#qut

[tetley1173-igb220-blog]

What is this blog about?

By Shannon Tetley

I'm creating this blog to document my journey learning game design and it will be submitted as part of my assessment for the class IGB-220 taught at the Queensland University of Technology. It's my aim to create an interesting record of my learning and to share what I learn with others in an informal yet professional manner.

Why am I studying game design?

Well, I'm actually studying for a bachelor in IT believe it or not. My major and passion is in computer science and I'm studying minors in mobile/cloud applications and user experience. I'm learning game design for the purpose of gamifying mobile apps but that's just the academic reasoning. I've loved video games from a young age and have dreamed of making them for a living since I was a teenager. I chose to study computer science for job security and only discovered my passion for it after beginning my studies. Studying game design for my user experience minor was a happy accident but due to my interest I have embraced it enthusiastically.

How did I become obsessed with video games?

I became interested in them by watching other people play them from a young age. I've always had an active imagination and a lust for adventure. I enjoyed playing make believe and video games are a natural extension of that for me. There's nothing more fun to me than to be immersed in a fictional world were you can explore and act out fantasies.

I don't remember the first game that I ever payed but I do remember being frustrated when I had to stop playing other peoples games when I had to go home from a friend or families house. Eight year old me was determined to get hold of my own games, so when my parents gave me the option of pocket money or a PlayStation for Christmas I gave up the pocket money 😂.

Army Men: Air Attack developed by The 3DO Company

My first game was Army Men: Air Attack published by 3DO. I loved this game because I got to play with army men that could actually shoot! I loved the light-hearted and comical story of this game but it was all about the action for me. From that point, I collected games over the years and even swapped consoles with friends, including an N64 which introduced me to the world of Nintendo. In Lecture 1; Fundamentals of Game Design (Conroy), we discussed how culture naturally forms around games and play. This resonated with me, given my own experiences, sharing and playing video games with friends. My friends and I have incidentally formed a unique culture of our own which stemmed from our mutual ownership and playing of games throughout our lives.

What kind of gamer am I?

While studying in my first week of game design I came across a concept I found interesting written by Richard A. Bartle (Bateman, Step 4). Professor Bartle talks about the four main types of player, from the point of view of a game designer.

My interpretation of the four gamer types are:

Achiever - That friend who brags about getting 100% in every game they get their hands on.

Explorer - They love to learn the lore of the world and discover all the cool things in the game world.

Socialiser - Plays the game to hang out with friends or to meet new people. Often found hanging out at the grand exchange in their favourite MMO.

Killer - They're those SOBs that hang out on your ship spawn killing you in Sea of Thieves! Yes I'm still salty about that 😠, they didn't even take my loot 😂.

Metroid Prime developed by Retro Studios

I can safely say that I'm an explorer. The first game I ever got truly obsessed with was Metroid Prime developed by Retro Studios. To me, Metroid was about exploring an abandoned and corrupted alien world. I got hooked on finding all the lore walls to piece together the story about why the world was corrupted and to find out what happened to the mysterious Chozo who left behind such beautiful and intriguing ruins.

What do I hope to get out of game design?

My dream is to write backend code for games and to have the skills to turn boring old phone apps into more enjoyable experiences. Even if that dream doesn’t pan-out, this class will be a valuable opportunity to learn design practices which I wouldn’t normally learn in my more technical computer science degree.

Gaming has always been an integral part of my life. I’ve always been subconsciously aware of the culture my friends and I formed and I internally knew what kind of gamer I was – I just never had the vocabulary to describe it. Just one lecture of Fundamentals of Game Design, has prompted me to critically reflect on why my experiences playing games have been positive ones and making these links has shown me how I can tie academia to my game design.

So far, the theoretical concepts I’ve been introduced to have been very insightful and have inspired me to apply these theories to my own game design. I hope this class will continue to open my eyes to the concepts which make good games so enjoyable.

References:

Conroy, David. “Fundamentals of Game Design Lecture 1.” IGB-220 Fundamentals of Game Design, 25/7/2023, Queensland University of Technology, Online. Lecture.

