gamedesign120

[gamedesign120]

A3 Post-Mortem

Here is a preview of the game before I get started on the Post-Mortem:

The aspect of the readings that inspired me the most was the "Stages and Methods of Development" especially the diagram she used as I am a visual learner.

(Fullerton, 2018)

I looked back at this graph multiple times during the development of Crimson Reckoning, there were multiple times I wanted to rush ahead to the next step but realised i needed to slow down and work through each phase step by step. Like when we were still in the concept stage and i wanted to rush ahead to the preproduction stage to make the prototype but realised we can make much of a prototype without a proper plan and a good concept for each level.

If I could change anything about the development of the prototype, it would include a better use of GitHub as I felt it was underutilised during the project as it was difficult to wrap our heads around it.

One thing I wish I could have changed about the actual prototype is how the levels were designed, since I was on level design, it could have been my time to shine and to make the platforms have hinges that buckle if you stand in one place for too long and other super fancy stuff but I was worried that going overboard with the level takes away from the core gameplay features such as the enemies and the mechanics. The idea of stagnation that Fullerton had described had me a bit worried but in the end I think not going overboard was a good thing since the game held up really well without all that fancy over the top stuff.

I'm really grateful for working on such an amazing game with a bunch of awesome developers and artists, I know for sure that this experience will help me develop my Game Dev skills and will allow me to hone my craft. Thank you George, Cal and Kyle it was fun working on the game.

[gamedesign120]

A3 Iterations and Changes Part 3

Here is what we added in the final week:

Once total enemy kill count has been reached,

scene changes to the shop (will be changed for the golem)

Added animations for the Tank (walk, attack)

Added animation for the Mage (attack)

Made the players roll more noticeable

First added the dwayne bossfight

Bug fixing on Dwayne bossfight,

added new attack pattern (rock throw)

Fixing Dwayne Bugs

jumpthru platforms implemented

health ui added

removed health on kill,

enemies now have a chance to drop a heart on death

added sound effect when picking up hearts

Wave 1 Melee character fixed

Implemented Air dash

Added upgrades which can be picked after wave 1

enemies now turn red when hit

stun for enemies

introduced number indicator of how much the player does on hit

introduced dash now gives immunity frames

cooldown of dash increase

Buffed the tank enemy

nerfed the Mage enemy

nerfed the ranged enemy

added the option to use 'k' to attack alongside 'mouse 1'

reworked fireball shot by mage

added new sprite for fireball shot by mage

This is the full list of stuff that was implemented to the game in the last week. That's the last of the iterative posts.

[gamedesign120]

A3 Iterations and Changes Part 2

Here is what we added in the second week:

Added a max to the amount of enemies that can be spawned,

Added logic that determines if the amount of enemies killed is greater then the required enemy kill count,

Fixed aspect ratio of the game resolution in order to give the player a more zoomed out view,

Player gets healed 10 health on enemy kill,

Health bars for enemies attempted but not implemented,

Enemy attacks affect the player,

There were a couple more things here and there but that was most of it.

[gamedesign120]

A3 Iterations and Changes Part 1

For this assignment we went through many changes and iterations, here is a list of all the iterations we went through (which we got via our github version descriptions):

Changelog:

Added enemy AI to the Tank and Melee,

Wave level 1 is finalised

Polished Enemy AI for Ranged and Mage,

Added a Melee attack for the player,

Removed projectile

Added Spawn points for the Enemies (random enemies spawn from random points),

Fireballs can be cancelled out by melee attack,

Added logic to track how many enemies have been killed in the level,

tuned the dash up some more

This was what we did in the first week after playtesting.

[gamedesign120]

A3 Playtesting

We got lots of work done for playtesting, we managed to do 3 rounds with 2 play testers each with a total of 6. We were given lots a feedback so we deiced to make a table giving all the play testers an ID to keep things clean looking. Here is the key:

Here is the first round of playtesting:

Overall the feedback was overwhelmingly about the jankiness of the game which tanked the playability and the difficulty. We definitely fixed a lot of these up but some issues persisted all the way till after the final round of playtesting as we couldn't figure out how to fix it until after. Here is the second round of playtesting:

This feedback we received was helpful in identifying the more nuanced stuff in the game such as the appearance and sound-design (which was my job so I had to lock in). It also touched upon some common issues that the other play testers brought up such as the platforms being solid and not fall through (which was the issue we fixed after the 3 rounds of playtesting). Many of the play testers also voiced their concerns about their being no air jumps so that was implemented after the 3rd playtesting round. Here is the 3rd round of playtesting:

As you can see the platform issue became critical at this so we had to do something about that. For some reason deleting the player character managed to fix this issue so hooray we fixed that. The enemy collision were a bit outta hand as well so we had to fix that by making them push you outta the way kinda like a a physical hitbox you can't walk through.

