Essay Ideas

With out written assignment exploring the creative process design behind one film/computer game, I've had a number of ideas with films such as Pixar's 'Wall-E' as well as the wide range games all with their own unique creative and design challenges. A prime example is Bioware's immense world of 'Mass Effect', where their creative process was led entirely by constructing a history, lore and narrative of an entire galaxy, explaining each and every detail of the nature of new worlds to the mechanics of every vehicle. The lengths of which they've gone to is remarkable with an entirely dedicated codex built into the game.

Ultimately, I'm settling on the idea of basing my essay on Valve's 'Team Fortress 2', a multiplayer first person shooter with a very distinct art style. Undergoing 10 years of design and production before finally releasing in October 2007, the game's visual style has changed dramatically over development.

Early Development

Final Result


The core design philosophy of Valve is very inspiring going into great depths with their design and aesthetic choices. To this day, Valve has continued to support Team Fortress 2 with substantial updates that radically change the state of play, as well as producing a number of film shorts in bringing life and character to the game.



Valve fortunately keep a blog exploring some of their creative processes that are very insightful. You can find it here at http://www.teamfortress.com/.

Any thoughts are most welcome.