WORDS Issue 1: June 2015

S o u t hE s s e x C o l l e g e L e v e l 3

2 0 1 5

An i m a t i o n

FROM THE PROGRAMME LEADER The Level 3 Diploma in Animation is at South Essex College is young but incredibly successful programme that offers students the opportunity to learn fundamental animation skills across 2D, 3D, Stopmotion and VFX mediums. Storytelling and great characters are at the heart of the programme, but order to create great stories we must be able to recognise them.

South Essex College Level 3

Animation

2015

Welcome to WORDS, the annual collection of essays, editorials and reviews from students currently studying on the Level 3 Diploma in Animation.

Our first issue contains articles and reviews relating to a vast range of moving images products, and showcases the range of academic abilites that students gain on the course.

We hope that you enjoy what our students have to say about the world of film and animation.

Contributors:

Rebecca Salt Adam Griffin Billy Stevens Eddy Idriss Gemma BArnes Hayden Cremer Joshua Wilson Nzoputachi Chintua-Chigbu KAtie Britton Shauna Cox

Designfreebies Magazine • www.designfreebies.org • 3

BIG HERO 6 AND DEALING WITH LOSS

“Big Hero 6” is a fun – filled action adventure sprinkled with

San Fransokyo, a mash up of Tokyo and San Francisco, is the

lots of comedy and emotion. Coming from directors Don Hall

setting for our venture. This unique idea for a city works surpris-

(a writer on “The Princess and the Frog”) and Chris Williams (

ingly well, creating an exciting, lively place that our story fits

Director on “Bolt”), Disney has created yet another stunning film

perfectly into. Moulding these two different cultures together is

that’s fun for the whole family.

an interesting concept, and we can see both of the strengths of each clearly. Japan’s advanced technology means it makes sense

Another collaboration between Marvel and Disney, “Big Hero

as to why San Fransokyo is a robotics centre; America’s big busi-

6” was inspired by a comic of the same name. The group first

ness culture and commercialism would allow this technology to

appeared in “Sunfire & Big hero 6” in 1998.

become widely accessible and commonplace in this city.

Our main protagonist for this film is 14 – year old Hiro Hamada

The strength of the setting is helped by the film’s stunning visu-

(Ryan Potter). A young genius and innovative inventor, Hiro is

als. Tons of heart and detail has been poured into every building,

only interested in illegal “bot fighting” at the beginning of our

and every shot is well thought out to showcase this. Everything

story. This changes when Hiro is introduced to the university

from the lighting, model design, colours and visual effects are

of his dreams. Tragically, soon after, he loses his older brother,

perfect. Meaning every second is a joy to watch. In addition, the

Tadashi (Daniel Henney) in a fire. Living in a technological

character designs are simple and effective, displaying traditional

heaven, Tadashi left behind his university project, a care giving

Disney features with a modern twist.

robot called Baymax (Scott Adist). Hiro and Baymax’s friendship develops as they track down a mysterious, mask wearing villain

“Big Hero 6” has an engaging story that is fast paced and knows

who started the fire that killed Tadashi. In this venture, they are

how to keep your attention and interest. Hiro and his company

joined by a colourful cast of college students and fellow “nerds”.

are unique and fun characters; their chemistry feels strong and

This classic Scooby Doo- esque set up leads to an engaging

allows for many small comedic moments that keep the film

superhero story; where Hiro needs to save the day whilst deal-

upbeat, for the most part. Baymax is undoubtedly the star of the

ing with his bereavement.

show. His cute, huggable design is simple and smart. Although,

18 • Designfreebies Magazine • www.designfreebies.org

all other characters are memorable and

seemed to fade into the background.

level of complexity seems accurate. The

different; even side characters like Aunt

Honey Lemon also has the least exciting

film’s strongest (if not only) flaw is that

Cass and her cat Mochi are colourful and

design, rendering her character quite bor-

it feels as if it is made up of two con-

unusual. A lot of life is given to the group

ing compared to those around her.

flicting stories, and – at some points- is not sure what it should be focusing on.

by their talented voice actors. Genesis Rodriguez, who voiced Honey Lemon, is

Whilst the story is generally strong, it is

the exception to this. Her accent was

slightly predictable. However, it is a film

This conflict occurs due to the emotion-

on and off, and compared to the strong

for families with a focus on entertaining

al loss Hiro is experiencing throughout

cast of characters surrounding her, she

children. Looking at it from that view, the

the film. Though we get to see some of his grieving process, it doesn’t quite feel fully realised.

There are some examples in the film of Hiro going through the 5 stages of grief; Denial and isolation, Anger, Bargaining, Depression and Acceptance.

For instance, after Tadashi’s death, Hiro doesn’t leave his room- ignoring the outside world, his friends, and his responsibilities. We also see that he leaves meals uneaten, showing that he is suffering from a loss of appetite- a symptom of grief and depression.

Designfreebies Magazine • www.designfreebies.org • 19

Hiro’s anger is shown most clearly throughout the story. At one

control his emotions more clearly, and try to stay positive in the

point, his want for revenge is very strong and drives him to

face of his grief.

become bloodthirsty. Leading to a heartfelt moment between him and Baymax. In this scene, his anger is overcome by the

Seeing this process is not common in family films. Many Disney

realisation that Tadashi is still in his heart, and he would not

films have characters that pass away, but most have little to no

want Hiro to act out of anger. It is definitely the most heart-

focus on how their friends and family go through bereavement.

wrenching moment in the film, and creates a powerful scene

I believe focusing on this makes Hiro feel a lot more human and

that won’t be forgotten.

gives him depth. It would also be beneficial for people who are experiencing loss to see, particularly children. Knowing that what

This is also where we see our hero go through a bargaining

they are feeling is natural, and watching a character they admire

stage. We can see that Hiro believes getting revenge for his

feel it too, will help them in such a difficult time. Over 24,000 chil-

brother will help him to feel better. When Baymax asks if

dren lose a parent each year in Britain.² Disney have the power to

catching Callaghan (the kabuki- clad villain) will improve his

help them emotionally through their films.

emotional state, Hiro tells him that it will.

Whilst being a good step forward, the film still feels like Hiro only Baymax helps Hiro with his overwhelming emotions in other

goes through half of the grieving process. Everything happens too

ways too. The loveable robot knows that support from loved

fast for us to focus on Hiro’s personal journey, and more importance

ones helps people who are experiencing loss, and so encour-

is given to the superhero adventure plot.

ages Hiro to engage with his friends. In another instance, when Baymax understands that adrenaline improves Hiro’s

A film that had a similar idea, yet managed to focus on both its

emotional state, he makes sure Hiro is as exhilarated as he

emotional story and its adventure story, is Disney’s 2002 feature

can be. At the end of the film, you can see that Hiro has learnt

“Lilo and Stitch”.

to accept his grief, and understand that it’s okay to be sad and remember the good times.

“Lilo and Stitch” is a film about a Hawaiian woman, Nani, struggling to find, and keep, a job in order to hold custody of her younger sister

Later in the film, Hiro suffers from another loss. Comparing

Lilo. It is also a film about an alien crash landing on earth in order

Hiro’s actions this time to those he commits earlier in the

to escape from the space police.

film, shows us what Baymax has taught him. He is able to

16 • Designfreebies Magazine • www.designfreebies.org

Despite these plots sounding like they belong in 2 different films,

Although, saying this, bereavement is a long, and slow process. It would

they both run alongside each other harmoniously. Nani and Lilo’s

be impossible to show it in detail in a feature film. “Big Hero 6” does

struggle is given the seriousness and focus it deserves, and both

demonstrate enough for us understand, and feel, Hiro’s pain. It is only a

characters actions and emotions feel real and deep. However, There

shame that it did not receive quite enough focus.

is also enough spotlight on the space adventure to keep the film exciting and fun. We watch every character go through a personal

Overall, “Big Hero 6” does what it sets out to do. Which is entertain the

journey, where they change and grow.

viewer with emotion, action and comedy, and it does this very well. After it’s release, It soon became Disney’s third highest grossing animated film

This is where “Big Hero 6” fails. Rather than the 2 kinds of plots

in North America and Canada.

working together and feeding off of each other, they seem to be mashed together. Neither stories are never fully realised, giving off

As well as receiving a great response from critics and fans alike- win-

a feeling that the film’s narrative was slightly unfinished. It does

ning the 87th Academy Award for best animated feature.4 It’s lively and

not feel like Hiro goes through a journey, instead he moves through

exciting, and is appealing to a large range of people- children and adults

different emotions without much connection between them. The

alike, And likely to stay in their hearts for years to come, alongside the

emotions we see him go through are strong, and leave an impact

many other amazing Disney classics.

on the audience; the thread between each of these powerful scenes are the only part missing.

Designfreebies Magazine • www.designfreebies.org • 17

E-SPORTS Should video games be considered a sport?

Video games should be seen as a sport. When I say this, I’m not referring to playing games causally at home as a pastime. Instead, I am going to be talking about the huge competitive game championships called E-Sports- which stands for Electronic Sports.

E-Sport competitions have gained huge momentum over the past few years. And with over 70 million viewers of various championships in 2013, it is clear to see that the craze will only grow larger in time.

The main problem with this question is that any clear answer requires a clear description of sport. What can be defined as a sport? Different dictionaries and websites will define the word sport in a variety of ways. Thefreedictionary.com defines sport as “Physical activity that is governed by a set of rules or customs and often undertaken competitively”. The Oxford dictionary describes it as “An activity involving physical exertion and skill in which an individual or team competes against another or others for entertainment.”

Traditionally, Sports are team played games that occur outside and focus on exercise, which is why when people hear that video games are sport, they become very confused.

This is mostly due to E-Sport competitions being generally unknown by anyone other than gamers.

It’s not clear to say whether or not E-Sports can fit perfectly into these definitions.

4 • Designfreebies Magazine • www.designfreebies.org

gaming is not an overly laborious physical

one. Practice for them includes an

task, and this is used as a point against this

extensive amount of time in front

kind of gaming being seen as a sport. Still,

of a computer screen. This time is at

this gaming takes a lot of work, and can

least 6 hours a day for professional

be very physically and mentally tasking.

teams, 16 year old South Korean

A high skill level is need to master these

player Seung Hyun Lee spends an

games. The mind and body must work as

average of 14 hours a day training.

one, and learning all of the features of the game- needed to play seriously- takes a lot

In China and South Korea, teams

of time and effort. I believe if people knew

spend the year before a

more about what the gamers put into their training, they would understand that, like any other sport, a lot of practice and time is

Physical activity that is governed by a

needed to become skilled enough to compete in these competitions.

Another valid point against E-sports is the fact that other games are similar to competitive gaming, but not seen as sports. For example, Chess is a strategic competition that people view for entertainment and also takes a large amount of skill and practice. Where do we draw the line of what is seen as a sport?

tournament living and training in the same house. This intense lifestyle has paid off though, with 5 of 8 finalist teams in The International 4 (2014’s official Dota 2 championship) coming from china.

On the other hand, rather than claiming that these activities are too different to traditional sport to be considered sport themselves- they could become part of a However it does contain aspects of these descriptions;

whole other category of sports (E-Sports).

E-Sports championships are governed by a set of rules

In the same way that volleyball is a team

and are competitive. In addition, these competitions

sport whereas long jump is a solo sport.

are a form of entertainment- not only do huge crowds

Once E-Sports are viewed as sport, other

watch the games live in stadiums, but it’s also easier

games will start to be seen in a different

than ever to tune in live online- or even on TV now.

light, which could lead to more categories

One of the largest gaming championships of this year

of sport being created. The reason gaming

was shown on ESPN.

in particular is starting to be debated on what it is, rather than chess for instance, is

It is not true, however, to say that playing these games

because of how viral it has become. Huge

counts as a hard physical activity, although hand-

amounts of fans of these championships

eye co-ordination is essential to these pro- gamers.

have started more discussion on what it

Playing these games is much more of a strategic pro-

is they’re really watching- what it can be

cess; it is a mental activity rather than physical.

called and categorised as.

Despite this fact, I don’t believe E-sport should be

Furthermore, Playing video games is not

ruled out as a sport. Instead, it can be considered a

something that should be an inspiration.

sub-category of sport. It shares features of traditional

Athletes work hard and promote a healthy

sport, but with variations. This will give E-sports a

lifestyle for children, pro- gamers do not. If

chance to be taken seriously as a major entertainment

we start calling this lifestyle a sport pro-

form, whilst still clarifying that it is not a sport in the

fession, it will negatively influence future

traditional way.

generations.

However, there is a large amount of people that

E-sports players do work hard, however it

disagree with me. As mentioned earlier, competitive

is true that their lifestyle is not a healthy

Most of the people competing are teenagers- with gaming becoming a lifestyle rather than a hobby, their academic and social life, and health, takes on a huge toll. It is fair to say that this should not be promoted to young people.

In spite of this, there is a better way to deal with this issue rather than just decide that gaming is not sport.

Instead, solutions can be found to help change the way these gamers are living. For example, set routinesapproved by doctors- can be made for them, allowing time for rest, recreation, and exercising. Although, in order for this to be possible, these people must be seen as sportsmen.

This will give them the respect they need in order to be given care and attention aimed at improving their health.

One University in Illinois – Robert Morris University- now have an E-Sport team, even offering scholarship funding to the members (currently totalling 35 students). They are

Designfreebies Magazine • www.designfreebies.org • 5

treated as a Sport team by the institution,

sport events, and demonstrates how large

it will be seen that more companies will

and put in the same amount of dedica-

the audience is for E-Sports in the digital

become invested and involved.

tion as any other college athletes. Practice

age.

Big competitive gaming events aren’t a new

occurs after class each day, and competi-

The huge stadiums sell out tickets quickly,

occurrence. In 1972, the first ever gaming com-

tions are held weekly on Saturdays.4 The

bands play in the “half time” and it all ends

petition took place for the game “Space war”.

students still attend their lessons, and rath-

with a dramatic closing ceremony where

However the first big event happened in 1980

er than gaining physical skills at their club,

the winning time receive a large trophy

for “Space Invaders” which hosted over 10,000

they gain mental knowledge on strategy

alongside an awesome money prize.

participants.9 More competitions took place throughout the 1980’s and gained publicity

and time management. Having a team at University, rather than an outside team,

Approximately 71,500,000 people viewed

through magazines, and some tournaments

allows an controlled environment, coaches

E-Sports in 2013 , either at the events or

were even aired on television.

can care for the students and ensure they

through online mediums (e.g Twitch- a live

With the rise of the internet in the 1990’s, the

maintain a healthy balance- keeping gam-

stream website). This amount is roughly

competitive gaming scene gained momen-

ing as a dedicated hobby.

double the total viewer ship of 2012.

tum and allowed E-Sport tournaments more

To me, I view this level of gaming as a sport-

In recent years, these events have also start-

potential to grow. Nintendo held their first

when people put dedication and time into

ed to be shown on national TV. Scandinavian

championship in 1990, the final of which was

something it deserves to be recognised.

channels aired the finals for the Dreamhack:

held at Universal Studios Hollywood. This

As as time goes on, it’s impact is growing.

CS:GO (“Counter strike, Global offence”) com-

giant company in gaming paved the way for

Tons of money and effort is put into these

petition. And ESPN hosted The International

other companies to follow suit, and as team-

events; Gaming companies are taking time

4 championship with live commentators

based internet games grew, that’s exactly what

to cater to the huge amount of dedicated

and hosts.

they did.

The biggest growth in E-Sport has occurred

fans, whilst also attempting to reach out to causal gamers whom might not know of the

This “Dota 2” competition was the largest

in the 21st century. South Korea saw the

E-Sport scene. Other companies that create

E-Sport event of 2014. Roughly 20 million

biggest amount of televised content in the

product for competitive gamers also spon-

fans viewed the games, through Twitch,

2000’s, mainly due to the growing popularity

sor the teams, giving them the funding the

ESPN, MTG Europe and CCTV China TV.6

of Blizzard’s “Starcraft” which continues to hold big events worldwide. “Starcraft”, alongside

gamers need to continue competing. This sponsorship also acts as advertisement for

Although, this was not the largest amount

many other real time strategy (RTS) games,

the companies, the teams use their latest

of viewers for an E-Sport championship.

allowed players to hone many skills and tech-

equipment (e.g gaming mouses and key-

The “League of Legends” 2013 event gained

niques that take a lot of practice to master. It

boards) at the events for promotion.