But after working through all of that we managed to get a pretty good looking game. This was in part due to Fullerton's breakdown of working as a team of developers, she explains that the jobs have to be broken into basic job categories and that's how we ended up working as a team so well.

[gamedesign120]

A3 Group Formation and Game Choice

For A3 we have been tasked to form a group of 4 people and choose a game to refine and collaboratively improve. I ended up forming a group with Callum P, George S, and Kyle G. The game that we all ended up decided on is Georges platformer called Crimson Reckoning. Here is the one page we worked on:

Made by George S (n12406619).

We decided to break the game development into different roles amongst us. Here is the roles assigned:

Sourced from the Group A3 Document.

[gamedesign120]

Racer Post-Mortem

Making RacecaR has been a challenging task. Getting the cars to spawn the way the workshop showed didn't quite work for me for some reason so I had to come up with my own way. The way i achieved this was through spawners placed at the top of the highway off-screen that spawned cars at random with slightly different forces on them that made it so that the cars would move at different speeds. I also placed a barrier at the bottom that destroyed the cars when the collide.

If this wasn't a protype and I had more time to finish this game, i would have implemented a score that went up the longer you survived. This can be done through using timers and creating a proper UI layer where players can see their score.

Here is an image of the game in action. Another thing I'd change about my prototype is the inclusion on trees to make my highway a bit more realistic and help sell the illusion of movement.

Here is the playtesting form for my racer. If this weren't a prototype and I more time to finish this game. I would definitely love to add the NOS idea since I think that would combat the stagnation that I previously mention.

[gamedesign120]

Racer Development Post

Throughout the development process of RacecaR, i have run into quite a few issues, firstly, i am having some issues with keeping the road centered as if i resize the window it moves the position of my car and the road. This can be resolved by forcing my game into a certain aspect ratio, or scaling my car and road together perfectly so the responsive window doesn't lead to any issues in the gameplay.

The second issue i have bumped into is the spawning traffic section in the workshop, I think that i might try a different way of spawning traffic at set spaces at different intervals to see if I can get the traffic working as it is a core part of the gameplay.

The third issue is that I am yet to develop the boost mechanic that grants invincibility. I think i can do that by assigning a key as the boost and making the movement 200% faster for 1.5 seconds with invincibility frames so it shouldn't be too difficult. But otherwise development has been smooth and everything works as intended.

Something I learned was that using timers in GDevelop is much harder to get working than one would think.

As I mentioned in my elevator pitch, I was heavily inspired by Initial D and the JDM scene. Here is an image of a Trueno Sprinter for reference.

Sourced from tygerstrypes, August 15, 2018: https://itrolls.wordpress.com/2018/08/15/initial-d-fujiwara-tofu-shop-ae-86-toyota-sprinter-trueno-gt-apex/

A concept I read from Tracy Fullerton called stagnation worried me about my game. Basically when nothing new happens for a while it drastically reduces the fun level that the players experience. So I have to be careful when making my game as it could become repetitive then boring for the players. Just something to consider.

[gamedesign120]

Racer Elevator Pitch

RacecaR is a classic racing game where you have to avoid obstacles, pick up power ups and drive over speed boosts to get ahead of the competition.

The genre of the game is a racer and it plays into the JDM/ Eurobeat-type scene with inspirations from Initial D as the player drives an AE86 Trueno Sprinter.

The primary goal of the game is to avoid collisions into other cars through using the arrow keys to avoid obstacles.

This game is made for people who want to go fast, are into JDM/ Initial D and love racing games!

my 3 USP are: - JDM and car focused - taps into the anime niche as well - engaging gameplay that keeps you on your toes

[gamedesign120]

Asteroids Post-Mortem

Space War has been fun to develop but I've run it countless issue during development. Firstly, when I imported the spaceship asset, it would not move towards the mouse correctly and would fly around the screen instead of moving towards the cursor. This was a quick fix as I just had to resize it in piskel. The second issue is one that I have not found a fix for. The projectiles are firing from the edges of the sprite. e.g.

