Second Presentation (20/12/2012)

I have just sat back down from my FMP presentation 2, wasn't half bad, I didn't keep track with my script for my presentation I stuttered and my confidence wasn't great either. My feedback for the presentation wasn't half bad they agreed with me in I need more confidence, I think next time I need a script to follow

- I will add a link for the presentation later on here

By the way, Happy Christmas (if you celebrate it) and Happy Apocalypse, some part of me hopes the Mayans were right

Update (10/01/2013)

I got my feedback from tutors today, they mostly all said roughly the same thing, some were more harsh than others but it is constructive criticism after all is what it is. I'll upload them if I ever get my hands on the feedback sheets again to scan in and upload to here. 

Feedback from Peers

- In depth recap

- Plenty of research

- Detailed examples

 

- Need more self-confidence

- Presentations could do with more pictures and less text

- Generally more information about my title: Deaths Apprentice

I will take this feedback into consideration but some of the feedback like "more pictures and less text" this can't simply be done because this isn't the way my FMP works until I get to the right stage. As well as this my FMP is mostly text based and I will be working on Word for most of it, so their simply can't be any images unless it supports or is what I'm writing about. 

Not updated for a while and today (07/12/12)

Not updated this blog for a while now, just a quick update really, just to say that nothing is going as planned and at the current moment like the other people in my class we have all put our FMPs to the side and worked on our looming and over hanging assignment deadlines instead of our FMP, especially myself, I'm still in the design stage and still collecting images for my mood board of the 3 separate worlds/ realms/ dimensions (what ever they're called), link below to what I've done: 

- Link to mood board of what the worlds are going to look like (updated) 

But today, (today being 07/12/2012, about what 14 days till our supposed doomsday (yes in believe in THAT)) I was told that I should update my project proposal for any changes so in terms of me: the timetable, I uploaded the first draft what 19 October I would check the blog post around that date for the 1st draft, but anyway I'll upload the second draft today to Google Docs at some point and attach it to a link below:

- Link to the project proposal Second draft 

As well today I was told my next presentation will be on the 20/ 12/ 12 and will be titled: Feasibility (not started it, yet but I will eventually)

Design, not done

I know I said the design stage would be done for today but lately I've had a lot of assignments due in this week so I've been working on them as of late, in these weeks I've had 2 tasks for 2 assignments in so I've been working on them in the next two following weeks I have another 2 full assignments in which are very large in workload I have to do for them. To be honest for what I've heard from my fellow students the're in the same boat as me: that boat being pause on FMP work and work on assignments then go back to FMP.

Anyway, I'll upload a link to a document for design I've been working on for these past weeks, its not much but its something and that's better than nothing. Evaluating my work efficiency it has not been very up and coming as I would've liked it to have been and I didn't get all my work done I would've prophesied I would get done. 

- Link to mood board of what the worlds are going to look like

This is the only document I have done so far but I plan to do more on this document and start my others. 

Not started design, yet, but I am going to today

As of yet I haven't started my design stage, yet, which in fact I should have by now but due to the fact that I haven't sat down with my tutor and discussed this process I have no idea what to do for this process. 

Turns out I have to do something I was planning on scrapping which was my character designs because in the design stage I have to show what my worlds that I have created are going to look like which my own mind has delved into, I think I wrote down what I envisaged for each world on either my timeline or initial document with the lore on, 

So it looks like the character design stage is back on the menu:

Documents that I need to include in my design stage are:
- mood board of what the worlds are going to look like (places in each plane of existence, 

- mood board of what the people are going to look like (inhabitants of each world, 

-  the research document of image references for each character would also be included in this

- (anything else I can think of will be added to this blog post) 

Everything I have done so far in my Research

Today I will link everything I have done so far for my research and in thus it will show how much I have done and need to do and how my on-going research is looking. 


things to talk about when reviewing documents:
- what went well
- what went wrong
- did everything go as planned
- finished or near completion? or On-going? 

Overall anything I need to do extra or I found out I need to do? 

Documents that are being linked are as follows:

-  Writers that have inspired me in my writing

What went well in this was that this document was of my own doing I started and I felt like you the reader of my work should know where I got my inspiration from hence thus why I started the document above, even though this above seems like little it is one of my many on-going documents. I don't know if everything went as planned with this I think the idea was that when I'm writing characters bios and writing the history I remembered that I wanted a dark theme and feel to it like how there is in JK Rowlings Casual Vacancy but I want a developed characters like Valkyrie Cain and Skulduggery Pleasant. (touch wood) nothing has gone wrong of sorts with this document, yet. 

-  Comparing writing styles

With this document I started it late hence with there is more a less no quantity and to me is un-finished, I think the only thing that went well with this document is that I was clear what I wanted to do. 

