Major Project 1 - Task 1: Proposal Development

03/02/2025- 26/02/2025 (Week 1-Week 4)

Aisya Diva Anwagodsa (0365505)

Major Project 1 / Bachelor of Design (Hons) in Creative Media

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Table of Content

1. Instruction
2. Topic Discussion
3. Game Mechanism & Concept
4. Proposal
5. Feedback
6. Reflection

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Instruction

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Task 1 - Major Project 1

Topic Discussion - Week 1

In week 1 all of the students were gathered in the lecture hall and were given a brief about the module.  After that students should form a group consist 4 to 5 people for the major project 1.  After forming the group students were given further instruction by the respective lecturers regarding the location of the class.

My group consists 4 people:

1. Aisya Diva Anwagodsa (me)
2. Khu Ying Ying
3. Lizzie Tanaka
4. Sheryne Axellia Putri

First, we discussed what topic we wanted to use for the project.  Below are the potential topics we discussed:

Fig. 1.1 Ideas Breakdown
(Credit Khu Ying Ying)

To make it more understandable I will break down our discussion results below: 

• Product: As a graphing design student, we can do a lot of things for our major project as long as it is related to our specialization.  We can do re-branding, making products, campaigns, and more.  But the point that's highlighted in our discussion is that we think it will be better if we create something physical so people can see and feel it.
• Topic: For the topic, it can be seen from the picture that we put all of the ideas that popped up in our head, but most of our themes are related to culture and trends.
• Weaknesses & Conclusion: We also make a list of weaknesses that we will face if we choose the topic.  But referring to our discussion, it seems that it leads more to cultural topics and making a magazine (as a final form for our project, but the topic is still not decided yet).  We consider that using culture as our topic will need more research, should consider the authenticity of the source, and if we want to create a physical product, and in what form we want to apply our idea?  After a long discussion, we came to a conclusion for the top 4 potential topics:
• Culture: Magazine that incorporates Indonesian and Malaysian culture.
• Culture & trend: Magazine about Japanese makeup.
• Game: Game inspired by flashcard/uno card mechanism.
• Game: Board game inspired by Snake & ladder.

After our first consultation with Ms. Anis, we decided to make a card game that incorporated Indonesian and Malaysian folklore.  This game will target people who have an interest in culture and of course, both Indonesians and Malaysians, because we want to highlight the similarity between our cultures by utilizing folklore.  

To enrich our data, we started gathering folk stories from each country and put them into a PowerPoint.

Fig. 1.2 Folklores from Indonesia & Malaysia

With all the data gathered, we found another challenge, which is how to come up with a good and fun game concept.  We tried to adapt other game concepts like uno, werewolf, card against humanity, etc but none of them suited our topic better.  So in the next consultation, we conveyed our struggle to Ms. Anis, and Ms. Anis suggested that we focus on one side of the folklore, which is Indonesian, and change our perspective from incorporating two cultures to introducing Indonesian culture to the wider audience.  We also decided that we would use the matching card game concept which was suggested by Lizzie.  After that, we started to collect all of the stories from Indonesia based on its region:

1. Sumatra
2. Kalimantan
3. Sulawesi
4. Papua
5. Java

in total, we have 3 stories for each region with 41 characters.

Fig. 1.3 Folklores from each region in Indonesia

To deepen our research, Sheryne provides a ppt slide about Indonesian traditional wear, motifs, and culture-related items.  Each member also helps to add more information regarding batik motifs from each region.

 

Fig. 1.4 Culture elements

Game Mechanism & Concept - Week 2

For the game mechanism, we decided to adopt a matching card game and incorporate it with our folklore.  The rough idea is to create a card game consisting of 2 card decks: question cards and answer cards.

- Question cards: this card deck will be divided into 3 difficulty levels (easy, medium, hard).  This card will give players an illustration of folk stories from Indonesia.  The appearance of the card will be determined by the difficulty level of the card.

• Easy: The card will display a character from the folklore and give a description that hints about the answer card.  The number of characters to be paired would be 2 - 3 characters from each story.
• Medium: This level will have the same concept as the easy level but will require pairing four to five characters.
• Hard: The hard level does not use illustrations and displays a description of the story, so the player should read the card and analyze the description.

- Answer cards: The answer card will be paired with the question card.