32 million viewers for it’s season, 13,000 of

was also a more interesting type of game to

which were present for the contest at the

watch, and more people became fans of watch-

Even other completely unrelated compa-

LA Staples Center.7 The 2014 event took

ing competitive games.

nies have started investing in E-Sports. In

place in Seoul, South Korea, and had an

Growth in recent years is due to online stream-

2014, Coca- Cola created a partnership with

attendance of 40,000 fans. The grand prize

ing becoming easier to watch. Mainly because

Riot games (The developers of “League

for the final was 1 million dollars.

of Twitch, which was launched in 2011. The

of Legends”) to create a new “Challenger

main E-Sports games watched through Twitch

series” that occurred before the champion-

The International 4 does beat this how-

is “League of Legends” and “Dota 2”; these

ship. The head of global gaming for Coca-

ever, with an unbelievable grand prize of

are both examples of “MOBA” games. “MOBA”

Cola, Matt Wolf said “Now’s the perfect time

$5,028,121.

stands for Multiplayer Online Battle Arena, and

to get involved with the passionate League of Legends community, and to help support and grow E-Sports,” This is a common practice in all commercial

The initial prize pool for this championship was set by Valve (The creators of “Dota 2”) at 1.6 million dollars. They then released an in game item -the compendium coin- that was available for fans to buy. The item was $2.50, which went towards the final prize pool. This ended up totalling $10,930,698.8 2013 held The international 3 for which the final prize pool was $2,847,380.

Demonstrating how great the industry has grown in the past year. Potential for these events is high, and as numbers improve,

were made specifically for competitive gaming.

These games also need skill to play well, and have a high learning curve.

The main problem with this question (are video games sport?) is in the assumptions people will make when they hear it. Generally, E-Sports is an unknown thing, and most people will not have heard of it. When they hear that video games are sports, they imagine people at home, in a dark room, playing non-stop.

What they do not know is the dedication, stress, and physical and mental strain that progamers put into gaming. The stigma stuck to video games is preventing E-Sports from being taken seriously by any one other than gamers.

Designfreebies Magazine • www.designfreebies.org • 13

V

HOW IMMERSIVE CAN MEDIA BECOME? Even reading this you are being exposed to media. Media is a part

these questions we need to have a greater understanding of what

of all of our lives, but media is a broad term, which can span many

immersion is. According to Ernest W Adams author and consultant

different mediums such as animations, movies, games, books radio,

on game design, immersion can be classified in three forms; tactical

and countless more. We are constantly exposed to media in our

immersion is experienced when performing tactile operations that

modern lives, it is what informs us and connects us but also what

involve skill, strategic immersion is more cerebral, and is associated

lets us escape into worlds of our own design, we can immerse

with mental challenge, narrative immersion occurs when audiences

ourselves in a reality of our choosing. We have all at one point or

become invested in a story. Other forms of immersion have been

another felt deeply connected and involved with a piece of media,

theorised such as spatical immersion which simulates a world that

as if we are connected or a part of the experience, regardless of

is convincing as a real experience. As much as immersion can be

form, this feeling is called immersion. Immersion is a state of deep

defined as a mental connection to the media product, it is also

mental connection where you reach a suspension of disbelief.

significantly a connection with what we personally perceive the

Immersion can have a major impact on the success of media. From

product represents.

the earliest and most simple incarnations of media, people have strived for a greater sense of immersion, which begs the question

Despite immersion being defined as a deep mental connection

how immersive can media become?

there is actually a need for a physical connection, which in most forms of media is the television screen. The role of a television

Media is defined as the means of mass communication and

screen is to display a sequence of images to simulate movement.

although the term media is in itself very broad, vague and tedious

Through the various processes in our eyes and brains such as the

term, to grasp the basics of immersion it is a necessity to generalise

persistence of vision we are able to perceive displayed images as

all forms of media, to be able to grasp what immersion is. What

movement, this perception of movement is the first key to immer-

causes us to become immersed? Why do we want to be immersed?

sion. Although the screen plays a huge role in immersion; it is not

And what is the line between an immersive media experience and

entirely true to say the TV screen is the limiting factor. Since the

actually partaking physical in the activity? These questions are the

late 1800’s we have had the technology to recreate an image and

key to defining the potential of immersion, but to truly understand

project it with a nipkow disk, technology has always pushed the

16 • Designfreebies Magazine • www.designfreebies.org

limits of what we can see and immerse ourselves in and that is

we prefer are what we find easiest to immerse ourselves in as they

no different today. We are far past the point where technology

closest meet the needs in our lives. Whether it be; the feeling of

struggles to display our visions; we are actually closer to the point

growth learning and mastery that comes from competence, the

where our vision struggles to see the full quality of the display.

feeling of control and significance that comes from autonomy, or

With technology is reaching the limits of human perception; such

the feeling that we matter and are a part of something that comes

as curved TV’s providing a panoramic view simulating peripheral

from relatedness, immersion is easiest when it is tailored to a

vision, higher frame rates showing smoother motion and 4k reso-

person’s personal needs and personality.

lution, which is four times the quality of 1080p, the equivalent to 8.3 megapixels, and when the human eye capes out at around 7

Although similar themes to competence, autonomy and related-

megapixels, the limiting factor to our immersion becomes our own

ness can be found in all forms of media, gaming is often called the

human limitations.

perfect medium due to its dynamic systems breaking away from the linearity of movies and novels. Gaming has become a driving

So if immersion is not being limited by technology it becomes a

force for immersion; it has helped the development of virtual

question of what causes us to become immerse? What is it about

reality, motion controls and forced feedback. Gaming has also

media that causes us to become immersed and why do we look for

helped innovate nonlinear storytelling, which has been reflected

these elements? Psychologists have been researching immersion

through various media, such as the influences that the animated

in various forms of media for many years, with gaming proving

feature film batman assault on arkham draws form the batman

to provide a unique insight. Research by Scott Rigby a gaming

arkham asylam games. The next step for technology would be to

researcher and author of the book glued to games discovered that

include more of our senses, which changes the question of “What

we immerse ourselves in media that fills the needs in our lives. In

is the line between an immersive media experience and actually

media and especially in gaming we search for three key themes;

partaking physical. in the activity?” to are we willing to actively

competence, autonomy and relatedness. In gaming competence,

participate in the media we immerse ourselves in, the technology

autonomy and relatedness are not only defining characteristics of

is available to recreate the experiences but are we actually look-

the game but of our own personalities. The characteristics what

ing to take part in the experience?

Designfreebies Magazine • www.designfreebies.org • 17

Despite all that we know about how to create immersion, we still

media, so with such different themes and design how can they be

struggle to find a way to fully create a suspension of disbelief, but

meeting the same needs? Most western media focuses on either

why? What is it that stops us from achieving pure immersion, if we

autonomy or relatedness, whereas most eastern media focuses on

know what causes immersion and we have the technology to dis-

competence, these themes are derived form the cultures history

play what is at the limits of human perception, what is stopping us

and the needs that are present in each culture. As a cultures needs

from achieving pure immersion? Mark Coulson, reader in psychol-

change the media content that culture produces changes with it.

ogy at Middlesex University has researched how our immersion can be broken. Immersion requires a suspension of disbelief, which is

Despite these trends in media there will inevitably be people in

a passive decision to experience the virtual event as a real experi-

any culture looking for themes and aspects of media that are not

ence, but what causes us to disbelieve what we are seeing and

readily found in their own culture, this sub culture suffers from

break away from our immersive experience.

an incompatibility with their available media, which limits their immersion. If not for the globalisation of media, which has opened

The level of detail in a media product is a significant cause of

up a wider array of media with better-suited themes, media immer-

our suspension of disbelief and immersion, it is a key part of what

sion would be lost to vast amounts of people in every culture. The

allows us to enjoy and engage with media, however it is also what

globalisation of media has also affected the rate at which media

can cause us to disbelieve and break our immersion. When such a

can change which can be one of the most immersive experiences

high level of detail is reached media often fall into the uncanny

there is. Viral videos, trending tweets and news scandals are avail-

valley. The uncanny valley often described as the sense of eeriness

able to us all, and we have all been drawn in and immersed at

and unease that accompanies sight of something that is almost

one time or another, and although we may not be involved in the

but not quite human. The uncanny valley is one of several human

article, or responsible for its creation we feel engaged and part

predisposed concerns that stem from our fight or flight response.

of the experience. Streaming software has allowed us to immerse ourselves with any form of content we like in any location at any

What media immerses us clearly changes from culture to culture;

time, we are no longer stifled by availability of content but rather

there is a clear difference between eastern media and western

by content quality.

18 • Designfreebies Magazine • www.designfreebies.org

between reality and media plays a huge role in how immersive With all that we have available to us, high end visuals and sensory

can become, especially when media and our real lives are so

outputs, targeted themes and near limitless accessibility, can we

intertwined. Media is just a means to which we all fill the needs

truly define immersion? Defining immersion with such cold and

in our lives; although it is quicker and easier to experience events,

precise terms doesn’t do the experience justice. Immersion regard-

through media the experiences we gain may never truly immerse

less of how we define it is a human experience, which will always

us unless we find out what needs we are trying to fulfil. People

make the concept near impossible to completely understand. All

who are more comfortable in their lives with fewer needs to fill

that I can say for certain is that pure immersion is something that

tend to have less of a preference to immersion, but our preferenc-

can never be created with a singular design. With media becom-

es and needs are cultural and personal, so to answer a question

ing evermore diverse and the globalisation of media becoming

about how immersive media can become is impossible on such

a cultural phenomenon the accuracy of the definition of media

a broad scale, all we can truly say is that it is down to individual

and even the relevance of media is a huge question. As media

choice as to how we fill needs in our lives, with real experiences

has become so integrated into our daily lives separating the two

or immersing ourselves in media.

is near impossible, media’s fastest developing form seems to be our own lives.

How immersive can media become? How immersive will we let

VThe only answer for how immersive can media become is unclear,

it become?

as the only limiting factor seems to be our human limitations, our inability to perceive all that we can produce, and our psychological inanition’s to the upper limits of our creations are what stop us from recreating what is real. Our personal preferences clearly play a huge role in our immersion, on a personal level we all know what sort of media we are looking for, and we all need to consider this before we can comprehend how to create pure immersion.

So how immersive can media become? How we define the line

Designfreebies Magazine • www.designfreebies.org • 19

6 • Designfreebies Magazine • www.designfreebies.org

Cultural representations in Disneys Big Hero 6

combing of the styles has ended with a loss of some of its former

Disney’s big hero 6 is a reimagining of marvel comics lesser known

Another more obvious reason for why Disney has chose to tone

super hero team. The critical acclaim this film has received more than deserved, as Disney’s adaptation of the original source material, marvel comics big hero 6 has simplified and modernised the original story and characters without losing any of their classic appeal and introduced it the material to a new audience.

Disney’s big hero 6 has simplified the original characters, all of whom had complicated and diverse backstories of their own into a simpler group, which allowed them to seamlessly tell a meaningful story about loss and acceptance. The new connection between these characters has allowed for more well-rounded and relatable charac-

identity. To Disney’s credit some features have remained such as the hoki mask. down the prominent features of the characters in Big hero 6 is the uncanny valley. “phenomenon whereby a computer-generated figure or humanoid robot bearing a near-identical resemblance to a human being arouses a sense of unease or revulsion in the person viewing it” Disney has always avoided the uncanny valley and focused on stylized designs and animation. Disney has actively made strives to avoid the uncanny valley and even “plans to end the uncanny valley”

ters, while managing not to remove any of their unique features, such as their obscure names.

“We believe that the findings of this paper will alter our community’s current

Although despite its many success it is not without its faults.

assumptions regarding human eyes, and our work has the potential to signifi-

Although Disney’s reimagining has modernised and simplified

cantly impact the way that eyes will be modeled in the future.”

the source material it has also raised questions about the cultural

representations of the characters and how this adaptation may have needlessly and negatively deviated from marvels original story based in japan.

This new adaptation of big hero 6 has a prominent tone and appearance of western media. The original source material was planned to be a deviation from the American and western tropes and themes found in comic books. Disney’s big hero 6 has failed to maintain this key theme. This change in design allows the universally recognisable characters to become relatable and emotionally engaging to a much wider audience.

Big hero 6 is a 3d digital animation made and produced by Walt

Disney research

Do the characters designs even matter; Disney’s big hero 6 is a film with no focus on racial, cultural or social demographic. With an age rating of PG and a younger target audience that has no bias towards any specific race culture, or even understanding of the implications of the lack of prominent eastern design features, Disney’s big hero 6 provides a feature film that is engaging, engrossing and relatable to all audiences. Disney’s big hero 6 is a film that has rebooted and reimagined a truly deserving franchise, in a way that transcends the cultural and social design and succeeds at engaging all audiences on a human level.

Disney Animation Studios, but despite the quality of the models and skill of Disney’s animators the characters do not represent their Asian roots and at times appear Caucasian. The lack of representation of the eastern culture appears to be a design choice, following the trend from Disney’s changes to some of the characters, such as Baymax, This design choice is likely due to Disney’s target demographic and known design theme, but with such a distinctive source material the

Designfreebies Magazine • www.designfreebies.org • 7

.OP-ED REVIEW. .DYING LIGHT.

D

ying Light is a desperate survival horror experience at the beginning and then transforms gradually and gratifyingly evolves into a fast paced hyper violent celebration in vertical freedom and zombie destruction. Its main story is not very spectacular but the memorable side quests and shear fun of exploring the two huge maps do a fantastic job of offsetting that. Making Dying light the most engrossing open world games, zombie ridden or otherwise that have recently been released.

The combat and parkour in the game Dying light is very different to any game like it but does have elements from other games such as ‘Dead Island’ and ‘Mirrors Edge’. At the beginning the movement, parkour and combat all seem new and a little had with it being clumsy and very dangerous as the diverse and deadly zombies able annoying take a amazing amount of damage before they finally die for good. Jumping which is differently attached to the shoulder buttons on the consoles can take a while to get used to. Getting mobs is normally a death sentence and so is getting spotted by the even more dangerous zombies when the light turns to night, which turns the game into a stealth zombie avoiding survival or if you are found an adrenalin pumping stress sprint to the nearest safe house.

Before long thou you can build up a skill set turns the walking dead into your personal play toys with vaulting over their shoulders, quickly tear the zombies in the slow motion kills or trick them to hoard round an explosive.

Even night time goes from being a night of shear terror and running to a boost in XP gain as the night give u XP bonus the more you do at night. It all starts to feel god to once you get used to the buttons and the map the 1st person parkour starts to feel natural and fluid and the navigation through the decaying slums and old time housing in the city become so easy and fun that is nearly lets the fact there is no fast travel acceptable.

12 • Designfreebies Magazine • www.designfreebies.org

The combat within Dying Light does get extremely satisfying although it never really changes, even when expertly tearing through a zombies skull with a weapon created by the player while charged with an element of your choice the strikes are still heavy and clumsy.

Although there are gun later on in the game they don’t tend to be a primary weapon with there low fire rate and there high zombie attraction rate with the loud shots. They may be able to kill the zombies from a distance they are more of a in case of emergency weapon then one you would use a lot.

The Story in Dying Light is pretty straightforward and the probably most surprising thing is the lack of surprises and plays it straight with its no hidden ad-genders interesting but undeveloped characters and entreatingly cliché villains. In a way it’s kind of refreshing even if the end result is nothing special. A big chunky of the players time would be just exploring and doing side quests where the story really develops.

If you where to pick up a quest from a random survivor if may just be a simple one like find this search for this person.

A lot of the missions start off like this but then start to escalate and turn into something creepy and eerie places and make the player think of jump scares and that search for the mission person may turn into a hunt for more unsettling clues in a seemingly abandoned apartment building. The normal rescue mission my just be a trap by a random mad man. This are some of Dying light

most memorable moments and make the story more and more rewarding and gives it some depth to the story.

Although the game is playable with just one person, as most games it is more fun playing with friends. Up to 3 other people can join you in your quest to kill hordes and hordes of the un-dead nightmare or just watch your back while your picking locks. Although the finding a session isn’t the best once you are all in the game the sessions are smooth and stable once they get going. Having friends around is also very useful if a player playing a zombie invades your game by the ‘be the zombie mode’. This mode is when a random player joins your game a super powered monster with zip line tendrils and zombie summoning spit. Playing as the zombie is a lot of fun especially after you unlock some of the grosser attacks. But it seems awfully one sided if your not player against more than one player.

