Research Question & Source Hunting
Following a presentation with tutors, I came up with two questions that would possibly be useful for this unit:
- How does « Mark of the Ninja » and « Thief: the Dark Project » make use of audio and visual feedback to improve the player’s immersion?
- How has player agency and freedom of gameplay influenced the development and evolution of stealth games from 1998?
As a result of discussing with my tutors, I chose the former (option 1), seeing as I had a better understanding of both games rather than the second. It was also more specific than the latter, which was encouraged.
So, following this I was given some feedback on how to make the question more concise as well as where to start from in terms of research.
Defining ‘stealth’ in a more concise manner would help narrow the question down. Did I mean a genre, a section of gameplay, or a specific mechanic? Defining ‘visual and audio’ feedback was also important. Did I mean a hud, or player mechanics? Finally defining immersion in a comprehensive manner was also crucial, seeing as its what my question banked on.
With this in mind, I set off to find some primary and secondary sources, many of which I was already familiar with before trying to detail my research question. Here is a list of what I’ve found for the time being:
* How Thief’s Stealth System Almost Didn’t Work (2018) Youtube video, added by Ars Technica [Online]. Available at <https://youtu.be/qzD9ldLoc3c> [Accessed: 26th of April, 2021].
* Mark of the Ninja Developer Interview with Nels Anderson of Klei Entertainment (2012) Youtube video, added by VGS – Video [Online]. Available at <https://youtu.be/tFx3sKnBaf8> [Accessed: 26th of April, 2021].
* The School of Stealth (2020) Youtube video, added by Game Maker’s Toolkit [Online] Available at <https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLc38fcMFcV_s8CEnf_j1ZOu-UCTEXRAfl> [Accessed: 12th of April, 2021]