ECTIP Blog 2

After our day at the dockyard we decided to create a video game as our artefact due to the capabilities of the group, with an experienced member in the group in digital coding and animation, the others and I learned from them to aid the creation of the game. As well as this we had those who lacked confidence in the software blender assigned research roles in order to find a character for a native and invasive species to be put in the game. The research team, myself included, made files of research which were stored in the google drives in order for everyone to access them whenever making additions as they do so. 

We debated between a game that would be a 3rd person video game where a scientist is controlled by the user to complete tasks to defeat the invasive species and aid the native species. This would have been an interesting concept as it would encourage the young users to become citizen scientists and act as the character does. However, we thought a first player concept would be more appealing to young people to be playing as either the native or invasive species itself. From this we considered a concept of an invasive species that has to take over new environments, despite this, we decided to have the first player as the native species to encourage their protection and inform the user how they can aid these species through facts through the game.

Frome here we were mentored how to create assets for the game to allow others to start creating an environment, following the trip to the harbour, we took a keen interest on protecting the native species in the ocean with it being so closely linked to is here in Portsmouth. After scraping the docks in the harbour of ocean life we examined what we found, with a lively shrimp and a lot of sea squirts it was teaming with native species. From this I began researching for native and invasive species that live around Portsmouth's coast, from this research we would go onto planning our finalised concept.