I've tried many things to try and fix this such as creating a point at the tip of the ship and getting the projectiles to fire from there, but it did not seem to fix the issue.

I was able to finally get the buttons working through installing a buttons extension and adding it to my text, I even made it so if the mouse hovers over the text it changes colour. e.g.

Here is how I was able to do it:

I was also able to implement lives by adding a variable called lives to my text which updates whenever player gets hit by an asteroid.

One thing I wish I were able to add is a "class" button which allowed for a different type of bullet spread or speed or range but that is something I would add if I were given more time for the final product and it weren't a prototype.

Here is the playtesting feedback I received back from a friend, if I had more time to complete this, i would also implement the ship getting faster as a secondary mode for more adept players who would like to push themselves. Tracy Fullerton's different examples of balancing variables, it helped me better understand how to make a fair and balanced game. I particularly liked her example of mario: "if Mario moved really, really fast? It might be frustrating because he would be too hard to control." (Fullerton, 2018).

[gamedesign120]

Asteroids Development Post

I have been trying to get the spaceship to follow my cursor as it adds a layer of complexity to the game. Shooting is an essential part of the asteroids genre so I have been working on that as well.

Something I've learned is that the size of a sprite can change how it behaves in the game.

I've run into a couple issues while developing the game, I think I'll go into more detail about it in the post mortem but I have learned quite a bit about development from this game.

I was heavily inspired by this version of the game:

The simplicity and the difficult nature of the game inspired me to design my game in the way it has been.

Another example of what I have learned is that you can just add the physics behaviour to objects instead of trying to implement it yourself. It just makes life so much easier.

A quote from my readings also inspired me to consider how I can make the game balance. "...the skill level is properly adjusted to the target audience. For short, I call these four balancing areas variables, dynamics, starting conditions, and skill." (Fullerton, 2018). With these considerations in mind, i believed that the difficulty add from the ship constantly moving was balanced as it considers the variable, being the asteroids spawn rate, the dynamic being the shooting aspect, the starting conditions being that your in the middle of the screen unharmed and are given time to process the moving asteroids, and skill being dependent on the player.

[gamedesign120]

Asteroids Elevator Pitch

Space War is a classic asteroids type game that instead of being controlled with arrow keys, is controlled by moving your cursor around. The ship is always moving towards your cursor making it had to navigate at times are requires skill and critical thinking at times to get out of tough situations. The style of this game is very arcade like and similar to the original asteroids game. You will be constantly bombarded with meteorites, shoot them to avoid getting hit or its game over! The target demographic of this game is casual gamers who enjoy classics such as asteroids and may want to experience a bit of old school gaming nostalgia.

My 3 USP are: - the retro arcade style of the game - the extra challenge from the ship constantly moving towards your cursor - simplistic design makes it easy for anyone to pick up

[gamedesign120]

Platformer Post-Mortem

Throughout the development process of the platformer, it is safe to say i have learnt lots about the intricacies' of making a game. I was successful in making a platformer which includes a wide variety of mechanics such as shooting, double jumps, dashing and moving enemies. Along the way i had many issues which were mostly troubleshooted such as characters being stuck in idle animation, jumps not correctly working, projectiles not shooting from the right point and more. However some issues remained, like the enemies pathing being linked together, e.g. if one enemy earlier in the level died then the later one would only walk in on direction. I also had some issues with animations not changing properly e.g., if you tap a directional key without moving or jumping the character animation would change to run while they are stationary making it look like they are running on spot. After some playtesting, some feedback I was given was that the levels were complicated and often lead to players getting confused on where to go next. If I were to complete this game, then I would make the levels easier to navigate and fix all the issues previously mentioned.

*************************Playtesting Sheet*************************

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Platformer Development Post Finished Version

Here is a full demo of the finished game:

I have added some new assets into the game. Here is an itch.io link to the assets used in this game: https://itch.io/c/5552155/igb120 I ended up moving most of my events into external events as it made applying those events across multiple levels:

I also ended up moving most of my sprites to global as it was also a lot nicer when using in other levels:

I had a lot of difficulty trying to get the enemies to work properly but in the end they kind of did what i wanted them to do. I'll talk more about it in the post-mortem.

Anyways i don't wanna make this too long as i have already made a development post. See you in the post-mortem.

