developed by Prof Mark Overmars in 1999. GameMaker is
the world’s most widely used Game Development product and has been downloaded
more than 10 million times. The demand continues to increase and Game Maker
downloads more than 5,000 times every day from the YoYo Games website.

9. inspiration:
trees “
“
the lower part of the long face was covered with a sweeping grey beard, bushy,
almost twiggy at the roots, thin and mossy at the ends. the deep eyes were slow and
solemn, but very penetrating. They were brown, shot with green light.
description of treebeard from lord of the rings: the two towers
famous Iifa Tree Final Fantasy IX
Mana Tree Secret of Mana
Great Deku Tree Legend of Zelda
Harold Fallout series
Tree of Life Prince of Persia Money Tree Animal Crossing
video game trees: Whispy Woods Kirby’s Dreamland Sudowoodo Pokemon Gold/Silver

10. inspiration: trees
photos & sketches

11. design:
trees
“
“
A project starts with an idea, a vision, something that is hard to
define, something kind of magic and amazing. This is gold. This is
beautiful. You can’t yet see the details, but you have a sense for thing
you want to make, and hopefully you’re swept away by it.
craig d adams aka superbrothers
sketch one sketch two

12. design:
trees
stage 1: stage 2: stage 3:
“
“
By creating a game world, you are creating an “imaginary reality.” Light is very important, and
should always be used with meaning, whether strong or weak. The colour choices for the game
represent somewhere between a real colour scheme and a fantasy range.
Toshikatta matsuda

13. navigating the demo
playable level exploration

14. what next?
tree development
scale layers paths
Image needs to be scaled in relation to More layers need to be added to A path needs to be set to add in Game
screen/window size & character size. compensate for boring areas and add Maker to stop the player from venturing
depth to areas with small branches. off the tree!
“Usually in the creative process, the next step is to think about
the project intellectually, to talk about it, to look at it from
various angles, to plan it out, maybe to second guess it or to
“
problem solve it, maybe reconsider it a bit.
craig d adams aka supoerbrothers

15. what next?
pixel art
“
S:S&S EP is a 21st century interpretation of the archetypical old school videogame
“
adventure, designed exclusively for Apple’s touchtronic machinery.
S:S&S EP features the internationally recognized art & design style of
Superbrothers, whose illustrations & short films have appeared in a
variety of exhibitions & publications.

16. character inspiration:
Brian Froud
“the faeries were a tangible aspect of the landscape, pulses of spirit,
emotion, and light. They insisted on taking form under my pencil.”
game design
document:
“
The game begins at the very top of
the tree, where the forest sprite is born
from an opening flower. The sprite talks
to the heart of the tree, which tells it
“
to travel the extent of the planet. The
forest sprite must then make its safe
descent down the tree, to the ground
of the dream world below.

17. character inspiration:
kodamas
Kodamas exist in Japanese folklore, believed to live in certain trees. It is thought to be unlucky to cut down a tree which
is home to a Kodama. Kodamas appear in many forms: some resembling people, some resembling plant-like creatures,
some depicted as dryads or nymphs.
The most well-known version is probably the one created by Hayao Miyazaki in his film Princess Mononoke.
“tree spirit” “small spirit” “small ball!”

18. design:
main character
something familiar? A ghost/spirit? a scary rabbit?
I originally went for the human-like doll ...but wanted to stick to something simple ...yet something that resembled
style character... and spirit-like... something from nature.

19. what next?
The next step is to actually make this thing, to get down to it.
This is the rock.
finished concept scale & create animation
Finalise the character design, work on How big will the character be in relation Work out what animations will be needed
details, characteristics & colour scheme to the other objects in the game? How to be able to control the character, and
etc. Give it a name! many pixels will it be made of What will how the character will move.
the character look like in pixel-art form?

20. what next?
everything else...
“ pixel drawing
A videogame is a staggeringly beautiful
canvas. It’s a window into another
world. A world that lives only as long All artwork must be converted to in-game
as the machine is on. A living breathing imagery using a pixel style.
world with depth and soul that actually
“
exists, right there onscreen, limited
only by the vision and imagination animating
of its creators. Seize that thought, Pixel images must then be animated
and don’t let it go. using sprite sequences.
programming
Everything must be added to the Game
Maker library so that the actual game
can be made.
sound & audio
Sounds and background music must be
added to finish off the experience.