Survive/Thrive Final Evaluation
Research: I have been doing many different types of research all throughout my project. I decided that doing this was the best to keep my production on task and relevant to both my chosen target audience, which is older teen males, and the criteria. I also used research to help me decide things such as character designs, the levels or gore, and the soundtrack styles. I feel like this really helped my production as questions and decisions I had regarding my target audience and different options were already answered from my research, speeding up the process. I found primary research more helpful as much secondary research wasn’t specific to the “choose your destiny” game style I had went with due to there not being many on the current market. However due to the lack of saturation, this told me that there was a gap in the market thus making it easier to make my product feel unique and fresh to my audience. Using secondary research also made me look at my work in a more professional and critical way by looking at the way similarly styled products had been reviewed over the years.
Production and Idea Changes: During this unit, I’ve documented many of my choices in my blog. I found that I prefer doing my production and blog writing in long sittings with breaks, as I feel more motivated and that my train of thought is continuous and understandable. This also gives me time to reflect and mull over the different choices I have made. It also allowed me to split my time between work and personal life, meaning I am still passionate about my concept. In many of my blog posts I talk about how my progression and findings affected my work, and how many problems were overcame/affected my project. Due to me struggling with the workload within the timeframe I had given myself, I made the decision to instead rush and finish with a poor quality in the full amount, to instead cut down on the page count and make them to the best of my ability.
Personally, I am very disappointed and saddened that I couldn't finish this story to the full, but I feel happy with the skills I have shown in the first two scenes I produced in full quality. I also decided to still push myself and finish my submitted piece at a reader’ s choice, to ensure the reader understands the story up until that point. I do plan to finish this in my own time so that I can add this to my portfolio, because I enjoy the graphic novel process and the story I have created.
Strengths and Weaknesses: From the beginning of this unit, I already had an idea of my strengths and weaknesses. However, I got to learn more skills surrounding the basic knowledge I learnt from previous projects. I found that after practicing with creating a graphic novel in flash, I found it very smooth and easy to replicate the button and animation techniques I used. I feel that focusing on flash, as it was one of my weaknesses, was risky but I believed that it was necessary for me to learn the skills I needed for this project and would help me expand my overall skillset. I mentioned in my last evaluation and pitch that my most prevalent weaknesses were regarding gamemaker, code, and timekeeping.  Due to my choice of creating a graphic novel, gamemaker wouldn’t be an effective tool to create what I wanted. Due to flash having some code, I feel that using code snippets helped my understand the code I was using. I attempted combatting my issues with timekeeping by using a GANTT chart and I found it helpful for laying out and showing me all the different tasks and assets I had to make. However, I found staying on track with the timetable difficult. I believe that this is due to me being too busy to check the physical chart, general forgetness, and other issues. I will research other methods of timekeeping for when I do both personal, and work related projects. I plan to practice this in my own time to hopefully get a feel of what works for me before the next college year.
Original Vs. Final: As afore mentioned, I decided to shorten my novel to not only submit on time, but to keep it at a high quality. I believe that my original story stayed true from concepts, aside from the research story choices, such as gore. Another change I had to make was not implementing soundscapes I had made already due to time constraints, and having problems importing sound into Flash. However, due to me already having produced these atmospheres, I plan to use them in a later project so they don’t go to waste. Also, my animations were simplified, but I feel that this was actually beneficial as looking back upon my original storyboards, what I had planned was coming across too cluttered and confusing. I am quite glad I had to simplify them because the minimalistic look conveys my main characters emotions effectively as he is the main focus.
Production Diaries: All throughout my blog I have an array of production diaries which follow my thoughts and progression in the different aspects of creating a graphic novel. There was an even mix of audio, art, and technical diaries to show my struggles and what I was better at. I feel that these were very helpful and necessary to create an easily followable journey of my thoughts and issues. I also feel that doing the production diaries straight away were very important in showing the problems I had rather than a polished recap at the end of the project because even if I try to give an honest recap, it will still be missing thoughts and feelings I had at the time.
Communicating to my Audience: My main focus of the project was to appeal to the “kawaii gore” niche. This was aimed more towards older males sure to the main character being a male. However, I decided to appeal to a wider overall audience, keeping his design androgynous looking to make him relatable to more people. I mainly focused on colours to convey emotions, character tropes, and personalities. I feel that choosing colour helps keep the story and space simple, but still allowing for a deeper meaning. I believe that this audience is perfect for my project because despite the older teen audience being quite saturated, my research proved that the style and genre of my project is niche. Creating a young, student character will create a realistic immersion and emotional tie with my audience.
Conclusion: I am very happy with the quality and how cohesive my story became overall. I found learning how to manage going off schedule and how to work to a tighter schedule. I plan to continue my graphic novel over the holiday to not only see how long it takes a s a side project, but to practice other means of timekeeping. I would love to continue creating in flash and to continue making fun and deep characters. This project has helped me realise what I can pick up on the fastest and how to further my niche and what I am good at.
