Beginning The Journey

 Hello!

I'm Laurie and welcome to my blog. I'll be using this to document progress throughout my MA Games Design course at UCLan this year. In this first post, I'd like to tell you a bit about myself and my background, before I get started.

I previously studied Ancient History in Exeter, so both living in Preston and studying Games Design are new experiences to me, which is equal parts daunting and exciting. Focusing on history at undergraduate level was great for the development of my analytical skills and it provided me with quite the range of exciting material to explore and draw upon down the line. Ultimately though, the main thing i missed during my time in Exeter was the opportunity to lean into my more creative side, especially since my time at school was heavily punctuated by my art studies - hence the change of direction now.

I've been playing games since before i can remember, with some of my earliest influences coming from my older cousins, who got me into Pokémon and the french MMORPG, Dofus. The original Age of Empires was actually the first thing to ignite my love of history, and I have a distinct memory of drawing Carthaginian War Elephants in school at the age of four or five, which I probably still have somewhere buried away. More recently, I'd have to credit Uncharted 4 with properly opening my eyes to the world of narrative focused games, and Naughty Dog hold a special place in my heart for their work on both the Uncharted and Last of Us series. Other games I love include God of War, Shadow of the Colossus and the Monster Hunter franchise, among many others. Bombastic AAA aside, some of my all-time favourites remain the more intimate experiences of Indie games like Inside, Journey and Abzu. Recently I've been enjoying the world of Hollow Knight, a game that I only wish I had played sooner.

From the examples I've listed above, it's probably clear that I'm generally very into storytelling in games, and I hope to delve into this area through my time studying at UCLan. Specifically, I often find myself drawn to games with beautiful and atmospheric environments that can tell a story all by themselves, or support that of the overall narrative. My dream is currently to go into environment concept art/design, and so my initial idea for this MA is to narrow in on environmental storytelling. I already have a few ideas I'm currently playing around with in order to explore this area. For instance, I'd like to try creating original environments/scenes, making various versions with alterations to explore how certain aspects can be used to completely alter the themes and mood/tone of a locale. My hope is that this process will give me a deeper understanding of the specific components that add up to an effective atmosphere.

 I have no doubt that at some point I'll also be looking into incorporating some of the material from my history background, as I think there is definitely room for a broader range of historical influence in games outside of the typical Medieval, Roman, Greek and Norse influences. In particular I'd love to explore the rich and (in my opinion) under-explored cultures of the Near East, which I think could provide an incredible research base for new fantasy worlds.

In terms of the types of worlds I'd love to create, I'm currently unsure because I have a deep appreciation for a broad range, varying from gritty, grounded depictions in the likes of The Last of Us, all the way to the serene, stylish approach of Journey. Because of this I'm hoping to use my time here to explore various styles and get a better idea of the sorts of worlds I'd like to work on going forward.