eliashere-blog

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Overall Process

In chronological order (starting from top to bottom)

Week 1 - 2

https://eliashere.tumblr.com/post/188654468533/week-1

https://eliashere.tumblr.com/post/188654980013/week-2

Week 3 - 5

https://eliashere.tumblr.com/post/188655441593/week-3-5

Week 6 - 12

https://eliashere.tumblr.com/post/188657054103/week-6-12

From here on are just pics captured from my project works.

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Week 6 - 12

During this process, all of my works left is either to make documentation for presentation or proposal writing, and coding towards the game.

Though during this process that i encoutered many technical difficulties, which is impossible to address in a blog post but through many trials and error, I and my teammate manage to get to a better spot of the game to qualify it better as a prototype.

However, to briefly address the blockade we encountered, it was the construction of program (how to effectively and systematically construct a program from scratch), the use of pedometer and the deep knowledge about unity.

Most of these problem are personal to mine and is what i’ve always struggle with during every process of constructing/producing an app/game as a product since the amount of technical knowledge to comfortably craft a products is insurmountable in comparison to what little i know. 

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Week 3 -5

During week 3, we worked mostly on looking for the research papers surrounding topic of healthy and fitness, games designed for fitness, notion of casual games, gamification. Most of the information regarding sedentary lifestyle and doctors recommendation for a healthier habits was fairly straightforwards, since it was only statistic search (though the doctor walking prescription was surprising to me personally since i was not expecting the bar to be so low). However, the harder parts lie in the backing researches behind gamification and the design philosophy of Nintendo games (since we deemed nintendo game to be a really strong contender for what their design philosophy offers to a casual experience game) or how casual game can make a big impact. Within the research process, we came the concept of exergame/energame and a proposed at categorization of game’s aim toward making people exercise more. Within the proposed frameworks, we found the most comforting spot that could support our design philosophy is the idea of accumulated activity game, where unlike its predecessor (game that’s link directly to moving controller to achieve virtual interaction) predecessor is designed to unconsciously make you move more by making the act of moving/exercising more meaningful, translating your efforts into a currency.

During the process, we also go through the material we had to start making proposals along with presentation materials.

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Week 2

This week we had more discussion on the topic of what games were designed from the groundup with the notion to help players/users have a healthier lifestyle/habits. We had more examples like Pokemon Go, Nintendo games, Fintness Fantasy, Pocket Plants and Wokamon. From there, we dive deeper into the strategy genre as an inspiration for our game while also thinking about how to link a strategy game to a health/habit app design.

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Week 1

This week we brainstormed idea for our games, since it was pretty sure consensus between me and my teammates that we’re doing a game. After  sessions of discussion with example being listed, compared, and paired up along with the theme of the stream we’re currently taking (which is as we interpreted, more user oriented and embrace the idea of design thinking) we agreed to make a game designed to make people walk mores (since pokemon GO was mentioned in our conversation during the discussion). Most of the game we discussed are PC oriented games, however we also discussed other option from different consoles, with games from Nintendo or mobile phone.

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CTEC607 Reflection

For the project, my role was mainly to be the programmer for the level design and background function of the project.

Through the process of making this game, I came to realize the importance of project management, and within the context of game making (as someone who freshly started) we encountered many problems:

- Burnout and everybody loses sight of what to do (1)

- Lack of understanding the tools we were using (Unreal engine 4 and Github) (2)

- Focus too much on storyline instead of playtesting (3)

- Project aim is out-of-scope (beyond what we could reasonably achieve) (4)

Those I think were our main issue which we tried to address on our own at an individual level but also at within group meeting for future game dev journey.

On point (1): we came in with wild expectation of what game could be like, since the inception of an idea is always more fascinating than the creation process of such idea itself. And during the process, we did not take into account what our approach should be for this project (not considering our rigorous we should be playtesting) and not setting the right expectation for our game ideas (since for any beginner, ideas are always beyond reach). Thus, we came to many of the meeting with brimming ideas waiting to be executed but with foreground of rules to dictate how those ideas should be implemented. Hence, going into the next project, it’s crucial to define 1st hand what’s the scope, set rules for engaging ideas discussion and more importantly implementation, temper our expectation correctly not only because of skill limitation but also of technology limitation (what we have access to, how efficient are we with such tools, how much functionality it provides)

