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Submission and GG
Having finally finished what has felt like a very long semester and getting the chance to look back at the unit as a whole I have some departing thoughts. At the first introduction of this assignment (assignment 1 blog posts), I was not thrilled as I do not like the process of blogging nor had much experience with it as a result. However, looking back on all three assignments now it wasn’t as dreadful of an assignment as I thought it would be. I found the task of blogging my thoughts and progress on the different milestones throughout the unit gave me a good chance to reflect and helped me further my understanding of what I had previously learnt allowing me to better apply the teachings for future works.
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Assignment 3 Postmortem
With assignment 3 finished submitted and finished there were still some major aspects left out of the game due to an overestimation of the scope of the project. The game was originally planned to have 3 levels (each team member designed one), however, after creating the first level it became evidently clear this would not be possible as timing the spikes to be in a consistent rhythm whilst still keeping the game difficult and demanding of attention it proved to be quiet a difficult design process. The game was also planned to have a short video clip that would show the player character regaining their vision of colours between each level. These would act as a passageway to the next level and be the driving aspect of the story component of the game, however, were also excluded from the final copy as it couldn’t be completed in time for the last set of playtesting. Looking at the playtest feedback I think the game was an overall success as it was able to successfully replicate my personal marker for successful games in the platformer rhythm genre as mentioned in the assignment 3 group discussion post.
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Assignment 3 Iteration and Changes
One of the biggest changes seen early in the development process of the game was the addition of the flashing music note that indicated the optimal timing to jump in order to make it over the spikes, the note was not initially planned to be added to the game, not was it even conceptualised as a possible element for the game until during development when I was having trouble with placing the spikes along the map at certain intervals to allow the player to jump in a rhythm pattern having to painstakingly playtest levels 5 plus times per spike placement, I thought of adding in a flashing dot that would change colour when it was time to jump. Once added in within my own playtesting, I used it to check if the rhythm of the level matched by playing only looking at the flashing dot, I found it to be a useful component within the game and figured why not playtest it and learn what the playtesters think, see if they think it is a good or bad addition to the game. Not only did the flashing dot end up becoming an integral part of the first-level design, but it also ended up solving our camera issue with the camera having sudden glitchy movements due to the changes in collision boxes when switching between animations. Wanting a smooth horizontal panning camera, the flashing dot was later incorporated fully into the game and changed to look like a music note to integrate it into the design theme ended up travelling exactly how we wanted the camera to travel and ended up doubling as a camera, the code for which can be seen below.
Figure 1 Music note changing of colour in time with beat
Figure 2 Music note moving horizontally at constant rate and acting as camera
Figure 3 music note feature video
youtube
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Interesting Book chapter discussion
Reading through this week’s assigned chapter (chapter 12), I found an interesting statement that taught me something I did not yet know about how game development studios first begin. Tracy Fullerton (2018) states “ Game development companies often begin life as small groups of people, usually friends, who enjoy working together. Many times, especially at the beginning of a company’s existence, the exact job descriptions might not be clear. ‘Everybody does everything’ is a common comment at small start-up game companies.” Recalling back a memory from a long time ago I actually do remember hearing of a small game studio that started as a passion project fans wanted to see made that was popular on a discussion forum, without a budget at all only having fleeting members come and go as their motivation waned the project somehow eventually got released only five years after development. The project was worked on by 5 different teams worth of people joining and leaving ended up being a hit game and is now referred to as a cult classic.
