Brian Wilson

Unravel is a photo-realistic 2D platformer. You play as a character named Yarny, who is in fact made out of yarn. While being small in size, you have to make use of the objects in the environment to proceed. Often times you will use your yarn to connect two points to use as a bridge. Or tie it around an object to pull down. But you don't have an unlimited supply of yarn, as it comes from your body. At all checkpoints, there will be bundles of yarn to replenish your supply.  

"How beautiful this was, when it was new. And how beautiful it still is, even though time has made it different."

A moment that stood out to me, was when you're taught new mechanics after failing. There's no way you can proceed without a scripted action causing you to make a mistake. You'll have to use the yarn attached to you, to climb back up.

Each level is presented as pictures in an album frame. With the pictures being memories from a family, and the level is where the picture was taken at the time. After completing a level, you're taken back to an inside of house, with a picture album on the table you can interact with. The pictures shown seem like they are from a childhood from the developers. I appreciate how things in the pictures actually made it into the game. Whether it be small crabs in the ocean, or flies in a field. After seeing the pictures, those "enemies" all of a sudden held more meaning.  

Each level has a handful of secrets, which usually aren't too hard to find. Levels can be completed by reaching the end and find a yarn patch that represents the level.

I woke up lost, confused, and covered in markings playing as what seems like a young boy. Startled by the man eating beast - Trico, who is chained down,  and defenseless.

You're presented with button prompts teaching you how to play. First, using the analog sticks to look around and move, with the buttons being highlighted in yellow on screen. Next, you have to feed Trico by tossing him barrels nearby. Here you will have to move around, jump, crouch, pick up, set down and throw. The first barrel is easy to get to, as it's in sight on top of a ledge - forcing you to climb to get it. The other barrel is behind pillars, making you walk and crouch to get it. I respected this introduction to game, teaching you the controls through play. 

The beginning of the game is slow, and keeps restarting after Trico repeatedly bats you away. Restarting after you wake up. Except this third, time he wakes you up, introducing the bond between the boy and his bird dog.

In this opening passage you find a shield, but not just any shield. With trico's presence, you can direct the shield at say, a giant wooden door blocking you from proceeding - and have it shoot lighting from trico's tail. Yeah..

The game filters between dark, run down chambers, with degrading stone architecture and lush, warmly lit semi-open spaces. While inside, light is used to help lead you on the right path. Whether it be torches, or overexposed windows. Sometimes you have to crawl through a small corridor to pull a lever, drop a barrel, etc. Freeing you from Trico for a small amount of time. And even though you can't see Trico in these moments, you can hear and feel him. You can imagine him clambering and breathing heavily.

At the end of these narrow passages away from Trico, you often break open into a warmly lit space with greenery. The orchestral score starts, and you feel the wind blow through your hair. It's moments like these that make you forget the finicky camera and cumbersome controls.

Just let me play... Hours into the game I was still prompted with on what controls I should press to perform an action. Every time. And what makes it worse is, often times I'm forgetting the controls because they aren't used frequently enough for me to remember them. Let me solve something on my own. Let me struggle. There isn’t a consistent gameplay loop. In fact, there’s not much consistency at all.

At first, I could only call Trico to have him follow me. And in specific locations, I needed to climb on him so he can jump to a higher level. But then, I was told to control Trico, while standing on him. Giving me an order of commands ranging from standing up to reach high platforms, or jumping over collapsed bridges. It's great, when it works. But I've found this to be the most frustrating part of the game. Trying to control a half brained AI who doesn't do what I need it to. I have spent upwards of an hour trying to prompt Trico to stand. He just wouldn't do it, no matter what I did. Sometimes, he would respond to the prompt, and then walk away or jump down. I’ve heard people say this behavior is realistically animal like, since animals won’t always listen to you. Okay, sure. But in this case, a video game where you need the AI to obey your commands to proceed. I don’t believe having to (try to) control Trico is a good design choice. I would much rather Trico be scripted to perform these actions on his own. 

