thomaskennedyfutureworks-blog

[thomaskennedyfutureworks-blog]

Presentation Proposal

I am going to conduct research into and about my chosen job role. I am mostly interested in a technical design job as I feel that is will be the most rewarding way for me to express my design creativity by utilizing my technical capability. I am going to research a number of companies as well as the professionals that are employed by them. I will also research into the specifics of the job roles that I am interested in, in terms of salary as well as how I will transition into this role after leaving university. I will also discuss my portfolio and what I will add to my portfolio in the near future

[thomaskennedyfutureworks-blog]

Presentation Research

In this blog I will present the research that I have conducted for my Route To Industry Presentation. I have identified a number of professionals who fill the roll that I would like to have once I have left university, and will discuss why I think I would enjoy it as a profession as well as why I think I am right for the role. I will also present key games that focus on my chosen discipline and how they have gone on to influence subsequent design. I will present some of my portfolio pieces as well discuss what will be added to my portfolio in the near future.

One key designer that I researched is Todd Howard. He joined Bethesda Softworks in 1994 and has lead credits on 4 Elder Scrolls titles as well as game director and executive producer credits for Fallout 3. He gave a talk at the 2009 D.I.C.E. Summit, sharing his three rules of game development:

> Great games are played, not made. "You can have the greatest design document ever made, and you're going to change 90 percent of it as soon as you play the game."

> Keep it simple. "Doing something really well takes time, more time than you think it will. Simple systems acting together create complexity that players can appreciate."

> Define the experience. "Don't define your game by a list of bullet points... define it by the experience you want people to have."

As a technical designer my responsibilities would include script-based programming, game design and liaising with artists and programmers. I have some programming experience and would be willing to learn additional skills and languages for specific job roles.  I also have experience in a broad area of games design and have experimented with many different aspects of design, including:

> 2D art

>3D art

>environment design

>narrative design

>sound design

>level design

>systems design

>combat mechanics

>vehicle mechanics

My varied skill set will make it easier to communicate between different departments of a game studio, as I know what they are expecting at each stage of development. Therefore I would consider myself a good candidate for a producer role, as I believe I could maintain a consistent level of detail as well as thematics between team members. However without the money to start my own company or the industry experience to land a producer role I am focusing on the role of technical designer as I feel that it is the most rewarding way for me to gain experience (and money) in the industry.

There are some highly desirable and competitive jobs that are quite a ways away from me at present, however I feel that it is good to keep in mind as I develop my experience and portfolio. Rockstar San Diego have a listing for a technical design role that I would love. The desirable traits for which are:

> Ability to work independently and efficiently under tight deadlines.

> Self motivated and possess great communication and interpersonal skills.

> Possess a passion for Rockstar Games and a good understanding of game design.

> A programming diploma or certificate is an asset, but not mandatory.

> A good sense of fun!

> Good problem solving skills .

> Strong written and verbal communication skills.

> Keen eye for detail.

> Knowledge of the Microsoft Office Software Package (Word, Excel, Outlook).

Alex J. Champandard wrote an article titled “Technical Designers: An Emerging Role in Game Studios”. In which he outlines the importance of a technical designer in a design team. Much like technical artists bridge the gap between art and code, technical designers are multi-disciplinary and implement game systems whilst keeping the big picture in mind in terms of the creative direction. He also addresses an important point, employability. He states: “There’s a shortage of programmers, and technical people in general. You’ll have much less trouble finding work towards the technical side of the spectrum.” As someone with a love of design and a capability for technicality this role seems perfect for me.

A game designer job listing posted for Climax Studios asks for a degree in games design or similar as well as 3 years of industry experience. If it is not possible to transition straight from university into a technical design role I would be willing to take a quality assurance role in order to build up some experience whilst continuing work on my portfolio.

My portfolio at the moment consists mainly of work done for university assignments. However I do have some non university projects, made for game jams and personal projects that I can show off. Over summer I will be continuing to develop games in unreal engine for the purposes of fleshing out my portfolio. The job listings that I am most interested in are looking for evidence of script based coding, therefore I will begin to implement C++ scripts into my unreal engine projects in order to gain new skills and a new level of control over my game systems.

Also I will be refining my skills as a level designer as many mechanics and systems that I am generally interested in implementing have a lot of interactions with the level and environment.

For example any movement based mechanics are meaningless unless there is a meaningful level to move around in.

One of the games that has many systems and mechanics that I would like to capture some of the essence of is Dark Souls. The interconnectivity of the level design, the meticulously designed RPG leveling system, the weapons design and mechanics and more all have an amazing level of detail put into them that I find inspiring.