The zombie AI within Dying Light is very impressive compared to other zombie games were as like in them other games they are just like walking into a wall for ten minuets and you can also get that with some other AI games.

Whereas in Dying Light the AI is very good as by one zombie at a time it’s very easy but the zombies and AI as much more impressive in numbers. Both the day and night AI with the normal and super zombies are always moving but always as if it was realistic.

Designfreebies Magazine • www.designfreebies.org • 13

16 • Designfreebies Magazine • www.designfreebies.org

How has gaming changed the filming industry?

The filming industry has changed dramatically through out its existence; one of its biggest influences is the gaming industry.

A lot of films have been created because of games and based on or around games with some examples like; Resident Evil, Tomb Raider, Doom, Prince of Persia, Dead or Alive, Super Mario bros, Serious Sam, Silent Hill, Mass Effect and many more.( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ List_of_films_based_on_video_games ) Here is a page that has a list of films that have been made after the games and some potential film ideas that have floated round the industry.

In this article I shall explore the relationships between both the game and film industry and the reasons why they are so compatible.

The film industry has since 1993 made films based on or around a game they do this because they can make both the game developers and film creators a lot of money, for example the Street Fighter film made $3,124,775 on its opening day. It grossed $9,508,030 on its opening weekend. On its second weekend it grossed $7,178,360. The film grossed $33,423,521 at the domestic box office and $66,000,000 at the international box office, making a total of $99,423,521 worldwide. Another reason is that it makes making the film a lot easier because u wouldn’t have to think of much of a story line and just use the games basic line. For example the Street fighter film again has the same basic story as the game with the “good guys” (Colonel Guile, Ryu and the others are trying to stop the “bad guys” Bison, Zangief and others. Although some films based on games have just taken the premise of the game and taken it in different direction such as Resident evil live action sires doesn’t follow the same people from the games but still uses the same universe and what occurs in both film and game co exist and effect each other.

Some of the films have also influenced games like for example Golden eye this was very successful in both film and game. The film was released on the 17th of November 1995, and

had a budget $58,000,000 and on opening weekend it made £ 12,393,233 and total gross was £ 17,393,595 by 19th January 1996. The game was released on the 25th of August 1997, and done very well making a lot of money and was originally released on the Nintendo 64 and has been re-released on the most current console the Xbox 360. It is still revered as one of the best video game film adaptations.

In a personal opinion the gaming industry and film industry have really made a great leap forward in the recent years. With films based on games to be released in the upcoming years such as the “Warcraft” movie, the “Uncharted” and some others that have only been spoken about so far like “Assassins Creed” the movie and the “metal Gear solid” movie. These movies should be better than its counter parts, because of the huge improvement in the technology and visual and special effects capable to make the film action pack as the game itself. The films that have been planned for released and or made like Assassins Creed would be an easy film to make and produce because of its early setting and good world placement, the main hard part would be the casting and the practical effects.

The reason being is that it would be hard to find an actor that looks like either Altaïr Ibn-La’Ahad a Middle Eastern assassin that is the star of the assassins road to fame, or Ezio Auditore da Firenze An Italian assassin who is the main Assassins that many people would know and had the biggest story line within the franchise.

There is also Connor Kenway whom is a Native American boy whos family is destroyed but the Templar order and seeks out the assassins for help and guidance. Then there is Edward kenway who is welsh partier who is abandoned on an island by an assassin, so he tracks him down kills but joins the assassin order and fights with them to attack the Templar order and hunt down the sage. Lastly there is Arno Dorian a French orphan adopted By the Templar master, but then is framed and arrested for his murder and discovers the i love adam assassin order and joins them to discover the real murder and reveals his own past and heritage.

Designfreebies Magazine • www.designfreebies.org • 17

Do Theatrical Ratings Matter?

By Eddy Idirss

The real question is do they matter anymore, firstly

weather and outdoor activities kept people out of the

in different films. In ‘Kirby Dicks’ 2006 Documentary ‘This

high-quality content. All of that changed with the release

therating of a film still varies between content displayed Film Is Not Yet Rated’ the idea behind the whole feature

was to reveal that the MPAA’s rating system is based on

theatres and gave Hollywood little motivation to turn out of Steven Spielberg’s Jaws in the summer of 1975.

the opinions of a few individuals who operate anonymously in the film industry (mostly parents). A brief synopsis would

be: The documentary asks whether Hollywood movies and

independent films are rated equally for comparable content; whether sexual content in gay-themed movies is given harsher

ratings penalties than their heterosexual counterparts; whether it makes sense that extreme violence is given

an R rating while sexuality is banished to the cutting room floor; whether Hollywood studios receive detailed

The film not only smashed all previous summer box office

independent film producers are left guessing; and finally,

until two years later when the summer release of Star Wars

directions as to how to change an NC-17 film into an R, while whether keeping the Individuals and the rating process secret leaves the MPAA entirely unaccountable for its decisions.

records but all box office records period. Those records stood

blew through them both. The success of both films firmly

cemented the concept of “summer blockbuster” in the public

consciousness and Hollywood took note; every year since they’ve done their best to lure people away from summer activities and into theatres with high production value action-filled movies.

Jaws will always be the prime example of the summer

blockbuster hit, if jaws were to be recreated today with

modern processes the PG rated film would probably be rated 12 or 15 because of the opinionated classification of movies.

So I want to discuss whether or not a film rated 15 or it being R rated makes the film less successful than a 12/PG-13 feature. I want to use Jaws as the prime example of why the

12/PG-13 rating is more desirable for summer blockbusters.

Prior to 1975, summertime was considered by Hollywood

executives and movie theatre employees alike to be a graveyard:

a

dead

zone

where

14 • Designfreebies Magazine • www.designfreebies.org

beautiful

In the 1980’s films like Gremlins and the Poltergeist were rated PG and it wasn’t until the MPAA changed the rating demographic to PG-13 then film makers started to be

caution on what to include within their films. In the Gremlins

there is a scene in which one of the gremlins is in a microwave and his head spontaneously explodes covering

the inside of the microwave door in flesh and blood. In the

poltergeist there is scene were a man peels his own face off,

in the 80’s things like this were acceptable because the PG

encouraging anti-social attitudes, reinforcing unhealthy

Parental Guidance. Another Spielberg film after Jaws with

responsibility. Especially with regard to children, harm may also

was misinterpreted for kids, when in actual fact it means the PG sigh of approval is the Temple of Doom, as an

Indiana Jones the Temple of Doom has one of the most memorable parts were a beating heart it pulled out of the chest

cavity of a man. It was really after that the PG-13 rating was introduced because of the lack of attention that parents had

when leaving there kids alone with a film. The MPAA may have changed the success rate of many films by doing this because

of the fault of many parents in the 80’s and 90’s. The BBFC

(British Board of Film Classification) like the MPAA; is the company that decides the theatrical ratings for films in the UK:

fantasies, or eroding a sense of moral

include retarding social and moral development, distorting a viewer’s sense of right and wrong. But my opinion as an 18 year old who is able to view any film at the cinema is that a

rating shouldn’t jeopardize the success of a movie. What makes a good movie? Well firstly it depends on what the audience wants, with limiting what a film can show exactly just to be in

the 12/PG-13 rating can ruin the potential of a film. Times have changed and the big summer hits have now been

metaphorically watered down to be within that substandard. A great example would be World War Z; the theatrical release was edited to the point where a zombie film would be considered a 12/PG-13, the film was also rather boring and had less sus-

pense than I would have hoped. Then I watched the uncut Blu-

Ray version and the film was already better than I would have expected. The sacrifices that film makers have to do to make their films rated 12 ruins the films potential. I am not trying to The BBFC is an independent body which was originally

established by the film industry in 1912. Local Authorities were

made responsible for what was shown in cinemas and from early on accepted the decisions of the BBFC. There are

obvious benefits to both Local Authorities and the film industry in having a central but independent body bring consistency to

the age rating process and accept responsibility for decisions.

The MPAA is the American equivalent and operates within the

same way, the idea behind these companies are to classify

say 15/18 rated movies fail because of the adult audience, the

point is why ruin the potential of a film because of a rating that is meaningless when the film is released on Blu-Ray/DVD. If you look at video games as an example they are always successful

even though there is rating. Video games are a good example

of what rated content goes by as acceptable, whilst looking at the ESRB (Entertainment Software Rating Board) website, the guide was centred on the idea of content that is available for children.

what is the appropriate viewing age for certain productions.

The rating system has stayed the same but the issue is that the system is based on the opinions of small groups of people

and less on the fact behind the actual population’s thoughts, it is hard to have the opinion of every person because of it being

close to impossible so that is why there is a large monetization

on films in general. There are things to consider with censorship that is important whether the material, either on its own, or in

My main concern is that some future titles to be released are

any harm at the age rating concerned. This includes not just any

audience appeal, the real case is for future films like the

combination with other content of a similar nature, may cause

harm that may result from the behaviour of potential viewers, but also any ‘moral harm’ that may be caused by, for example,

desensitising a potential viewer to the effects of violence,

degrading a potential viewer’s sense of empathy, encouraging a dehumanised view of others, suppressing pro-social attitudes,

being reworked into a lower rated production due to the

Deadpool movie a higher age rating would make a better movie

due to the dark humour present within its source material. With the track-record of recent 15 comic book movies in comparison

to 12a rated comic book movies, it’s not difficult to understand why Fox would want it to be 12a.

Designfreebies Magazine • www.designfreebies.org • 15

one doubted it will be a hit. Game of Thrones’ average gross audience was 9.3 million viewers per episode, ratings like

that show how a program that isn’t censored to be viewed by

a large demographic like PG rated content is one of the most viewed television picture within the past 10 years.

On the plus side, the 12a rating could lead to a higher budget

for Deadpool, since the film will be able to play to a wider

audience. On the negative side, a lot of fans want a 15/18 rated Deadpool movie and look what happened to The

Expendables when that series went to a 12a rating against the wishes of many fans (of course that film leaking online didn’t

help either). Still, just because the film gets a wide-release

Game of Thrones is second behind HBO’s other production

see a 15/18 version on Blu-ray eventually. The Expendables

the same amount of violence and is still at the top. This goes

12a rating in theatres, doesn’t mean that fans wouldn’t get to is an instance of which changing the age rating ruined the film for the prime adult audience. The first Expendables film was a

crazy idea of feature to include such a large number of action stars whilst also pull off a good films was a new thing in the

film industry. It got people talking and by its second film it had gained a large adult fan base due to the action content shown in the film. But the third ruined it because of the watered down fragment of an action film.

Some could argue that a trilogy was unnecessary for the

The Sopranos based on viewership; even The Sopranos had to show how some studios aren’t afraid of the smaller

demographic because of the idea of success is with the child

audiences, HBO has its own network and streaming service within the USA and is also airing some of their greatest shows globally, it’s the global adult audience that these shows appeal to and that is the audience that should be the main

market for films like The Expendables, Jaws, Deadpool and many others out there.

franchise but still the third film isn’t even half of what the

In a short video made by a YouTube user Good Bad Flicks

but I wanted to save television until the end; the whole

that I have talked about and also goes into further detail on

others were. I have covered the idea of video games and film structure and distribution for television is different than

theatrical releases because it is direct to the viewer. A show that is always talked about because of the content within it is Game of Thrones; each season is 10 hours long and the

percentage of explicit content within each season is high due to the original source materials vulgar and graphic quantities.

The show based on George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and

Fire series was a success from the start; the first airing of the season premiere drew 2.2 million viewers, and 10 weeks later

the finale was seen by 3.04 million people. And yet Game of Thrones was renewed two days after its premiere, and no

16 • Designfreebies Magazine • www.designfreebies.org

‘WTF Happened to PG-13?’ he discusses some of the topics

the comparisons between the originals and remakes of films and the difference between the rating. Some of the topics I have talked about were originally discussed in this video and

all credit goes to the maker for sharing the information. What is interesting about this video is the history behind the MPAA’s Valenti’s Law and how it doesn’t follow the actual idea of it.

Now to conclude on that, studios shouldn’t change a 15/18

rated film based on the fact to have a large viewership potential when the core audience isn’t being looked at as the minority.

The Modern Day Action Film

Violence In John Wick

By Eddy Idirss

John Wick (2014) staring Keanu Reeves is all about the

back to John Wick, I stated before that the choreography is

controversy, Just a disclaimer to stay out of spoiler territory I

start to end is a literal genocide of all of his enemies. Some

action; it is an absolute bloodbath and doesn’t fear from the

will try and stray away from the plot more that the action, be aware I will go into full details on each kill in the entirety of

the movie. You could say that the amazingly choreographed

action scenes show some truth behind the world of combat.

Some people argue about how Films, TV and even Video Games may or may not teach the worlds youth about violence

but in some cases the action scenes in all these forms of

media aren’t as technically true to what is perceived in the real world. Some Films and TV shows have overly

exaggerated fight scenes, for example Walker Texas Ranger.

Now I like Chuck Norris but the action was too stupid in most cases and the influence it had on people was also quite dumb.

Today the show is mocked for its overly dramatic fights, in comparison to John wick the action is less

cooperated. Another form of violence that I find absurd to be

depicted as real is the WWE; I don’t even need to explain why I think this way because it obvious.

Back to the topic on hand John Wick from the start has

certain style to it; Stahelski and Leitch, both former stunt men, unsurprisingly tackle action in the most realistic way, also Keanu Reeves as the front man was a great choice, not

only is he skilled in the forms of martial arts but because of

his work on the Matrix he is also skilled in fire arms. Some of the fighting tactics in the film are used by military special ops agents and were taught to Keanu Reeves while he was working on the matrix and to have real combat skills

projected in cinema is truly a way to represent the real world of combat. Now what is this article about? Well my statement

is that John Wick is probably one of the more realistic and believable Action films not only that but one of the greatest

in the past ten years. Now I have a list of the more violent

and unreal films that have stirred up a fury between critics

that cannot compare to the mastery of John Wick: firstly we have Bloodsport (1988); now it stars Van Damme (who is

arguably one of the greatest) as American forces commando who becomes a martial artist champion. Most scenes are your

cliché 80’s action movies and are average compared to most of his work, but it is a good example of a film that perceived as too violent yet very unreal. There are other films like Mission

Impossible, Shoot Em Up and a lot of Bollywood films. Now 18 • Designfreebies Magazine • www.designfreebies.org

like a ballet of bullets; but we have a 90-minute film that from scenes seen in the film are seen as too violent and not safe for the view of children due too the blood and refuse, its is

definatley not the film for the hemophobic type but it is truly a great action flick. What makes it better is the large attention to

detail, in some scene there are shots of John Wick just reloading as a way of representing the element of realism. Just to clarify I don’t find violence a good thing, but I find the idea that

media influences people to do violent things is false. People need to understand that if a person commits a crime it inst the fake atrocities the person witnesses in films or video games, it is because that person no matter what their

causality is; isn’t mentally stable and should be the one who

suffers not the hard working men and women who provide their fans a product or a form of entertainment who should pay

the consequences. Now I find that now in our present day cinema, all the effects that are used to make that one film more believable is an amazing feat… People need to

understand how much effort it takes to create, Because John

Wick looks so real and is a prime example of how cinema has improved; are we likely to see more people influenced by it to

harm others? Well, no… an example of how Films and Video Games do not effect crime would be the release of the

newest Grand Theft Auto, probably the most real of them all with the real world physics that are projected into the game since it release crime hast spurred up and murder is not at an all time high. Its the same argument all the time how causality

is the point of cause and effect, it doesn’t equal the cause of influence. So lets see just how violent John Wick is…

John Wick is a fresh and styleized take on the assassin genre” - Rotten Tomatoes Now In that short span of time in which the film takes place we

in this scene john has killed six men by a vehicle, three were

at John Wick’s house – there are a total of thirteen kills in that

kills two of which were headshots and sixteen shots fired with

are going to see how may people The Boogeyman kills. Firstly

entire scene, eleven killed with a gun, all of them by headshot.

