Themes and Messages

During the weeks leading up to the start of this games development, our class discussed resonance with themes and messages. I had yet to create any games with direct themes in mind from the start--so for this game I first began with a theme that I was passionate about.

The theme I landed on was humanities relationship with wildlife. I am a big nature and animal lover, and a lot of people growing up in this day and age have not even laid a foot outside of a city. I wanted to show mankind's effect on the animals in nature. Many animals are forced out of their habitat, hunted, kept as pets, used as resources, or even just die by choking on human garbage waste. The initial idea was to start with natural animal habitats, but as the player progresses the animals that they find are gradually more affected by humanity.

Our class also discussed resonance with themes. On this note, I believe the current prototype is unsuccessful in creating resonance.

A game's message is given through symbolism. The message for this game is spoken through dialogue in the ending, so it is currently quite on the nose. The implied message is that everybody can use their cameras and platforms to show the world the beauty of nature, and negative effects humanity is having on it. 

Resonance is successful when it subconsciously makes the player respond closely to the games theme and message. Right now, the game is about taking pictures of animals and helping the community. This makes the player subconsciously feel influential to the world around them, and genuinely helpful. This aligns well with my message, but I am not sure that it aligns with my theme. I feel that to truly resonate with the theme, the player needs to understand how it feels to be in the position of the animal. One potential way to do this is to put humans in the place of the animals--literally. 

The player could control an alien planetary wildlife photographer, and take pictures of humans as if they were wildlife being affected by an alien occupation. This would operate similarly, but would allow the player to align more closely with the "wildlife".