Castlevania: A Timeline

Castlevania is a platforming action-adventure video game series created by Konami. The series centers around fighting vampires and the undead, with characters such as 'Golem' and 'Death' often appearing in games. The games' antagonists are a family called the Belmonts, who are at war with Count Dracula who is resurrected almost every 100 years. Dracula is the main villain and often the final boss in the games.

Castlevania - The original Castlevania was launched in 1986 on the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES). The protagonist, one of the Belmont family members called Simon, uses a whip called "Vampire Killer" to fight through a castle filled with enemies to confront and defeat Dracula.  

Castlevania II: Simon's Quest - The sequel to Castlevania came a year later in 1987. It introduces non-linear open ended gameplay to the series, with new elements such as a world map that players could explore at will. It also introduced some RPG elements such as weapon upgrades. One of the most interesting new features was it's persistent world, and day-night cycle. The game had three different endings depending on how long the player took to complete the game.

Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse - The third main entry in the series was released in 1989. It was more like the original game than it's predecessor, but had new features such as branching paths, multiple characters, and alternate endings depending on player choices. 

Super Castlevania IV - Essentially a remake of the original game for the newly released SNES, this game came out in 1991 with 16 bit graphics and an expanded control scheme. Although the level designs were different, the game itself followed the same plot and premise as the original.

Castlevania: Bloodlines - The only game in the series to be released on the Sega Genesis in 1994. The game doesn't feature a member of the Belmont family but has two different playable characters. The game was noteworthy for its special effects, with swaying towers, large bosses and water reflections.

 

Castlevania: Symphony of the Night - The first entry on the Playstation, released in 1997. It made a major change to the basic mechanics of the game, with the level-by-level platforming of previous games replaces with a wide-open level design and a massive game world. To stop the player from being able to access all areas of the game at the start, certain areas are only accessible once the player gains the ability to shape-shift.

Castlevania - Released in 1999 on the Nintendo 64, it was the first 3D game in the series. The players could choose between two characters to play as at the start of the game, and once again had to defeat Dracula. Due to the new 3D aspect of the game, the gameplay featured a basic target and lock-on system

Castlevania: Legacy of Darkness - Released in the same year, it was a direct sequel to the first N64 game but also included the original remastered.

 

Castlevania: Lament of Innocence - The first installment to be released on the Playstation 2,and the third 3D game of the series, the game was released in 2003. The game featured Hack 'n Slash gameplay similar to the 2001 release Devil May Cry. It was another open-ended game, featuring a room with five portals that connected to the main areas of the game. It was critically well recieved.

Castlevania: Judgment - Judgment was the first game in the series to move from the platforming genre to the fighting genre. The first title from the series on the Wii, the game features similar gameplay to that of the Tekken series, with players using the Wii's motion controls to attack. The game features a number of different characters from the series that are playable with some new additions.

 

Castlevania: Lords of Shadow - Another game that radically changed the direction of the series, it was a reboot of the franchise and most recent title, released in 2010 on the next generation Xbox 360 and Playstation 3. Much like past installments, the game still had a heavy focus on platforming and puzzles, but it also heavily focused on action gameplay. The player could unlock perform different attack combos with the main weapon. The game also features large scale bosses which the player can grapple onto using the main weapon. 

Surrealism: Am I dreaming?

I thought choosing a single art movement to write an essay about would be tricky, but I found it surprisingly easy as the movement I have chosen is so inspiring and interesting to me that it jumped out at me the second I came across it. That movement is Surrealism. Surrealism  was a cultural movement that began in the early 20th century, as an off-shoot of Dadaism, that brought together artists in hunt for expression of the unconscious . The art often has absurd subject matter, and is the visual representation of the subconscious  Many artists created pieces of art inspired by their dreams.

I like the imaginative and crazy art pieces that have been created for the movement; they were something that hadn't really been seen before. It was a major contrast to the more traditional portraiture and more photo-realistic pieces of art that came before it. I find it much more inspiring than anything that is a simple representation of something. The movement was all about the expression of the mind and the release of imagination in an art form, removing yourself from the reality of the world around you and embracing the creativity bursting from our unconscious. Many artists painted the things in their dreams, because in your dreams there are no rules, no boundaries, everything is possible and anything can happen. 

The artists of the movement wanted above all else a free flow from their unconscious to their art. I love the lack of constraints that this art movement brought with it, being able to freely express any idea or thought into an art form without the need to limit the potential. Creating a piece of art with elephant’s heads being replaced with musical instruments at one point in time would have been ridiculous and completely unheard of but surrealism brought a more creative approach to art in general.

The idea of letting your imagination roam free and not holding anything back intrigues me. I like how it gives artists the freedom to express their ideas in any shape or form, rather than restricting themselves to what is around them in the real world. It gives people the ability to express exactly what is in their mind and share it with the world which is something that hadn’t really been done before.

RESEARCH MATERIALS

As well as looking at key artists such as Salvador Dali I will use a range of reference materials such as books from libraries and online sites such as:

Surrealism (Taschen Basic Art Series) by Cathrin Klinsohr-Leroy

Manifestoes of Surrealism by AndrC Breton

www.surrealism.co.uk

http://www.theartstory.org/movement-surrealism.htm

http://www.gosurreal.com/surreal.htm

Moodboards

I was tasked with creating a moodboard for two of the artistic movements I looked at on this blog...

