Media Arts Thesis: Prototyping Strategies
In working on this thesis, I'm learning to embrace the "vertical slice" method of production. In case you're reading this and haven't come across that term, what it means is that I want to create a portion of a game that acts as a proof of concept of the game as a whole. What this means for me is that, since I have a prototype for my project due on November 8th, I want to build a section of the game in order to figure our macro-problems. For instance, while I had initially p
Media Arts Thesis: Legwork and the Temptations of Birthdays
So, I'm writing this blog post at the tail end of my birthday, and let me tell you, it would have been really easy to just consider this a by-week just because of that fact. I mean, after all, on Tuesday I had received the tacit approval of my faculty concerning my new direction. I spoke with them in class to talk over the logistics of our midterm show, and they gave no protest to my ideas for what I could demonstrate. Having that out of the way, it would be easy to trick my
Media Arts Thesis: Putting Everything Back Together
So, the week leading up to this weekend was one full of existential crises, if I may be completely candid. It was the usual doubt that I face as an artist - indeed, many artists feel similar doubt - compounded by the fact that this project is supposed to be a capstone of everything that I've learned in my 4 years at USC, and the fact that I couldn't figure it out was anguish to me. However, some time around Thursday argument, I began putting the pieces of what I had shattered
Media Arts Thesis: Upheaval and Change
So, this week was...turbulent, to say the least, when it came to my thesis. For starters, I didn't end up making that paper prototype board game. The reason for this was because of a last minute change of platform that was brought upon by a conversation with my boss at my internship. Now, the realization that I came to with my boss is one that I still hold on to: my previous idea of having a linked board game and app was far out of my scope for a yearlong thesis project. I


Media Arts Thesis: Bit by Bit...
...putting it together! (sorry, I can't resist a good Sondheim reference). Anyways, the title still works on it's own because now that I've actually committed to an idea and a schedule, I find that, at least for right now, I'm starting to look at a lot of minutiae that adds up to larger wholes, which can be quite daunting. Take, for instance, the making of a paper prototype (due Tuesday for me, by the way). Like every kind of creative project, I have to start out with raw mat