University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses

Lost together

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Lost together

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Content
LOST TOGETHER

By

Garrett Wiley Clark

A Thesis Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE USC SCHOOL OF CINEMATIC ARTS
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
MASTERS OF FINE ARTS
(INTERACTIVE MEDIA)

August 2015

Copyright 2015 Garrett Wiley Clark
i
Table of Contents

Abstract……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..ii
Main Body……………………………………………………………………………………………………………....................1-4
Bibliography………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..5
ii
Abstract

A number of unique thesis projects were created and left relatively unfinished over the course
of an academic year at the University of Southern California within the Interactive Media and
Games Division. These various projects focused on varying themes including an interactive
experience with music, stealth exploration, narrative, and depression. The inception,
exploration, and examination of the aforementioned projects are what ultimately formed the
basis of the final thesis project submitted for degree fulfilment. The final project is a
commentary and examination of the previous work undertaken during the thesis year and the
process of creating said work. The challenges and obstacles that led to final thesis project will be
explored as well as the effects on the developer and the lessons learned from such an endeavor.

1

Regardless of the school of study most Masters’ thesis projects share one common goal,
to make a contribution to their respective field. Working in pursuit of this goal, many graduate
students encounter various pitfalls while producing their theses. Some of the most difficult
challenges that I faced while working on my thesis were masterpiece syndrome, indecision and
excessive planning, and a sense of ownership. However, the challenges that I faced and
ultimately overcame are what I believe has led to the creation of a project that I can, in fact,
consider a contribution to the field of interactive media.
Masterpiece syndrome is a way of thinking that insists that the creation of any one work
of art or other artifact be representative of the author’s best piece of work. While masterpiece
syndrome can result in an artist or craftsman actually one of their finest creations it is more
often a debilitating state of mind that leads many creators to question the value of their
produced work. Unfortunately, in regards to my thesis project, the masterpiece syndrome
resulted in the latter outcome. The inception of masterpiece syndrome for me started prior to
my thesis year in the Interactive Media and Games program, in fact, it actually started before I
was even admitted to the University of Southern California.
A strong motivator for applying to the Interactive Media and Games program for me
was one particular thesis project, Flow by Jenova Chen. At the Interactive Media and Games’
annual thesis show, Jenova’s master’s project attracted the attention of Sony Computer
Entertainment of America (SCEA) who would eventually aid Jenova and his fellow classmates in
creating their own highly successful independent video game studio, thatgamecompany. The
critical and commercial success of Flow helped to establish a standard which I would hold my
creative work to and what I continued to believe was expected of me by my peers. Even after
being told that Jenova’s first projects in the master’s program were far from masterpieces, his
2

thesis project would continue to exist as a personal standard that I adhered to. Holding myself
to such a high standard while still learning the fundamentals of game design was already proving
to be troublesome during my first year in the Interactive Media program but it wasn’t until my
thesis year that it would become paralyzing.
When working on a thesis, most graduate students tend not to deviate from their initial
idea or proposal; however, in my case I changed the focus of my project no less than four times.
A major factor influencing my decision to change projects so often was the belief that whichever
project I was working on at the time was not good enough to be considered a masterpiece.
Furthermore, along with believing that my thesis had to be my best work I was also operating
under the idea that my work had to be the masterpiece for my entire cohort. Thus I often
switched theses thinking that the core experience of the game or interactive project that I
happened to be working on at any time was not as good as my classmates either. As I write this
paper I’ve since come to realize how poisonous that line of thinking was and have since come to
think of my thesis project and future projects as just another piece of work instead of something
that has to represent the zenith of my craftsmanship.
Another issues that I had faced during my thesis year was my indecision about which
project to ultimately work on. During my second semester of my second year in the IMGD
program I had thought of several thesis ideas and while I never had any doubt that I was going
to make a game for my thesis project, I just didn’t know which game so, unsurprisingly, I started
planning for that. Naturally, I turned to the class and skill that had spoken to me the most during
my time at USC, writing. With a story that I wrote in an advanced writing class of an epically
massive game that followed a young woman capturing aliens on a distant planet I thought that I
had found my thesis, however, there was one big problem.
3

