For my project, I want to continue to expand on the topics of Film Noir and Video Games that I discussed in my Video Essay script draft. One thing I didn’t really get to examine was the storytelling aspects games afford the Noir “genre.” I think for my thesis I would want to focus in on the idea of an interactive story with a permeable main character and how these aspects of game design reflect an evolution of Noir sensibilities.
However, this doesn’t seem like nearly enough meat for a 16-20 page essay. I’m thinking that I could create a twine game that features a Noir protagonist with a shifting personality to display this idea of an unstable main character whose morality is defined by the player as a hallmark of a Video Game Noir.
Some thoughts and problems:
- I can likely get all the material on the video games I need from reviews and let’s plays, but I might have to buy some video games and play them myself (which would be a total nightmare, obviously, just terrible. Poor little me.)
- I’m not sure if interviewing anyone would help me explicitly, but maybe I could email someone on the game design team for a statement on how they feel their video game relates to film noir? I’m SURE they would not respond, but if that’s the worst case scenario then it’s worth a try.
- I should definitely set goals on this project each week to not stress myself out at the end of the semester. I think I should probably spend every Sunday morning writing a little on this project, as that’s my only really free time slot I could put this in.
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