Art Video Game Reflection

Media Arts Video Game

Stephanie Brighton

Medium: Flash

Friday, May 8, 2015

Technical

All elements of using Flash were new for me. I have only ever used the old version but now that it had been updated I had to re-learn the entire thing. This includes simple things like changing backgrounds and symbols and also making sure that the game didn’t end up turning into a video which had happened during the first steps of creating my game.

Idea or Concept

The issue I tried to reflect in my video game is the poaching that is going on around the world. Innocent animals are being targeted for one specific trait they have and are then being discarded. This has caused many species to become gravely endangered and even extinct. I tried to show the degradation of the populations of some species by writing different population amounts, one from awhile back and one from today; it shows the real gap between the two and how much of an issue poaching really is. There were other ideas I had during the brainstorming stage, like world hunger or the refusal of service to same sex couples in Indiana. However animal rights and poaching are issues that are quite important to me as well and I found I would be able to communicate this better than the others.

Influences

Actor Ricky Gervais actually influenced me in this project. He is a big advocate for animal rights and regularly posts things on Facebook to make others aware of species endangerment and how cruel the sport of hunting animals can be. He is the one who really made me aware of this issue. I was moved by his passion for this issue and thought it would be interesting if I based my game around it.

Motivation

My motivation for this project was probably to try and be creative. Though that sounds simple, it’s true. I have never tried to communicate an issue through something like a video game and to do this is quite a unique idea; I therefore had a motivation to use a different type of creativity.

Critical Assessment

The part of this project that surprised me the most was the actual process. It took me awhile to actually get going because I had to learn Flash all over again. The brainstorming also took a while. In general I just do not enjoy brainstorming; I know it’s necessary but it feels tedious to me. The part of my project that I like the most is probably that I thought of the concept to show the degradation in the populations of certain species. Because the higher and lower populations are on separate cards I feel like it makes a bigger impact so that you can see the significant difference. With more time I’m not sure what I would change. Perhaps I would just make things a bit neater, making sure all of my pictures have smooth edges.