I’ve always been a big dreamer but the issue with dreams is that in many cases they
often remain dreams and nothing more. One of the things that drew me to writing was the
unrestricted freedom of creation with the medium; the only limitation is one’s imagination.
When designing games and writing stories I would often dream up ideas that would be difficult
for even a team of professionals to design let alone university students. Unfortunately, like a
child that who no concept of money, I was often oblivious to the difference between the
achievable and the improbable. I realized over the course of my second year that what I
thought would be my thesis project might be unobtainable after my classmates pointed out its
massive scale. I was scrambling so I created several fallback thesis projects before eventually
settling on a project about working in an office in a videogame studio. I decided to call the game
Working Title. Eventually, it became clear during my thesis year that my fallback idea was not
sustaining my interest, and as my battle with depression grew it became harder and harder to
bring myself to work on it. So at the cost of one of my most valued collaborators I decided to
abandon my lighthearted and satirical project for a more serious game. Doubtful of my ability
to create my original idea of my thesis project I began to think of alternative ideas which I could
pursue; however, all of these ideas had one thing in common – they could be completed alone.
I attempted to work on project that could be completed alone because I worried about
ownership. Throughout the time I worked my other projects I didn’t feel invested in the
experience of creating it – the story, the setting, and the characters didn’t feel like they were
something that I had any ownership over.
Believing that my lack of sustained interest in Working Title was due to a lack of
personal investment in the narrative, I decided to instead focus on an experience that I was
more familiar with, depression. Oddly enough, the moment after that switch in projects was
perhaps the most tumultuous period of time during my thesis year. And while I had prepared
4

several backup projects, at the end of the year I was still no closer to knowing what I was
actually going to do for my thesis. Most recently I decided to switch projects again. However,
this time the thesis project I’m working on is actually something that is only possible because of
the struggles I’ve faced during this past year. Not to mention that I have a very personal stake in
the project as it’s a journey through my struggles through my thesis year trying to create a
viable project and find myself. The project that I’m creating now is about the struggles that I’ve
had creating a thesis project over the past year and the abandoned and half finished work that
I’ve left in my wake as I struggled to overcome the challenges and flawed beliefs that I held.
One of the first pieces of advice that all of the professors in the program had seemingly
unanimously decided to tell my incoming cohort was that as students in the Interactive Media
and Games program we shouldn’t be afraid to “fail hard and fail often”. I never really let myself
believe that I would fail because I could usually think my way out of a problem or situation.
Ultimately, I would end up failing a lot throughout the years, but I don’t think that I’ve learned
as much from any of those experiences than I have from all of the failures of my thesis year.
Furthermore, if there’s anything I learned from this experience it’s the value of friends and
teamwork. Not to mention the support of my advisors as well, whom I consider to be my
friends as well. So now that I move ahead creating a thesis project to showcase my efforts over
the past year as well as highlighting my challenges and failures there are two important
distinctions that will set this attempt apart from the others, which is that I now have more faith
in myself and know that I’m not alone in this journey.

5

Bibliography

Bogost, Ian. A SLOW YEAR: GAME POEMS. Highlands Ranch, CO: Open Texture, 2010.
Print.
Fullerton, Tracy, Christopher Swain, and Steven Hoffman. Game Design Workshop: A
Playcentric Approach to Creating Innovative Games. Amsterdam: Elsevier Morgan Kaufmann,
2008. Print.
Gibson, Jeremy. Introduction to Game Design, Prototyping, and Development: From
Concept to Playable Game-with Unity® and C#. 2014. Print.

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Asset Metadata

Creator Clark, Garrett Wiley (author)

Core Title Lost together

School School of Cinematic Arts

Degree Master of Fine Arts

Degree Program Interactive Media

Publication Date 08/11/2015

Defense Date 04/10/2015

Publisher University of Southern California (original), University of Southern California. Libraries (digital)

Tag cinematic arts,Computers,Games,gaming,IMGD,Interactive Media,motion capture,OAI-PMH Harvest,performance capture,Thesis,video games,videogames

Format application/pdf (imt)

Language English

Contributor Electronically uploaded by the author (provenance)

Advisor Watson, Jeffrey B. (committee chair), Gibson-Bond, Jeremy (committee member), McHugh, Maureen (committee member)

Creator Email garrett.clark@usc.edu,garretwc@usc.edu

Permanent Link (DOI) https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-c3-632611

Unique identifier UC11306905

Identifier etd-ClarkGarre-3823.pdf (filename),usctheses-c3-632611 (legacy record id)

Legacy Identifier etd-ClarkGarre-3823-1.pdf

Dmrecord 632611

Document Type Thesis

Format application/pdf (imt)

Rights Clark, Garrett Wiley

Type texts

Source University of Southern California (contributing entity), University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses (collection)

Access Conditions The author retains rights to his/her dissertation, thesis or other graduate work according to U.S. copyright law. Electronic access is being provided by the USC Libraries in agreement with the a...

Repository Name University of Southern California Digital Library

Repository Location USC Digital Library, University of Southern California, University Park Campus MC 2810, 3434 South Grand Avenue, 2nd Floor, Los Angeles, California 90089-2810, USA