This week we had ¼ walk around on Monday. We got some great feedback including keeping the experience upbeat and lighthearted, while still not losing the meaning of the pillow. From there we started to really focus on the story and how Randy relates to the story. We met with both classmates and professors to help guide us in the right direction.
We started by thinking of building of the world first and started thinking of the backstory of the pillow tree. However, after meeting with our classmate, we decided to start with developing Randy first. After doing research on comedy tropes, we decided to make Randy mysterious and like a Harlequin character from Comedia Dell’Arte.
On Friday we had our quarter sit downs where we got some great new perspectives on what we should do with the pillow tree and a definite concern was brought up: what if the worst case scenario happens and we an artist can’t help animate this in time for installation? We are still considering the possibly, but if that is the case some things we can do is have extremely simple animation, have a puppet and have the interaction be a video, or even have the animation just be a story book and there be still 2D images. We are hoping the get in contact with the artist soon. Another thing that was brought up was the possibility of going back down to the village and making sure we are able to implement all the physical changes as well.
Next week we are hoping the get in contact with the artist, talk about going back down there, build the playtesting prototype, playtest again but with story, lock down a rough draft of story, and complete the physical tree concept.