One man was killed with a knife and finally the last man taken out with a few blows with the fists of John Wick. A total of twenty bullets were shot in the scene nineteen on point and

one missed, the gun he used in the scene was a Heckler and

shot and one was stabbed. In this scene we have a total of ten zero misses. In total John Wick has killed seventy-seven people

in approximately ninety minutes meaning every 1.168 minutes a person in killed on screen. If this were a video game John Wicks kill to death ratio would be infinity…

Koch P30l which has a clip size of nine meaning he needed to

Now to conclude on the idea behind violence in this film and

thirteen deaths from one man within the first thirty minutes. The

of reality, just too elaborate are films becoming more realistic

reload twice in that ten minute scene. So now we have a total of next fight scene is at the Red Circle nightclub, in the entirety of

the scene there are a total of 28 kills, we firstly we start off with three knife kills in the bathhouse below the club. Then we see

John Wick drown a man in a sink and finally we have a gunfight

in the nightclub that lasts a long time, a total of twenty-four kills by gun, the first three with a Glock 26 the rest with his trusty Heckler and Koch P30l, John wick shot a total of sixty-five

bullets an missed thirteen times meaning he hit his targets

fifty-two times, if we deduct the three headshot kills with his

Glock that is a total of forty-nine kills from his P30l so he reloaded a total of five times within the whole scene.

what it means is that the combat is too graphic as a portrayal

and is it a bad thing. We see graphic content at a rising high, an example would be in Game of Thrones were The Hound disembowels a man as if he is performing seppuku on another

man. In John Wick we see the back of a man’s skull fly off the back of his head after being shot showering the area behind

him in blood. This is a social issue that I feel is overlooked in many cases, the argument is that Video games are teaching children violent notions and a videogame is a fake perception of reality, this film isn’t a blind eye to the matter of combat in

the real world. It is truly an underrated action film and shouldn’t overlooked.

The next major fight scene is within the church, now in this

scene John Wick is wielding a Coharie Arms CA-415 which is a fully automatic assault rifle, here he kills thirteen men in the

church. Then again he kills another with his P30l and finishes it off with a few KSG shotgun blows. In that scene we have a

total of sixteen confirmed kills (seven headshots), also exactly

45 shots taken from his weapons. John Wick hit his targets twenty-eight times meaning he missed seventeen times. After

we see John wick kill ten more men at the compound; two he killed with wire, four he filled with a DTA Scout Sniper, two more

with an IED and finally the last two with his P30l. He shot a total of seven times and didn’t miss one shot, out of the ten shots six of them were headshots. Now finally we have the ending battle,

Designfreebies Magazine • www.designfreebies.org • 19

SPONGEBOB REVIEW

BY GEMMA BARNES

Spongebob Squarepants is a American animated tv series that airs on Nickelodeon on a daily basis. Over the years that its been shown it has been rather popular with many audiences and people. Being shown in many countries and being translated into many different languages. It is a worldwide hit, known for its Zany characters and great animation.

The main characters in the show are Spongebob Squarepants, the title character and the shows main protagonist. He is a naive sea sponge who lives in a pineapple in the fictional undersea town of bikini bottom. He works at the krusty Krab restaurant alongside his neighbour Squidward.

Spongebob is a cheerful character who always works hard to have fun in life, he has a childlike personality which many younger audiences could relate too.

Patrick is Spongebob’s best friend and neighbour, he has a dim yet lovable personality and is always seen hanging around with spongebob. Many children can also relate to Patrick because of his humerous personality and fun attitude.

Squidward is Spongebob and Patricks neighbour and constantly gets annoyed by their antics. Quite often calling them losers and getting frustrated easily at them. He has a fondness for playing the clarinet and painting. He is self-centered and selfproclaimes himself as a famous artist. He is also a perfectionist.

12 • Designfreebies Magazine • www.designfreebies.org

Sandy cheeks is a squirrel who lives in

him, but that was only because Patrick

the undersea treedome. She has a good

had a cookie in his pocket.

bond with spongebob and does Karate with him. She is from Texas and is shown

There are many controversies surround-

to be kind, athletic, fun-loving, and loyal.

ing the show. From innuendos to upfront nudity. For example there are many

Mr. Krabs is Spongebob’s boss and owner

scenes in the show were several fish are

of the Krusty krab. He is self-centred,

shown with their manhood out. Do we

rude, selfish, greedy and a cheapskate.

really want young children to see this?.

His only love is money and he quite often comes up with get rich quick schemes that sometimes put his customers in danger such as when he made a playground for kids called Krabby land. Which consisted of cheap rides which were fall-

There

ing apart and would not want to pay for

Spongebob promoting sex, this has been

a entertainer so had Spongebob pretend

said after a 2009 Burger king advert

to a clown.

set to the tune of “baby got back”. After

are

also

controversies

of

watching the content of this video I have to agree with the statement that it “proGary is spongebob’s pet snail, he com-

motes sexual images of women.” Due

municates through cat-like meows.

to the amount of rear view shots in the

He is shown in one episode as talk-

video. Women would not like to be shown

ing with a posh stereotypical british

in this manner.

Duis ac libero sit amet nisi viverra suscipit quist vitae urna ut quamsi fugiats.

accent and as being smart, reading books in Spongebobs library. Like Squidward

There are also people who think

Gary is also shown to sometimes get

Spongebob is Gay. I read a review on the

annoyed with Spongebob and doesn’t

show which states that

resist to show his annoyance at his

“Gay panic reached a height in 2002

owner. Spongebob and gary overall have

as rumors swirled that SpongeBob was

a good bond. In one episode Spongebob

homosexual, given his flamboyant nature

thought Gary had chosen Patrick over

and

Proin non odio eu neque ultricies posuere et eget nisl.

Integer at accumsan dui. Aliquam eget urna vitae mauris sodales ornaresi.”

Eaque ipsa quae abillo iser nvens.

Designfreebies Magazine • www.designfreebies.org • 13

WHAT MAKES A GOOD MOVIE? BY GEMMA BARNES

what makes a good movie? story, characters and visual effects all of these are the elements of a good movie.

Characters are one of the most important elements of a good film, they offer a connection to the audience into the world in which the story takes place. You can relate to characters or find a certain character relatable to you or people you know. You can find a character relateable to you in their personality traits, for example a character could be cocky and arrogant, traits which one of your friends might possess. For example Homer simpson, he is an every man he’s someone everyone in the audience can relate too. They make the audience interested in the story as they would want to find out what happens to the characters and those around them. Characters that are memorable will make memorable movies once the audience has established a connection to the audience. An example of characters making a connection to the audience is Lenny from of Mice and men. when lenny dies in the movie its depressing because you felt the connection to the character and you wanted them to get “the American dream” and it just gets snatched away from them right when they were so close. Which is one of the things that make the film memorable.

The story is a crucial element of a film, is you have a bad storyline then the audience will lose intrest and the film will become forgetable. For example, Pixar’s Cars. The storyline was so predictable, its the same story the audience will have seen a thousand times beofre and a thousand times again. The character goes out all cocky and boastfull, has an accident, winds up in a small American town, learns a lesson about life, meets a girl goes back a changed guy. An example of a film with a story which audiences would have to see more of would be Lord of the rings. When the first film came out the audience was so enthralled that they had to see the sequel. Plot-twists maken a good story as they happen out of the blue and completely change the film around, but there cannot be a lot of twists in one movie there have to be one or two in a film or the audience will know whats coming, the key element is they have to be unexpected and corosponding to the storyline it can’t just be something completely random. An example is you can be watching a fantasy epic and the plot-twist turns out to be Aliens.

Another element would be visual effects, sometimes just the sheer size and scale of effects would make a film memeorable and worth going to see. They also make the film more eye-catching and give the movie more creativity they would also draw the audiences attention more than the actuall story itself. An example of a director who does this alot is Michael Bay he does not pay much attention to storylines or character development and just goes with his own thing but he knows how to entertain. What he knows how to do is give the audience entertained for an hour and a half or longer since the purpose of a film is to enterain people, thats why visual effects make a good movie.

So in order to talk about what makes a good film we must also aknowledge what makes a bad film. Films which have no character development, a terrible plotline and no visual effects are just boring to look at. An example of this would be the 2000 animated Titanic film, this film is just terrible. the characters are awfull, some have no importance in the film, such as a rapping dog and a group of mice. And according to the film the reason the ship hit the iceberg was because a group of sharks decided to dare a octopus into throwing it into the ship’s path. The film didnt even have the decency to honor the fact that thousands of people died and didnt even bother to make it historicaly correct. Another thing which makes this a terrible movie is the ending. Apparently everyone survives because dolphins saved them and when they get to their destination they all decide to have a party.

Character development is extremely important in a film, as the audience sees the characters grow and develop they will be come more invested in the character and the film itself. Maybe you want to see characters achive their goals, or even want to change their goals, sometimes what the audience sees is different to what the character sees. A perfect example of this effect is a story of revenge a character becomes obsessed with vengance and is completely commited to it, even though the audience can see that its not whats best for the character. So the audience becomes invested and wants the character to change their goals.

12 • Designfreebies Magazine • www.designfreebies.org

A movie has to be memorable in order to be good, so a movie cannot just be a product of the times you can’t just fill a film with pop-cultural refrences or horribly dated styles and characters for example the ice age movies the first one was relitively intresting it had one comic relief character in it but the rest of the time was focussed on character development and storyline. The sequels however just got worse and worse, by the end of the third there were seven comic relief characters and the storylines just became sloppy and dull, lacking the suspence the first had and it also makes no refrence to the first film, for example the human baby they main characters rescue gets forgoten, despite the fact one of the characters says “we will not forget you”. Another example of this would be the Shrek films. The idea of mixing the modern world with fairytails only worked for the first film, because it was a fresh idea, they then played it out so many times that they ruined it.

A memorable film is the Shining considered one of the best works by the director Stanley Kubrick. It was suspenceful and you constantly feared what would happen to the characters as they tried desperatly to escape from a crazed murderer. Which is made even more frigtening considering the killer is your own father or husband, considering they are the people you are most to trust the most. Such a suspence-filled horror story with brilliantly quotobale lines such as “Here’s Johnny” which was actually improvised at the last second on set by Jack Nicholson. This makes the film wonderfully and horrifically memorable.

Another film that was full of suspence was the Amityville horror. The film was full of dark twists and characters that you wanted to see survive. The Lutz family move in to what they hope is the American dream, a house with more space then they require, but the house holds a dark secret, it was the scene of a mass-murder of its previous family by it’s eldest son. Over the events of the film the Lutz family is faced with horrific paranormal events. Soon after they move in the youngest child oif the Lutz family makes an imaginary friend, Jody. Her mother doesnt believe her until she goes to close her daugthers window and then she looks on in horror as she witnesses a pair or glowing red demonic eyes staring right back at her from the gloom. What makes this suspensfull is the music. it starts of slow and relaxing then suddenly as the demonic eyes appear on screen the music becomes fast paced and more dramatic to add effect to the horror the audience is already witnessing.

Another thing that makes a film memorable is its music score, for example Alfred Hitchcocks Psycho. The Shower is one of the most famous scenes in cinematic history this mainly due to it’s music which becomes more tense and terryfing as the scene plays out, it uses a variety of instruments to create a melody which makes the film even more terrifying then it already is. From this the high-pitched violins became of staple for cinema cementing Psycho’s as the first real horror film.

Another thing that makes a film memorable is its music score, for example Alfred Hitchcocks Psycho. The Shower is one of the most famous scenes in cinematic history this mainly due to it’s music which becomes more tense and terryfing as the scene plays out, it uses a variety of instruments to create a melody which makes the film even more terrifying then it already is. From this the high-pitched violins became of staple for cinema cementing Psycho’s as the first real horror film.

Lighting can also change a scene completely by either giving it dull or intense lighting, Lighting could also be used to tell seasons in films. In early Cinema lighting could be used to tell seasons. Dull lights for winter and Autumn and bright for Summer and Spring, lighting is also used for telling if a character is good or bad. A bad character would have dull and subjued like all different shades of blue and gray for example. while a good character would have bright lighting, such as different shades of yellows, reds and whites.

Cinematogoraphy makes a film more important because it shows that where the characters are posistioned reflect their status and importance in the scene. For example if a character is center screen and close up it means they are important and the audience should listen to what the character has to say. also interesting visual are usualy fun to look at and grab the attention of the audience and draws them in to whats happening at this point in the film. Also the angle of a camera can make a film scene much more dramatic.

You also need a good team of writers and the directors working on the script and the film. Examples of good writers and directors are Alfred Hitchcock, Stanley Kubrick, James Cameron and Steven Spielburg. Also sometimes great writers and directors combine their ideas to make a crossover movie of two seperate ideas.

This doesnt always result in a good film however a perfect example of this is Sten Spielberg and Stanley Kubrick, they worked on a film for years and when it was released it was met with poor receptions and was met with harsh reviews from critiques. The reason this idea did not turn out as they had planned was because neither of them could decide who was going to direct it until Kurbick died and that left Spieleberg to direct it but also because they were both trying to make the

film in eachothers styles both doing what they werent exactly used to doing, resulting in a botched film. The film is called AI. Actors also make a good film because you have to get the casting just right for a film, especialy if the series is based on books, an example of this is the Harry Potter series, many people believe they got the casting completely wrong and it ruined their oppinion of the movies. Sometimes to get good casting directors try to find someone who looks like the original description of the character they are to play. For example Daniel Radcliffe bears a strong resemblance to J.K Rowlings original description of Harry Potter in the books, also Robbie Coltrane resembles Hagrid to a degree. Another film with good casting is the film Saving Private Ryan, Tom Hanks plays a brilliant role alongside a star-studded cast which includes Barry pepper, Adam Goldberg and Edward Burns. The cast also gets the audience interested in character development is they are portrayed right, if they are not the audience will quickly lose interest, Cast members also may be chosen for the wrong role so they have to be considered carefully.

Going back to the prospect of storylines creating a great film some films particualy animated ones portray the world with no problems, giving people, young children mainly the wrong view about the world, however many films portray the world with problems, giving the audience a more realistic view of the world. Films that do this can sometimes be dark and twisted, but they are only showing how things are in reality instead of portraying the world as being problem-free all the time. Some storylines are lightened to a degree if the film is meant for children, but Childrens films can also be more scary and tense. A film with a plotline like this is the Chronicals of Narnia, the film starts in world war 2 and includes a battle scene which with visual effects could have been made much better, but because it is a child’s movie it did not have visual effects.

These are what make a great movie.

Designfreebies Magazine • www.designfreebies.org • 13

RELIGION IN THE WALKING DEAD An article on how religion

is portrayed in AMC’s THE

WALKING DEAD

The Walking Dead is a multiaward winning television programme based on the comic books by Robert Kirkman.

With millions of fans tuning in every week it is one of the most watched television programmes on the planet right now, but the zombie infested show isn’t all guts and gore! One of the main talking points of The Walking Dead is religion, as well as machetes and crossbows, religion often keeps the characters on the right side of the line between sanity and insanity! The first mention of religion in the series is 55 minuets into the first episode where the main character, Rick peers through a window to see a man and woman who have shot themselves, as the camera pans the room you can see ‘GOD FORGIVE US’ written on the wall in blood, this really sets the mood for the future of the show. Showing that these people where religious portrays the message that nothing can protect you from what is out there, certainly not God in this case.

Designfreebies Magazine • www.designfreebies.org • 15

yet you came out of it somehow, you did not feel Gods hand in yours? In all the chaos you found your wife and boy, then we has shot and he survived, that tells you nothing?” Rick: “tells me God has a strange sense of humour” Hershel looks at everything that has happened as a blessing, how they’ve all survived, embracing God. But Rick sees it as God condemning them to the worst possible things, only to let them survive so they can go through it again, rejecting God. We learn Hershel has not killed any zombies, i think he is worried that he will anger God and be sent to hell for breaking the commandment ‘Thou shalt not kill’. Ricks group find out Hershel has been keeping zombies in a barn, they then wipe out the barn, Hershel sees this as murder because he believes that they are just ‘sick people’ and that there will be a cure. When Hershel tells Rick that 4 • Designfreebies Magazine • www.designfreebies.org

they have to leave the farm we see a change in the way that Rick speaks to Hershel, now that he wants to be on his good side. He starts to refer to him as “a man of belief”, hoping that Hershel will seek the advice of God because he knows that sending them away is as good as sending them to their death. In another episode two characters have gone on a supply run when they come across a shop with a sign in the window “Take what you need and GOD BLESS”, this is obviously a religious area as Hershel and his family are religious, and now this sign, i wonder if the show are subtly hinting that the reason Hershel’s family have been untouched by everything is because of their faith in God? Is God protecting them?

