This week we looked at the audio presentation we have to do alongside our essay. I figured the best order for me to do this would be to do the essay first and then cordinate my presentation around my essay.
I worked more on my essay this week also. I researched more into what a literature review entailed and worked on the start of this:
Literature review
When approaching research for this topic, I decided to use a variety of opinions and methods of conclusions. I wanted to find a source in which aligned with my view of appeal within video games follows the path of amount of immersion. Christou (2014) had a scientific approach to this relationship and with reading his study I found that the study had concluded a linear correlation, which supported my statement. Another point of view I wanted to study was a very general one, looking at visual effects in games and I found that environments was something discussed. X. Yang, M. Yip and X. Xu (2009) also had a positive view on the addition of visual effects in which I could further use as an example of my question proposed. This journal also included many of my keywords I had established would be talked about prior to my research, with ‘atmosphere’ of games being explored in detail. Furthermore, this piece of text gave me ideas as to which details of visual effects I could use as a focal point. Lighting and shading were linked to the keyword ‘atmosphere’, heavily indicating that these elements are linked. Another source I found in my research was directly linked to the environments in games, focusing in on what makes these immersive for players. This source enabled me to view a more detailed perspective on the effects environments have on games, enabling me to see the direction my question would take in terms of environmental design within games. I concluded that environments are portrayed in this source as a layer to games which controls a lot of the gameplay, even stated as promising “a new kind of gameplay challenge” (Chang 2011). My research that followed this consisted of zoning into the examples I wanted to include. I found few sources linked directly to these games and digital environments within, however I figured that with my other sources at play, I would be able to look at the games separately, and find a meeting point for these points of research to meet within my essay. An example of a specific source would be what Niedenthal wrote in 2009, they refer to the environments of ‘Resident Evil’ as ‘gothic’ a lot, a key word that would be explored in my essay. This opened up a discussion for how visual effects contributes to this, and how it improves the players experience having such a memorable environment in a game series. With sources from the directions of where my essay question was built from, I was able to find a middle point where these all contributed to my overall argument and help me form my essay.
Alenda Y. Chang. “Games as Environmental Texts.” Qui Parle, vol. 19, no. 2, 2011, pp. 56–84. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.5250/quiparle.19.2.0057. Accessed 23 Nov. 2022.
Christou, G., 2014. The interplay between immersion and appeal in video games. Computers in human behaviour, 32, pp.92-100.
Niedenthal, S., 2009. Patterns of obscurity: Gothic setting and light in Resident Evil 4 and Silent Hill 2. Horror video games: Essays on the fusion of fear and play.
X. Yang, M. Yip and X. Xu, “Visual Effects in Computer Games,” in Computer, vol. 42, no. 7, pp. 48-56, July 2009, doi: 10.1109/MC.2009.240.
This is just the start as alongisde my abrsract, this will be a work in progress.
I also looked back on my previous refeences and reviewed if I would be using these in my essay. I have a total of 6 references so far, so I concluded I need to find a few more to use within this essay.