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Course Reflection

After everything I experienced in this class, the one thing I learned the most was about MDA. The concept of MDA (mechanics, dynamics, and aesthetics) was already there, but I only thought about how different they are. They play a significant role in how a game is made and played. The concept is connected to every game; it must be applied for a game to be somewhat successful. This idea also reassured me what part of the process I would like to associate myself with aesthetics. I care deeply about how the game looks at first glance to players. 

In this class, I read about games, like Tennis for Two or Spacewar!. I got to learn about old games that played a significant role in the start of digital video games. Another thing I got to do was demo games from the previous 108 students, which was impressive to see. We also got to check out a browser emulator to play older games like Sonic the Hedgehog. And I also got to make games! Making games in this class was the one thing I was most excited about, I got to make an incomplete game called Knight Adventures and then a group project game for my final called Monsters Adventure, and participating in such a thing is something I will take with me in the future. 

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Final Project

For my Final Project, I joined a group that started a game called "Monster Adventure"

Monster Adventure is a 2D platformer game where in each room you are tasked to jump through obstacles to progress through each level. The game references the iconic Pixar movie "Monster's University" In the game you will meet quirky designed monsters and avoid them to keep your health up! Regenerate your health with yummy apples that are everywhere on each level. This game can be played by all ages! a fun experience for anyone who knows Monsters University, or the younger generation who will enjoy it for its kid-friendly design and aesthetic.

Our game compared to the first draft a month or so ago, has more levels implemented, character additions, and a friendly user interface. The menu and the pause menu were added giving it a more professional feel. Our game also has different difficulty levels, it will get more difficult as you progress through each level.

My part in this final was the second artist, I helped create more monsters and characters in the game. I would also test the constant tests to know if the game feels good when played. I think this game is clean and was made well by our programmers and 1st artist/designer. Everyone did their part and I think our game reflects our success in collaboration and effort. The programmer was done well, and the art was done well too. Now the game feels more complete than ever before.

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Jackbox Game

The mechanics of the game include things like memory, puzzles, and audience participation. My experience playing the game with my classmates was cool, everyone got to do their part and have a little fun. Murder Party was a game I didn't really play since I've played it before, so I participated in the audience, betting on who was gonna die and also answering trivia questions to feel included. We played another game called Do Re Mi, it was a rhythm game. I never got to play Jackbox 10 before so I was eager to join and try it out. It was harder than I expected, the controls being on a keyboard using letters felt harder to use than arrow keys.

Playing with the whole class was an experience I didn't think would ever happen. So there were more people than a regular game would allow. What's nice about Jackbox is that they allow more people to join as an audience member. It's interesting how much of an impact the audience has in certain jack box games, audience participation can help determine a winner and a loser. That's how the audience can affect the game, it can completely change the weight of how the game goes and results.

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Video Game Prototype

KNIGHT ADVENTURES

How To Play:

Venture out and kill monsters, and prepare your attack power to stand a chance against the final boss!

Move: WASD

Run: Shift

Jump: Space

Attack: C

This game was fun to create with my partner. In the game right now, unfortunately, there are a couple of bugs, at one point the knight will stop animating and move still in one frame. Sometimes you'll get stuck in the main boss (To find the main boss, it's located on the far right of the level). Another thing we ran into is that monsters are unable to hurt us and we can't hurt them. Having such a small time frame to make a game, with my partner being new at Unity, and both of us having busy school schedules and being in different classes made this more challenging. But I'm happy with what we have been able to accomplish so far. We both worked hard with something we've never really done before and I applaud my partner and me for that.

Compared to how our game was in our alpha version a few weeks ago, more art and assets were added. The only thing we hope for in the future to work on is to be able to attack monsters and interact with items that I also made assets for. Then eventually add sounds! I see a lot of potential in this game and I would love to continue to work on it, tweak art, and continue to add to it.

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First Playable

The game I am currently in the process of making with my partner is called "Knight's Adventures" My role in this project is the artist as well as the producer.

Today we tested out other students' games as well as had our game tested. The response was the same, my peers enjoyed the cute art and the little fight animation. Everyone also said that the jump was a little on the floaty side. I agreed with everyone's feedback as I thought the same.

