Since joining the team, the idea has developed to: include a story arc, have a stronger focus on music, and move away from traditional representations of segregation.

 

Through Jessica's research into Jazz and Blues, the game grew with a focus on segregation, presenting two different social classes with an obstacle in between them. When I joined the game, the narrative followed two young girls, one living in a white society experiencing privilege and a prosperous lifestyle, the other living in a black society which is run down, not given the same opportunities and struggling. In her designs,  she planned on having both societies displaying prejudice against one another, as to avoid blaming one group specifically for segregation.

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When I joined the project, I suggested that one of the characters could be a boy to allow for larger target demographics. If the player is given a choice to play as one of the two characters, then if they want, they can select the gender which they associate with, which can help them relate to the character. Jessica liked this idea and welcomed it, coming back to me with the proposal that the characters should be called Jazz (short for Jasmine) and Azul (which in Spanish means blue). Currently, we have stuck with these two names for our characters and have developed character research and concepts around them.

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Once the characters were fleshed out, we discussed the world. At the point of which I joined, the idea was solid however little gameplay had been worked on. The game is meant to present segregation in an engaging way, however, when we discussed the atmosphere of the game, we eventually got to the conclusion that it could be more interesting to present segregation with a strong focus on music. Instead of hitting the nail directly on the head, if we show segregation but in a less obvious way, it hopefully won't come off too strongly with players, but could also present this issue in a new unique way. If both societies were segregated based on something changeable such as music taste, then players may come to the conclusion that segregation over something so trivial is ridiculous. However, if segregation over music is made to feel ridiculous, it could reflect that segregation over gender, religion and race is also unacceptable.

 

Furthermore, focusing the game around music ties in with the initial research of the game into Jazz and Blues. One side could be strongly supportive of Jazz music and may hate the depressing melodies of Blues music, and the other side might be the opposite and may love the realistic issues presented through Blues and may hate how Jazz music ignores their struggles and hardship. Since both sides hate the other sides music they eventually divided into two segregated societies, which disrespect and scoff at the personal tastes and interests of the other society. For the history of our game, eventually, a wall is built, which the protagonists are set to overcome in their narrative. Since the wall is used to visualise segregation, we can contain both groups retrospectively. On the Jazz side of the wall, the upbeat and bouncy notes of their tunes can inspire the environment, the colour will be everywhere, people will be happy and prosperous, it will be a rich and successful society. However, on the Blues side of the wall, its inhabitants are low and often sad, to reflect the depressing melodies of the songs they praise. They enjoy the realism of the Blues and ley it reflects their struggles. This side of the world is draped in dark miserable colours, which influence the architecture, clothing and accessories of their world.

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Additionally, although Jazz and Blues will impact the environment and atmosphere of our game, we also thought it could influence the gameplay and puzzles we have designed. The game has grown to include music as an element in our puzzles and obstacles of our game. For instance, certain puzzles might require music to be played, or will resemble the shapes of instruments, notes or sheet music. Although we are yet to develop many of the puzzles of our game, we do imagine players needing to assist each other in a co-operative manner. One player may be on the Jazz side of the world and may come across an obstacle they are unsure how to overcome, whilst the player on the Blues side may be able to collect clues and communicate the answer to the Jazz player to help them move forward. 

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After developing the idea in this direction, we both seem to be a lot more confident and excited to produce this game. The setting of the game and the strong influence of music in design, narrative and gameplay, we believe, will help give our game a unique selling point.

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Finally, the most recent thing we have developed is the ethnicity of the world. Initially, Jessica wanted a divide between two cultures of different ethnicity, with one side being red people and the other side being blue people. However, after some discussion we came up with a few ideas for how we could present the theme of the game in a less obvious way. The idea transitioned to have all characters shades of grey. This was an idea I suggested as I thought if the characters did not have an obvious race, then people would not assume the game is based around racial segregation specifically. However, by trying to change the skin colour of the world inhabitants to grey, we believed that it would only draw more attention to it. The idea eventually changed to have mixed groups of people from different backgrounds and ethnicities on both sides. Therefore the characters of the world are primarily segregated based off of music. The segregation within the game could then be a representation of segregation of race, gender, social class, rather than one in particular.

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Finally, another interesting change which has occurred, is that one of the music students at Southampton, Harris, has decided to work on our project! This was a massive boost of confidence for both Jessica and myself, as we are one of the few groups in the class that successfully pitched our idea and have gotten a new team member as a result. Harris has to experience regarding classical music, but he also knows how to play Jazz music on the piano, straight away when selling the idea to him, he was keen to jump in and add suggestions for how we could give the game more of a music element. Minor changes have been made as a result, my favourite being that once the wall breaks down at the end of the game, the two worlds music on either side of the world will join together and harmonise. This harmonisation shows that unified things are better. We plan to work with him in the future, with meetings already being set up, and hopefully, he will be able to score the background music, and possible character and environmental music we are looking for in our game. 

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As of 10/01/2019, this is how far the game has developed since when I joined during December.

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