In season 5 we meet Father Gabriel, who has been surviving inside his church, we soon learn that he has sinned and he thinks that God has sent Ricks group to punish him. He tells how people came to his church for protection but locked them out, leaving them to be

THE FIFTH SERIES OPENER OF US DRAMA THE WALKING DEAD HAS BEEN WATCHED BY 17.3M PEOPLE, BREAKING CABLE VIEWING RECORDS. BBC NEWS

ripped apart. He is too scared of zombies to even leave the church, he considers what he did as murder and prays to God for forgiveness every day. The group approach Father Gabriel very differently to how they approached Hershel (who is now dead) because of how the world has changed them, they are a lot more wary of people. After spending multiple days at the church the group has a confrontation with another group inside the church where multiple people are killed. Father Gabriel who was hiding emerges after the slaughter with shock, “This is the lords house”, he has not seen this kind of brutality but the group are used to it.

Maggie is one of Hershel’s daughters, a christian like her father, she replies “No. Its just four walls and a roof”, that response says a lot, she has been a christian for her whole life but after spending a year away from home in this world she clearly lost all faith in religion. It really shows how sheltered Father Gabriel has been this whole time and he has no idea how the world is outside his church walls.

The group and Father Gabriel are forced to leave the church and continue on the road. A month has passed and the group are all sitting in the woods

around a fire, Father Gabriel has seen the real brutality of the world since they left the church, still wearing his Clerical clothes he takes off the white collar that symbolises his belief in God and throws it in the fire and continues to eat. This is a really shocking thing to see, from being a high power in the church he has lost all belief in God, after seeing the death and gore in the world it must be hard to keep faith in anything, even religion. That scene was from the latest televised episode S5 Ep 10 “Them”.

Religion is still a common talking point in the show to this day, with series 5 still being televised it is becoming increasingly popular worldwide. I feel that the small matter of religion is one of the reasons it is so successful, most zombie films are all about killing but The Walking Dead goes beyond that and produces very interesting talking points and in depth characters that you can really relate to.

For example anybody who watches the show and is religious can probably relate to somebody from Hershel’s family, a family of christians with a wide range of ages. The show continues to deliver every week and i predict it will until the very last episode.

Designfreebies Magazine • www.designfreebies.org • 5

S

Skipping forward to Season 2, Rick and his group stumble across a church, when opening the church doors they find three zombies sitting facing the crucifix which is in the centre of the shot. They then kill these zombies, but the way it is shot is very important, the crucifix is always in the centre of the shot. This gives us the impression that God is watching this slaughter unfold in his own house, this creates questions as to wether he had anything to do with the apocalypse?

After clearing the church of the undead we see Carol (who’s daughter has recently gone missing from the group) praying for her daughters safety, she also asks for forgiveness after praying that her husband would die which he did in the first series; “Praying for Ed’s death was a sin, please don’t let this be by punishment”. She is worried that God is punishing her sin by getting rid of her daughter, “Please Lord punish me however you want, but show mercy on her”. As an atheist i found this scene very interesting, it makes sense that this is Gods way of punishing Carol after she sinned, which makes me reconsider Gods being. Later in the episode Rick approaches the crucifix, “I guess you already know I’m not much of a believer”, this is the 10 • Designfreebies Magazine • www.designfreebies.org

first indication that we get that Rick is not a religious character which has been a question on a lot of peoples minds up to this point. “I could use a little help, something to keep us going, some kind of acknowledgement, some indication I’m doing the right thing...

You don’t know how hard that is to know!”, Ricks religious beliefs have never been mentioned but he has the morals of a religious character, he often wants to do the morally right thing when he has the choice, this scene does question his feeling towards God though. He finishes his prayer very simply “Any sign will do” before leaving the church with his son Carl.

On their way back a deer steps out right in front of them, as though it has been untouched by everything that has been going on, it stops and looks at Carl as he approaches it.

The silence is broken with a sudden gunshot that hits Carl sending him to the ground, ending the episode. Rick has just left the church after asking God for a sign that he is doing the right thing when they see this deer, at first it is an obvious sign that he is doing something right but as soon as the bullet sounds everything changes, now God has really replied with the worst possible answer, shooting his son. I certainly believe that God exists in their world after this chain of events consequently after

praying for a ‘sign’, they really make it seem like God has something against Rick and the rest of his group withhese horrific things happening to them, almost like he is playing games with them. In the next episode we meet Hershel, a christian and strong believer in God. Carl is rushed to his barn which has been untouched by the apocalypse after a member of his group shot Carl by accident when hunting the deer. Hershel is a vet and manages to save Carl before welcoming the rest of the group to his farm where they live for the remainder of the series. Soon after settling in there

is a conversation between Rick and Hershel that is still one of my favourite scenes in the show, they speak about the past events and how God had a part to play; Hershel: “Its good to pause for an occasional reminder” Rick: “of what?” Hershel: “whatever comes to mind, for me its often god, (pauses and looks at Rick) no thoughts on that?” Rick: “Last time i asked for a favour and stopped to admire a view my son got shot... I try not to mix it up with the almighty anymore, best we stay out of each others way” Hershel: “your wife told me your story, how you were shot, the coma, Designfreebies Magazine • www.designfreebies.org • 11

14 • Designfreebies Magazine • www.designfreebies.org

FEMINISIM IN GAME OF THRONES G

ame of thrones is a tv series

that first aired in 2011 and

has brought out 4 seasons since the

release. The tv show was based on a series of books called “A song of

ice and fire”. Most people know the tv show for the renowned incest and sex

scenes, gruesome deaths, and loss of some great characters but thats not all it is. At the same time it also has some good aspects.

Lots of people would disagree when i

say that its a feminist programme as so

4 • Designfreebies Magazine • www.designfreebies.org

many of the women are treated poorly

he misses not making a good job of it

lower class to men but there are at least

when one hits the dead center of the

to the point where they seem like a

nine women who go against everything

and do better because they want to.

They may get treated badly along the

way but they end up in a place where

they try to show equality instead of try-

ing to flip the tables and end up higher than the men.

In the very first episode of season

1 bran is out in the courtyard doing archery and he isn’t doing too well as

and he is about to let loose an arrow

target which theyarya turn round to see was his 9 year old little sister. Given

the time period in the series this would have been forbidden for a girl to do but she beats the stereotype and shows that she is just as good as her older

brother. Although it is just something little between kids you can see that she

wants to be equal to her brothers and rightly so why shouldn’t she, if she likes

to fight and use combat why shouldn’t she.

Arya is always the bravest person in

a group of people despite being almost

always the youngest in her group and the one that seems the most vulnerable.

She constantly has to prove herself to be no ordinary woman to try and reach her dreams of equality with all men.

In the second season when arya and

the men being taken to the night’s watch are captured and taken to harrenhal she is the only one to do something about actually escaping although she doesn’t do it herself but everyone has to get some help

sometimes. From then on every time gen-

dry and hotpie and her come across some

trouble she is the first to do something while they cower or hide. Basically how i’d put it arya is the one with the most balls!

If we go down the line a bit though when we first meet briene we see her in a tour-

ney with loras tyrell that she wins quite

significantly. Up until this point though she just looks like any other knight though and as soon as she wins and approaches

Renly she removes her helmet to reveal

that she is actually a woman which is a shock to almost everyone there. Renly then proceeds to Knight brienne of tarth as she

wishes and gets a place in his kingsguard.

Clear proof that you don’t have to be a man to get something done in the 7 kingdoms.

So far the women I’ve talked about

though are all high born ladies which doesn’t particularly prove much as it will have made it easier for them to do the

things they wanted to do as they had

Shae and ros are a couple of women that

got what they wanted and into very influ-

ential position both starting from nothing and working their way up Shae was possibly more luck whereas ros knew exactly

what she was doing worming her way up to petyr baelish’s assistant. Petyrs assistant

sounds a lot worse than it is as it means she hears all of his secrets and all the

little whispers from his spies. This means that ros has a lot more power than anyone realises as she has all these little secrets in

her head that could ruin peoples lives and save her own at the same time if she ever got into trouble.

access to weapons and things considered manly but they don’t have to have swords and fight for them to be doing well the

could just be manipulative and always get there way without anyone else realising.

Designfreebies Magazine • www.designfreebies.org • 5

6 • Designfreebies Magazine • www.designfreebies.org

Ros started off up in the north in a small brothel in winterfell

and as soon as the war of the five kings brosroke out she quickly made her way down to king’s landing where she became a much higher class whore in little fingers brothel

where she slowly became closer to him until she was one of the closest people to him. This is quite an impressive leap from the small brothel in winterfell although she may still be a whore its a much better place.

On the other hand shae is a very devious and cunning

whore that originated from lorath and slowly made her way up to being forced to be lord tyrions personal whore. She

makes the best of this and plays on his emotions to manipulate him and keep her rolling in money and doing well in life

instead of whoring herself out like she had all her life. She is

constantly using tyrion to get herself out of things and stay in kings landing. Tyrion ends up lovestruck and does everything she wants because he cant help doing it for love but we can never be sure if shae actually loves him or if she is just very good at acting like she does.

George rr martin is very clever in how he executes all of

the decisions made by the people in the stories and very few

of them are stupid as they all making cunning little decisions to try and foil each other which all end up failing in one way or another as their plans clash or someone will slip up and make a mistake that will get lots of people killed. Most of his

women are a lot smarter than all the men put together but never get real opportunities to show this off to the world.

Now a character that I really hate but is so well designed

to make me hate her so much is actually quite clever. This

would be cersei lannister as she is so evil and does awful things to good people just because she has a slight trust issue and daddy issues. She tries to play off the fact that

The only reason cersei is as powerful as she is would be

because her brother happened to kill the previous king and

she was forced to wed the new king and bear his, obviously jamies, children and when robert finally dies she essentially

tries to take charge and doesn’t like it when she has to share it with her brother and her father but come on you have it so well off why cry about something that was so inevitable that a

blind man could see it coming. Cersei still has lots of power anyway and her own private army so she should be happy

with what she has got its more than more or less all women in the entire game of thrones universe obviously apart from daenerys’s.

Daenerys at the start of the series is just a girl with her

brother in a foreign continent being looked after by a kind

friend of their family. She then gets sold to the head of the

dothraki as a wife. She slowly gets a grip with all this happening and makes the best of the situation until she gets her

dragons and an army of slaves and unsullied. She basically gets this all by force and the slight use of her dragons but

for a woman to do this is quite impressive but she can also withstand fire being the mother of dragons.

There are so many great women in this series although

some of them are horrible and have lots of power that they shouldn’t but together there are women that prove all sorts

of points but most importantly anything is still possible even if you are a woman there is just a good possibility that

everyone is going to make it hard for you to succeed but if its what you want you can still do it. Margaery tyrell wanted

to be queen and by just going to which ever one was winning she was more or less guaranteed a place as a queen sooner or later.

she doesn’t always get what she wants because her dad says no but she can’t accept that fact that she can’t have everything and takes out on people that she has fun slowly

torturing without making it obvious that she is making it difficult for them.

Designfreebies Magazine • www.designfreebies.org • 7

MOBILE GAMING, WILL IT OVER TAKE THE CONSOLES ?

M

obile gaming is a growing industry with the widest variety of games to play, ranging from real time

strategy to retail games to puzzle games to mmos

and everything in between. Im going to have a look at how mobile gaming is effecting the industry.

Mobile gaming has slowly become more and more

popular alongside

Mobile gaming is effecting console gaming as the games from console are starting to appear all over mobile app stores. This

means anyone can play games that they could play at home

anywhere and although there are dedicated machines for this like the Nintendo ds and ps vita. A lot of people don’t like them

and don’t see the point in wasting money on a device that can do the same

the consoles, its

as their phone and

rise has just been

the phone can do

slightly slower but

everything else as

recently some of

well as play the

the most talked about

new

games

have been simple

mobile aren’t just

games that have

retail games though

been easy to play but

difficult

they have lots of

to

little really addic-

master. For exam-

tive games that are

ple flappy bird

played in real time

became a huge thi1ng

like clash of clans

amongst

teenagers

for example. These

and

young adults as it was one of the most annoying but addictive games. For a long time there was probably more talk about

flappy birds than upcoming retail games because everyone

was talking about it and playing it. People who don’t par-

ticularly play consoles would also join in so they was a much wider audience instead of just console gamers.

10 • Designfreebies Magazine • www.designfreebies.org

games.The

games that are on

are

fun

because

you don’t have to spend lots of time playing them but slowly over time you watch your base grow and get stronger and

you always end up wanting to go back and look at it to see it progress.

When you look into the people who play games you can

normally tell what they play as most people have a favourite.

When it comes to mobile gamers though there are a lot more people than console gamers as all of the people who play

games on console probably have a game on their phone where as people with mobile games don’t necessarily play games on console.

This has an effect on game designers as they might see

big opportunities in the mobile gaming industry. This could

lead to them earning more money by having multiple different

areas for selling games as they will already have the consoles but now have mobile as well. A down side for the game makers could be that as the newer games get on phones if they

run well enough and good enough to compete with consoles then the prices for games might go down considering the

price of games on mobile are reasonably cheap, even the good games like bioshock are only £10.

Although people often argue about the gender ratio in

gaming although there is a high amount of girl gamers this

data might be confused as a lot of them could just be mobile

gamers even though a lot do play console games its probably

about a 2:1 ratio of boys to girls as there are a lot of girls that would count playing little addictive game on mobile as the

same thing as playing retail games on console. The way we are going though the gaming industry could end up being the

same thing as the mobile gaming industry instead of being quite obviously different, where consoles have awesome

graphics and really complex mechanics mobile games have

always been quite simple and just tapping on a 2d platform instead of lots of decision making and complex mechanics but its slowly going in that direction.

Mobility is such a big thing now as so many people are

constantly on the move because of jobs or to see p2eople or because everything that they do is spread out. This means

that when travelling or waiting they get bored and out of habit

a lot of people will just pull out their phone and either look through facebook or…. you guessed it play a game because

of this, a lot of the games on phones are easy to run and simple to play but there are always the people who want to play better and more exciting games.

Designfreebies Magazine • www.designfreebies.org • 11

A

ny smart game company sees this and thinks we are

going to use this as an opportunity to sell our games

here as well as on playstation, xbox, etc.

Enjoyment has got to be the main reason for people actually playing the games otherwise why would they play them. The

mobile gaming industry is growing bigger and bigger as the

games they are putting out are not just more advanced but a lot more enjoyable as well. This can lead to them forgetting

to do things and slacking on important things in life and ruin-

ing their chances at doing well in life. A big percentage of these people are teenagers and young adults who are still in

education as they get distracted and do bad work or end up

missing deadlines and messing up their education all in one easily made mistake.

One problem that is holding back mobile gaming

from becoming the most popular form of gaming is the ability

as there are still so many people with phones that couldn’t handle the original snake let alone putting bioshock onto it. It could be quite a while till we get big amazing new games or

so that everyone can play them anyway. Phone manufacturers won’t be too worried about how well their phones can run

games yet as they want it to do everything else better first but when they start seeing into the money the games get the

could make deals with specific games companies so that

they make a super duper phone that could run maya and mudbox at the same time, if they managed that it would be one hell of an awesome phone.

Xperia Play is a phone that when it came out came

with the game crash bandicoot although the first bandicoot game was for the playstation 1 and didn’t particularly show-

case a higher level of game playing it showcased that these mobile designers had recognised that people who like to

play games like to do it on their phone too so they crossed a controller with a phone, basically combining a psp with a

slider phone. The Xperia meant that people could go out and play games that they played on console at home. Quite a lot of people who knew how, will have found emulators so that they could put all the games they loved to play on their phone. This was something I did, although I put it on an ipod touch, when i found out how because i always wanted to go back and play the pokemon games that i played as a young child and then after installing an emulator for the Gameboy colour i found lots of games that I had for my original Gameboy and it brought back a great feeling of nostalgia.

Nintendo seem to have been worried by mobile gaming and specifically mention the game angry birds in particular.