Specifically in Dark Souls there are so many well designer enemies and environments, that are built to facilitate the gameplay. For example if you are using the red tearstone ring you will do more damage once your health reaches a low enough amount. This has interesting connotations with how it will affect how the player tackles certain enemies or locations. For example in an area like blighttown, the swamp causes poison damage, allowing the player to reach the threshold value for the red tearstone ring to activate without being at risk of taking too much damage. This would allow the player to take the area boss down quickly if they are able to avoid taking any more damage during the fight. These kinds of synergies involve many different aspects of design, including environment, enemy, narrative and systems. I would like to be a part of a project that could create such occurrences that are only possible with such good communication between the design team.

After my honors project, in the summer I would like to apply for Transfuser. It would be a great opportunity to form a dedicated team to create some really good portfolio pieces, as well as gain some visibility in the industry, and hopefully get in contact with some industry teams. Obviously winning Transfuser would be a fantastic boon, allowing me to spend the winnings on funding the possibility of even more portfolio pieces and be able to begin start making bespoke projects for release.

Typical technical roles in the games industry have starting wages of £20,000 and scales indefinitely, depending on the success of the titles and the company in general. The big bucks can be found in founding my own company once I have the resources to do. However I am aware that it is not an easy option, therefore I would like to make sure that I also have the experience and knowledge as well as the resources to do so.

[thomaskennedyfutureworks-blog]

Ctrl.Hack.Esc [2]

What I would do next time

If I were to repeat this project with additional time and resources there are some changes or additions that I would make. The content of the game at present is a good marker for what style of things would be in an extrapolated project idea. Basically I would like to take the systems that I have already implemented and make them much deeper and dynamic.

The equipment system that is implemented is good for such a small number of items. However if I wished to have a greater number of items that the player could equip this would be somewhat unwieldy. Therefore I would like to implement a system in which the player can customhouse their load out and what is in their equipment bar. Upon opening a menu the player would get information on what items they have in their possession as well as having currently equipped items highlighted. I would like the player to be able to scroll through their possessions and have a view-port in the UI that would load and render a 3D model of the selected item.

In the future I would also like to implement some bespoke animations for equipping, holstering and reloading a weapon. This would add a lot of feedback for the player and would add a lot of game “juice”.

The equipment system expansion would allow for many new items. I would really like for there to be a larger arsenal of weaponry in the game to allow for new dynamics between the gameplay and the level design. I would also like to introduce a set of “gadgets” that would interact with enemies or the level itself to give the player an advantage.

I would also introduce new types of enemies that would interact with weaponry different. For example an enemy type with “armour”, causing use of rapid fire low damage weapons less effective, and low rate of fire high damage weapons more effective relatively. New enemy types could also use new types of attacks that would cause the player to have to react differently.

It would also be interesting to consider the online aspect. As the level has been designed as a single player objective level it would need to be slightly adapted, but with the modularity in the level their would be interesting line of sights created for a competitive experience.

Implementing a leveling system could add new depth to the gameplay. Going down the rpg route could lend itself well to this project as the somewhat arcady feel would complement gameplay based around gaining experience and new special abilities.

[thomaskennedyfutureworks-blog]

Ctrl.Hack.Esc. Final Screenshots

[thomaskennedyfutureworks-blog]

Ctrl.Hack.Esc. [1]

What went well

Overall I am quite satisfied by my work on this project. I feel that I achieve what the brief was asking for however I did some of my development time on some systems that were not the focus of the game or the point of the assignment.

I feel that my level design complements the games mechanics well and do a good job of directing the player’s movement throughout the level and towards the objective. I used lighting in many places of my level to give the player subtle information on where to go.

For example here the warm soft lighting inside contrasts with the colder environment lighting and hints to the player that this is a direction that they may want to travel in.

The lighting is also used to give different locations of the level a different atmosphere.

In this back alley I use shadow and close walls to create a dark enclosed space. This creates a contrast to areas such as the main street which are brighter.

I am quite happy with the equipment system that I have implemented as it has been created with modularity and expansion in mind. I am sure that in future projects I will use blueprints based off of how I created these blueprints.

I was very happy to be able to collaborate with Samuel Rodgers, the 3D artist who made the knife model in my game. I was able to implement a basic animation for attacking with the knife for the purposes of player feedback, however in the future I would like to either develop some better animation skills or collaborate cross course and have someone else implement animations in order to allow me to focus more on design and other technical tasks.