On point (2), about Unreal engine 4: during the midst of development, we decided to upgrade our Unreal engine 4 to a later version, which in turn completely throw off the entire team due to its newly released state, it comes with bugs and incompatibility which we did not expected. Besides, we came into this project unknowingly how convoluted Unreal Engine 4 can be for a beginner, most of us came from Unity 5 game engine. Hence, the learning gap between Unreal and Unity was too large for many of us to cover during the times we have, since to use it efficiently, it takes good amount of time digging through documentation and forum searches for answer that are not only applicable but sustainable to a project (i.e: an example that makes a cube move does not necessarily move it the right and most efficient way). During the making of this game, I learned new tools to use (animation retargeting, cinemachine, blueprints) but as development goes on, I started to realized the void left behind by the kitbash approach of development (taking whatever works and mash it together) and how detriment it is, namely, technical cost, which is the amount of bugs left unfixed that later become to large to be dealt with. I also came to understand many of our problem could have easily been dealt with using gameplays framework, how level design is more than just placing object but also using blueprint to manipulate it can in turn that would communicate with player blueprints; etc. It’s safe to say we got a lot to master during the after math of this process.

On point (2), about Github: Github was regarded as the industry standard since app development can easily go wrong and backup is always a good thing. But to master Github requires more practices, instead we picked up the program, integrating it with our workflow without much thought, which leaves many unanswered question about Github coming back to cause hazard for us later down the development process; i.e: master setting and the uses of branching and merging, how compatible Git is with Unreal engine and file formats compatiblity.

On point (3): We were too enamored by the idea we have at hand without much thought to its complexity. A project trying to induce emotion rather than creating simple fun through gameplay, sounds effects and flashy images. And any replication of human emotion using game as a mean is hard and requires rigorous prototyping, playtesting, and even consulting with expert (i.e: Hellblade Senua’s Sacrifice). After this phase, I came accros a GDC talk on how game should never start with the story, because I limits our potential to innovate our gameplay ideas and design beyond what is available from the story, and that a story is a means to connect the fill in the void between gameplays designs implementation. Or how developers would intentionally left the beginning level last for development because they want to finish fine-tuning the other levels to fully understand their game feel and then comeback later to design the 1st level, since the 1st level is what sets player expectation for the story and gameplay going on, and good understanding of your gameplays (which is what happen during the main hours of what happen ONLY after that 1st mission) would lead to informed design on the 1st level.

On point (4): this is general is the overall problem of our game, not exclusive to any specific part, code or sounds or level or story. The aim of the project is to tackle psychological horror, and that requires more understanding of the human perception, better level design skill which creates and immersive worlds for player to be drawn in, good understanding of the basics (code, Blueprints) to assist the process of creation (you can’t both struggle with creating a prototype for a game to playtest while still debugging engine code; look at Anthem).

All and all, I’m glad to have been a part of this group and got this outlook on game devs, since a more realistic and manageable plan to actually creates a tangible products is better than beyond scope (don’t aim for the star with the expectation to fall for the moon, it does not always connect). An important mentality and creative ethos going forward for me and the team as a whole would be: “Finished, not perfect” by Jake Parker.

Side notes: during this summary I made many references of ideas which was proposed or mentioned of in conference and GDC talks which I have no specific idea where it came from, but in general the ideas are there in mostly the postmortem section to anyone interested.

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Attempt at procedural object placement

Initially my goal was to setup a system that would generate object within the scene to alleviate the amount of work on our level designer, however, the amount of knowledge required to be able to pull that off was beyond my current level of understanding, since not only it require setting up an entire different blueprint to dictate the logic of object placement within scene, but it also interacts with other blueprints which I’ve yet to full understand interaction between blueprints. Also, object blueprints for scene needs to be properly setup before used or communicated to by other blueprints. Hence, we made the decision to handcraft the level which allows us to have good level of details but in return, takes up too much of our time. This also raise my awareness on how project timeline can get messy when deals with unfamiliar technology or requires new knowledge, which require better analyzing of materials/tech used in the process of building a game and these criteria (the mastery of tools) needed to be checked before starting the projects.

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List #2 of Questions for meeting

$mechanics 

- How does death works in our game? 

- A life or health system? Or a sanity system? 

 - How will the AI works? Will it be simple patrol pattern or something more dynamic? What’s the purpose of the enemy AI? To scare? To manipulate? WHAT is this enemy AI anyway? Why is is there? 

- Will it include puzzle solving? If so, how? If not, then why do we even walk around in this studio? (This is where we can develop a narratives starting point for the player, that the studio used to be something great but here’s the dark side now) 

 $narrative/game feels 

- What is the heist/hook of this game? The end goal is to get out of the studio, then how do we establish the threats of the studio? We’re trying to depict the studio by exploiting/exploring the unseen aspect/dark side of the studio, then how do we familiarize/develop connection of the studio with player first? 

