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Week 13: Assignment 3 Postmortem

By the end of this group assignment, it has allowed a lot of room for reflection. A big question that I have been asking myself throughout this assignment is, “How to make the collaborative process easier?” The answer to this question is simple, “Better communication”. The actual collaboration of this assignment could have been so much more pleasant and enjoyable if EVERYONE was clear about what they were doing and commenting feedback on work that is sent through in group chats.

Besides the communication, I have gained a lot from this assignment. I was able to create my own 8-directional movement system (not copied and pasted), that consisted of my original animations & designs of the player and enemy zombies.

I also got to design the ‘Start Screen’, which included an original title design (Inspired by an Arcade Style & Resident Evil):

Although I considered the collaborative process difficult, I was able to build upon ideas that my group had and make final edits to code that were better fit to our game.

Overall, I am happy to have experienced the process of making a game, and am looking forward to creating more (focusing in art and animation).

This is my final Blog Post

Thank you for reading :)

[its-literally-liam]

Week 11: Assignment 3 Playtesting

During the first playtesting, my animations were not complete yet, so we had a bird’s-eye view sprite character that the group found as a free to use asset. The playtester had an issue with the perspective, as our character (at time time) was designed for a bird’s-eye view perspective while the zombies and surrounding environment did not match.

Besides the perspective issue, the playtester believed that the combat system was programmed well. This is a positive on the programmer’s side, but the combat system was only working with the bird’s-eye view sprite character (having full 360 spin), which the group is not planning on using. The bird’s-eye view character worked well with following cursor movement to aim as it is a simple sprite that can easily to a full spin without looking strange. I needed to find a way to incorporate my character to also give the illusion of 360 movement to allow for aiming, hence why I designed 8-dirctional movement with my character.

With this information, I found that I would have to plan and program something to make my character appear to spin while following the mouse to aim. As I haven’t been taught programming in conjunction to my own animations in any compacity during this university semester, THIS WAS A CHALLENGE I BROUGHT UPON MYSELF!

Just for some perspective, I also haven’t done any sort of animation since I was 15 and as of today I am 22. I have also never had experience with pixel art / animation. However, despite my inexperience I was excited for this challenge, as I knew the desired look and functionality of my player design would pay off if it worked.

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Week 12: Assignment 3 Iteration & Changes:

The iterations and changes I had to make mainly regarded programming a system that would allow my sprite character to change animations depending on where the cursor was on the screen. After a thorough search through all the actions and conditions that could be used in the GDevelop program, I found an action that checks if the cursor is touching an image/object. With that I planned out (on paper), a diagram of a player screen that had a custom grid placed on top of it.

I then transferred this idea of a custom grid into the GDevelop file our group was using.

Basically, if the cursor is in one of these boxes, the player animation would change to the correct animation, so it appears the player is looking in the direction of the cursor.

After planning the code specifically for each cursor box, the outcome allows for natural looking transitions between animations depending on which cursor box the mouse is in and what directional keys are being clicked.

This programming can be seen in the following programming I developed for this cursor / aiming system to work:

This is an example of just one of these cursor boxes (North Aiming):

This needed to be done for each cursor box, which required their own set of conditions and actions, to allow for natural animations to happen and transition smoothly.

This is an example of one of the diagonal cursor boxes (North East Aiming):

This wasn't necessary for the assignment, but I also created music and sounds that added to the overall atmosphere of the game. These small additions added a lot, making the game creepier. Especially with the death scene the player runs out of health.

The music and sounds can be previewed here:

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Week 10: Assignment 3 Development Progress

With the 3rd Assignment of the unit, once groups were formed, we assigned our roles to each member we planned out which segments we would each be developing. My role was Animation, Art & Programming.

I created original Player, Health Pack, & Zombie Designs and Animations during the initial stages of development. With the desired game that wanted to be made, I developed my own pixel character; to suit the desired perspective we wanted in our game. I designed the character to have 8-directional movement, which means I had to animate 8 Idle animations and 8 running animations for each of those directions.

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Week 8: Racing Development Post

I have mainly been trying to achieve the spawning of on coming vehicles, but unfortunately there is some sort of bug that I can’t figure out. The cars spawn 20 + at a time, for each colour of car.

And Also the scoring system is completely broken.

If this were to work, I wanted to design a score system where the player’s score would rise when passing (dodging) different cars. More points would be rewarded when dodging a car that was going at a very fast speed.

I learned that when it comes to errors that I have made, it is important to be constantly testing my code, rather than typing everything expecting it to work, but then doesn’t. This will be helpful in future projects, as when I test any sort of code in the future, check to see if it works. If I don’t check then I will have a lot of trouble trying to find the error that is made, which can then lead to a complex spider web of errors.

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Week 7: Racing Elevator Pitch

Traffic Dodger:

In Traffic Dodger, you’re a rebel driver. The road rules don’t matter. Drive on the wrong side of the road and see how many cars you can dodge.

Genre:

Racing?

Primary Mechanics or Mode of Gameplay:

Your car will automatically be speeding into traffic, meaning no braking. The main form of control is the ‘left’ and ‘right’ keys to move your car left and right respectively to dodge.

Audience:

This game will be catered towards a younger age demographic (kids, teens), but anyone can play.