The pistol mechanics turned out well. After playtesting I added more UI in order to help players keep track of how much ammo they have left. The aiming down sights system works quite well; it is a smooth movement and never jumps around, however the iron sights do not always line up with the crosshair due to the slight movement in the default idle animation. In the future I would like to build the animation system from the ground up with my own weapons in mind, however due to the scope of this project I was unable to do so this time.

I am also pleased with the implementation of my grenade mechanics. They are quite a limited resource but are very powerful so I feel that it adds a lot of depth to the gameplay. However it is represented simply by a sphere with a default texture, in the future I would like to add more attention here.

[thomaskennedyfutureworks-blog]

DD2000 - Research Blog

In order to fully explore the concept of addictiveness in games I conducted research into many related fields. Initially I looked into how casinos are designed. I found this very interesting as I was not aware beforehand the amount of psychology that is taken into consideration when designing the layouts and aesthetics of the casinos. 

Casinos use a number of tricks to keep players addicted to the system. One of which that was a surprise to me was the use of odorants. Certain odors have shown to trigger nostalgic memories, causing peoples walking pace to slow down, making them more likely to stop and interact with the gambling machines in that area.

Another area of research that I conducted was in order to better define the term addiction. Addiction is defined as “Addiction is a condition that results when a person ingests a substance (for example, alcohol, cocaine, nicotine) or engages in an activity (such as gambling, sex, shopping) that can be pleasurable but the continuation of which becomes compulsive and interferes with ordinary responsibilities and concerns, such as work, relationships, or health.” However when it comes to talking about addiction in this design environment talking about substance abuse doesn’t really fit into this essay, therefore my essay strictly deals with the idea of addictive actions.

I also researched into existing games and how they use addictiveness in their design practices. I researched the psychology of “Freemium” games specifically. Freemium games operate by offering a version of the digital product for free but with reduced features. This is very popular as it generates a larger number of initial players. These players will then either become premium members, either by buying the full product or by making several smaller in app purchases. 

During my research I came across a term called “Hedonic Adaptation”. This describes the situation where a player’s enjoyment of a game will decrease over time, or rather, having abstained from playing for an extended period of time the player will have a greater enjoyment of the game. This is often used in freemium games by time locking content, i.e. waiting for crops to grow.

[thomaskennedyfutureworks-blog]

XB2001 - Breathless - Reflective Design Blog 3

I designed my blueprints in a way that allowed for interactables to be added to the game during development quickly and without disrupting the team’s workflow. The ray cast that is fired every tick checks to see if what it collides with has the “interactable” tag. This allowed for a much faster design process as each new interactable object that I added only needed the correct UI reference and the intractable tag and it would be functional.

With the culmination of these systems in place I was able to make the crafting system. This was accomplished by using a green silhouette representation of the goal object as a prompt to the player. If the player’s inventory contains the required materials the crafting blueprint would add the intractable tag and the UI element would appear. Upon all of the components being consumed by the crafting station the newly created water filter gently tumbles over as an indication that it can now be collected.

With the scope of this project in mind I knew that it would be difficult to have any antagonist, especially with animated meshes. Therefore it was a group decision to have the presence of an ever depleting air supply. This allowed us to give the player a sense of urgency and fear when coupled with the indication of a “foreign life form” in the computer terminals.

The rate at which the air depleted was tweaked a few times during development, and in order to keep the tension I settled on a reasonably fast drain coupled with consumable items in the environment that would temporarily refill the player’s air level. Once the player has completed the crafting puzzle they are rewarded with the new water filter. This can then be used to replace the damaged water filter, allowing the ship to generate oxygen from the filtered water.

To conclude I am very happy with this project, it was quite ambitious for all team members but thanks to good communication we worked well together to achieve our individual goals. This project allowed me to develop my skills as a technical designer and I have learned new and valuable information, for example interfaces improved my workflow greatly.

[thomaskennedyfutureworks-blog]

XB2001  - Breathless - Reflective Design Blog 2

I worked closely with the level designer on my team to help plan what mechanics would be necessary. We discovered that without any direction that the goals of the game were not all that clear. Looking back at our reference materials we talked with our props designer and decided on a breadcrumb hint system, contained within the computer terminals that are located throughout the ship.

Once the level blocking was complete we were more aware of what style of obstacles that the player would be overcoming, mainly physical restrictions of certain areas within our game. In order to make these obstacles meaningful to the player we agreed that there would need to be a reasonable variation in both their mechanics and aesthetics. In order to keep a consistency between mechanics I referred to the other planned mechanics and thought on a screwdriver. In our vertical slice the screwdriver is used to unscrew vent covers and gain access to otherwise unreachable areas. I would plan on using the screwdriver in further crafting mechanics that could be implemented in a full project.

