For our next project we were given the brief to create a piece of media that was aimed to teach the viewer 6 key objectives incase of a fire.
Our first Idea was to brainstorm on what piece of media to use. In our first group meeting I came up with the Idea for a game. The idea came together to be a retro styles game where the character has to escape from a burning building.
Before we went into the details of the project we had to decide over the target audience. Over a whole meeting of contemplating we chose to aim towards the younger audiences, i.e. teenagers and students. The reason for this was due to the fact that teenagers and students are not used to thinking about the safety hazards even though they are quite likely to cause them because of the use of consoles, computers, etc.
With this in mind we designed the building to look like student halls so it would cater for the students.
This image shows the first idea of how the map would be.
This is the developed look of the map that came to be the final look.
With the character we chose to go for a male character that was sketched out by one of our team members and digitalised by another. As you can see in the images below, the transition of the characters look has reformed to become pixelated.
To get the six key objectives over we decided their needs to be obstacles. In a quick brainstorm it came to thought that we should use items that students would leave around, for example, pizza boxes, mattresses, bin bags, etc.
This would still connect with the target audience seeing as teenagers at home and students in halls leave at least one item on the floor which can be a hazard in the case of a fire.
This image is of a key. We created the key to be used to give the viewer the option to close doors and slow down the fire.
The next image is of a mattress. This was created to be an obstacle that the character needed to destroy in order to stay away from the chasing fire.
The bin bag and pizza boxes are also obstacles but rather than being destroyed, the viewer can jump over them in order to stay away from the fire behind them.
To make sure the user knows how to play the game we start off with a quick tutorial which covers the six key points the brief informed to cover.
Here are the tutorial slides below:
If the viewer either failed at escaping or made it to the end we created an end slide.
The slide for dying in the game had the logo from the ‘Fire Kills’ campaign and also a pointer on what they could do on the next try to survive until the end.
The slide for the people who escaped the building congratulated the player on being successful. Furthermore, it explained to the viewer to learn from the aim of the game and key points to survive seeing as they cater for the real world too in the case of a fire.
Lastly, I brought up the topic to the group asking how are we going to promote the play of this game and get the message out of being safe in the case of a fire.
The team and I came together to create a poster of the character with the fire kills logo and also banners for YouTube.
For creating banners to be used on YouTube, was due to the target audience (teenagers and young adults, i.e. students) using YouTube as a large source of entertainment. It would be able to get to the audience the game was aimed to be used by and inform towards.
The Journey 