 - What similar storyline/philosophy circulates the realm of BCT? The case for creativity? 

 $survey 

- Why do you join bct studio? 

- How has your experience been and have you felt achieved? 

 $team/strategy 

- How do we apply an agile/prototype first approach to game dev? How to identify core feature to get fundamentals down for further dev and additive feature? 

- How do we document progress? Or rather, how much should we document to profit us? Make sure notes are concise and give clear direction for remote development and fewer in-studio-together session? 

- what i can do quickly dirty that makes sense for the end game 

- identify parts that intrigues players to play more and identify hooks of your game and test that 1st, give them(players) the lowest fidelity of exploration for test, lowest fidelity to evoke emotion, corner of level/environment to judge atmospheric impact etc. 

$sideNotes

— Hooks: what makes you want to keep playing, besides the fact that you don’t want to be an ass for immediate dismissal, or wasting your money on this game? 

— Most atmospherically cohesive environment for sad/dull/dreadful existence? — What evoke strong emotion? Not just for you but everybody? Rather, how do someone ended feeling anxious/lost/hopeless?

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List #1 of Questions for meeting

Questions: 

 Environment 

 ⁃ Central feel of the studio? Then the sublime feel? Characteristics zone? How would that be expressed in the chosen theme-feel of the game and studio?

 ⁃ How would the environment be stylized? 

 ⁃ What’s inside the studio, what models needs making and what purpose does they serve? What ambience would benefit from them or what characteristics do they  express? 

 ⁃ What music and ambience sound to put in game 

 Dirty mockup 

 ⁃ What feel do we want to induce? Fear? Confusion? 

 ⁃ Encounter design? Offer some example 

 ⁃ How much of the game is only a walking simulator? How do we counter that and make it less boring? 

 Mechanics 

 ⁃ Do we want to have difficulty push? Sense of rush and time mechanics where player feel a sense of urgency? 

 ⁃ Penalty for mess up? ⁃ Good blend of randomization and make life difficult so it everything sucks feeling for the player? Shared steam account for games?

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Brainstorming phase

During the brainstorm meeting, since I was not part of the team from the beginning, the genre of the game has been decided; namely: horror survival game. So we got together to throw in our take on the genre and our inspiration, ranging from movies to different games in the past which might benefit as a reference for our development. I personally am not a fan of the genre (horror), but I learned to find a small niche within the game genre which would interests me - the psychological effect it has, or more precisely, how play design can be set up to place player in specific certain state of mind. From there, we developed the story as the backbone for the game to later build the mechanics and design around it.

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More is better (in brainstorming  game ideas)

During the first 3 weeks, my plan was to create prototype from some of the game ideas i had in mind: planet survival game with gravity physics. After many trials and errors, the idea seems out of scoped compared to my pre-existing knowledge of game-engine physics to make the game. I tried moving on to making a different prototype but no idea really came out properly since I was tunneled vision on my previous. Hence, I decided to join a group since a collective thoughts is always better than one, by bringing out more ideas during brainstorm session and avoiding tunnel visioning during brainstorming phase.

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ITS All-in-one Blog

Here’s a link to my ITS Aii-in-one blog:

https://bit.ly/2KmFZ5J

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Final Entry - Elias Tran - Physical depiction of pain

Contextual Statement:

This project is a continuation of our previous project with the intention of expressing data through physical matter. Before, we tried mapping the data from the suicidal death graph of 2013 categorised into different age and sex. And for this project, we take a deeper dive into the matter, by simply not looking directly at the data of those who passed away due to suicide but also trying to highlight the underlying grief tied to the passing of one life.

Specifically, we tried looking at those who may have had suicidal thoughts, different methods used, geographic distribution of cases and how different region would shape different forms of suffering that would amount to the painful decision, the families and friends of those whom they had left behind, etc. Understanding that suicide is not simply an act taken as momentary spite of life, but rather a culmination of personal distress and struggle, we decided to broaden our scope of inspiration by simply not trying to map data onto jewelry, but rather also taking into consideration different story that could be embedded behind each piece. This called for us to account survivor story and different aspect that led up to those decision while also trying to express connection between suicide with depression, loneliness, domestic violence, etc.

The deeper we dive into our search for material, the broader and more intimidating our main subject of discussion becomes, since we soon come to realize the ties between suicide with depression, loneliness or domestic violence, etc. Hence, we had to close down our scope and choose some main focus point by narrowing down our material based on the subject of physical depiction, which would include those who took their life, those who survived the act, family and friends of them, method..