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Week 5: Platformer Postmortem

Honestly, Fullerton’s section about viewpoints was important especially this quote, “The fact that the player only has to control units in two planes leaves a significant amount of cognitive effort for … role-playing games”, (Fullerton, 2018). It allowed me to think that a traditional RPG game doesn’t have to be overly graphically impressive or complicated and doesn’t need to be a 3D game with free movement. I have more space to think about the actual RPG elements, and story.

Something that I would change about the prototype I have developed are having enemies present in the game. I was only able to create the player that felt like a living character.

I would have loved to add more environmental elements to the level layout. The level just consisted of floating platforms, and in my opinion was not too interesting. It didn’t make me want to explore much since it mainly consisted of repeating multiple platforms. This may have been because I was too focused on the combat system of my character (which I am still happy with).

Fullerton, T. (2018) ‘Chapter 8: Digital Prototyping’, in Game Design Workshop: A Playcentric approach to creating innovative games, Fourth edition. Milton: Chapman and Hall/CRC, pp. 261–261.

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Week 3/4: Platformer Development Post

I have been trying to test out different animations to blend into basic movement and combat mechanics as my Moment-to-Moment gameplay in ‘Knock ‘Em Off Ryder’. This includes the actual creation of animations, including the following:

Walking

Jumping

Crouching

Punching

Mid-air kick

Mid-air below punch

These can be seen in the following video of Ryder in my game:

This also means I had to program these movements into the game in conjunction with specific controls.

With the actual process of making the animations, GDevelop doesn’t function very well with the Piskel application in its program, so I learned that it is better to use Piskel externally from GDevelop as it doesn’t have any bugs. This therefore allows efficient creation of animations.

I also learned through external YouTube videos, tutorials and my own playtesting how to implement the animations in with GDevelop’s programming features.

As this is a side view game, I wanted it to match popular styles of games, which inspired the Arcade style look for my game, (Fullerton, 2018). I didn’t want to make anything too complex. I was more focused on the combat animations of my character.

Fullerton, T. (2018) ‘Chapter 8: Digital Prototyping’, in Game Design Workshop: A Playcentric approach to creating innovative games, Fourth edition. Milton: Chapman and Hall/CRC, pp. 261–261.

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Elevator Pitch UPDATE:

Knock 'Em Off: Ryder Sterling

Ryder Sterling has run away from his home. On his way to wherever the road takes him, he must fight for survival in the monster infested land outside the kingdom's walls. With his arsenal of weapons and a mix of martial arts techniques, Ryder will fight his way to freedom, escaping the unwanted lifestyle his father believes he is destined for.

Smash Bros. Ultimate meets Fantasy, Shooter, Platformer

Knock 'Em Off: Ryder Sterling is designed to be a side scroller 'Beat 'Em Up' Game, so the controls will be similar to classic games of this genre, but instead played with a mouse and keyboard. 'A' and 'D' Keys will move Ryder left and right (while pressing LShift he will sprint). 'Space' will allow Ryder to jump over obstacles and enemies. 'Left-Click' on Mouse will allow Ryder to perform a range of attacks, depending on his weapon loadout.

Knock 'Em Off: Ryder Sterling Selling Points:

Dynamic and fun fighting mechanics

Pixel Artstyle

Foundational story elements

Is there more to Ryder's story?

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Elevator Pitch

That One Alien RPG, BB's Adventure

On his way home, Blip bloop (AKA BB) has crash landed on an unknown planet. The ship is in absolute ruins and has no other means to return home. BB must find the parts to fix his ship to return home, but he's going to need some help on the way. Some of the planet's inhabitants are kind and caring, others not so much. BB's life is about to change for the better, or worse, that's up to you to decide.

Undertale meets SCI-FI Shooter, Platformer

That One Alien RPG, BB's Adventure is designed to be a side scroller, so the game controls are very simple. Left and Right Keys (<-, ->) will move BB left and right & the Space Bar will allow BB to jump. (BB is planned to have a laser blaster).

That One Alien RPG, BB's Adventure Selling Points:

Cute as heck

Dynamic and engaging characters

Fun RPG Shooter

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Just some of my favourites :)

[its-literally-liam]

About Me

Hello everyone, my name is Liam, and I am a first-year university student studying Game Development. I plan to use this Tumblr Blog; Literally Liam, to keep track of my learning and reflections from each week of my studies. This semester I have already looked at and used different programs including Unity, Python, Adobe Photoshop, and Audacity, but my posts will be focusing on the development of my skills in GDevelop. GDevelop will be the primary program used to introduce the foundations of Game Design. Although having played video games my whole life, there are so many aspects in game development that I have not previously considered. I am excited to learn more about these unknown areas, especially within Game Design and Software Technologies. I plan to major in Animation as that is my main interest when it comes to video games, especially with Gameplay Animation and Cinematic Game Animation. Prior to my studies in Game Development, I partially completed a degree in Film, which has taken part to my interest in Cinematic Game Animation. I feel like it is necessary to mention my favourite games, so here goes; Kingdom Hearts II (2005), Uncharted 4 (2016), Red Dead Redemption 2 (2018), Resident Evil 2 (2019), Resident Evil 4 (2023) and Final Fantasy VII Rebirth (2024). I have just finished Final Fantasy VII Rebirth after 73 hours and cannot wait for the final instalment, hopefully retaining its legacy from the original in 1997.