The president of Nintendo Satoru Iwata stated “cheaply made and priced content does little to maintain the value of gaming.”

12 • Designfreebies Magazine • www.designfreebies.org

He has what seems like a big disliking for the cheap and fun games that are on the app store and while i get what

he means by the value of gaming and how these little easily made apps don’t show the effort and hard work that will

have gone into something much bigger and more pricey

therefore making them look a little worse as they want more money and more appreciation for something that the public doesn’t seem to appreciate the same way as the appreciate

the game angry birds. At the same time though it is a different field that angry birds is in compared to say super smash bros or call of duty or any other console game. The people

that are concerned about the value of gaming are gamers and game makers as they are the ones who want gaming

to look good as they want everyone to see how great real

gaming is. By this point it is probably quite obvious that i am a gamer myself and enjoy both mobile games and console,

although console is a million times better, but i don’t think that the popularity of mobile gaming is going to affect console gaming as it is something that so many people are inter-

ested in, and in some cases possibly even mentally addicted to them, and there is so much money that just revolves round

console gaming where as there isnt that same kind of money around mobile gaming.

According to juniper by 2016 gamers main platform

of choice will be mobile and tablet as the purchase of games has risen by a considerable amount. The reason they think this is happening is that as the people who have always

been gamers no longer have the time to sit down and play at home due to work, family so they’re only option is to play games on their way to work or whenever they have a spare moment so using their phone or tablet is the best way for

them to keep in touch with games. Looking at the stats tablet gaming is far more popular than mobile gaming as there are more purchases of games on tablets than there are on

mobiles meaning that maybe mobile gaming won’t be the

way forward as tablets could be the more popular and more likely alternative. Although tablet and mobile gaming are the

same as they generally share an app store tablet can be

quite preferential as it has the bigger screen so you have more space to lay out the controls and a bigger picture so you can see all the little details a bit easier. The mobile in

this case is just a way of playing it on the move if you don’t particularly want to lug around a larger tablet especially if you don’t have a bag with other things that you may need.

Playstation haven’t just made it so you can play with

your controller you can also play with your ps vita or even your phone. Me, i wouldn’t suggest it because you probably

have a perfectly good controller laying about by the tv that

will be so much more comfortable to use and make playing it so much easier. Technically this doesn’t count as mobile

gaming though as it is just a controller with a projected image of what’s happening on your ps4 so you may be able to use it but that doesn’t mean it counts as mobile gaming.

Overall looking through all the different opinions and

all the arguments the people who argue that it will be mobile

gaming 4that will rise and be the most popular form of gaming is always going to be a mobile game designer or a phone manufacturer as they want to believe that their phones are

going to be the most popular and that more people will buy it because they want it because it runs the games the best

way but on the other side all the retail game developers and

console manufacturers are going to say that console will always be the leading race as they are designed and made

for that purpose regardless of if they are moving a lot if they want games they will settle down and play games when they

have the time. I strongly believe that consoles will always be the most popular as that is what true gamers play and there

are so many true gamers. I also think that mobile gaming will still grow and get very popular but i think it will never truly

affect console gaming as they are generally 2 types of peo-

ple as most mobile gamers don’t play console games much whereas console gamers play mobile games when they are out and about and have to wait for something.

Designfreebies Magazine • www.designfreebies.org • 13

FIVE NIGHTS AT FREDDY’S- CASHCOW? OR A NEW LOOK AT HORROR? Hello? Hello hello? Well, if you’re hearing this, then chances are you’ve made a very poor career choice.

– Phone Guy, Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 Trailer

F

ive Nights at Freddy’s (FNAF) is a point and click survival horror game. It was originally released in August 2014 and had a prequel and sequel released in November 2014 and March 2015 respectively. The games use suspense and punishment jumpscares

to build up an atmosphere of tension for the player. The franchise became one of the most popular videogames of the summer and winter, and became the subject of fanart and for Youtube “Let’s Players”. It was creator Scott Cawthon’s most popular title to date.

The game is set in a fictional restaurant known as “Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza” and the player’s task is to survive five nights (plus an additional two for a challenge) while the restaurant’s animatronics try to attack and kill you by shoving you inside an animatronic suit. The player must survive the five nights by checking the cameras in the establishment, and using the game at hand’s current means available to prevent the animatronics from getting too close to them.

On the surface, the game itself is rather simple. Check the cameras,

Each game has slightly different mechanics to work with and

use the lights, close and seal the doors or vents yadda yadda…

become familiar to. FNAF 1, for example, features the extremely

things do get a bit deeper though. On an initial play through, the

limited power system that controls doors, cameras and lights.

jumpscares do tend to get to you. They’re unexpected and annoy-

FNAF 2 has no doors, but an open corridor and vents. When using

ing until you realize its because you went wrong somewhere. Didn’t

the cameras, you must wind up the music box. Seriously. Wind it.

check Pirate Cove or just generally ignored your surroundings?

When coming off the cameras, put on the mask. Just don’t leave it

That’s why you probably got Foxy attacking you. Didn’t check the

on as it doesn’t stop all the animatronics… By the third game, you

vents or the doors? Hello Bonnie. Ran out of power? Here’s Freddy!

really want the doors back. Cameras, doors, audio distractions – it’s

The more you get into it, there’s also an intricate plotline that takes

a lot to take in. Each game can be completed, but you have to learn

playing all the games and then some to figure out.

your strategy and have quick reflexes.

Fancy plot over horror? There’s a lot here. The secret and mostly hid-

There are a number of other features and secrets built into the

den storyline to the franchise is that the Pizzeria is cursed. Children

game, for example, different secret scenes such as the flyers on the

have been abducted and murdered and left such a negative energy

wall changing to display the story of the pizzeria, and sometimes

on the restaurant that they now haunt it. Even 4 different location

disappearing all together to display the unsettling slogan of the

changes and time can’t shake this, and the children and their will

game: “It’s me”. This can be seen in multiple places throughout the

only be freed when their killer and management have been signifi-

games, including the random hallucinations that feature every

cantly punished and suffer similar fates (shoved into an animatronic

now and again. The death minigames featured in FNAF 2 and FNAF

suit. Makes sense now, doesn’t it?). The children in question are

3 are also of note, as they show basic story while being a nod to

blank slates like the other human characters, open to your inter-

Atari gaming of old.

pretation. This also applies to their killer, who has been referred to as ‘Purple Guy’ or ‘Purple Dude’ by the fan base. The Five Nights at Freddy’s series is just as known for the story as is the jumpscares.

12 • Designfreebies Magazine • www.designfreebies.org

There has been one thing on people’s minds and lips since the second game was announced, and for good reason. People have been worried about the series becoming a cashcow. To put it into perspective, the second game was announced and teasers were given out. Within three months FNAF 2 was out. Fair enough, Mr Cawthon is a hard worker and has used this software for many years (and this wasn’t exactly his first game…), but the timing? People chalked it down to the fast paced work and shrugged it off. When FNAF 3 was announced straight after there was a fair amount of protest.

The sequels may have different looking aspects, but they do borrow heavily from each other. People began to question (and still are questioning) the price tags of the later games due to their content.

Fans of the franchise were also calling to walk around the restaurant, a task either not chosen by Scott for style or software reasons and said they would understand the price more if this was a feature.

People feel that although they’re punishment orientated, the jump scares get old fast and more annoying than scary. This was the biggest complaint of the third instalment, second to the main animatronic Springtrap not being particularly scary and having Pokémon sound effects.

While the jumpscares do in fact end up fading in power over time, they lead to something else. The game becomes more of a challenge when not terrifying. You can think more, plan ahead. Scott planned the final nights of FNAF 1 and FNAF 2 as challenge mode where you can alter the AI and amount of animatronics. Some are still left random despite the altering and provide an unexpected challenge (see the marionette in FNAF 2). FNAF 1 came with the claim “I beat 20/20/20/20 mode!” and FNAF 2 came with several other modes and in game plush toys for your desk as a kind of badge. The challenges give the game replay value and a sense of true completion. Instead of featuring the fabled ‘Night 7’, FNAF 3 has two endings to get. The ‘good’ ending is extremely difficult to achieve and one wrong move means a restart, which appears to be one of the ultimate completion modes.

From a personal perspective, I can confirm that the game is a nice introduction to horror. As a person who wasn’t really allowed to deal with the horror genre and paranormal until recently, FNAF provided the scares and an intricate plot with enough lore to work out. I’m glad that this game wasn’t nightmare fuel (but still made me want to check my room before going to bed). I find the concept interesting and the blank slate for the characters leads to interesting perspectives and ‘headcanons’.

Personal involvement with the community has led to new friendships and my art improving. Honestly, I’m glad I purchased the games and have a sense of achievement for purchasing the third game within the first two minutes of release (sadly enough).

Whatever you think of Five Night’s at Freddy’s, you can’t deny that it’s popular. The game has huge followings on pretty much all social media, especially Youtube and Tumblr. Most of the game’s popularity appears to have grown from the ‘Let’s play’ community; most notably from Youtube’s ‘Markiplier’. Mark became the self-proclaimed (but eventually officially acknowledged) ‘King of Five Night’s at Freddy’s’. When people are stuck on the game or are introducing new people to it, they direct them to Markiplier and his friends for a good playthrough and strong reactions. Mark and his friends have really gotten into the game and have brought many members of the community together.

Other than the coverage it’s gotten on social media fueling its popularity, the lore is probably the franchise’s biggest selling point. It’s intricate and requires a lot of theories and brainpower to process; more than some other games that are currently out. The horror itself could be classed as weak, making it its own type. Many get tired of the jump scares and look for completion elements. Many do chalk the game down to hype over its content, but with so many things branded as this now, is it really that difficult to not have something hyped up?

The games are arguably a new form of horror. They contain horror elements and scare factor, while also offering a challenge. They may be a cashcow at the same time, but at least the creator doesn’t waste the money. Scott recently donated a large chunk of money (almost $250K) to a charity livestream and encourages any products sold to have most of their money given to charity. Honestly, with the great story and knowing my money wasn’t totally wasted, Mr Cawthon can take my money.

Just please, for the love of everything holy, make sure the man takes a break before even considering a fourth. He deserves it.

EDIT: At time of publishing a fourth game and a movie has been announced. Help.

Designfreebies Magazine • www.designfreebies.org • 13

WOMEN’S REPRESENTATION IN VIDEO GAMES

H

ere’s a fun fact before we begin: I was a pretty avid

be honest it wasn’t really funny then, and it isn’t really now. To add to

gamer a few years back. Video games were a huge part

this, there are many examples of women who take an interest in games

of my life, making up a huge chunk of my interests. I

to get “tested” on their knowledge to see if they’re a “real gamer” or not

loved them and how fun they were, despite some of the

and generally looked down on.

stories I heard from various online communities. I’ve been somewhat out of the loop for a good amount of time now, only dabbling in ‘Animal

It’s not just the ten year olds trying to sound cool though, some of the

Crossing’ and a few other titles. On the suggestion of some good

developers themselves don’t seem to help with the issue. It’s a well-

friends of mine, I took some time out to give some other games a try.

known fact that sex sells, and that’s exactly what some of the market

I guess you could say that several ‘Steam’ purchases later and the new

has to offer. This isn’t even a case of tasteful nudity, this is full on cleav-

video game related blogs that I now run, I’m slowly settling back into

age and unnecessary first person sex scenes. Cutesy anime girls on the

the gaming community.

box art? Even they aren’t safe (like they were to begin with let’s be fair.

We’re all thinking it). How about a well-endowed warrior lady on your

There have been some things bothering me though, and it’s mainly

box art? Lovely, that Armour do you a hell of a lot of good when it looks

down to the fact that the same sort of problems seem to exist or crop

Nam ut massa the elitism towards certain games and/or groups to the treatment of turpis, ac blandit women. justo. Nulla ultriThe treatment of women in the video games industry seems to split the ces,andodio comcommunity developers.

Time and numerous debates have shown how the industry is getting better, but is still pretty damn awful in parts. modo faucibus While some industry leaders are sticking to their guns and are trying to keep things going as they are, others are actually taking notice and commodo, mi nisi acting on things. tempor”

like a mild wind could whip it off. First person sex scenes with a pros-

up in the community now as they did when I was ten. These range from

titute? Woah Grand Theft Auto (GTA), you might need to slow down…

I honestly find it worrying that some people in the community are still

woman in real life speaks out, or in some cases, even mentions their

stuck in the “get back in the kitchen and make me a sandwich” phase.

gender they can be send death and rape threats. Which is rather lovely

Seriously, what is it? Two thousand and seven? Have I actually travelled

I must say (!)

back to then or has it just been like a broken record this whole time? To 6 • Designfreebies Magazine • www.designfreebies.org

Speaking of GTA, they’re also an offender for another offence against women- violence. Yeah, violence in video games is a pretty well established thing and I’m not complaining about that, but some of the violence the industry turns out is a little over the top to say the least.

The fact that some describe the abuse female characters get is that of a punch bag is something in its own right. Not just physical violence either, characters in the games either have strict R-18 art made of them or receive a verbal thrashing for getting in the way or being useless and weak. Hell, why reserve this point for just the characters? If a

Aside from the matters of vast over sexualisation and pretty shoddy

Chell takes on the role of protagonist in both of the Portal games,

treatment, there’s also a chance that women won’t actually be playable

only being absent in Co-op mode. She is forced to take on the robots

in the game or offer any real boost to the story. As a huge fan of South

and AI constructs of Aperture that are effectively holding her captive.

Park, I was more than a little disappointed that I couldn’t play as a girl

Throughout the games, she isn’t referred to by name, and only things

in Stick of Truth. I’m also fully aware that the story sort of shows why

such as ‘dangerous, mute lunatic’, ‘adopted’, ‘fat’, and other degrading

you play as a guy, but it doesn’t take from the fact that I can’t ever truly

insults. Chell is not an over sexualised character, and wears a standard

play as myself. Even if a franchise has women in it, playable or just as

issue jump suit and later on pairs this with a tank top and specialist

characters, it doesn’t mean that they’ll get a leading role. There are so

boots. Her looks are quite plain in comparison to other leading ladies,

many games that fall into the category of having another white guy in

but she has an air of beauty about her none the less. The interesting

charge. If you’re worried about a female character of yours not being

part about Chell, is that due to the nature of the games, you can’t see

as cool or selling as well, maybe you should hire some new writers

her unless you angle a Portal in a way that allows you to or until you

and ask some of the companies who put effort into their franchises

get to the final boss of Portal 2 and see her hands. Even on the box art,

for help.

other robots are depicted instead. This begs the question, if people knew they were playing as a female to begin with, would they have

Even in a game such as Five Nights at Freddy’s with animatronic ani-

treated Chell differently? I personally believe not. Chell is also said to

mals, the girls aren’t safe from being over sexualised. Granted, it was a

remain mute so as not to give the robots the satisfaction of hearing

joke from the creator to the fanbase and it’s somewhat lewd depictions

her speak (as well as not ruining the comedy with flat out straight

of Chica and the rest of the crew, but a Chicken in hot pants and crop

man lines, but that’s a different matter), and given the sheer hell of

to style bib? While funny, this is pretty odd considering the setting of

Aperture means she has a strong will. She is also highly intelligent

the game is in a children’s restaurant.

and can complete puzzles and tests with ease (with the player’s aid of course). Chell is an interesting character when properly considered,

Faults may not always lie with the creators, but with the fans too. I

while also leaving enough space for the player to leave an impact.

believe that the quote is, “if it exists, there is porn of it”. That’s pretty much the truth. Within hours of her release, there was R-18 material of Animal Crossing’s secretary character, Isabelle. A cute puppy. She didn’t deserve this…

It’s not just a case of asking for representation to be a bit better either, that’s been attempted by many and in some cases has been denied because of its inability to sell. Some companies are genuinely afraid of what impact change could have on their sales. While this is disappointing, it isn’t unsurprising in the word of business. If more people were to speak out for general changes in the industry, maybe the companies would see it worth their time and effort.

I must be sounding pretty negative right now, but as stated above, I love video games. I wouldn’t come back to an industry that’s a totally rancid lost cause. Companies such as Nintendo are honestly trying their best to make everyone happy and give the giant metaphorical middle finger to those that won’t change. The ratio of women in the latest installment of the Smash Bros franchise has rocketed and they’re not just sitting pretty either. The characters have well thought out attacks and designs, and honestly? Aside from a few people trying to rock the boat on the internet and saying how they’re glad there aren’t too many or that this was purely a jab at Ubisoft’s void of females, I haven’t seen many people complaining about it.

