Summary of the Week
This week we met with several subject matter bird experts and learned a lot about bird migration, the obstacles they face and how light pollution factors in.
Learning about birds
Diane put us in touch with two bird experts, Jon Rice who works for the Carnegie Museum of Natural History as the Urban Bird Conservation Coordinator and Nick Liadis, who is the executive director of Bird Lab.
We started the week with a zoom meeting with Jon Rice and shared the direction that we are planning for our game and what we were hoping to learn. He helped to provide a detailed outline of what exactly birds go through during migration and the issues they face trying to survive their long journey. He also addressed the issue of light pollution and we learned about how spotlights attract birds like moths to a flame and how unless someone turns off the lights they get stuck in these beams unable to leave and will circle until they run out of energy and die. This information really stuck with all of us and felt like it was something that we could address in our game.
Bird Safe Design
Nick Liadis informed us there was a class at CMU that taught about how to design buildings that were safe for birds. He was a guest lecturer and was kind enough to extend an invitation to our team to sit in on his class. This was very informative and helped us to better understand how birds move through a space, what causes collisions and what can to address this problem.
Deciding on a name
After confirming our game topic and direction we felt like it was time to settle on a name. We did a bit of brainstorming and narrowed it down to Dying Darkness, White Shadow and Lost in the Light. We consulted our advisors and our client and they gave us some great feedback. They helped us to think about what the first impression the name would give and ultimately Lost in the Light was chosen because it gave a clear idea of two things the game addressed, light and the bird losing their way.
Art
For this week, our team came together and decided that we are going to use Pittsburgh as our base for creating the environment for our experience. There are a couple of factors that led to this decision. First, all of our subject matter experts are based in Pittsburgh, and they are most familiar with the situation that birds are facing here. Secondly, after doing an abundance of research, we learnt that Pittsburgh downtown is actually the center of light pollution that caused the deaths of so many birds. PPG building, despite being a landmark of Pittsburgh, was not designed in a bird friendly way: the reflective materials on the exterior of the building as well as the light emitted from the building made it detrimental for birds.
Frick Park & Playtesting
Diane was also kind enough to connect us with Frick Park to see if there was any potential for playtesting. There are a lot of nature programs that are held at their Environmental Center so we are hopeful to make a plan with them in the future.
Games for Change Meeting
We presented our storyboard to Michaela and we had a great discussion about our game name and how we should present it so our audience knows what our experience is about. She also encouraged us to check out Remembering Pearl Harbour on Steam to see how they presented pictures, which is something we are thinking about for the ending of our game. At the end of the meeting she asked us to prepare a production timeline for our next week.
What went well
This week our team really learned a lot about birds. We learned about their migrations, the issues they deal with and what is being done to help them. We feel like we are starting to get the answers we need to help us move forward in our development and to help us to better address the questions laid out in the Transformational Framework.
Next Steps
Next, we need to revamp our transformational framework and to take the knowledge we learned and apply it to our game. We also need to work on our production timeline and start preparing for our halves presentation.
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