Okay, so while I've been getting on with designing, I've still been looking at literary works and the theoretical side of things.
For now though, I want to reflect on the lecture from the 20th, when Arthur Parsons gave his talk on IP. I mean, it was a little while ago but it was particularly interesting to me regarding the creative freedom with characters belonging to an IP.
For now though, I want to reflect on the lecture from the 20th, when Arthur Parsons gave his talk on IP. I mean, it was a little while ago but it was particularly interesting to me regarding the creative freedom with characters belonging to an IP.
It was really good food for thought, actually, especially since it was kind of relevant to what I'd been doing. Essentially I've been bending IP's for the sake of research through practice, such as placing Link into a completely different game space wherein he would appear substantially different visually.
The points Arthur made about finding the hidden gems and finding out how far they could push the boundaries of the IP, i.e. how much fun they could have with the characters, it kind of supported what I was exploring in the first place. Traveler's Tales have made plenty of Lego games, which do basically place existing characters into a completely wacky game space. I know that they're just a Lego representation of the original's IP's game space, but it's more like an alternate universe in my eyes.
The characters are put into a different environment, and have to interact differently, because Lego is far from removed from the world(s) they've come from. Yet TT have obviously been successful in maintaining the essence of those characters. They're still recognizable and relatable as the characters most people know, but they've just been given a more quirky spin. As Arthur said, they dug deep for little, funny details that audiences may have missed in the other medium the IP in question might originally belong to.
While this is all well and good, and grants some creative freedom through pushing the boundaries further apart, it made me wonder whether this is detrimental to certain fans of that IP. For example, a fan of Harry Potter may have seen the films but not read the books, therefore they may not know that Slytherin's common room was underwater (the analogy Arthur used). While it's great for the most hardcore of fans, could it potentially break the experience for lesser fans if they don't know all those little gems of details? Would they possibly feel like it's not entirely the same character they know?
I pondered how they might go about balancing this - but never had time to ask.
I should probably still ask, since it's somewhat related. >_<
The points Arthur made about finding the hidden gems and finding out how far they could push the boundaries of the IP, i.e. how much fun they could have with the characters, it kind of supported what I was exploring in the first place. Traveler's Tales have made plenty of Lego games, which do basically place existing characters into a completely wacky game space. I know that they're just a Lego representation of the original's IP's game space, but it's more like an alternate universe in my eyes.
The characters are put into a different environment, and have to interact differently, because Lego is far from removed from the world(s) they've come from. Yet TT have obviously been successful in maintaining the essence of those characters. They're still recognizable and relatable as the characters most people know, but they've just been given a more quirky spin. As Arthur said, they dug deep for little, funny details that audiences may have missed in the other medium the IP in question might originally belong to.
While this is all well and good, and grants some creative freedom through pushing the boundaries further apart, it made me wonder whether this is detrimental to certain fans of that IP. For example, a fan of Harry Potter may have seen the films but not read the books, therefore they may not know that Slytherin's common room was underwater (the analogy Arthur used). While it's great for the most hardcore of fans, could it potentially break the experience for lesser fans if they don't know all those little gems of details? Would they possibly feel like it's not entirely the same character they know?
I pondered how they might go about balancing this - but never had time to ask.
I should probably still ask, since it's somewhat related. >_<
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