Lara Croft is a pretty great representation too. Despite having a glitchy chest area that left her open to over sexualisation, she is still regarded as a pretty solid feminist icon in many people’s eyes. Samus Aran is also worthy of note, despite originally coming with a “bikini reward” in one of the original games to distinguish her as female, she is a pretty solid character.

Designfreebies Magazine • www.designfreebies.org • 7

GLaDOS on the other hand arguably started life as a pretty one dimensional AI construct. She can be argued to represent both the possessive and aggressive side of the female sex, while also being caring and defensive in situations too.

GLaDOS relies of brains to get what she wants, be that murdering the scientists of the facility and giving herself complete control or forming alliances with Chell.

GLaDOS’ character is restrained for the first game, but once these restraints are removed its up and out for her. She is effectively the God of the facility, and while she does use lies and deceit to swing things to how she wants, she makes up for this with determination. Determination that grows for the better after discovering what she was before she was an AI. Her character is obviously not over sexualised, but much like Chell improves in appearance for the second game. While she may not be sexualised, she still looks beautiful (or is that just me?) and has a voice that installs both fear and light hearted humour into players.

Characters from the Legend of Zelda franchise are also a shining example. Zelda, the title character, is hardly seen in anything particularly revealing and usually wears some form of royal attire. Despite the lack of major fan service, she is still a beautiful looking woman. Over the years, Zelda has been given a deeper personality than many “please help me” and “save our land” princess. In the game Spirit tracks, she is seen taking control of Phantom Suits of armour and even aids the main character Link on his journey. Zelda has a fantastic weapon and gets involved in fighting herself when given the chance. She uses the weapon to deal the final blows. She is also know to use the alternate form of Sheik in one game to aid Link and evade capture, teaching Link songs of teleportation and giving him information. Zelda’s back story has evolved into a rich and believable one, despite having the roots of the “thank you for saving us” trope.

If more people were to speak out about the issues within the community and not make a fuss when things were changed in the aid of progress, things would become more of the norm and accepted. While some things are okay in small does, characters and people within the community should be treated with respect. In most cases, people just need to take a look at themselves and grow up a little. Characters could have their time to shine, and not just be reduced to boobs and giggly love story obsessed things, while those playing might be treated a little better.

While the Video Game industry as a whole is still on rocky ground when it comes to the treatment of both real life and fictional women, it isn’t a lost cause. Many are trying their hardest for better representation and are delivering. It’s honestly simple in my eyes- If your character needs obvious fan service to mask for a weak or unbelievable writing, then maybe you should get a more creative and clever team of writers. If someone hesitates before replying or representing their gender for their own safety and fun, maybe your part of the industry needs help.

8 • Designfreebies Magazine • www.designfreebies.org

Designfreebies Magazine • www.designfreebies.org • 9

ANIMATORS IN YOUTUBE Introduction: I am writing about how difficult it is for animators on YouTube gain a living through YouTube. Just imagine you’re as this guy who earned a living through being a YouTube animator, but then you start to notice every month your earnings drop by a bit and you try looking for the reason, but find out it’s not your fault, but it’s still going down, you then ask friends in the same department as you what going on am losing money, but your friends say it YouTube they change CMP and RMP so that the only way you can get money is to make a longer video within a short period of the time.

What are CMP and RMP? CMP means Cost per thousand imprecations and RMP means Revenue per imprecation so they’re just there to inform you of the money you got from your views.

What do you mean by that? It’s basically the amount of money you give in after an AD has played and the amount of money you get back from YouTube after playing that AD I would like to discus about animators in YouTube and how difficult it for them earn a living, being a YouTube animator.

14 • Designfreebies Magazine • www.designfreebies.org

Evidence This is what YouTube said ‘’Most people think that the value of a video can be measured by how many times that video has been seen. However, we now reward videos that have more watch time. This is a better reflection of the VALUE of the content rather than how many times it was seen. All major search and discovery algorithms are optimized for watch time throughout the site, NOT all views are the same.’’ ‘’Increasing video length just to get more watch time does not work, because it affects audience retention and doesn’t increase watch time. Also, doesn’t decrease watch time to increase audience retention. Focus on watch time, not views.’’

They are Meany things you can be famous for in YouTube, or could be good for.

This is a short list of you can do on YouTube: Art, Animator, Gamer, How to channel, Cooking, Eating, V logger, Sport, Music, Critic, etc.

And now I am going to compeer the most popular animator channel to other popular channels Animator and Gamer The most subscribed person for you is a gamer and has about 32,767,063 (million) subscribers and has 7.049,793,200 views all together and his YouTube name is PiewDiePie. Wail the most subscribe animator on YouTube Is Simon’s Cat with 3,298,985 subscribers and has 585,835,636 views all together.

The difference between the two is about 29,000,000. (Million). What this means is that gamers are valued more than animators on YouTube.

Animator and How to channel The most subscribed How to channel has about 8,434,141 (million) subscribers and has 679.2M views all together and his YouTube name is Yuya. Wail the most subscribe animator on YouTube Is Simon’s Cat with 3,298,985 subscribers and has 585,835,636 views all together. The difference between the two is about 5,000,000. (Million). What this means that gamers are valued more than animators on YouTube.

Animator and Vloggers.

The most subscribed V logger has about 5,224,758 (million) subscribers and has 1.3 Billion views all together and his YouTube name is BFvsGF. Wail the most subscribe animator on YouTube Is Simon’s Cat with 3,298,985 subscribers and has 585,835,636 views all together The difference between the two is about 2,000,000. (Million), what this means that gamers are valued more than animators on YouTube (Video Stats X) So basically to get big in YouTube as an animator you need quantity over quality. So instead of upload a finished work you could upload clean animatic.

To be at par with Simon cat you need to have put in allot of years and you will still not be the greatest. So yeah in YouTube the only people you can survive through this are Gamers and those who make easy but interesting videos that are interesting and that can go viral.

Many known animators, like Rice Pirate who is animators in YouTube, share this fact. For instance, Rice Pirate in his YouTube video called Animators and YouTube: No more Compatible was strong in stating this fact. So was Rubber Ninja: Does independent Animation Have a Future on YouTube? So was Drew with Jazza: The Death of Independent YOUTUBE ANIMATORS. And so was El CID: Help El-CID Make More Videos.

This entire people and more are all animators who explain the YouTube and animator problem.

Designfreebies Magazine • www.designfreebies.org • 15

Analysis Why this is, is because over the years, YouTube has been looking for the right CMP and RMP (CMP means Cost per thousand imprecations and RMP means Revenue per imprecation so they’re just there to inform you of the money you got from your views.) that people couldn’t easily exploit. For example, imagine a person who regularly uploads videos with misleading advertising, saying things like, proof of that a chicken can fly as high as a plane, but instead of that you end up watching a video of a 10 year old child throwing a rubber chicken with a wacky sound track at the background and comic Sans font used as subtitles.

As you can see, the two out of three things that were mentioned are impossible for a single animator who uploads short animations with the best quality he can do, but takes a long period of time to make. For example a one min animation could take a month and meant to make, so just imagine how long a 10 min animation or more would take.

The wrong people were getting view, therefore YouTube was giving out money to those who scammed the their way to get free money from YouTube, so yeah, it reasons like that, that YouTube changed their CMP and RMP. What it means is that more people would add misleading videos and get showered with money for basically trolling someone, so due to that YouTube would lose its people.

So therefore YouTube knew if it went any further it could destroy them. So they had to look for something that can both make view useful and protect the amount of money they gave to people. The number of subscribers you have can be used to prove yourself to YouTube so they would see you as a troll. And because of that, people ended up getting allot of view and money, even though people watched a couple of seconds on that video and disliked it.

If you have more subscribers you would get allot of views, but if you but if you have a small subscription you wouldn’t have that many, even those you get a lot of views at one point it’s not going to be consistent all true. In order to have more viewers and keep your subscribers, viewing you would need to make longer videos within a shorter period and you would need to do it again and again, but for an animator to do this it would be near to impossible for them to do it.

Discuss So because of that, that’s why YouTube stated looking for CMP (CMP means Cost per thousand imprecations and RMP means Revenue per imprecation so they’re just there to inform you of the money you got from your views.) that would serve the gaols on till recently, YouTube had for one they struggle liked and that is, the amount of view on the video doesn’t matter on how much money you get it then it the amount of re-watch, length and regularly uploading of videos that does.

Before a YouTube channel earnings were more so determined the amount of view he/she got and the CMP and RMP you use with your YouTube network, therefore it benefited every one or something I don’t know.

The two ways one could succeed as an animator on YouTube is if you were well known by many and had allot of subscribers or he/she is hiring a team of animators at your back all ready to help but unfortunately not everyone is that lucky and has that has that kind of money.

So to be successful in YouTube you would need to reach their standard, you would need to regularly upload video that are more than 10 min long. If you don’t reach those sanders you would be under YouTube eye. And it’s because of that people who were in YouTube’s radar is no more because of the strange of YouTube’s new CMP and RMP. The sad thing is regardless of the views must animated content being produced now is at a loss to the creator, YouTube wants to want to maximise viewing time in any giving user so the algorithm is more likely to share the content that fills the equipment, in the in the search engine result and suggested videos, this change in the algorithm are normal for good intentions to stop people from abusing the system.

16 • Designfreebies Magazine • www.designfreebies.org

I think animators should just go look for a better website to use, a website were art and animation thrives because in that website they know how long animation takes therefore you get paid equally.

What I think would help animators in YouTube is if they changed their system to choosing what kind of CMP and RMP you want, E.G. if you want to be a gamer, you can choose the gamer pack, wail if you want to be an animator you could choose the animator or art etc. So basically if you choose a pack you choose a CMP and RMP that serves your line of work.

A question I often ask myself is does animation have a future on YouTube? My answer is I don’t know. I mean, if you looking at people who animate in YouTube know viewers have to regularly watch his/her videos for him/her to at least gain something, now have a million views on a video isn’t good another surviving on, therefore, they are now going to places like patron to get donation to continue.

I think as long as you try your best, you would get there even though YouTube doesn’t pay enough, you could still sell your stuff to someone who is willing to pay for your work for what is worth. There are options even though it not allot there are still options. And if you are an animator who has millions of subscribers then you’re lucky and this Journal isn’t really for you but for everybody else YouTube isn’t animator friendly, and in a way it was never really that animator friendly at the beginning, and it was really built to be, it was for the people who start at its early stages but Know it’s not so much that and if you’re trying start you should really think about it and if anything start considering other options, because if you want to be an animator there are hopeful other option.

Evaluation It like slowly YouTube animators are finding it difficult to work with YouTube, so they end up working outside of YouTube e.g. being a freelance or working for a company so they could pay their bills, so there for YouTube ends up becoming insignificant. What was once a number one parrot for many is known slowly becoming a problem for them?

YouTube is a very wonderful website by many, but it’s not the best for animators.

Can animators change their crafts to better exploit YouTube’s potentials? That is next to impossible as YouTube is Today.

Can YouTube Diversify their platforms to meet the best potentials of their different users? Maybe. Would they make money by so doing? It depends.

Therefore the best move and best decision might be for the animator to maintain his or her paid subscription website and use YouTube as a publicity channel.

Anyway, there are other opposition one could use for example Patron; the patron is like a payment thing, but for the animator’s arts who might need a bit of money, basically its like a kick-starter buy but people give arts money whenever they realise their work. Another way you could get a bit more money is if you use YouTube’s Tip Gar. And could do Commissions because they pay quilt allot.

Designfreebies Magazine • www.designfreebies.org • 17

CARTOON NETWORK FOR BETTER OR FOR WORSE?

S

Remember the good old times when Cartoon Network

of Cartoon Network, paid the city of Boston two million in damages,

(Shorted Name CN) uses to create cartoons like

while the people who marketed package was sentenced to commu-

Johnny Bravo Codename: Kids Next Door. Remember

nity service. Jim Samples the president of Cartoon Network stepped

the nostalgia filling you have whenever you remem-

down. It’s been said that, Stuart Snyder became the new president

ber watching their shows as kids, oh yes those were

might have begun the downfall of Cartoon Network. I heard that it

the good old times. Now remember when it started going downhill

might have been the rise of YouTube, which might have killed of TV

from there.

viewer ship. Also the rise of pirated cartoon became more assessable.

Am happy that Cartoon Network now are days are is in a much bet-

A long time ago around the 2000s, Cartoon Network was the go

ter condition now than it was in 2009. Meanwhile the AQUA TEEN

to channel to watch many of your favourite cartoons like, Cow and

BOSTON episode 69, named Boston was never aired or released due

Chicken, The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy, Dexter’s Laboratory,

to the incident that happened.

Courage the Cowardly Dog, Codename: Kids Next Door, and more.

Another thing that made Cartoon Network more hated by fans, was But later on Cartoon Network decided to do the most dumbest ever,

the cancelation of Toonami, It was cancelled on September 20, 2008.

and that was cancelling the shows that made them what they are.

First off, for those who do not know what Toonmi is, it was a weekday

And because of that it lift a good amount of Cartoon Network shows

afternoon cartoon action block, it was hosted by a robot named TOM,

at cliff hangers, and from there on they started giving use crappy

and was well known for showing action animations and animes, like

cartoons like 6Teen, total drama island and out of jimmy’s head. So

Naruto and thunder cats. For many Toonami was the first place they

around 2009 Cartoon Network decided not realise any cartoon, but

got to watch anime. For years, it’s been doing well for itself on till

instead, realist a show called Cartoon Network real. Cartoon Network

2008, when Cartoon Network pulled the plug on it. The reason why

real was basically Cartoon Network is trying to copy Disney and

Cartoon Network pulled the plug on Toonami was that it wasn’t mak-

Nickelodeon live shows, which absolutely sucked. I mean the whole

ing enough money. Reason why was the views dropped due to what I

purpose of Cartoon Network was for cartoons and nothing else, I

think, was the internet being widely available and pirated anime. The

mean it wasn’t a bunch of live action shows that made Cartoon

next main reason Cartoon Networks pulled Toonami was it, CN Real.

Network popular, no it was shows like Dexters Laboratory, Courage

It was cheaper for Cartoon Network to make live action shows, than

the Cowardly dog, Codename: Kid Next Door and much more, it this

it was to support Toonami, Due to how expensive getting license for

that made Cartoon Network great. It’s a good thing that Cartoon

their shows were.

Network does reruns of the old shows, but the problem with that is that you can only watch it as late as 9:00 at night till 6:00 early

I can remember when my friend first told me about Cartoon Network

morning.

cancelling their show, I was super devastated about it and I even hope that what my friend told me was a lie. To combat this there have

The same ting happed with DC Nation. Around 2011 Cartoon Network

been quite a few attempts, but all gotten is one special of the power

removed DC Nation action block due to not have enough ratings,

puff girls series and a promised short series of courage the cowardly

the reason why was because the only aired nine AM every Saturday.

dog but am not really sure on when it’s going to be released. And

(If you do not know what DC Nation is, will it’s were shows like

there have been partition for cartoon network to bring back the old

teen titan and the batman come form) so without warning Cartoon

shows.

Network Took down DC Nation and replaced it with repeats of DreamWorks Dragons: Riders of Berk on Saturday and Johnny Test on

If I was to choose between the big main three which are Cartoon

Sunday (10-11am both days).

Network, Nickelodeon and Disney Channels I would choose Cartoon Network because now, its’ has the superior amount of good Shows

So in February 2007, I think was the year the changed Cartoon

like Gum ball, regular show, Steven’s Universe and many More, while

Network forever a gorilla marketing posted packages left around the

Nickelodeon TNMT, SpongeBob and many more witch aren’t all that

city that were part of an outdoor marketing campaign promoting the

great and a couple of mediocre live action shows as well except form

Adult Swim series Aqua Teen Hunger Force movie. a couple of weeks

see that run, meanwhile Disney Channel has Gravity falls, Phineas

passed and the city Boston was put on lock down, to what police

and Ferb and a bunch of badly acted live action show that seem all

officers thought was a bomb threat, but it simply wasn’t. Because of

the same to me.

that turner broadcasting the people behind adult swim with is part 6 • Designfreebies Magazine • www.designfreebies.org

But just because I personally think Cartoon Network is by far superior that doesn’t me that Disney and Nickelodeon don’t have great gems.

