This week was all about story. We narrowed down our top two stories and began fleshing them out. One story was about Randy as an intern for Mayor Clayton. We liked this idea because above all, it gave Randy a reason to be handing out pillows in the first place. In this story Randy mishears Mayor Clayton when he says “hand pillows out” to “hide pillows”, however as we started to develop this we struggled with the dialogue and chain of events.
In another story, Randy is a squirrel who likes to cook, but every time she tries making the super acorn it turns into a pillow; so it’s up to the child to help Randy bake the super acorn. We liked this one a lot and managed to fully develop it and write a script. Later on in the week we met with our instructors and they gave us some great advice on shifting it so that it’s not a recipe their trying to complete, but rather, a check list to make sure the pillow is made just for them. The current script is the following:
Towards the end of the week a couple of our teammates were unable to make it to core hours because of class and unexpected commitments, but with everything going on, we’re happy we were also able to complete the storyboards for this story!
Next week is GDC, so we will be short one member. We hope to create a rough cut video of the storyboards with some voice recordings and playtest again, as well as getting in touch with the artist helping us with the 2D animation.
This week we had ¼ walk around on Monday. We got some great feedback including keeping the experience upbeat and lighthearted, while still not losing the meaning of the pillow. From there we started to really focus on the story and how Randy relates to the story. We met with both classmates and professors to help guide us in the right direction.
We started by thinking of building of the world first and started thinking of the backstory of the pillow tree. However, after meeting with our classmate, we decided to start with developing Randy first. After doing research on comedy tropes, we decided to make Randy mysterious and like a Harlequin character from Comedia Dell’Arte.
On Friday we had our quarter sit downs where we got some great new perspectives on what we should do with the pillow tree and a definite concern was brought up: what if the worst case scenario happens and we an artist can’t help animate this in time for installation? We are still considering the possibly, but if that is the case some things we can do is have extremely simple animation, have a puppet and have the interaction be a video, or even have the animation just be a story book and there be still 2D images. We are hoping the get in contact with the artist soon. Another thing that was brought up was the possibility of going back down to the village and making sure we are able to implement all the physical changes as well.
Next week we are hoping the get in contact with the artist, talk about going back down there, build the playtesting prototype, playtest again but with story, lock down a rough draft of story, and complete the physical tree concept.
This week started with us going to the branding critique. We got some great feedback and decided to change our poster, half sheet, and logo. We went through a few iterations, but this is what they look like officially.
By Tuesday we started brainstorming possible ideas for a story and interactions. We came up with three ideas:
The squirrel is the guardian of the pillow tree and bestows the Wish Child a pillow of sweet dreams
The squirrel is a trickster who has hid the pillow and it is up to the Wish Child to find it
The squirrel is a merchant who makes the pillow special for the Wish Child
We met with faculty who advised us to try to keep it as fun and silly as possible, which lead us to wanting our story to not have any major takeaways, but rather, just be a fun lighthearted experience for the Wish Kids and their families.
We also decided on a name.
Randy.
Or at least that is what we are calling the squirrel for the time being. We asked Give Kids The World if there were any special names that they would like to honor the squirrel with, and so the name is subject to change.
We began making concept art for us to playtest with for the design of Randy.
On Saturday we went to the Pittsburgh Children’s Museum and began playtesting for squirrel concept.
The top choices were:
Lastly, we started prepping for quarters next week. We’re really excited to show the faculty what we have done so far, and all the helpful feedback they can give us.
Next week after quarters, we hope to start on script and begin getting the final concept for Randy.
Our team met during a snowstorm to head over to the airport for our 5:55AM flight to sunny, 70F, Orlando.
Once we landed, we did some good ol’ fashion team bonding and spent the day at Disney World since we ended up getting there a day early.
On Tuesday we visited the Give Kids The World Village. We met Abby who we had been contacting via email before, and had a wonderful time touring and learning more about how Give Kids The World got it’s start and the past/current attraction there. When we got to the Castle Of Miracles (where the star program is located) we saw the past ETC projects that worked with the Star Tower and Star Fairy. We also visited the Pillow Tree and noticed that it had been a while since it had been updated.
Abby also shared with us some of their upcoming plans to relocate the spa in order to make room for a Star Observatory in order to expand on the star program.
After returning to Pittsburgh later that day, we got an email listing some of the projects that we their top priority. On the top of the list was the Pillow Tree, which had been an ETC project back in 2007 (Project Sweet Dreams). Followed by the Star Observatory that will replace the spa. They left it up to us on what we wanted to focus on.
Our team met a lot about what we wanted to focus on. On the one hand, we were never quite sure what we were going to work on, but we always assumed it was building off of the previous star program projects. However, be began to get more and more ideas on how we could improve on the Pillow Tree vs. how we could help design the Star Observatory.
We met with Ricardo and Brenda and decided to focus mainly on the Pillow Tree while doing design documentation for the Star Observatory on the side.
Once this was decided, there was a lot of work we needed to get started on. For starters, since we are planning to create a new animation, we needed to get started on the character design and development. We decided to start drawing concepts for squirrels, creating a new color scheme, and extensively researching the project Sweet Dreams.
Some ideas that we have already for the pillow tree:
Reincorporate the shakers in leaves
Use DMX lighting
Change the plot so that it makes more since for the pillow to appear in the tree trunk next to the attraction
Change the character to something more energetic
Change the physical aspect of the tree to fit the theme of the castle more
LED lights in the tree to represent stars
Shadow play
Non-tech interactions (like jumping up and down or spinning around)
Some ideas we have for the Star Observatory design:
Use chips for easy input into the computer and finding where the star goes
Create a galaxy on the wall, which to guests looks like just a painting, but to staff is a grid for where stars are
Lastly, we completed our first drafts of our logo and poster for the critique next week. At the moment this is what we have.
Next week we will be critiquing and modifying our poster and logo, doing concept for both the animation and the area, playtesting, and getting ready for quarters.
This week we created our concept board and brought it to a concept board workshop on Monday.
We got some great feedback on some things that we could do to improve or add tech to the star program. One of the biggest challenges we had with this was that we still were not completely sure which project we were working on or what technology we would have access to.
We also took our team photo, which we decided to look like a Star Wars poster because it was something that our team all had a common interest in and bonded over. We are planning to add more elements to it that relate to our project after we visit and get more information on it.
Lastly, we made a list of questions that we could ask during our upcoming trip to the village. We met with Brenda and Ricardo to go over these questions, and fortunately they could answer some of them for us already. We are so excited to visit the Give Kids The Village next week and find out more about our upcoming project.
Week one was a great startup week. We had Monday off for MLK day and started the week off on Tuesday.
On Tuesday we got the keys to our project room and set up our desks and computers. Kacey, Pradnesh and Jason had a quick informal meeting with Brenda about the project and began setting dates to visit the Give Kids The World Village. We also started brainstorming name ideas for the project while following the tradition from past projects working on the star project to have the word ‘star’ in the name. We also began doing research and reading about the previous star projects.
On Wednesday we had a team meeting at 10AM and decided on the name Stargazer. We then continued to do research on the previous star projects, mostly focussing on project Starscape since they are the most recent project to work on the Star Tower in the Give Kids The World Village. We still are not sure of the specifics of the project, but we hope to prepare ourselves for the time being for when we get more details after visiting the Village.
On Thursday we met with Ricardo and got some great advice for when we go to visit the village. We began to brainstorm questions to ask when we go, as well as deciding how we are taking pictures and videos.
Lastly, on Friday we finished our self assessments and turned them in and began working on the composition box for Monday’s playtesting workshop.