Bateman, Chris. Beyond Game Design : Nine Steps Towards Creating Better Videogames, Course Technology, 2009. ProQuest Ebook Central, https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/qut/detail.action?docID=3136230.

[colinwsmith]

Don’t defy the gods, fam. Especially the Greek ones. Congrats Flynn and the rest of the team, those second-years are in great hands 👏🏾

[itxhuyyhere]

Week 6 + 7 Content - Racer Playtesting

So far I have nearly complete the content of Racer in GDevelop 5. I also updated into a new racing car called Rainbow Race - Great Hard Great Price, which is clearly in updating stage.

Key main factor:

Top-Down Car Control + The car uses the TopDownMovement behavior with custom rotation and speed for smooth directional control.

Traffic Spawning System + Enemy cars (Blue, Grey, Pink, Green) are spawned every 3.5 seconds using random lane variables and a timer.

Dynamic Scrolling Environment +Trees and other objects scroll vertically to simulate forward movement, using constant Y-axis force.

Components need to be finished: I am still trying to pinpoint the exact coordinates of the trees shown in the game, and finding a way to make the movement of the cars smoother, and I need to remove the background behind the highway. On the other hand, i need to put more opponents present for various colour, including yellow and orange.

Thanks for reading and feel free to give feedbacks here. I would love to hear that!

[bournerandom]

Racing Elevator pitch

You are the red car, and your goal is to destroy as many different coloured cars as much as you can. Every car you hit, you will gain one point, and every car you miss, you lose two points. This game will be set on a racing track.

The genre is racing/obstacle.

The mechanics of the game will be a mouse following based game, and if you want it to be more challenging, you can use the left, right arrow or AD keys.

Absolute time killer for those who are bored!

[romans120blog]

Asteroids Elevator Pitch – "Bit Crash"

{Week 5}

Game Title: Bit Crash Tagline: “Reality is broken. Can you debug your way out?”

In Bit Crash, you play as a rogue AI fragment trapped inside a corrupted simulation. Instead of floating rocks, you’re dodging memory leaks, fighting off virus swarms, and navigating glitch-ridden environments that are breaking down in real time. Your mission: survive, debug, and escape before total system collapse.

The game draws inspiration from Asteroids, but pushes beyond it with reactive environments and layered visual feedback. The longer you play, the more corrupted the simulation becomes—introducing unpredictable behaviors, heavier screen distortion, and chaotic enemy patterns.

Key Mechanics:

Corruption Meter: Increases over time, affecting visuals, audio, and enemy AI.

Power-Ups: Tactical tools like Debugger Pulse (shockwave), Patch Protocol (invincibility), and Stack Overflow (risk/reward high-speed fire).

Progressive Zones: From the clean Boot Sector to the terrifying Black Box, each level introduces new glitches, hazards, and boss-like memory structures.

Look & Feel:

Aesthetic: CRT fuzz, VHS overlays, neon colors, scanlines, and RGB-splitting. Audio: Glitch-hop and distorted chiptunes, broken system sounds, and error messages voiced in deadpan robotic tones.

Bit Crash channels the arcade DNA of Asteroids but injects it with modern chaos and a narrative-embedded glitch aesthetic.

Concept Art:

(Made using HTML, CSS & JS)

Shockwave:

Inspired by concepts from Fullerton's Game Design Workshop (2018) and lecture discussions on avoiding scope creep, this pitch is intentionally focused and achievable within GDevelop. I’ll be applying lessons learned from Max Power; like scene transitions, damage feedback, and event timing; to ensure this game feels more polished from day one.

I’m excited to build something fast-paced, fully functional, and fun to play from the very first prototype.

[bgmedia42]

Friday Film Short

Pop N Possum, a 2020 3D-animated comedy from Queensland University of Technology, directed by Christian Staats. An Australian possum loses its home and decides to take over the house of an elderly gentleman.

