Today I took my first trip to Spike Island. The trip was brief, as I didn't get a lot of time to freely explore the Island, so it was more of an initial introduction and overview of the Island. I will definitely need a more in depth trip to get a better feel for the spaces within the Island and buildings within the Fort. The weather today painted the Island in a beautiful light so I was not presented with the desolate and oppressive "Spike Island" that I was expecting. Instead, I landed in a place that seemed so far removed from a prison, with the most brilliant panoramic views all around Cork Harbour.
The fort itself is a lot bigger than what I had pictured in my mind, with a lot of open space inside the fort walls. The state of the buildings covers a broad spectrum, with some of the buildings being newly renovated.....
The fort itself is a lot bigger than what I had pictured in my mind, with a lot of open space inside the fort walls. The state of the buildings covers a broad spectrum, with some of the buildings being newly renovated.....
and some being shells of what they once were...
I did not get to visit any of the prison cells which I am very keen to see, so this point alone warrants another visit soon.... I have spoken with Tom, the man who everyone says knows most about the Island, and provisionally arranged a guided visit by him for next Thursday.
From a modelling point of view, many of the buildings within the fort seem quite repetitive in their structure and detail (facades). I could perhaps model one bay of the building and mirror this down along the length of the structure as in many cases each bay contains the same pattern of window and door openings. I will need to take some detailed photos of the building materials to get a true representation of the building textures on the model.
As of now, I plan to create a model of the Island and the Fort. I will model most of the buildings within the fort externally and I will also internally model in detail one of the prison cells, focusing on realism and trying to give the user a sense of the space within the cell.
I also spent some time today researching the (technical) concepts behind game design and the different approaches involved in serious game design. I need to sketch out and plan how my "game" will work in a more definite way as I feel it is all too fuzzy at the moment.
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