Critical Evaluation

At the beginning of BA8 I had a very clear idea of what I wanted to end up with. I knew that the most important thing to me was to get across the message I wanted to tell through my narrative. It was really important to me to show that game narrative could be used not just to tell a story but to help the player to deal with emotional issues. I also wanted to show that games for children have the potential to be profound and to address difficult subjects. Now that I have the finished product I am really happy with the outcome in terms of delivering what I set out to accomplish.

I think the main problem I have come across during the project is that the way I had initially planned to show the narrative was much too ambitious in terms of working within the time frame I had. When I did my initial storyboard I don't think I realised how long other aspects of the project were going to take me. I had planned to go straight into producing the artwork for my narrative at the start of BA8 but I had to take some time to revisit the visual style and character designs. I am really glad I took the time to do this and sacrificed some of the time I had to create the final artwork because I feel like the redesigns were really important and without them my final product wouldn't have been as effective as it turned out. Having said this I do feel like I managed to trim down my story without having to lose anything integral. If I had more time I would have liked to have extended the story and would have added more scenes but I feel that what I ended up with is still as effective in getting across my message.

I touched upon it in the previous paragraph but I do feel I underestimated how important the visual style was in telling the right kind of story to the right kind of audience at the beginning of the project. I spent a lot of time in BA8 researching and redesigning when I had planned in BA7 to have all the designs finalised. I think in BA7 I got too carried away with creating something which would look visually pleasing instead of focusing on who the narrative was aimed at and what type of visual style would fit the tone of the story. If I had gone in the right direction with the design phase in BA7 then I would have had more time in BA8 to tell a more detailed story. These are valuable lessons I have learned however and I now really understand the importance of researching existing works and being very clear about your target audience. This enables you to be really focused about what you are producing, by knowing exactly who you are making it for you can really make sure that it is effective. In the end it was really worth revisiting my designs and finding the perfect visual style because it made my final outcome so much more effective.

I found it was particularly challenging creating something for children because I had to be very careful about the message I was putting across. Adults are a lot easier to create for because there can be ambiguity as an adult knows enough to make up their own mind. When you create for children you are making their mind up for them in a way so I had to be careful not to put across the wrong message. Also because the narrative is very visual, as it is for young children who are learning to read still, I had to be very careful that the images were very clear and straightforward, this was often quite challenging because I know the story so well so I often had to spend a lot of time making sure the design of each image was as clear as possible.

Although I came across some challenging aspects during BA8, any problems I encountered have taught me an awful lot and are things I will be able to remember for the next project like this that I undertake. I feel that my end product is successful in achieving what I wanted to achieve when I wrote my learning agreement at the beginning of BA7. I wanted to test myself by creating a narrative which dealt with a difficult subject and to create an interactive story which had the potential to help children to deal with the difficult feelings encountered during the grieving process. I'm very happy with my final outcome and I feel I have learned a lot during the process and that I will take these lessons with me to the next project I undertake. The most important thing to me throughout this project was ensuring that not only  was I telling a good story but that my narrative was delivering the underlying message in a successful way and I feel happy that I have achieved this and I have created something which I think has meaning.