-  Image reference/ mood board for Characters

What went well was that I had a clear idea of what characters I wanted pictures of, again what in this document seems little is also on-going so the quantity will increase over time. Again I don't know if everything went as planned with this because I didn't really plan this document, if I had an idea of a character that looks like how I picture my characters I would find a picture of them and put them in. Again (touch wood) nothing has gone wrong of sorts with this document, yet. 

-  Research stories in different mediums

What went well with this was not much, I more a less started this and the document below at the same time and I got carried away with the document below and just forgot about this one, all this as well it what went wrong with this. I didn't plan this document out as such I just did it as it came to me, as well this document to me is un-finished.
(Update - 04/06/13 : Finished and sent of, new link added)

-  How each character is represented in different societies

This document above is my largest and the one I spent my most time on so far, what went well about this document is that it has a lot of quantity and a lot of information, what went wrong is that I didn't get it fully finished in time and the sections about God and The Devil are un-finished. I think everything went as planned with this because I knew what I wanted to do but the downside is that I was late starting the last two sections. 

Overall I think I focused too much on one document and on others to less and some documents I started to late. 

My Research deadline

The fact of the matter is that I have mainly worked on one document so far and if you compare that amount of work I've done to what I need to do its not alot and I am ashamed of myself but I will upload everything what I have done for my research so far on Friday, hence Fridays are usually spent in class doing my FMP all day so I should have time to upload everything then go a head with my Design, oh what joys and fun. 

09/11/12: Next Presentation

I have been told that I need to start thinking about my next presentation which would be presented at start of December, so I have about a month to do it on top of everything else, which is not so bad, from the outside looking in it seems pretty easy (touch wood) to do, I've noted down on a word file what I need to do for it but considering my tutors want examples of my work which at present is not possible because I simply don't have the quantity of work to present, yet but hopefully by December I should have started my production it self so I should have something. Also the title for this presentation is Feasibility. 

But anyway here's a link to the world file I mentioned earlier

Just an update on what is going on

Sorry it has been a while since my last update been focused on getting my research done, especially the document about how each main character is represented in each society. Also over the week while I was off I managed to write the first paragraph of my first chapter of my first draft, I then had it looked at by my tutor and he checked for spelling, grammar and vocabulary.

Oh and yes I am aiming to get most of everything I wanted for research done by the 15 of November and of course if there is any complications my blog will show these complications and show there solution. 

Link to my research file: How each character is represented in different societies 

Link to the first paragraph of my first chapter of my first draft

Link to the above document marked by my tutor 

Research

The manner of the fact is that the research part of this is not done and as you can see it is the end of October so yes but at least fact is, is that I doubt my Design month (next month) which is going to last the whole of November so I'm continuing the Research stage into November but only the half of November the other half will be my design. 

Next Week

Next week is half term so I get a week of, what I am expected to have done after half term:
- 1st chapter draft
- A detailed plan of some sort 
- and of course keep the blog updated with anything I do 

Of course as you all should know this month be my research month and next is my design month, so the fact that a 1st chapter draft needs to be done over next week is unforeseeable for me but I suppose I do get what I want because over the past month I have been dieing to get writing. 

How each character is represented in different societies - Link to the document

The part where I discuss the information after the quotations I know gets shorter as it goes on, just as I was writing it got boring fast just writing the same over and over again more a less so I cut out the parts where I would be repeating myself and left in the original stuff.   

Oh I forgot to say I have done a first draft of a Project Proposal about 2 weeks ago forgot to upload to here, been bogged down with doing my research recently. 

Link to my project proposal 1st draft

Research month

As I said earlier in one of my posts this month of October is my research month and is where I hope to do all of my research and any other research out of this month will be urgent, 

Things I intend to research:

- Into each character how they're represented in different societies ( P.S notes: (added 16/10/12) this point may go into November and the design period because I see this point being very large and taking me a far bit of time and to the fact a mano that researching this is very boring, so it will take me longer because I just want to get into actually writing the thing and plus I don't see the design period taking me that long to do but I don't know what the design period entails, yet.)

- Into different character types (Protagonist, Antagonist, Guardian, Contagonist, Sidekick, Skeptic, Emotion, Reason, The Player)

- Into how stories are written differently in different mediums  (for example in films, books and games) (P.S 19/10 - and look into how narrative is written for example compared to how horror to comedy is written)

- Writers that have inspired me in my writing (P.S notes: (added 16/10/12) on-going, work on this won't stop at the end of this month, it will carry on more-after)

- Collecting multiple images for image reference for each character (P.S notes: (added 16/10/12) again on-going, so I will add images as I think of them)

- ????

Some of these may be done as I am writing the actually story and as I go along through this month some things may be added, 

Presentation

Just done my presentation, shaking like a cold wet dog, got a bit of after nerves,

Evaluating it, it didn't go as planned I ended rushing through it and I didn't cover all my weak points just covered one weak point being my perfectionism which in honesty isn't that dominant in me, it's more my pessimism

Presentation & plans for the near future

Presentation

On the presentation front I think I got it done, but I'l let you know how I do on Thursday, after I presented it

here's a copy

Again it has been converted from Word to Google doc format so some miss happs may be on their. 