Shortly after having to painfully control Trico, which is the most frustrating part of the game, comes my favorite part of the game - so far. With collapsing wooden bridges barley put together, you have to push the eyes which Trico is terrified of, off. Often times this caused the bridges to collapse, resulting in fast paced dramatic moments. These endearing set pieces between the boy and his bird dog really stand out to me, and make the game for me. 

The Last Guardian is a balance between puzzles, combat, and exploration. Though I believe all of which are spread way too far, and very shallow. The puzzles consist of having to pull down a level to let Trico through a gated door. That’s it. 

Combat isn’t very important, as the boy is powerless. It’s Trico who does the fighting, and all you can do is run away and hide. Sometimes you have to “sneak” around guards to pull yet another lever to let Trico through. If the guards wake up, they will pick you up and take you away.

The Last Guardian becomes more beautiful over time. It seems as if the second half (which must be more recently developed) is far more striking. Really showing off Volumetric God Rays inside, and out. I want to explore this world, I really do. But the confines of the world restarted my exploration. As Trico and I would backtrack through the same run down passage, time and time again. I lost motivation, I did’t feel like I was being rewarded for having to do monotonous such exploration.

The Marriage of Everything is an animated short film I directed and scored for an end of semester project.

My initial focus was to model, rig, and animate a character in 3D. Allowing myself to come up with a backstory for the character, which led to creating an environment for the character as well. I wanted to create a world I could escape to, a place that felt good to be in due to it's digital breath of fresh air. This is when the project ran away with me and grew into something much larger than intended.

Both the dry erase board and scraps of paper you see above represent the process and final product. I came up with the title after reading a book on Sacred Geometry lent to me by a professor. Reading - "The square of the height as an area equal to that of each face." Showing how a mathamatical pyramid can be drawn from a rectangle. This stuck with me because I wanted my environment to be very focused with attention to detail. A place with a simple layout at first glance but filled with secrets if you look harder.

These are some of the first renders as I started developing the landscape and path layouts. I took the process step by step when designing a new object. Giving everything the right amount of space and having it be there for a reason other than just populating the environment. The object design and layout process was especially important because I wanted it to look interesting from all angles. That's what has made 3D so rewarding, is having complete control. After seeing some of the possibilites with 3D, I thought an animated video would allow the viewer to get a better sense of feel rather than still images. I was introduced to a lot of new terms in the 3D space, but as a photographer I felt comfortable when being able to change the camera's focal length, aperature, and focus just like I would in real life. As I am only scratching the surface with these mechanics, they allowed me to take the video to another level.

The environment was being designed at the same time as the character, so I was able to detail it accordingly. When I was able to see what was possible when designing the character, it gave me limitations and work around options for where the character would be walking. Limitation was nice becuase I was able to stick what was going to work and focus on just that.

Designing a character was a completely new experience for me. I never really grew up drawing or sketching as a kid, so translating character ideas onto paper took time. In 3D, to reach my vision, I had to step into a few complex stages first. I knew going in, I wanted a rather simple character. Someone who would both resemble myself and be someone I could carve a story into.

With having to model, texture, rig, and animate a character; I came across a great set of videos done by Sebastian Lague. I began learning the process, and even with help I ran into some crazy outcomes. As these skills are new to me, I am excited to apply them to future characters.

After commiting to an animated video, I wanted to apply my own music giving it an even deeper feel. Over the course of the project and I always kept my acoustic guitar by desk. So whenever I ran into a problem or had to wait for something to render, I had my guitar right there. This is also how I wrote the song for the video and how I prefer to write. Instead of sitting down and trying to force a song from start to finish. I would always go back to the little parts I caught myself playing, not even thinking about, but just playing, with the acoustic by my desk. This way, over the course of the project I was able to piece together the little parts that were influenced by what I was seeing in the 3D space.

These Days: 1/10/16/ @alexkwisner

These Days: 1/10/16

@alexkwisner

Day One