I plan to talk to my programmer and talk about changing the physics of the jump to make it a little faster and more physically accurate. We will also continue to work on the level, having the monster design concepts done. I will be continuing to create more monster sprites. The game is still in early development but we are making great progress on the side.

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Video Game Lab

Today, I streamed 2 itch.io games made by last semester's ART/CS 108 students. The two games I played were Draco's Quest and Witch Hunt.

Draco's Quest

Was a side-scroller game. I noticed after I played, that I wasn't able to interact with any of the monsters so I didn't take any damage nor did I do any damage when I shot them. But after I played and checked out the website I noticed that in the description that the game was still in development. This confused me since this was submitted last semester, so I thought it would be done.

But besides that, I thought the art was well done, I loved how the background trees moved along with the characters to show movement. I thought the movement was smooth as well. I think the basic mechanics of the game like the movement were well executed. I was really hoping I could interact with the mobs and such but alas that wasn't done.

Witch Hunt

Was the game I played next and it was also a side scroller. What made this game different from Draco's Quest was that it started like a visual novel. It had two characters talking to each other to start the story. I will say the cut-off transition from the visual novel to the actual game was odd and not executed well.

But, besides that in the game itself, the object in the first round was to collect items to build your wand. It was a side scroller with things to collect after I finished the first level. It transitioned to where I would make a wand with the items I collected from the previous level.

The art was cute, as well. This was drawn in an anime art style while Draco's Quest was drawn in pixel style. I loved both equally.

Another game that was played in today's lab was Universal Paper Clips. I watched my classmate play this game and it seemed to be a clicker game. We didn't really understand what else there was to it. All he did was click to make more paperclips and that was it. Interesting and simple game!

Between playtesting a game and watching someone playtest a game were more different than I expected. When I was playing the game myself I got to get the feel of how the game mechanics physically felt, while watching someone else play it I got to observe how the game looked and felt from an outsider's perspective. Was it engaging enough? Does it look cool? There is a clear difference in perspective for the two so I think it's important to have input in a playtest both ways.

Overall today's lab was cool being able to play games other students made. It's so inspiring and it really runs my brain for ideas for my future project!

GAME LINKS:

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Prototyping

First Game:

The game stemmed from a game made up with my partner from last week. It was a card game that required a specific pattern of cards to be played in order to take each player's pegs. The core mechanic of this game is hand management.  Our first game when we attempted was also repetitive and slow.

Prototype 1 Rules

I thought maybe the red peg rule was hard and that 10 cards were too many cards to deal with initially because it eats up the deck. So I changed those two things and I also added a Joker to the deck. 

Prototype 2 Rules

When I played with my friend we were able to get a winner at first. My friend and I played more rounds to test it out and it was going on for a long time and we ended up not getting a winner in the other plays despite the changes I made. 

In Class Prototyping: 

First, we played one round of my prototype and the game ended with technically no winner. You win by taking all the other opponents' pegs first. But in my first game, we ran out of cards and didn’t end up with a winner. The problem was that we were holding onto cards and kept taking back the peg that had just been taken. So the Joker card rule seemed a bit useless and didn’t seem to give the player who pulled it much advantage in the game. It didn’t shift the game the way I wanted it to.

In the second game, I ended up implementing the outputs from my partner's game. So I had to spontaneously think, how could I add these into this game? So I decided that the last number of our numbers was going to be what our starting hand was going to be, and the number of letters in our word was going to be the maximum amount of cards the player was allowed to have in hand:

My Input/Output: T, 60, Ovary

My Partners Input/Output: T, 15, Butterfly

Me: 0 cards, max 5 cards in hand

Partner: 5 cards, max 9 cards in hand

Another thing I added in this second game was a discard pile so that we could recycle cards whenever we ran out as well as discard what we need when we have max cards in our hand. 

Did that change anything about the game? No not at all. It was the same! Repetitive and slow. My opponent and I ended up taking back each other's peg and there wasn’t a moment where it was intense and close. Same as the last game. This game needs a lot more work, I assumed that eventually all pegs would be taken but with my rules that are so broad and vague, it didn’t turn out that way. I think next time I want to make my rules more strict. I’m also thinking about the direction I want this game to go. Do I want this game to be fair? Do I want it to be unfair?