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Assignment 3 Playtesting
This week due to 2 of the team members (one being me who had the master copy for the game) missing the workshop in which the first week of playtesting began we were unable to playtest early unlike the other groups. I did however work on creating a prototype game and began the process by grey-boxing a basic sprite character for the jump mechanic. Grey-boxing is a process that received its name from the process itself where game developers would give a weapon or character a grey-boxed sprite and change the numbers of the mechanic being tested to tweak and constantly playtest the core mechanics themselves to ensure they felt right and fun to play with. This process is done with grey boxes or simple sprites to avoid overinvesting assets into a project or mechanic that might get scrapped before it even makes it into the game, hence by grey-boxing you can still effectively test the core mechanic whilst also avoiding wasting the artists time if the mechanic is scrapped and not added to the game
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Assignment 3 Group formation and team discussion
Assignment 3 started off at a fast pace as we formed teams during the workshop and immediately started brainstorming what genre we wanted to make the game in. Luckily all 3 of us preferred the platformer genre and found that the easiest to make, with a genre, selected we once again started brainstorming to workshop a game concept as all three of our original platformer games made in week 2 were deemed too low quality to be used for this assignment. I found the chapter readings from this week to be really insightful and provided me with a goal for the development of the assessment 3 games the line from chapter 10 where Tracy Fullerton (2018) states “ The desire to achieve goals is a fundamental part of being human. How can your games tap into this desire? “. I found this line closely related to the genre of game that we were aiming to achieve as platformer rhythm games that already exist such as geometry dash’s game loop is completely centred around the game loop idea of hooking players into wanting to keep playing to beat the level with thoughts like “I was so close I will definitely get it next time”, “that was a stupid death I can do better”. The platformer rhythm game genre inherently excels at this task and for me, the landmark of the game being a success is replicating these thoughts
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Assignment 3 development progress
Workshopping ideas for the game the idea of a rhythm-based platformer game similar to geometry dash was suggested and immediately another team member liked the concept as they personally enjoyed playing those games and were quite experienced in them, with the other group member also happy to run with the rhythm game concept we once again started brainstorming for themes and story concepts. I liked the idea of implementing achromatopsia into the game as the main theme where the game would start off as black and white and slowly as the story progresses the game would become more and more colourful revealing the beautiful world the players had been within all along. The other group members came onto this idea strongly and upon hearing this another group member got the inspiration to include hip-hop music where the character would be guided through the level by the beats of the music incorporating the rhythm aspect of the game. Feeling inspired by the now refined high concept for the game the group artist wanted to start work on the artwork for the game right away, attached below is early concept art for the game made within the first week of the assignment releasing
Artwork was made by Katie Nixon 2022
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Assignment 2 Final Design
Assignment two is now completely finished, following the same design principle used in the one sheet for design continuity allowed me to create the one page at a much faster rate as I was able to reuse the text and background design concepts. During the process of remaking the platformer game with my renewed knowledge of game design, I was able to think of more mechanics to introduce to the game to create a refined game that allowed me to expand upon and crate a functioning in depth one sheet as seen below in figure 1.
Figure 1
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Racing Game Postmortem
Being the third and final game of the unit, the racing/endless runner-like game and the assignment 2 due date quickly closing in I found myself spending the majority of my time working on assignment 2, this game project was therefore less unique and developed in contrast to the other two games I had previously made. The final product only slightly expands on the example game we made during the workshop by adding a monster chasing the cars to add a sense of urgency and better develop the inherently competitive nature of the racing game genre I found the game to still be entertaining to play as the inherent racing game loop can provide fun even for the simplest of games. If I had the opportunity to create the game again from scratch with more time allowing me to create a more interesting and unique game concept, I would have liked to have explored the endless runner genre further as I personally find those games more enjoyable and have more knowledge on opposition games within the genre. I think swapping out the cars for people and creating a more detailed intricate map would have made for a far more interesting game design concept wise. Following up on the assigned readings for this week (chapter 9), although I have only done a short sample playtesting session once earlier on during the unit, I found the quote “But the one thing all of these forms of playtesting have in common is the end goal: gaining useful feedback from players to improve the overall experience of the game.” – Tracy Fullerton (2018) to effectively summarise the process of playtesting.
See Below a picture of what the final product of the game looked like.
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Assignment 2 Progress report
At this point in time, I have finished the sell sheet. I am not very skilled in graphic design however found using a custom text generator and overlaying photos for a background (see figure 1 below), provided a medium fidelity sell sheet which is more than what I initially thought I would be able to produce. I decided to completely remake my initial platformer game as not only did it use the base assets provided during the workshop in week 2 it had also not been touched since week 3 when I had finished creating the platformer game and I found that I had gained a lot of new and insightful knowledge on how to better approach creating a more dynamic and interesting game.
