Newsletter for Project Heidegger Week 1 in PDF format

Week Overview

Our inaugural week has been one of acclimation and intense ideation: the Electronic Arts campus is a grand and inspirational environment, and it’s perhaps taken us as long to adjust to the uniqueness of our setting as it has to develop our project during our daily brainstorming sessions. Our first client meeting occurred at the week’s beginning, and it served as the origin of the creative journey upon which we are united.

 Goal

As a team, we are embedded within EA’s Office of the Chief Creative Officer, or OCCO, which is an R&D department that incubates new platforms and technologies, fosters fresh talent and visiting students (such as us), and assists in solving developmental issues that arise throughout EA. Our client representatives are Ben Medler, the office’s Technical “Visual” Analyst, and Richard Hilleman, EA’s Chief Creative Officer. The goal of our project is to design an information collection and visualizaton system or a global metagame that connects EA games, franchises, and genres that heretofore existed in a state of disconnection; data, game mechanics, and narrative are the tools with which we should construct our experience. Our project should emphasize user history, storytelling, and customizability, and it should be personally important to the user. Our final deliverable will likely be a convergence of a large-scale design document, simulations of significant facets of our project, and at least one functional and refined segment of what will almost certainly be a product of immense scope.

 Progress & Plans

Next Wednesday, the 23rd, our team will pitch three project proposals to Ben and Richard, and their decision will dictate our direction for the semester. We brainstormed in four, two-hour increments to determine and define our pitch subjects, and we’ll work over the weekend, as well as with Jiyoung and Carl next week, to ensure that we’re exceptionally prepared and professional. The establishment of scheduling and meeting routines will soon begin!