Successes and Challenges

Despite what seems to me a lack of suitable evidence, I have been working on and thinking about my thesis a lot this week. In this post I'd like to talk about what I have been doing.

Successes for this Week

First, I have continued to read and work on the Conspiracy Line. "April Blood" by Lauro Martines, "The Rise and Fall of the House of Medici" by Christopher Hibbert, and my old notes from the lesser quality "The Pazzi Conspiracy: The Plot Against the Medici" by Harold Acton have all been useful. They have allowed me to compile a detailed outline of how the conspiracy played out in real life and how it will play out in my game. I discussed some of this in a previous dev log, and I have fleshed it out even more since then. I have written down how the conspiracy plays out in Level Five step-by-step according to history. I've also drafted several of the conversations for Levels 1-4 that reveal each conspirator's motivations for murdering the Medici, and I have defined the specific goals of the remaining conversations in Level 5 where the conspirators plot the murder itself. 

Second, I have continued to read and layout the goals and structure of the middle three levels. UT Library recently filled a request I had made to purchase a digital copy of "An Art Lover's Guide to Florence" by Judith Testa. I think the most useful chapter is "The Medici Palace and it's Chapel," as both the building and Gozzoli's famous fresco are some of the most important symbols of Medici power through artistic patronage. As the chapter explains, commissioning fine buildings is a way for the wealthy to both leave their mark on a city and contribute to the public good by way of investing in the city's beauty. Gozzoli's fresco on the Procession of the Magi is one of the strongest ways the Medici have projected their wealth, power, and piety. Testa's fresco analysis pairs well with Alexander Lee's in "The Ugly Renaissance." I want to make this fresco the central case study for Level Two: Patronage of the Arts, but I am still working out what the player's objective will be (complementary to the learning objective). 

For Level Three: Patronage of Humanism, I already know that the Medici brothers will be with humanists Angelo Poliziano and Marsilio Ficino at their Fiesole villa where they often retreat to pursue philosophy and literature away from the political stress of Florence. Because of the connection with Aristotle's virtue "Magnificence" with patronage, I want to have the group do a Greek-style symposium where each member argues that one of the virtues in Aristotle's "Nicomachean Ethics" is the best of all the virtues. To make it a gameplay element, Giuliano will declare a drinking game to go along with the symposium. Each NPC will give their speech in three rounds. The player will be tasked by Giuliano with choosing the best and worst argument of each round. The player will award the NPC with the worst argument sour wine to drink and give very fine wine to the best arguer. The winner after three rounds, whom the player will select, will get 50 florins. The Medici, and all Renaissance elites, are often depicted as very serious, scheming, money-grubbers and tyrants, but Lorenzo and Giuliano in 1478 are both young men who often leave Florence to pursue pleasure. The first several chapters of Miles Unger's "Magnifico" discuss this pursuit at length during Lorenzo's coming of age and early political career. A symposium-turned-drinking-game is totally in-character, and it gives the player an in-game objective that complements their learning objective. 

Challenges of This Week

One major problem with educational games is sort of obvious - the educational part isn't inherently fun, hence the need for a game. Games also need the player to have an objective and a challenge to overcome. This objective and challenge have to complement the teacher's learning objective for the student. I have a clear idea of my learning objectives for each level, but I keep working and reworking the player's in-game objective because it is difficult to find one that doesn't seem too forced. The last thing I want is to make the game as tedious as normal homework. 

Another challenge: I am definitely the kind of person that judges my success by my output, not the hours that I put in, so I am having to change the way I think for this project. Research takes time, so does quality writing and level design. If these are the foundations of my game, I need to allow myself the time to make them good while still being realistic about the scope of the project. 

I also have not been giving myself credit for all the time I have spent this semester learning how to do new things in Unity. I learned so much about scripting, dialogue, button triggers, UI design and implementation, managing multiple scenes, etc. I used those skills more immediately in my project on Russian history, but the main reason I took on that project alongside my thesis is because I knew there would be so much overlap between them. All of time I sank into learning how to make a functional menu, designing appealing UI, scripting interactive conversations, watching/following Unity and C# tutorials, etc. is time that counts towards both projects. I still would have had to do all of that for my thesis if I hadn't committed to the Russia game. Because of the heavy overlap, every problem I solved while working on the Russia project (and there have been so many of them) is one that I almost certainly would have encountered in my thesis and now already know how to fix or prevent. I'd say I've spent about 4-6 hours a week this semester on skill-building that I haven't been giving myself credit for in this project. That's not good for my mental health; I should recognize all the work I'm doing.