Figure 1
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Racing Game Development Post
The three-lane endless running/racing game has been fully completed, the final product game was not vastly different to the game made during the workshop tutorial as a monster was added to fit the theme of the game. I initially had trouble with designing the rubber banding mechanic to ensure the other cars remain within a certain distance range of the player’s car to keep the game interesting for any type of player. As if a highly skilled player was to play the game and completely leave the other cars behind and win every time the game would no longer be enjoyable for the experienced player, this also applies to newer players who might be left behind by the other cars and therefore lose quickly every time they play and would not provide an enjoyable experience. The rubber band mechanic I ended up with can be seen below in Figure 1
Figure 1
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Racing Game Elevator Pitch
Monster run is a racing/escape type game in which the player must outrun not only the monster chasing them from behind but also the other people trying to escape all whilst dodging the oncoming obstacles and collect the speed boosts. By collecting the speed boosts players can overtake the other characters keeping them safe from the monster that targets the slowest character, however if the player hits an obstacle, they will lose speed and possible lag behind leaving them exposed to an attack. Due to the inclusion of an implied impending attack from a monster the game is not completely child friendly but due to the exclusion of the actual attack itself and a cartoony pixel type monster the game is still suitable for younger children. The controls for the game would be the left and right arrow keys for horizontal movement to change between lanes. Due to the simplistic controls and child friendly graphics the game would receive a pg rating.
Concept Art
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Asteroids Post-mortem
Being the second game of the unit, the asteroids like game, I found that the assigned readings (chapters 6 and 10) from The Game Design Workshop by Tracy Fullerton to not have inspired and helped with the game design process as much as the readings for the first game, whilst I still found some interesting ideas such as this quote from chapter 10 of the game design workshop book “But perhaps something of that original spark got lost in the process. Now is the time to focus all your energy on making sure the experience you envisioned from the start is there in spades.” – Tracy Fullerton (2018) still rained true it was more expanding on already founded ideas rather than completely adding a new way of approaching play-centric design. As well as using the newly expanded upon knowledge I also adhered to the previously gained experience from designing the first game of the unit the platformer and chose to add a score and life system to the game to create a more involving player experience. As mentioned in the development post the movement was created to be a short burst of movement when the arrows keys were pressed that applied a constant force propelling the player-controlled object in the targeted direction until in equal or greater force cancelled out or prolled the player towards a different direction which was separated from the players attack as balancing the attack and movement controls in the same figure proved to be quiet difficult given the short amount of time to work the on the project. With the firing/attacking key separated from the movement keys I found it also created a more intuitive set of controls and an easier player experience which also better suited newer players.
If I had the opportunity to create the game again from scratch with the new knowledge I have I would have rather than straying from the original concept have liked to keep the combined attack and movement keys within the one control set and instead increased the amount of hits it would take to clean a dish as the final theme of the game was not clear which interrupted and in some cases prevented a truly immersive player experience.
See Below a picture of what the final product of the game looked like.
Sources used in this post include:
Fullerton, T. (2018). Game Design Workshop: A Playcentric Approach to Creating Innovative Games. ProQuest Ebook. Retrieved from: https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/qut/reader.action?docID=5477698
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Interesting Chapter Discussion
While I was reading through chapter 6 I found a quote that I liked and thought was quiet interesting Tracy (2018) stated "Also, pay close attention to your emotional responses to gameplay: your cycles of frustration, exhilaration, confidence, uncertainty, pride, tension, curiosity, etc. Record them; they will be difficult to remember later on, and when you are searching for inspiration someday, you will want to have a record of how a particular game affected you the first time you played it." I took this approach not only as when I am playing and playtesting the game myself or having someone else playtest it but it could also possibly be adapted for thinking about the design approach as well. For example if trying to balance a boss design for the asteroids game is a nightmare is there a better way of approaching this because if this is a frustrating experience to design could this also translate to becoming a frustrating experience for the player.