They do, it’s just that they hide in a pile of mediocre shows you’ve seen a thousand times. It’s just that within this pile of crap are Disney Gravity falls and Phineas and Freb, while Nickelodeons TNMT and SpongeBob. Between Nickelodeon and Disney, I always thought Nickelodeon was my second favorite. That’s because as a kid, around 2004 or 2005 it was the first time I was introduced to Nickelodeon and it was an existing day for me as a kid. I got to watch cartoons I had never heard or seen before. So I instantly fell in love with Nickelodeon, but, as the years moved on Nickelodeon started having the same problem as Cartoon Network, and ever seen then Nickelodeon hasn’t been the same since.

Even though, that doesn’t mean that all the things Nickelodeon has in recent times are bad. For example, I thought the first avatar the last air bender was great wail the second one was okay. I also find SpongeBob quite fun to watch, and fairly odd parents too. As a kid, I never got to watch a Disney Channel cartoon but at my teens I got watch them, but by the time I had hard story of past Disney shows like My life as a teenage robot, Kim possible, Lilo and stitch, Duck tail, recess and many more. While watching those shows over a long period of time I felt like a child coming back from school and rushing to the TV, choosing the kids channel, and all it did was remind of my past as a kid witch I loved.

At least Know are days the cartoons, Cartoon Network has been able to produce are dragging in more viewers because of how mature the content is and also how the shows treat their audience as grownups while also make it fun for little kids to watch.

But at least we got great shows now like Gum ball with its all-round comedy, Adventure time with its light hearted while carrying a mysterious secret. Even Cartoon Networks newest show Stevens Universe, is now one of Cartoon Networks most popular show. That’s because the show doesn’t treat its audience as children who don’t have brains. And it shows like this, that are given making Cartoon Network popular much more popular than Nickelodeon and Disney put together. So it just comes to show that, as long as the show is fun to watch with kids and adults, Cartoon Network is always going to be every ones favorite cartoon channel.

I want it to be that the future of Cartoon Network would be great and powerful, with new hits every year, I want Cartoon Network to Create more cartoons like Over the garden (wall a miniseries, which ran for 10 episodes) because I think that if Cartoon Network does this, the is a high chances that Nickelodeon and Disney would do the same.

So yeah the only way Cartoon Network can become better is if they realise more fun and intelligent shows, that means no live action stuff, if they want to do that they should just create a totally different channel for that, so that way if it fails it does not affect the cartoons. And am only okay with live action if connected to any of the cartoons.

Designfreebies Magazine • www.designfreebies.org • 7

OBSSESSED WITH STORIES OF OLD? FROM STORYBOOKS TO THE BIG SCREEN FAIRY TALES ARE HERE TO STAY

R

eally why? Why do we want stories telling us how Snow White and Prince Charming met? Why do we want fairy tales told to us in so many different ways? Also what about the stories that have been

used as a basis for new stories? Then also different mythologies being introduced to one another just to speculate what might happen. I ask this because recently we’ve had shows like ‘Once Upon A Time’ and movies like ‘Hansel and Gretel Witch Hunters’ and the ‘Percy Jackson’ series. In the next couple months we have ‘Into the Wood’ and the ‘Cinderella’ remake. There are also books based around different mythologies and legends even older than fairy tales like Atlantis and Heroes of Olympus. They’ll all different genres and meant for different ages but their source material is essentially the same. They are all based around fairy tales and mythologies and they all change something. This type of entertainment is encouraged by audiences these days, ‘Once Upon A Time’ has also got a spin off show called ‘Once Upon A Time In Wonderland’ this takes place in the same universe of this story.

Considering I’ve mentioned Once Upon A Time quite a lot I’m going to focus on it at the moment go into other examples once I’ve laid down the basis.

Once Upon A Time follows the town of ‘Storybrooke’ and a woman named Emma. She had a son but gave him up so that he could have his best chance, she didn’t believe she could be a mother. 11 years later the boy named Henry finds Emma and gets her to take him to Storybrooke, he believes that everyone in this town is a character from a book that his teacher Mary Margaret Blanchard (who he thinks is Snow White) gave him and Emma is destined to break the curse that has brought them to the real world. The curse was designed to take away all the hero’s happy endings and only the saviour can save them, Emma is the Saviour. Naturally Emma doesn’t believe him but through

12 • Designfreebies Magazine • www.designfreebies.org

a series of coincidences Emma stays in

father (Regina convinced the genie to

Storybrooke to help Henry because his

kill him and then he became the mirror,

adoptive mother Regina the mayor of

long story) Regina framed Snow for it and

town seems to be dealing with Henry’s

from their Snow became a bandit and

obsession of the book badly. During the

met ‘Prince Charming’ aka David. This is

duration of the story there is flashbacks

only one thing including Regina’s past,

scattered throughout the episodes giving

there are many others like when she

the backstory of all the characters, Henry

meets Tinkerbell who tries to show her

is right everyone is a storybook character.

that there is another true love for her out

Now if you though that was confusing

there who happens to be Robin Hood.

you have no idea, just wait until you see

I will not go past this point as I think

the Charming’s family tree.

I’ve gotten across the amount of devel-

To prevent too much confusion I’ll cover

opment each fairy tale character goes

only the essentials after all trying to get

through.

in-depth in this show is mad. Also when

Once is also very clever at telling these

I draw comparisons from other sources

stories, revealing a little bit more about

of these stories I will be referring to the

them every episode. The first episode

most famous versions of the stories like

begins with Snow White receiving true

the Disney movies.

love’s kiss from Prince Charming and

The main backstories that are needed to

after that we’re at their wedding where

understand the story are Regina’s, David’s,

the curse is made known. It’s very typical

Mary Margaret and Mr Gold’s. Regina in

a villain promises to take everyone’s hap-

our world is the mayor of Storybrooke

piness; this is very black and white, good

and back where everyone is originally

vs evil plot. However as the episodes go

from (the Enchanted Forest) is the Evil

by we learn more and more about them.

Queen (Snow White story). In the Disney

The good guys we lean have done some

version all we know about the Evil Queen

bad things and the bad guys have done

is that she is very vain and hates Snow

good. The once firm standing in either

White for her beauty. Other than that we

the white or the black side of the stories

know nothing about her, however in Once

combine with each other and slowly

she has a name, mother, previous loves

become grey. People once perceived as

and friends ect. For example in the first

monsters slowly become men.

series it is revealed why she hates Snow White. When Snow was a child her mother died and her Father wanted a new wife for Snow’s sake, Regina saved Snow’s life which made King Leapold want to marry her. Regina’s mother on her behalf accepted for her but Regina already loved someone, a stable boy named Daniel. She told Snow that she didn’t want to marry the King because she loved Daniel and also expressly told her not to tell her mother Cora. Snow broke that promise and that caused Regina to slowly begin to hate her. After the death of Snow’s

You’re mistaking me for my mother.

Besides you don’t need a speech, you need a drinking buddy, shots?”Emma

Emma Swan The Hope Daughter Of Snow White and Prince Charming

It’s time for the world where up is down, where villians can have happy endings”The author

Designfreebies Magazine • www.designfreebies.org • 13

The development of stories becoming more grey than black and

ing them as human as possible. That makes them relatable and

white has happened before. The Greek heroes as well as comic

interesting.

book superheroes have done this, in both written and filmed

I started this trail of thought while watching an enjoyable show,

form.

I realised how drawn I was to these stories. I also read books by

In the golden age of comics many Superheroes were made like

the writer Rick Riordan, he writes stories based around differ-

Superman (Action Comics nb 1) and Batman (Detective Comics

ent mythologies; the Greek, Roman, Egyptian and soon Norse.

nb 27). Stories were very basic in this era of comics; these heroes

He explores what could happen if these stories were true and

were simple doing what was to us impossible. This fascinated

although it doesn’t follow the old myths mostly portraying them

readers but as time went on we realised we couldn’t be them;

as they were originally written some are still changed. The first

Superman is the ideal person the personification of the spirit of

main conflict in the Percy Jackson series is how the demi-god

hope this made him very hard to connect to though. He became

Luke has gained resentment to the Gods for never being good

very disconnected from us and seemed alien. Yes he is an alien

parents, this is understandable but he goes to destroy the Gods

but he was raised by humans so to keep people interested the

with his grandfather Kronos. Also this is evident in the way the

writers gave us more information about how he thought and

characters speak of the most famous Greek hero Hercules, the

felt. Superman went from being completely alien from us and

once kind and honourable hero is essentially a jerk. The char-

becomes a human. That was the key for us to stay interested in

acters we follow see both the bad and the good in the Gods

these characters they had to become more human.

actions that causes the main conflict in the books. The Gods

The Greek myths showed how anyone could gain the favour of

when we meet them in the story do seem like they have evolved

the gods and maybe even become a God themselves like with

over the years, once the tyrants we see in the old story we see

the story of Bacchus/Dionysus former demi-god son of Zeus to

people genuinely sorry for their actions. Another story is the

the God of Wine. Batman showed no matter what tragedy you

BBC series Atlantis, at the time of writing is in it’s second series

have faced the good can always shine through and Superman

and I haven’t got a full idea on what this series trying to do my

who could easily conquer the world doesn’t because it is wrong.

idea is it’s trying to tell the Jason and the Argonauts story while

These stories show the best and worst of humanity while keep-

twisting the characters mythologies a bit for example Hercules

18 • Designfreebies Magazine • www.designfreebies.org

is a drunk not a hero and Pythagoras an actual real person now lives in Atlantis.

All of these shows are connected with the basis of expanding pre-existing material and most of these I find fascinating, fun, exciting and creative. They connect characters from separate fairy tales therefore creating amazing character interactions and funny situations. Changing what we think we know about characters like Hercules being either a jerk or a lovable drunk with great loyalty. And finally seeing how time can affect characters that in the past are mostly unchanged but as time goes by begin to change their outlook on some of their actions.

Written by Shauna Cox

How could a city exsist under the ocean? Surely everyone would drown?’Pythagoras

Designfreebies Magazine • www.designfreebies.org • 19

POKEMON REHASH OR INNOVATE? Pokemon is a game

Pokemon has been criticised by some gamers and critics for not changing the basic

created in 1995 by

formula outside some artificial add-ons. The basic formula of the most resent game

Satoshi Tajiri, based off his childhood love of bug catching.

However since then it seems that players are still playing the same game.

(Pokemon X/Y) is that you are a boy or girl who is leaving home to embark on their Pokemon journey to become a Pokemon Master. To do this they must collect all the gym badges and defeat the Elite Four, while doing this they get caught up in a bit of trouble with a criminal group. When you compare this with the original formula which is that you are a boy setting out on your Pokemon adventure to become a Pokemon Master and while doing this you stumble into a criminal group and try to stop them…

As you can see the basic premise and story has been basically the same for over 20 years. Over the years there have been some basic changes like allowing the player to play as a girl, however can this excuse the lack of innovation over more than 20 years?

Especially since the true latest game in the series is actually a remake of the third gen-

4 • Designfreebies Magazine • www.designfreebies.org

Gotta catch them all it’s you and me I know it’s my destiny Pokemon you’re my best friend In a world we must defend Our courage will pull us through You teach me and I’ll teach you Po-ke-mon gotta catch them all POKEMON!’The Pokemon theme added note ‘Until the next game comes out’ eration game, Pokemon Omega Ruby and

strength and weakness of each Pokemon

Alpha Sapphire. Looking at Pokemon X/Y

type, also because of this the moves

(generation six) at the time of release

created for the fairy type do need to be

there was a lot of coverage around the

sorted into physical type or special type

of evolution given to specific Pokemon

new perspective of the game, before this

moves. Also because of this new type

by way of a mega stone. This power up is

the main series Pokemon has been in a

some existing Pokemon have had some

limited to only specific Pokemon though

top down view. This game had third per-

type changes for example Gardevoir was

so this adds another layer of battle strat-

son view so now the game has a fully 3D

a pure Psychic type but now it is a psychic

egy when in a Pokemon battle in either

environment; another selling point for

fairy type. This has changed its weak-

casual or serious play. An older change

this game was the introduction of a new

ness and strengths against other types.

was in Pokemon third generation Ruby,

type called ‘Fairy’. This is one of the only

Types can also affect whether or not

Sapphire and Emerald which was the

changes that Pokemon has done that has

one type can affect another, for example

physical special split. These changed how

actually changed how you play the game

Psychic type Pokemon can’t use Phychic

different moves were affected by defence

a great deal. The last time that this has

type moves against Dark type Pokemon

buffs or defensive items equipped to the

been done was with the introduction of

since they’re immune to it. There is one

Pokemon. This also changed what moves

‘Dark’ and ‘Steel’ type in the second gen-

other large contributing factor to recent

can affect certain types of Pokemon, for

eration. The change of a new type great-

Pokemon games is the addition of Mega-

example physical type moves cannot be

ly impacts the game by changing the

Evolution, this is a temporary higher state

used against ghost type Pokemon.

Designfreebies Magazine • www.designfreebies.org • 5

6 • Designfreebies Magazine • www.designfreebies.org

H

owever these are all the significant changes since

Others could argue that the original 151 (including Mew) didn’t

Pokemon has released. Other small changes have

have the most imaginative Pokemon however they were all more

been the introduction of a day and night cycle

plausible being based off real animals. These could be believed

and different modes of transport. These changes

to be in a fight while a giant ice cream isn’t.

don’t affect the games in any significant way out-

Another defending argument for Pokemon is that the region

side of becoming either more immersive or more inconvenient.

changes every game however this is mainly a cosmetic change

These may seem like a lot of changes however given the coarse

since in every Pokemon game a Victory Road, several towns,

of time these games have had to change and develop some

waterways and the Elite Four. The only change that is truly evi-

consumers see this as lazy game making and are demanding

dent is that other than the obvious representation of a real life

more changes.

country is that because they’re based off these real life locations

Given the way Pokemon is there are many ways Pokemon could

some inspiration can be found for different Pokemon. It wouldn’t

be changed with keeping the battle system. The battle system is

be difficult to assume that because Pokemon X/Y are based in a

arguably the best part of Pokemon and is the most developed.

France; home of the pope, inspired region would introduce the

If you look at it at face value however it seems very simple. In

‘God’ of Pokemon Arceus.

a typical one on one battle you each have a Pokemon and you

Written by Shauna Cox

have to evaluate the most effective move against the other Pokemon, for example in the third generation your first fight against your rival have you at a disadvantage. If you picked Torchic (fire type) your rival will have Mudkip (water type), your rival has an advantage over you since water is super effective against fire. You have to win this battle and by using your superior skill you should win against the rival. From this battle system competitions have been made and they become quite large and expansive. The battle system is extremely deep and even if you don’t enjoy Pokemon it is hard to argue against the depth of it.

However outside this one fact there are many things that can be called lazy for example the story is basically the same from game to game. The only parts of the story that have changed are the criminal group involved, in the first game it is Team Rocket and in Omega Ruby it’s Team Magma. The story for a Pokemon game is extremely easy to create; another change that can be changed from game to game is the scope of destruction that each team aspires toward.

The sad thing though is that there is never a main series game based solely around conflict between your character and the villains; it often is an addition to becoming a Pokemon Master and beating the Elite 4. Some fans may be asking for a game where this is flipped around the other way, it would be interesting to see if after leaving for your Pokemon journey the main focus of the game becomes defeating the bad guy of the game rather than collecting all the gym badges.

There are people who are defending Pokemon even though there are only so many changes from game to game. They argue that the simple expenditure of Pokemon frees Pokemon from the accusation of no innovation or actually changes. There are about 720 Pokemon currently around however of those 720 it’s actually fairly common to have many people agree on what are the best Pokemon for battle. It can be assumed that because these games are made each year that the creators are having a hard time coming up with imaginative, original or even plausible Pokemon. An example of this is what is known as ‘the ice cream pokemon’ true name is Vanilluxe, this pokemon looks like a double scoop with a flake and that isn’t very imaginative.

Designfreebies Magazine • www.designfreebies.org • 7

e g e l l o C x e s s Eh t u o S 3 l e v e L

5 1 0 2

a m i nA