Final Major Project

Overall LandscapeXana is a big country, populated with 5 towns, and a massive city in the middle. The city in the middle is called Zehel. It is a city at the base of a giant tree that reaches into the clouds. On the outskirts of the land, floating islands take up the sky. Overall, the land itself will be separated into small biomes, one will be snow, another will be plains, and one will be a forest biome. The middle of the land where ‘Zehel’ is, won’t have a specific biome, it will be just be normal weather. The overall theme for the land is fantasy, and it will be sticking to that theme, therefore magical objects will appear throughout the land, for example; a fountain will be designed to hold water as an orb.

Floating islands• On the outskirts of the land, floating islands take

up the sky. On the islands are temples, but mostly they are just wildlife. The islands themselves will be moving around the map, a couple of islands will be low to the ground, low enough to be able to jump onto.

Towns• Guards barracks, a church, village houses etc.

With certain buildings or layout, making each village unique, for example; one village might have a river or lake flowing through the middle, while another might be on the side of a mountain. There will be roads connecting the towns and villages to each other, with signs showing the way.

Countryside• Spread through the land will by shrines, bridges,

ruins and smaller villages, which will be mainly farmland. The countryside will be full of wildlife such as trees, bushes, rivers etc. There will be roads connecting the towns and villages to each other, with signs showing the way.

Research comparison• Compared to my research, fantasy based games

do just as well as other popular genres, in some cases even better.

Fantasy

Game Amount of sold units (million)

Dragon Age: Origins 4.31m Devil May Cry 4 2.75m The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 10.59m Dark Souls 2.14m The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim 14.27m

Adventure

Assassin's Creed 10.53m Professor Layton and the Unwound Future 3.05m L.A. Noire 5.23m Heavy Rain 2.28m Star Fox Adventures 1.87m

As well as this, fantasy mixes well with other genres, the most popular from the research I have done, being, RPG. And this isn't just in the Gaming industry, many books as based on fantasy so the author can stretch out the story of the book. 2 books of the top 5 best selling books, are fantasy based.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_books

Why are they popular?• Fantasy environments are so popular because

they don’t follow the logic of the real world. They are separated, that’s why they are so interesting, as anything can happen in fantasy.

• Also, fantasy isn't as black and white as say, first person shooters. With shooters your put along a controlled path of killing enemies, while in fantasy its much more lenient because in fantasy, basically anything can happen.

Audience Profile• People like to explore greater themes - themes

that go beyond the limited palette that literary fiction claims to offer. Anything is possible in fantasy, and the genre can exercise our ability to think and to wonder. .

• Because the world is vast, it will suite well with ‘explorers’ and as it is an unnatural environment due to the fantasy genre, it suites the ‘reformers’ as well, as they aren’t limited in the world, they can do what they want and not follow social protocol’s.

Movie Success• Since the late 1990s, the genre has gained new respectability

in a way, driven principally by the successful adaptations of J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings and J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter series. Jackson's The Lord of the Rings trilogy is notable due to its ambitious scope, serious tone and thematic complexity. These pictures achieved phenomenal commercial and critical success, and the third instalment of the trilogy became the first fantasy film ever to win the Academy Award for Best Picture.

• The Harry Potter series has been a tremendous financial success, has achieved critical acclaim, and boasts an enormous and loyal fan base.

• Following the success of these ventures, Hollywood studios have green lighted additional big-budget productions in the genre.

Current Fantasy Games

• Final Fantasy; The series has been commercially and critically successful; it is Square Enix's best selling video game franchise, with more than 100 million units sold, and one of the best-selling video game franchises.

• Elder Scrolls; The series has been going on for years. With its own lore and story it’s a financial success, selling 24 million units (not accounting for games before OBLIVION) .

http://www.vgchartz.com/gamedb/?name=Elder+Scrolls