fmp evaluation

Final Major Project: Evaluation

The direction of the project changed considerably after making the action plan, as I proceeded with my research. As I studied manga, graphic novels, and anime, I found areas of influence in all 3 but found I preferred the anime style in much of its simplistic yet effective techniques of animation, which lent themselves well to my chosen medium of flash. The graphic novel style is very nice and was influential to my character design, but I strayed away from it mostly as the gritty style of art in the novels I researched would be very tricky to emulate and successfully animate without ending up with just a succession of well drawn but unanimated panels. Manga was influential in seeing how dramatic anime shots are conveyed in single panels, so I ended up going for a similar style when I make the action freeze for button inputs.
After a look at a few examples of anime, I concentrated solely on Bleach and the characters Ichigo, Ichigo’s dark alter ego Hogichi, Zaraki Kenpachi, and Grimmjow Jeagerjacques when choosing influences for my work. A number of fight scenes also had some very nice shots, for example Ichigo running at high speed and creating several afterimages, and Zaraki recklessly taking a slash to the face to create an opening in battle. I also noted the over the top style in which blood splatters everywhere when critical hits are dealt and decided to use a similar style for hits in my interactive cut scene.
Researching games, I looked at Shenmue first since it’s the godfather of quick time event gameplay, making use of them in the majority of cut scenes, in particular fight scenes. In these events you must press the button combinations indicated to take action. What I liked best was the inclusion of second chances when you fail some QTEs, where failure leads to another animation and another QTE making for multiple paths through some sequences, so I included a couple of such sequences in my flash to make it more interesting and replayable.
Resident Evil 4 was next on my list of games to research. While the style of it would have been a more useful influence had I taken the graphic novel route, it still nonetheless was worthy of research thanks to its gruesome death scenes, often triggered by failing a QTE. Most worthy of note were the throat slitting and impaling sequences.
Kingdom Hearts 2 turned out to be a perfect choice, as the anime design of characters, while in some cases childish and cartoony, is still in cases very cool; particularly for the protagonist Sora’s ‘anti-form’ and the design of his best friend Riku, who both became crucial influences for my main character Sieg. The simple use of only one button (triangle) for QTEs while concentrating on the timing of such sequences was also something I liked, so I made all the QTE button clicks while concentrating on logical yet challenging places to position the buttons on screen. I also really liked the over the top sequences in the game that are triggered by said button prompts, and made some sequences appropriately excessive with special effects, for example the nova explosion on scene 2 and the ‘grinding solar flare’ in the final scene. No More Heroes was the last game I looked at, and influences turned out to be essentially more of the same, only while concentrating on a certain limit mode.
Researching the Actionscript did not take long, as I opted for positioning of buttons on-screen rather than assigning buttons to the keyboard; following this method of gameplay, the rest of the coding could be done with quite simple GoToAndPlay actions, as hitting buttons would skip death scenes and on multiple paths reaching a certain frame would skip to another in the timeline so they would all follow the same essential narrative. The downside to animating in this style was that the music often noticeably skipped at times when QTEs were hit, so I edited the volume to ensure sound effects took priority, making changes in background music less noticeable. Following different paths meant I had to be extra cautious with continuity, and so far in retrospect I’ve only found one error: a scar reappearing on the villain’s nose near the end of scene 3. Aside from that it all seems perfect.
For the narrative, I admittedly followed a lot of clichés, but I wanted to make the storyline easy to get into without having to explain alot of backstory for the two characters, so I made it a typical anime narrative of two brothers fighting each other to make it flow easier. It also fit in with my chosen style of visuals.
I felt it would be too biased to judge my work by myself, so as I finished with some time to spare, I submitted it to www.newgrounds.com (the url for the flash is http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/439705 ) to receive criticism from strangers over the internet. Flash animations and games on the site are generally judged for their sound, interactivity, visuals, and often the originality and quality of the narrative; most of the ways I aimed to judge the work myself. The standard of flash animation on newgrounds, it should be noted, is quite high, especially since authors like Adam Phillips (renowned for Prowlies at the river, and rumoured to be an ex-disney animator) startedshowcasing their work on it. Poor quality flashes are generally 'blammed' (deleted) from the site by users when they enter the portal if their score is below an average of approximately 1.6/5. Fortunately for me, Prelude to Chaos received a very favourable response overall, and at the time of writing has a score of 3.67/5 and a review average of 8.21/10.
Personally, if I were to score my efforts, I would probably also go with 8/10. It goes without saying I worked very hard on it, but flaws remain that keep it from gaining a perfect score. I'm very pleased with it graphically, in terms of the artwork, animation, and special effects, although I must say it turned much more anime style towards the end. That said, the characters' design was taken from both graphic novel and anime influences. I think the art could have done with a little more work in places in retrospect, and perhaps in a sequel I'll brave including detailed backgrounds; although these were cut to place an emphasis on the characters and reduce lag, hence why there are many anime-style backdrops of moving lines.
I spent a long time working on making the interactive buttons plausible to hit on a first playthrough while at the same time challenging, so people don't miss out on particularly pleasing death scenes. I also wanted to make scenes feel involving rather than just viewing a static movie, hence why I included the part where you light up the sword (with a hint that appears if you're stuck on it for too long) and the part where you click to release power from your eyes. I think the result was good overall, and thankfully criticism of the interactive element is largely positive, which is a relief; it's difficult to gauge difficulty and such when you know everything that's gonna happen in your own game. Suggestions of multiple action scenarios are elements I considered but didn't include because I was already worried about how many possible directions the timeline could take; however, I plan to make a sequel in my free time which will make use of such scenarios. On the subject of code, also note that there are no bugs whatsoever thanks to the relative simplicity of the Actionscript
In terms of sound, there were criticisms that I could have used some more diversity, with the laughter being the only clips I'd recorded personally, and there were some suggestions for voice acting on the lines. I aimed to make the sound as minimal as possible, to keep some elements of a graphic novel present and to reduce the file size, so I completely disagree about including voice acting. I actually quite like having to read the lines and picture my own voices. However, I do agree that I should have used more sound effects, perhaps grunts and different explosions and blood splatter effects. It was also tricky making the backing tracks subtle as QTEs hit changed them, and streaming the music rather than using a 'play' approach was necessary to keep the file size manageable. I think sound is the area that could use most improvement, but I also received praise in this area for using music that suited the mood the mood of each scene, so it's far from being totally negative. Indeed, I put much thought into starting with a slow track for the opening, sad battle of two brothers, then a more dramatic track as all love is lost and arcanum transforms, then finally a techno track that builds in pace as the actions peeds up for the final confrontation. All sound effects used are also in perfect position relative to the action too.
In the end, despite all flaws, I think the project is a success; I'm certainly going to continue working in this style for my independent flash work outside of college, as I find the interactive cut scene genre very interesting and fun to experiment with. I personally play half my games to enjoy the plot, but in cases the cut scenes can be a chore, particularly on replays: something I feel is remedied by interactivity rather than simply making cut-scenes skippable (although this is now essential to all static cut scenes, in my opinion). I'm also going to work on refining my art style in the graphic novel/anime blend I've tried for this project.