The near future

After the presentation is all done, dusted and out of the way, my aim is to start on the main research bulk as I said a couple week back, in which I said October would be all my research to with my FMP and any research conducted after that is either curiosity or urgency, again all the complete research shall be uploaded to here if I can

Little bit extra...

I have more recently discovered Game of Thrones and love it and I also have liked L.O.T.R for quite a while 

so yeah...

Character biographies

Got them done this afternoon, I realise there are gaps and plot holes but as I write the actual story I will get to know the characters more 

Link to biographies

Evaluating them I feel they need more pading out and need to be more like the main character one but as I said above as I get to know the characters more when I am writing the story, the more that will be added to the biographies

And yes I feel better today than I did the other day

Fallen ill

Over the past week I've been feeling ill and has affected both my work ethic and attitude, I've had headaches, runny nose, stomach hurting, that sickly feeling where you know you're going to be sick but you never do so you stick your head over the toilet to try to be sick but nothing, I thought I could handle it and deal with it, but no

Anyway fact is if it comes to it I might get the character bios done and maybe do some of the presentation, but don't expect reems and reems of work, all I can say is I will try

What I've done this week, date beginning 24/09

- I lost the use of my PC from Monday to Wednesday this week, so I have lost 3 days of working on my FMP, I have placed in measures in my PC setup to stop this from happening again 

- Also spontaneously I have started up a word file for writers that have inspired me and it may be a writers specific work but the file itself is just in the works 

Link to the word file

- I kept going on with my characters biographies and they are coming on nicely, I aim to get them all done by Friday of this week

Lost my pc again

Again I have lost my pc yesterday, I am currently getting it fixed and should have it back by the end of today, in thus it affects my FMP because I have lost a day of working on my FMP.

Just updating you on the general state of affairs.

Plan for today 21/09/12

- Start Project proposal

- Start annotating and analysing my pictures for character image references

- Finish of The Creator character biography 

But besides that not much for today, well it may seem a little when I write it down like that but its quite a bit especially the character biography. 

FMP Presentation

I have my first of many FMP presentations on the 10 October which is going to be fun (not), so today I started working on my first presentation, I still have the conundrum of showing my idea generation because there is nothing else (job wise) I would want to do in the gaming industry. I say that because mainly what ever I would choose to do for my FMP would be an aspect of the career I would want to go into so for example what I am doing now is narrative writing and is only an aspect of what a game writer would have to do in his/ her job. But anyway idea generation wise I only have the different ideas I had about writing and that's it so to put it bluntly I have no contingency plan if this fails.

Not to mention one of my big weaknesses would be public speaking and generally presentations but I hope I get better with practice seems this presentation would only be the first of many. 

Complications

I don't think I will be able to get to my set marker and get all the character bios done for Friday  considering the loss of my pc the other and the loss of tonight through my English I may be looking at not this Friday the next Friday after that, I believe being the 28/09, hopefully by then it may be done 

MY PC

Yesterday after being on my PC for about an hour playing Civilization 5, I smelt burning, I carried on thinking everything will be fine, sadly not about five minutes after that my PC just went off. I have no clue what is wrong with it so the PC guys near me are working on it so I loose my PC for a day and a bit hopefully nothing major wrong. The affect on my FMP is that I loose a day of writing bios so I am a day behind.  

Character biographies

Found a good template for character bios the other day I'm going to use it, I know a little bit about each characters background so hopefully this template might help me to flesh them out a bit, I aim to get it done by this Friday so probably expecting to get one character done per day and yes the character bio link was converted from Word so some of the things I had on word have been deleted 

link to the character bio template 

link to my character bios (un-finished) 

Timeline done

Got the timeline done today only had a little bit left, was harder to end the story than I originally thought, I ended up ending earlier than I planned to and the aftermath part I left out of the game, I thought about ending it on cliffhanger but it didn't feel right for a game because that would imply there will be a sequel. Which in my eyes there would just be DLC and maybe a prequel.

SPOILERS to the main story, I would advise you not to read it if your waiting for the actual thing itself, the timeline is really just a basic plot line so I know what I am writing about if I ever get stuck 

Link to timeline

Author: Todd Benson

Plan for today 14/09/12 and for the future

Plan for today is:

- Completed Timeline

- Start working on the first of many presentations 

- Try to think of any other ideas I would've gone with if I couldn't have done writing (think of least 3) because of the fact is I don't have a contingency plan if this fails  


Plan for the future

- The stage of my idea generation should have been completed by the end of September 2012

- The research stage should be done by end of October 2012

- The design stage should be done by end of November 2012 

- The production will be started start of December and be done by end of April 2013  

- Completion of evaluation should be done before the hand-in for the evaluation, the hand-in being start of June 2013  

In total the whole thing should last 9 months which isn't a very long time when you look at it from a distance. 