Sources used in this post include:
Fullerton, T. (2018). Game Design Workshop: A Playcentric Approach to Creating Innovative Games. ProQuest Ebook. Retrieved from: https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/qut/reader.action?docID=5477698
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Asteroids Development Post
The Asteroids like game is pretty much complete as of this week as I have by this stage gotten the hang of using Gdevelop and can make a game much faster and to a higher degree of quality. As mentioned in the elevator pitch the asteroids like game I'm designing; Clean'Em up has replaced the asteroids with dirty dishes and has the player aim to wash of the leftover food and grime before they collide with the dirty plates and ruin their squeaky clean record. With the gameplay in mind I opted to have the player controlled object be a hose (as seen in figure 1 below) but decided having a constant stream of water that also 'cleans' (damages) the dishes (asteroids) would possibly make the game too easy and if to compensate for this added more asteroids could very quickly make the game either unplayable or very difficult due to the sheer amount of obstacles too dodge. With both those in mind I opted to have the hose propel itself quickly with a jet of water that would be used for both movement and attacking. This combination of movement and attack has been given a short cooldown to stop players from using a constant stream of water.
Figure 1
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Asteroids Elevator Pitch
Clean’Em up is an asteroid’s shooter like game in which the player controls a high-pressure hose and has to defend themselves from incoming dirty dishes. Although the player has the amazing ability to defend themselves from dirty dishes by cleaning them completely before they can dirty the hose or propelling themselves away from the dirty dishes using its high-pressure water the player will eventually meet their demise as there is no end to these incoming dirty dishes. Due to the replacement of abstract violence and bullets from a stereotypical asteroids game with a strong jet of water the game would be targeted to a wider and younger player audience. The controls will also be simplistic to match the targeted casual gamers player base and therefore the controls will be the intuitive arrow keys for movement, however you only get a short burst of movement and not sustained movement this encourages the player to constantly consider more precise movement to dodge dirty dishes and therefore make Clean’Em up a more immersive experience. The control to shoot will also be the obvious intuitive choice being the space bar key.
Concept Art
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Platformer Post-mortem
Whilst creating the first game of this unit, the platformer game I found the assigned readings (chapters 1, 2, 7, 8, 3, 4 and 5) from The Game Design Workshop by Tracy Fullerton to have greatly assisted in the game design process. Particularly the section where Tracy (2018) remarked “Learning how to set interesting and engaging player experience goals means getting inside the heads of the players, not focusing on the features of the game as you intend to design it”. Using this thought process, I approached creating the game by playing for a bit then creating for a bit using a playtesting after creating approach. Whilst this did have the disadvantage of me being prone to creator bias and therefore missing some key fundamental new player viewpoints, I was also able to find an intuitive and easy to use control system with the arrows keys for directional movement with the space bar to jump and z key to shoot. Eventually when I got to playtesting, I found the player first tried to use the arrow keys to move horizontally, I however also noticed they tried to use the up arrow key to jump and saw they were confused when it didn’t work, although their next guess was the space bar to jump I added into the game a second option to use the up arrow key to jump also so that players could use either. Looking back on it following the teachings from Tracy I ended up able to utilise a fairly play-centric focused design approach in order create a fun and intuitive to play platformer.
If I had the opportunity to create the game again from scratch with the new knowledge I have I would have devoted more time to making custom made sprites, even if they weren’t highly detailed looking back on the project I don’t see it affecting gameplay or player experience rather it would fix the lagging sprite issue that was causing extra difficulties. Fixing this lagging sprite issue would definitely have provided a better player experience due to the easier and smoother player experience. I also would have liked to add a score of some form to the game to get a simple gameplay loop going so that the players would feel more engaged in the game experience.
See Below a picture of what the final product of the game looked like.
Sources used in this post include:
Fullerton, T. (2018). Game Design Workshop: A Playcentric Approach to Creating Innovative Games. ProQuest Ebook. Retrieved from: https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/qut/reader.action?docID=5477698
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