We also made a rough idea for the game rules and what we want to put into the rules.  We did find some difficulty during this process because we needed to make the rules less complicated and more understandable to the players:

• Match the story of the folklore characters
• Consider providing a bonus card (To find the winner, in case there's a tie between players).  The bonus card can be in the form of a pop quiz card or a riddle card.
• The player will have 30 seconds to find the answer card. If they cannot find the answer or pick the wrong answer, they will not receive points.
• If a player could finish the game in less than 30 seconds the player can still continue to match another question card until the 30 seconds time finish.
• Each player will earn coins if they can match the card, and the winner of the game will be the person who earned the most coins.

Our group members (Ying Ying & Sheryne) also did a rough sketch of the cards and character

Fig. 2.1 Biwar Penakluk Naga
Drawing by Ying Ying

Fig. 2.2 Timun Mas
Drawing by Sheryne

Besides the game rules and design, we also attempt to create a name for our game.  Our direction is something that sounds 'Indonesia' and carries the aesthetic that we want to deliver to the audience.  We have a lot of names and we almost ended up with 'Lisan' as our game name, Lisan in Indonesia means 'verbally' or 'to speak with the mouth' with the tagline 'Tales of The Olden'.  But we got a better idea to use 'Cerita Rakyat' as it is in English means folklore.  I like that name because it is straightforward.

Proposal - Week 3

After doing all of the research and making the 'base' idea for our project, we started to put it into a proposal PowerPoint, following the structure given by Ms. Vitya.

We have 3 chapters: 

• Introduction: Explaining that the purpose of making this game was triggered by the extinction of folklore among the young generation, and we want to reconnect the young generation with Indonesian folklore as it is part of Indonesian culture.
• Project Objectives: To visually communicate Indonesian folklore to the public by utilizing graphic design and give a seamless gameplay experience to our audience.
• Explanation about the game mechanism & art style: In this chapter, we try to explain the outline of our game mechanism and show our art direction for the cards.

Below is our proposal PowerPoint:

Fig. 3.1 Proposal - task 1

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Feedback

Week 1

Specific feedback: Among all of the topics, Ms. Anis suggested that we go on the culture theme card game that combines Malaysian and Indonesian culture.  Highlighting the culture-centered game could be the strength of our game, and maintain the fun and understandable game mechanic that would attract people to play our game.

Week 2

Specific Feedback: Focus on Indonesian folklore only and divide the story based on its region.  We also receive suggestions to improve our game mechanics and rules to make the game more fun.

General Feedback: Starting to prepare the proposal PPT and the structure will be based on the pdf file shared in the Major Project group chat.

Week 3

Specific Feedback: We should consider making the card legible as a collectible card by improving the design and considering the material usage for the card because once the players are familiar with the answer, the game won't be fun to play anymore.

General Feedback: Be prepared task 2, which is to continue the rest of the proposal.

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Reflection 

Experience: Doing this module, gave me mixed feelings because I realized that I am finally reaching the phase where usually done by my seniors, I know I am still far away, but it makes me feel happy and nervous at the same time because it is a big thing for me.  Regardless of how I feel, I am honored that I can work with my friends and spend time learning together, and trying to find solutions together.  In this module I can feel the benefits from the previous module I have learned, I mean that those modules have the most impact on me during this semester because I get to apply (consciously) everything I learned from the previous semester.  About the topic my group selected, I hope it does not only stop here after our project is done, I hope our project can benefit people around us as well, and bring back the enthusiasm of cultures in the next generation.

Observation: Our concept of using a matching card game is lowkey ate, even though people who heard our idea questioned the replayability and suggested adding another function to the card as a collectible item.  Because our main purpose is to make people know and familiar with the folklore, so when people comment on our game's replayability because they are familiar with the game, I feel like we have achieved our goal of spreading Indonesian folklore.  But since this is a game it would be better if people could play it over and over again, maybe card matching game is not the best way to execute our topic, but for now, our group will stick to this idea and consider the suggestion to make the card as collectible item as well.

Findings: As a group that consists of 4 people with different mindsets and ideas, our main challenge is to make sure that we are in the same boat, especially when designing a game that has a lot of challenges and none of us ever did this before.  But for me, this is a good opportunity to see how my performance when it comes to work in a group with limited time and a lot of pressure.  I hope my group mates can get along for the rest of the project and achieve our goal of making this game come true.  Another challenge we face is that many similar games/projects use cards, so our group needs to maintain our originality and make our card games 'different' from other projects that have been done by the seniors while maintaining the entertainment aspects so people can enjoy our game for a longer time.