Of course the christmas break is a time for mistletoe, wine and children singing Christian rhyme according to Cliff Richard, but in between the relaxation and festivities I've really enjoyed spending some time on the project without the stress of working in term time.

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I specifically wanted to create more visuals for the project as I have been so focussed on the practical side of production that I have left behind some key visual research. First I looked into iconic trios:

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As the Inked Ladies is about a trio of women to interact with, I thought it would be interesting to look at real-life examples of trios and apply similar thinking. From the above mood board, there are two very strong categories present - the trios that play on looking identical (The Three Blind Mice, The Three Amigos) and those that give each member an individual identity whilst still keeping the group as one collective (The Powerpuff girls, The Three Degrees, The Three Musketeers and Bananarama). It may seem like an odd collection but they all have an approach to styling themselves as a group. I think the style of The Three Degrees and Bananrama will be the most relevant to our project with their colour palette cohesion and slight variation in styles. The colours are all various tones within the group to keep them as one identity, yet features like the hair and the clothing style differ to give each member their own look. This will be the approach I use to designing the ladies within the project so they each have distinct visuals but the tattoos will tie them together as a collective. 

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Next I looked at UI samples, particularly in the interactive narrative branch;

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I found it interesting how the UI can be very clear with black and white text overlayed on screen without breaking the whole environment of the game. This must be made clear when the narrative plays such a huge role in the project. I also like how the characters are kept close to the narrative text on-screen so the player can identify who is talking as well as keeping the information closely associated to each character. We will make our game clear and accessible to our players by using similar visual techniques and playtesting a variety of designs to appeal to the widest audience demographic. 

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 I also looked at modern media portrayal of circus scenes and the creepier inspirations for our style, including Tim Burton's Corpse Bride, the American Horror Story Freakshow series, Cirque Berserk, Cirque de Soleil and The Greatest Showman. 

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What I noted most from this mood board is the cohesive colour palette which spans across all of these images. Pops of blue and red are used to brighten the scenes but most portrayals use muted colours with neutral tones. I think it would be great for us to use this same colour palette in our project, with an aged neutral colour palette throughout the environment with the characters bursting with colour. 

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I later did some video game analysis of both Truberbrook and Lumino City. These have been my inspirations from the beginning of the project, with their handmade art styles and charming environments and characters, however now that I have played the games I can see that both gameplays have faults which don't support the visuals enough. They felt a little style over substance, in that the artwork was beautiful but I found them both difficult to play. Lumino City had UI which was difficult to navigate whilst the character tone in Truberbrook didn't match the storyline and so was not very engaging. Lumino City was almost infuriating with how little it explained about the puzzles and the feedback loop of where I was going wrong (although I'm not puzzle-gamer so I'm sure someone else's experience would be very different) whereas Truberbrook felt slow, and so narrative-heavy that even the choices the player could make seemed irrelevant. Lumino City has won awards for it's scenery and Truberbrook is relatively highly rated as a game so perhaps I'm less inclined towards these mechanics myself, however I didn't find them that accessible considering my experiences. I would hate for our project to fall into the style-over-substance trap and the only way to know for sure will be extensive playtesting of our narrative and gameplay elements.  

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Further Research to return to when possible (stop-motion animations on Youtube)

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DmgsKR1O00c&ab_channel=OldFilmsandStuff

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YDXOioU_OKM&ab_channel=ZealousCreative

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KavpG2t6qD8&ab_channel=ZealousCreative

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vmHSQ9JeEUc&ab_channel=ShortoftheWeek

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KI2lsdXJQ40&ab_channel=ShortoftheWeek

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VuVKX-x9ABM&ab_channel=ShortoftheWeek

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MwpObDMo3cM&ab_channel=ShortoftheWeek

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=paiVZ93ZroU&ab_channel=ShortoftheWeek

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UCVXWk2im2M&ab_channel=KevinParry

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UjgHbRrnjhU

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