My first choice was surrealism as it interests me the most, I love the the imagination and creativity behind the art of this movement. I decided to create a moodboard based on the movement itself, blending many different surrealism art works into a single image to create a sense of wild imagination.

The second movement I chose to create a moodboard for was pop art. Many pieces from this movement included the same image repeated in different colours of coloured square backgrounds, so for this moddboard I replicated this style with a montage of pieces I liked from the art movement.

Surrealism

sur·re·al·ism

   [suh-ree-uh-liz-uhm] 

noun ( sometimes initial capital letter )

a style of art and literature developed principally in the 20th century, stressing the subconscious or non rational significance of imagery arrived at by automatism or the exploitation of chance effects, unexpected juxtapositions, etc.

Surrealism was a cultural movement that began in the early 20th century, as an off-shoot of Dadaism, that brought together artists in hunt for expression of the unconscious . Although the term was coined by Guillaume Apollinaire, the driving force behind the movement was Andre Breton, who started the movement with literature. He and two fellow artist began experimenting with automatic writing, where they wrote down whatever they thought without censorship. As more and more writers joined the movement, they developed their philosophy, discarding the conscious production of art art embracing the unconscious for inspiration. 

Breton wrote the Surrealist Manifesto in 1924 defining the groups purpose. He said that Surrealism was 

"Pure psychic automatism, by which one proposes to express, either verbally, in writing, or by any other manner, the real functioning of thought. Dictation of thought in the absence of all control exercised by reason, outside of all aesthetic and moral preoccupation." 

The art often has absurb subject matter, and is the visual representation of the subconsious. Many artists created pieces of art inspired by their dreams.

The artist that stands out the most to me from this movement is Salvador Dali, he is someone who I have looked at in the past and always admired his work. Two pieces in particular really caught my eye.

Both images are extremely eye catching and have an amazing dream like quality to them. 

Futurism

One of the main things we looked at today was Futurism:

It was an Italian artistic and social movement that started at the beginning of the 20th century. It focused on contemporary concepts of the future including speed, technology and youth.

The movement was started by  Filippo Tommaso Marinetti with the publication of the Futurist Manifesto. "We want no part of it, the past", he wrote , "we the young and strong Futurists!"  Members of the movement wished to destroy old forms of art and focus on the modern life. They celebrated the 'machine age' and loathed the past, only wanting to to look forward. Many artists seeing this manifesto joined in with the movement and it spread throughout many forms or art. At first futurism lacked a distinctive style or subject matter unlike other identifiable art movements, it wasn't until 1911 that a distinctive Futurist style emerged, borrowing from Divisionism and Cubism.

From music to architecture artists tried to depict what the future would look like. The movement managed to reach as wide as cinema, influencing movies such as Blade Runner.

I think my favourite example of futurism art is the 'La Città Nuova' by Antonio Sant'Elia. I think this is a great example of how the industrial revolution impacted the way people looked at the world.

My first assignment is a 2000 word essay detailing and illustrating a historical design issue or movement. We were shown futurism as an example, something that changed the way people looked at design as a whole. I'm not sure yet what movement or issue I will be focusing on but there are many to choose! I will be looking at two other design movements on my blog to get stated.

Defining Design

After the introduction to this subject last week I was interested and excited to learn more about the history of games design and design in general.

I learnt quite a few valuable things I think! First that different design mediums can help if not directly influence game design, something known as Cross-disciplinary connections. For example architecture is linked closely with environment design and game user interfaces are essentially interactive pieces of graphic design!

I had never really thought about it and I realise how many different parts make up a game. I think I need to look more closely at other design mediums to help my game designing as a whole.

We were shown a number of quotes defining design (if that's possible) my favourite was:

"Design is the process by which a designer creates a context to be encountered by a particinpant, from which meaning emerges" - Katie Salen and Eric Zimmerman

Why I want to be a Game Designer!

Ever since I was a youngster I have had an obsession with video games, starting with Pokemon games on the Gameboy and carrying it everywhere. I was obsessed with leveling my Pokemon to 100 and trying to "Catch em' all". It was also one of the few things I packed the day I 'ran away' from home.

It wasn't until I moved onto home consoles with the original Xbox and the Xbox 360 that I realised just how detailed and expansive games could be. I now own a PC as well as my Xbox 360 and play games like Halo, Borderlands and Minecraft!


Although I sometimes made my own games a child, I never really payed attention to the design side of games, but then I played Halo 3 and my eyes were opened. The story, the graphics, the characters.. they all amazed and blew me away. I explored every level and found all of the Easter eggs in the game. The end level is one of my favourite moments in a game, driving across falling floor plates to get to the ship at the end!

But it wasn't until I watched the making of DVD that came with the limited edition that I thought about game design. Seeing how everything was made and put together fascinated me. The addition of a map editor to the game also intrigued me and I made endless map variants with friends. It was at this point that I realised that this is what I wanted to do with my life, create the thing I love, games!