Headshot 2023
Author: Meg McCartney | Major: Studio Art | Semester: Spring 2024
Meg McCartney is a departmental honors student studying Studio Art through the J. William Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences. With the help of David Fredrick, associate professor of classical studies and director of humanities, Meg was able to receive a SURF grant for the Spring 2024 funding period. In the future, they plan to attend a graduate program for game design or technical storytelling and will use their thesis project as a valuable portfolio addition.
For my thesis project, I set out to create a narrative video game about the Contemporary American South. This included research in Southern storytelling, as well as an investigation of the game design process itself. I hope my work supports this new area of digital humanities and promotes a bridge between disciplines, as well as captures the complex nature of Southern reality. Not only is Storytelling in this medium highly evocative, but the process includes skillsets applicable to almost any field.
Shortly after starting classes at the University, I found myself very interested in game design and how that might relate to my degree in art. I found Dr. David Fredrick through his work with the Tesseract Center for Immersive Environments and Game Design, and the two courses he was offering on the subject. Even though I wasn’t able to attend these courses until my junior year, I found myself to be very passionate about the process and theory behind games. Then, when it was time to start my honors thesis project, I knew it was the perfect opportunity for me to dive deeper. Dr. Fredrick was my mentor, as he was the only professor available with experience in games, and I appreciated his passion for technical creativity and the digital humanities.
Through this project and my research, I was able to see the South as someplace other than my home, and further expand my understanding of the game design process. With the opportunity to design a game and narrative entirely on my own, I could experience every position on a design team. This brought me many challenges, often including not getting things to the level of completion I desired and not having enough time. There was also the challenge of completing this kind of project in an academic setting, especially one that hadn’t seen many theses like mine. I overcame these challenges by focusing largely on time management, prioritizing my own learning, and finding ways to tackle academic requirements without compromising my goals.
Dr. Fredrick played the role of mentor well, as he provided me with guidance when I felt I was falling behind and helped me solve the challenges I listed previously. While I largely completed this project on my own, the art school critique process also played a large part in my decision making. Critiques would come from my peers and instructors, as well as the remaining members of my committee, David Andree, and Adam Hogan. Although I couldn’t make big changes in the later stages of my project, for the sake of time, I still took all recommendations into account, as I wanted to gauge audience reactions throughout the design process. The game, entitled Red Moss, needed to be accessible, as well as meaningful and evocative in the ways I was imagining. Through careful discussion and critique, I was able to reach an environment and story which conveyed my message relatively effectively.
Although I haven’t traveled yet, I hope to use the remainder of my funding to either explore graduate school options or attend a game design conference. Currently, I am working on my portfolio for graduate school, using what I learned from my thesis project. I plan on tackling much more manageable projects, which can provide me the deliverables I need for future applications.