[james-graieg]

[ielts-toefl-1]

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[depression-napping]

Vincent’s Rebirth Bio

(This is the paragraph on the bottom of his profile page next to his cape)

暗い屋敷の地下に眠る謎多き男

The mysterious man who sleeps in the basement of a gloomy mansion

神羅屋敷地下の一室に棲まう、警備員自称する男。研究室のロックを解除する権限を持つようだが、ふだんは棺桶のなかでね眠りについており、必要最低限の対応しか行かわない。

元タークスという記録が神羅の端末に残されているほか、かつては研究者の護衛役として神羅屋敷に滞在していたと語るものの、それ以外の素性はほとんど謎。セフィロスと何らかの因縁があるらしく、クラウドた��がセフィロスを追っていると知り、彼らに同行する。

Dwelling in a single room in the basement of the Shinra Mansion is a man who calls himself a security guard.* He seems to have the authority to unlock the laboratory, however, usually he just sleeps in a coffin, and doesn’t do anything more than required beyond the bare minimum.

Records left on Shinra’s computer terminal state that he is a former Turk, and he has mentioned that in the past he used to serve as a bodyguard for Shinra researchers, but other than that, the rest of his identity remains a mystery. He seems to have some kind of connection to Sephiroth, and once he learns that Cloud’s team is pursuing Sephiroth, he decides to travel along with them.

~

(*Ok I am dumb this just hit me like a ton of bricks. “Security guard” that guards the entrance to hell? In Greek mythology, that’s Cerberus. They are not being subtle about this at ALL. Amazing.)

(This is purely conjecture, but. Are the first three monsters like the heads of Cerberus, and Chaos = Hell? And this explains why his ultimate weapon is actually Death Penalty and not Cerberus. Guyysssss the devs thought this THROUGH.)

[colinwsmith]

Timothy Wynn is such a great leader and those students are blessed to have him.

[bournerandom]

Asteroid Post Mortem

The editing of the asteroid is done in Piskel, filling the asteroid with green. The behaviour and spawing of the Green Asteroid is derieved from the behaviours of the Black Asteroid. I added another collision function and life point deduction at the beginning of the game and set it to 10 lives.

One way I could've improved my prototype was actually spending more time understanding the delete function in the game, making sure that when the asteroid is shot, it is destroyed. Another thing I would've done if I was more nit-picky is to create a death animation, which would show combustion and explosion, and giving it time before the scene changes to 'Game Over'.

[romans120blog]

Max Power - Platformer Postmortem

{Week 5}

Wrapping up the first prototype for Max Power, I’m both proud of the core systems I built and aware of where I fell short. As a first project using GDevelop, this was an invaluable learning experience that shaped how I approach game development.

What Worked Well:

The foundational mechanics: movement, jumping, health, enemy tracking, and coin collection, are all functional and give a solid baseline for gameplay. Players responded positively to the knockback and temporary invincibility mechanic, which added a bit of flair and feedback to damage.

The custom-built Start and Instruction scenes helped polish the flow and gave the prototype a more complete feel.

What Could Be Improved:

I underestimated how long it would take to get core systems stable. This meant I couldn’t fully implement the skill upgrade or weapon systems I envisioned in my elevator pitch. The enemy AI, while functional, is still too simple and causes difficulty spikes due to instant pursuit. Feedback from playtesting also showed that players were sometimes unclear about their goals and how damage was calculated.

Key Takeaways:

This project emphasized the importance of scoping realistically and designing for player clarity. Reflecting on Fullerton’s emphasis on iteration and playcentric design (2018), I now understand how early testing and modular systems can save a lot of time later.

Keeping my Chin held high:

I’m really looking forward to applying everything I learned to the next workshop project which an Asteroids-style arcade game. With a stronger grasp on GDevelop and better planning, I’m confident I can build something much more refined and fully functional from the start.

[y0oni3]

quitting! (look at tags)

[james-graieg]

Today marks the completion of the gam RAM! my team has worked really hard on this and I hope everyone enjoys it

[thedegu]

You know these past two months have sucked big time.

At least I've learned nothing

[duke-and-acceptance]

craving a ciggie so fkn bad.