The dates above are not set in stone so they could change over time, the above is just a guess, I should have the solid dates by Christmas.  

Character research

Image references for characters

Last weekend while writing the timeline, I had visions in my mind what they would like and what sounds I would be hearing at certain moments. So I started to build up a bank of images for each character some more than others are easy to find pictures to relate to and say to my art teacher "that is what I want him or her to look like". Bear in mind it is a work in progress so I haven't got a boat load of images but I am sure the the boat will gain more passengers. 

- link to my base character research (unfinished)

(and yes I know the Google doc that the link goes to is buggered, I had to convert the Microsoft Word file to a PDF then upload it to Google docs, all because Blogger doesn't allow attachments) 

Author: Todd Benson

Sit downs with tutors about my ideas for FMP

One-to-ones with tutors

Last week I had one-to-ones with 2 of my tutors, the first tutor was my course leader and the main teacher of what we actually had to do FMP wise, the second tutor was my concept art teacher from last year, who is their to assist with arty needs. These two would be my council because with my FMP I am not just writing a narrative a for a game, I aim to draw some main characters and create various drafts then a final then put the final draft  in to a scanner form their into Photoshop. The reason I want to do this is because Photoshop is one of my weakness and another one being my English (things like punctuation, grammar and the basics which I never picked up in Primary school, so in such I am currently resitting my English GCSE to improve my English). 

 My first tutor sat down with me and ran through and looked at the ideas I had, I think at this point I new I wanted to just go down the writer route because if had to choose something other than writing it would probably come down to: 3d environment design, something to do with what a actual game designer would do in his or her job and then the writer route. My first tutor agreed with me that I should pick the idea that I have written the most about which was Deaths Apprentice, by the end of the one-to-one he had written a checklist for me on a piece of paper, so from then on I started working on one of the points on the checklist which was a basic plot, so I had to give a history of events before the story that linked with the lore I had written on the second draft and then give the list of events that happened during the story. I can see the point in doing this because each key point from the basic plot would become a chapter. 

At this moment on 13/09/2012 at 13:50 GMT this is where I am currently in the time line, I aim to have it completed by tomorrow, by the way beware of SPOILERS in the timeline, all I can say is you've been warned. Read at your discretion.

- link to time line here as it stands (un-finished)

After my one-to-one with my course leader the day before being Thursday 6th September, the next day being the 07/09 I had my one-to-one with my art teacher, I explained my ideas and she read through the word file to get a feel of what I am doing for FMP because really at the moment I can't really describe it in a sentence. I told her my intentions for the Arty side of my FMP and she said to research through primary and secondary sources to collect images of what I envisage these people to look like. So I added this and other things she said to look into on the checklist underneath from the day before. 
   

- FMP checklist here, as it is now

The writing at the top is my first tutors and tells me what I need to do for the story part of the FMP. The writing underneath is my own but is the comments what my art tutor said I needed to for the character drawings and anything else.

Author: Todd Benson

starting off...

For Starters

Past (High School)

To start of I am new to this blogging thing so don't expect mastery in the blogging arts. As you can tell this is none what so ever formal I intend to keep my blogging informal, unless I am told informal is wrong. 

First off a little bit about me. I am Todd, I am 17 years of age and I am studying an Extended National Diploma BTEC in Games Development. This page is mainly for my Final Major Project (FMP) and any ideas that I developed further from the idea generation. The picture to the right is a picture from the last day of my high school probably the best smile I've pulled so in turn the best picture I have, just to put a face to name.

Mostly my FMP is based around what job I want to go into in the Games Industry in the future, the job being a writer, this would in tale me writing the story for a game which would include a basic plot, character bio's, location, genre and the actual story itself and etc.. When I decided this it was about 8-10 weeks ago back, then it was the summer holidays. The way I started off was I typed down names of stories I had floating around in my mind, one came from a dream I had, another was an idea a friend on my course had. These were all just names of the stories. After I wrote the names of the stories down I developed into a basic plot for each one, some I didn't get down to writing and then some I developed more than others and wrote more because I had more ideas for them. Mostly this was all idea generation by this point but it grew as I had ideas for each one. 

Present Me (College)

See the attached document for my first draft and my initial idea generation

CLICK HERE

After a few weeks of waiting for college to start and see what my tutors thought, ideas were still coming in so from the first one Deaths Apprentice (D.A) I created a lore because I felt like I needed to explain what some of the terms meant and just to generally give some background. I of course became more interested in writing the lore than the actual story itself. The others I more a less left there because I felt no motivation to write anything on them. 

My second draft below

Click Here

Author: Todd Benson