Coffeebot was an idea mentioned by our very talented group member, Eric Martin. He brought it up during the chaos of our brainstorming period, where hundreds of other possible ideas were shot around. Countless thoughts were considered and discussed deeply. However Coffeebot contained an initial charm that had us keep coming back to it.
The initial explanation for Coffeebot was fairly brief. Something along the lines of a coffee machine robot that offers coffee to his owner at random, inopportune moments. However, when the time came to select our top three project ideas, Coffeebot became a common contender among all the group members. The ideas competing with Coffeebot did have their strengths and uniqueness, but the possibilities for Coffeebot were too great. With Coffeebot, we knew we had a project we would enjoy working on for the proceeding months, without killing ourselves with labor. We underwent honest and detailed discussion of the alternate animation and game ideas, but we mutually agreed on the faults of the alternate ideas.
Short animations have been done countless times for senior project. These are a single, stand alone five minute piece to showcase the team’s skills in animation, modeling and texturing. Though five minutes may not seem that bad, there are dozens of things that could hurt the project. A five minute animation can be tall order for a group our size. The group needs to first create a powerful/meaningful storyline, that will resonate with the audience in four to five minutes. Working with several other animators, and different skill sets, there can be a noticeable fluctuation in animation quality. Along with these issues, and the fact we wanted to think outside the box, we came to the conclusion that a standard animation was not for us.
The idea for a game was tempting, and did contain attributes that were later integrated into Coffeebot. What made Coffeebot worthy of being among the top choices was our plan to use more than one media. We wanted it to be accessible on the browser, contain animation as well as a continuous story and have opportunities for the user to interact in the story’s environment. A benefit of following this thinking was it could offer more time to present an in depth and captivating story. However the quality of the in game animation would be lower quality, and the skills needed were not the strong points of our group.
Now, let me explain what we have planned for our Coffeebot series. Coffeebot is a sentient coffee machine, lacking the knowledge of how to properly interact with a human. His sole purpose is to offer, and make coffee for his owner, Glenn. Though the reason for his existence is simple, the execution of his duties are comical. Coffeebot will offer coffee to his owner at random times, with odd reasoning. For example: Coffeebot’s owner is fast asleep, Coffeebot interrupts the slumber with a cup a coffee, asking “You seem to be tired, do you require Coffee?” His interactions with Glenn will be delivered as series of comic strips, each one being able to stand as its own piece. There may sometimes be follow ups to older strips, but the majority can be read in any order.
Coffeebot has been in progress(pre production) for over a month, and with its progress our team is only becoming more excited for production. Our passion for Coffeebot is evident. It can be seen by our daily posts between group members. The constant stream of plot ideas being added to our “vault” of Coffeebot Joke. Our half day meetings, during which are filled with laughter and immense productivity. We as a group have pool of infinite ideas for Coffeebot, because a plot can be inspired from our everyday life. We believe in Coffeebot’s success, and we cannot wait to share him with everyone.
