Diverse representation, world-building and other things

On the same morning I was waiting for my tutor Jim to give feedback on my final literature review draft, I had the pleasure of coming across an article about a new video game studio (Brass Lion Entertainment) that had been set up in response to AAA studios not taking diverse representation seriously enough. The link to the article can be seen here. Unfortunately I was unable to include it into my review as Jim was adamant I leave my essay alone and suggested I blog about it here so here I am.

 I felt that this article summed up quite succinctly the whole point of my review, which was addressing the problem that studios have in regards to diverse representation. It is not enough to insert X character with Y characteristics from Z background into a video game like ticking off a checklist, and Brass Lion are one of many small studios that have had to break away from bigger names to create video games they would like to see. I don't want to talk about it too much as I have already written an essay about it and I feel that the article is pretty direct about the issues addressed. I will just say that reading it made me reflect on my future in the gaming industry and whether I will have to follow similar footsteps to create the content I want to see. 

As a quick side note, I have been watching concept art tutorials by FZD (which I was made aware of from going to the Women in Gaming Conference that the Games Design department at UCLan organised). So far they have been very useful as I was able to grasp better the basics of depicting concept art and have been ahem attempting some of my own. I will blog about my artwork later this week once I have more content from practice plus the world-building I started.

Moving forward from that, I wanted to start world-building a concept which could be implemented into a gaming system. Although the focus of representation is key, I wanted to avoid simply replicating historical/realistic content which would serve better as a visual album, and instead push my content further so it is viable in a video game context i.e. the concept not only describes a setting, but puts forward an immersive and interactive story.

I started off from using notes I had made from a workshop I watched by sci-fi/fantasy author N.K. Jemisin. Author of a beloved series to me (The Broken Earth Trilogy) I was very excited to garner knowledge from a huge household name who is considered a master of world-building. Her world-building workshop is freely accessible online and can be found here. Just to note, her workshop was aimed at non-writers, so I felt that was more suited to me as I am not using this knowledge to write but concept art from. 

From her advice to macro- and micro-build, I was able to come up with initial ideas of my 'world'. Last Friday I was able to discuss my ideas with my tutor Josh, whom I can only hope seemed fairly positive about it as he engaged with my ideas and gave his own suggestions to push them further. So far I have been trying to establish a setting for a potential video game which incorporates the authenticity I want. My ideas, which are still the 'skeleton' of the world and not fully fleshed out yet, are as so:

• Set in the past where 'climate change' occurred much more faster due to unforeseen circumstances e.g. overheating of planet Earth caused masses of water to evaporate.
• This evaporation led to an increased salt content in the sea and altered the properties of sea salt somehow (need to flesh out).
• Sea salt in this world can now be used as body armour due to its 'new' tensile strength from molecular bonding to an unknown substance/new form of molecular bonding (need to research).
• Sea creatures, having their habitats destroyed, now seek new habitats on land and can survive out of water with this new sea salt substance, they coat themselves in 'salt armour' and try to inhabit land.
• This consequently leads to conflict as humans and creatures come into direct contact and fear initially instigates the conflict. Later the humans in power decide they want to utilise the salt material, although initially it is unknown how they do this as the salt seems to have a special bonding relationship to jelly-like sea creatures. 
• Some fringe human communities that still live near the coast line (established that coast line is akin to a danger zone as most conflict occurs there, also heavily militarised) have mastered the bonding technique of salt armour to human materials using a non-harmful way. They have also developed a unique fighting style to combat sea creatures in case of conflict, although it is said these communities live in relative harmony with the sea. 
• Those seeking to monopolise the salt armour resource have found a volatile way to temporarily create the armour by using the sea creatures themselves (killing them and donning their skin). As it is not a 'complete' way due to the skin's disintegration, they seek out these fringe communities to find their technique once they know that they have found an 'alternative' way. I would imagine this 'seeking' to be akin to infiltration and imperialism.
• Conflict becomes further nuanced as coast line communities are fighting against subjugation from humans and sea creatures. 

Additional notes:

• Salt armour aesthetic is varied due to different types of salt e.g. Dead Sea, Himalayan, Cornish etc. 
• Consider how coast-line defences are set up for military and communities, the differences and such.
• Being mindful of racialised coding which doesn't conform to usual pattern of West = good and East/Other = bad, or simply white = good, brown/black = bad.

This is most of what I have put together, but my ideas are constantly developing and changing so this is not a final list by any means. It is assumed that the humans in this world will be mostly South Asian as I hope to focus on this geographical location for concept art, although in world-building context this conflict would also be happening in other locations.