During the making of the jewelry, it was brought to our attention how sensitive our topic is, and question on how we want our piece of work to be - hurtful wearable artifact, or a visually uncomfortable piece. We decided to bring a sense of uncomfortableness to the wearer, by either means of visual or sense of touch. By inducing an uncomfortable sense upon wearing each of the jewelry, we aim to draw attention to those underlying grievances connecting to suicide and the making of one’s gruesome act. A message that simply says not all pains and scars are visible.

Conceptual:

From the start of the start of the project, we aim to represent data using jewelry. Specifically, jewelry that not only shows the data of suicidal rates within New Zealand, but also other aspect of suicidal death, the damage it has and the making of the act. Hence, we start looking for different dataset, from geographic of suicidal occurrence, families and friends of the lost one or survivor to method, and the distress behind the decision to take one’s own life. However, through the process of looking for said information, we found ourselves being lost in the number, and there’s a need for clearer direction to sketch a design for the artifact, since snapshots of beautiful jewelry alone does not bring itself to tell the story we want. So we look survivor stories, or those of families members to anchor our concept and start designing. The deeper we dive into our each for material, we ran into the ties between suicide with depression, loneliness or domestic violence, etc. Hence, we had to close down our scope and choose some main focus point by narrowing down our material based on the subject of physical depiction, which would include those who took their life, those who survived the act, family and friends of them, method, and standardised by either age, sex or region, etc.

During the making of the jewelry, we decided to bring a sense of uncomfortableness to the wearer, by either means of visual or sense of touch. The idea of hurting the wearer resembles the promotion of self-harm, and making it too ornately beautiful could be interpreted as the commemoration of a life’s passing, which again, can be subject to misinterpretation.

References:

The Guardian (2018), I am old and lonely. I feel so sad returning to my empty home,  retrieved from

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2018/oct/07/i-am-old-and-lonely-and-feel-so-sad-going-home-mariella-frostrup-dilemma?CMP=fb_gu&fbclid=IwAR3qEbQIhmR4gqgXj9ZrHRxrP8eGUZ3RJPP7vOrgc8LGSKR0rStvieGhE-c

Te Pou (2012), Geographic distribution of suicide clusters in Canterbury, 1991-2007, page 26, retrieved from

https://www.tepou.co.nz/uploads/files/resource-assets/geospatial-mapping-of-suicide-clusters.pdf?fbclid=IwAR1Fug1SLCgzmq5uypL8UhE4wQt63lD6Sauk6RXqZ24PuULgbzrnbpVOGc8

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Is there any other shape or means of translating the data onto the ring? 

Besides ring,what object could be used to encapsulate the data whilst supposedly delivering the same grim effect? 

What other shape could be made used of to apply onto the ring?

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Low Fidelity Prototype

After trying out different object, I decided to go with the ring. Taking the idea of an object to commemorate an event, and twist it into something that would remind you of unpleasant event instead. Ring always have intricate detail on the outside to add aesthetic, but instead I want to add spike within the ring to directly inflict pain onto the wearer, a gentle reminder of unpleasantry and possibly, to re-create a fraction of pain that suicidal victim went through.

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Prototyping Data Object

I chose the data set of suicidal rates categorised into different age group and genders of 2013. Upon further study, i came across many different spectrum of feeling that would correlates directly to the the concept death which involves lonely, desertion, abandonment, emotional pain and scars. After that i set out to find object of inspiration that would directly insinuate death and pain, even by a fraction, which include different objects like noose, knife, chair, coffin, decay, etc, and different color that might suggest the right tone for the object.

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Final Blog Post

Project title and description

Jury Duty - A game about taking on the role of a judge or alleged criminal and creating interesting story to win your innocence back or being sentenced guilty.

Reflective statement

As I progress through the making of the games, many of the hidden mechanic regarding story telling was revealed to me, whether it was a fairy tale story that would facilitate fortune telling, or be it travelling to hell heaven, or stand trial in front of judge and jury. One thing for certain, I should definitely practice the concept of quick successive iteration since it breaks a crippling idea far better than any contemplation in solitude (though it’s necessary) and the importance of having clear goal. I may have taken longer than i should to figure out the connection between the core mechanics of the play and the end goal we’re trying to achieve, but it was certainly worthwhile for storytelling was never my forte and this project push into this zone of thought where i was unfamiliar with the mechanics and component from start to end.