End Result:

Neither of us was able to take each other's pegs fully and the game was not fun.

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Game Lab 1

Today I played I Doubt (also known as Cheat or Bullshit) in class with 3 other students.

First, let's talk about being able to play the game. Since our class lab today was online how could we possibly play board/card games? We were instructed to use a website called playingcards.io which was difficult to use at first, my groupmates and I spent a few minutes setting up and figuring out how the website worked. Once we had that up and running we played a game, since we already knew how to play we didn't need to have a rundown on the instructions of the game.

In our first (and only) game of I Doubt, we took turns calling out what number we put down and how many. In the first few rounds, we were putting one of everything, playing safe. Eventually, we started putting down multiples of cards, 3 sevens, 3 nines, 2 jacks, etc. We didn't think much of it. We kept going and going until we got to 30 cards in the pile. My classmate "O" claims to have put down 2 sevens. I call BS on that because I remember earlier in the game someone put down 3 sevens! Insane, how could there be 5 sevens in a deck? There's no chance "O" had 2 sevens. How could we know though? Maybe the player who put that 3 sevens earlier was also lying. We checked the first two cards and alas they were NOT 2 sevens. "O" ended up collecting the 30-card pile. We continue the game and have laughs in between conversation exchanges, genuinely having a good time. We had 3 BS calls the whole game and 2/3 of those BS assumptions were wrong. My classmate "L" ended up winning the game.

Playing this card game online felt disconnected. Since we couldn't see how many cards each player had left we couldn't BS "L" on his last card. What were the chances he put the actual number? Very low.

Session 1:  I Doubt

For privacy reasons, I will refer to my classmates by the first letter of their name.

Player 1 - N

Player 2 - L

Player 3 - O

Player 4 - R (me!)

Player 4 claims to put down 1 ace

Player 1 claims to put down 1 two

Player 2 claims to put down 1 three

Player 3 claims to put down 1 four

Player 4 claims to put down 1 five

Player 1 claims to put down 1 six

Player 2 claims to put down 3 sevens

Player 3 claims to put down 1 eight

Player 4 claims to put down 3 nines

Player 1 claims to put down 2 tens

Player 2 claims to put down 2 jacks

Player 3 claims to put down 1 queen

Player 4 claims to put down 1 king

Player 1 claims to put down 3 aces

Player 2 claims to put down 1 two

Player 3 claims to put down 2 threes

Player 4 claims to put down 1 four

Player 1 claims to put down 1 five

Player 2 claims to put down 1 six 

Player 3 claims to put down 2 sevens 

Player 4 calls BS, BS was true

Player 3 collects all cards

Player 4 claims to put down 1 eight

Player 1 claims to put down 1 nine

Player 2 claims to put down 1 ten

Player 3 claims to put down 2 jacks

Player 1 calls BS, BS was false

Player 1 collects all cards

Player 4 claims to put down 1 queen

Player 1 claims to put down 1 king

Player 2 claims to put down 1 ace

Player 1 calls BS, BS was false

Player 1 collects all cards

Player 3 claims to put down 2 twos

Player 4 claims to put down 1 three

Player 1 claims to put down 1 four

Player 2 claims to put down 1 five

Player 3 claims to put down 2 six

Player 4 claims to put down 1 seven

Player 1 claims to put down 2 eights

Player 2 claims to put down 2 nines

Player 2 ran out of cards and won the game

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Internet Arcade

Today I played Sonic The Hedgehog 2 and it was an interesting experience. I remember playing games like this on a console when I was a kid, and it brought back a lot of memories. When I was playing the game I kept running into everything and losing coin after coin after coin. I played a few rounds of the game to try and get used to the mechanics since its been such a long time since I've played this specific game. I enjoyed it though.

Playing on an emulator felt more difficult than playing on the original hardware/console. Using browser emulators is convenient when you want to play older games and feel nostalgic. But actually playing them on a modern keyboard and not on a joystick and button was a feeling that I will never get used to. Even if you emulate the game, I personally don't think anything can beat playing the game where it was intended to be played. I was playing on my Mac laptop which added on to how weird it felt. The keyboard is flat and the arrow keys are small. So what more could I do? Suck it up and use what you got to enjoy the classic game.