I showed sketches of my 11 families this week and some didn't go down so well. Some were ruled as clever, but in all, I've felt constricted by the rules of the game (4 characters per family, the Mr. and Mrs. title and the fact that all the members of the family do the same profession) it's all ridiculous and not representative of modern British families at all. So as Robin G put it best, it "felt like I was forcing it".
So! This week I've gotten permission to break apart the game, and instead of focusing on 11 families (44 characters), to focus more on 4 - 5 families that completely are unusable by standard Happy Families rules and are truer representation of the British public. Throughout this entire module my biggest worry was coming up with a game brief or design (something I don't specialize in), so being told I don't have to break and rebuild happy families - but instead break and justify why I broke it and it can't be rebuilt on it's current rules - really puts me at ease!
I need to do better research to be able to justify my changes and my characters. My characters shown last presentation were not great, and I knew they were tip-toeing really negative stereotypes, but I needed that and the classes discussion to understand what it was that was holding me back.
On a side note, I'm redrawn to this set of cards I put on my moodboard:
I love that it's the background, and not particularly the profession, that binds these families. And that there are more than 4 people per family. It might be a thought to colour group my families (via their card background) rather than their professions.
I may or may not post the 11 families here; I'm kind of embarressed to do so and don't particularly want them on the internet.
No comments:
Post a Comment