[gamedesign120]

Platformer Development Post

I started working on my platformer in GDevelop. Things have gone relatively smoothly however, I had come across a couple issues. Firstly, when I tried to make the sprites for the platforms, they wouldn't line up cleanly and had multiple gaps between each connection. I quickly figured out that was due to me leaving gaps in the editor which caused the bricks to be disjointed... a silly mistake but a quick one to fix. I quicky put the first level together with the use of platforms and a sprite which I assigned as the player, here is a preview of the first level:

Something I learnt in GDevelop is that I rebind the character from arow keys to W,A,S and D which feels much more natural.

The next thing to give me trouble was the spikes. I wanted to make it so if the player lands on the spikes, it is considered a game over/fail. This was trickier than I thought it would have been but in the end I was able to make it so the level ends if the player touches the spike. Here is how I did it:

With all that put together, here is a demo of the level so far:

I have made quite a bit of progress but I still am yet to add the coins, the finish point, and a few other things. Something that inspired me from my reading is Chapter 8's section called side views and it explains how it "leaves a significant amount of cognitive effort for solving complex puzzles and other forms of play." (Fullerton, 2018). This inspired me to make challenging puzzles that will challenge the brains of my players. Fullerton, Tracy. Game Design Workshop : A Playcentric Approach to Creating Innovative Games, Fourth Edition, CRC Press LLC, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/qut/detail.action?docID=5477698. Created from qut on 2025-06-08 07:53:19.

Here is the reference to the book, from this point on I will only in-text reference (Fullerton, 2018) and you can refer to this post.

[gamedesign120]

Elevator Pitch for My Platformer Game

The first prototype we’ve been tasked with making is a platformer game. To make an elevator pitch and a prototype, I needed to consider what approach I wanted to take for my game and what my game even was.

Firstly, I had to go back to my week 1 lecture notes to compile all my ideas into a coherent structure and here is the structure I decided to go with:

What is the game?

Why will it be compelling?

Who is the target audience?

What is the players role in the game?

How will the player be motivated?

What is the genre?

With all these questions in mind, my game will be a simple 2D platformer with a switching mechanism that allows the player to switch between a vampire and a bat. The vampire can move, jump and slow fall when he is falling. The vampire can transform into a bat for a short period of time where he can fly, then when the cooldown is over, he reverts back to vampire form. The objective is to collect all the coins scattered around the level before making it back to a final destination.

The game will be compelling because it uses a combination of puzzle solving and switching mechanics to keep the player engaged.

The target audience will be gamers who love platformers with critical thinking and puzzle solving along side interesting mechanics that spice up the basic platformers. The players role will be to help the little vampire in his journey back to his coffin to sleep before daytime.

The player will be motived through challenge and reward. This is evident as the player will be put through harder and harder challenges as they progress and will be rewarded through coins scattered throughout the level.

The genre will be a 2D platformer.

Condensing all of that into 3 sentences, here is my elevator pitch:

“My game is a 2D platformer where players control a vampire who can switch into a bat for a limited time to navigate puzzles and collect coins before reaching a final destination. The combination of puzzle-solving and switching mechanics keeps gameplay engaging, with increasing challenges as players progress. Targeted at platformer fans who enjoy critical thinking, the game motivates players through both challenge and rewarding coin collection.”

I drew up some rough concept art for the game, here is what the little vampire will look like:

Here is what the bat will look like:

And here is what the levels will roughly look like:

My 3 Unique Selling Points are: - the dark gothic aesthetics - the interesting use of the bat form as a dash - laidback platformer that anyone can play

[gamedesign120]

What got me into game development?

I got interested in game development in year 12 of high school where i decided to take digital solutions, a subject about coding and making web solutions through python. I also loved watching videos on YouTube of small time indie game designers making their own scuffed versions of games (like CS2 made in unity with capsules as the character models). A youtuber i really admire in the game design field is CodeBullet. He's an Australian programmer who makes funny but educational videos on his poorly backwards engineered games. He also uses AI in his work quite a lot in the form of neural networks and machine learning to make his gameplay more entertaining.

What I would like to learn in the unit is the fundamentals of how to successfully develop a game. I would like to gain more experience working with a groups of people to achieve a common coding goal much like how a game development company might operate. And lastly, I would like to further develop my rudimentary coding skills so that i might be able to confidently write up python and/or other languages by myself without any help.