The crafting mechanic itself was probably the greatest hurdle that I had to overcome in my development. I knew that within the scope of this project there would need be be several blueprints that could all communicate effectively between each other, therefore I conducted some research into how interfaces could be implemented. This allowed me to bypass other difficulties that I encountered with non matching reference types. Once implemented this allowed me to call a custom event in any blueprint from any other blueprint.

I made extensive use of this ability to create my inventory system. I created the blueprints in such a way that any other blueprint that had the “collectable” tag would get added to the array that I used to store the inventory information. Then the UI that displays this information only needs the get the array and an index, rather than checking many booleans.

[thomaskennedyfutureworks-blog]

XB2001 - Breathless - Reflective Design Blog 1

Breathless is a survival horror game. The player awakes from cryostasis in a spaceship that is in a state of disrepair. For this vertical slice the core drive of the game will be the depleting air supply. It is the player’s goal to navigate the ship, learn how to repair the damage and find the required components.

We began the design process with idea generation, communicating in my team we discussed items of media that embodied individual aspects of the general feeling that we wanted to infer. As the technical designer for my team I specifically researched for mechanics inspiration. Despite the horror theme one great point of inspiration was “My Summer Car” which involves constructing a car from scratch using only the fundamental components. Migrating this mechanic into a sci-fi horror setting allows for an interesting dynamic. The player will search for the components that they require in craft the vital ship internals that keep them alive.

As part of the aesthetics research we looked at games such as Alien Isolation, which makes use of darkness to build tension. Knowing that we wanted a shadowy environment yet wanted the player to be able to navigate the level effectively I knew that a torch would be a simple yet effective solution. I researched specifically games that make use of a torch as a game mechanics and how it was implemented. Half Life 2’s protagonist Gordon Freeman has access to a torch that is connected to his suit power levels. I found this interesting as they player would have to balance their power levels in order to be able to navigate effectively as well as avoid enemies and solve puzzles. As we were not aiming for a combat heavy style of game I decided to adapt this design to suit our needs. In order for the player to be able to use the torch they cannot have any other tool equipped. This proved quite effective in play testing as in order to solve puzzles or interact using their tools the player would temporarily have to relinquish their light source.

Once they player has progressed through the first portion of our vertical slice more interactions are implemented and as such the loss of light source during puzzles became somewhat tiresome. Therefore once the main power switch is activated the ship's main lighting is activated. This gives the player more visibility while they interact with the environment and also gives the player a sense of accomplishment, as previously explored areas are renewed with light. The one drawback of this is that it was difficult to incorporate the torch into the second half of the game and the mechanic became somewhat unnecessary. In a fully complete game it would be possible to have scripted events where the ships power could fluctuate and the torch would become useful again.

[thomaskennedyfutureworks-blog]

Wizard Game - Iterations

Originally the player spawned outside of the tower without any restrictions on movement, however I found this to be too easy, as the player would be able to manipulate the dragon into a position where the player could hit the dragon but the dragon could not see the player. Therefore I created a small enclosed space for the player to spawn in, forcing them to enter the tower before fighting the dragon.

Instead of having the scroll simply be a collectable in the level, I changed it so that the only way to get the scroll is by killing the dragon. I achieved this by editing the blueprint of the dragon so that the scroll class blueprint is spawned at the dragon’s location when it’s health is equal to 0. Just before the dragon actor is destroyed the scroll is spawned.

In conclusion I am happy with my solution to the problem of the tower. I explored a new aspect of unreal engine and learned how to make different systems of blueprints communicate correctly with each other. However, if I were to do this project again I would focus on less aspects of the game and polish them more.

[thomaskennedyfutureworks-blog]

Wizard Game - Blueprints

I began by starting with the first person template in UE4 and I stripped away the unneeded components. I removed the default weapon from the first person blueprint and replaced it with my previously modeled staff mesh. 

The projectile blueprint served as a very good starting point for a fireball style spell. I unchecked the visible box for the orange sphere and added a fire particle system.

 On colliding with something an explosion particle system is created and a radial force is applied to all other actors within the sphere collision, then the actor is destroyed. In order to show off the force of these explosions I added some destructible meshes to my level.

 Now when the projectiles come into contact with these destructible meshes they will fall apart and the debris will be knocked back. Although not at all integral to the mechanics of the game this adds “game juice” and makes the experience more memorable.

Now for the problem of scaling this tower. For the super jump scroll I created a new blueprint and used a cylinder to represent to scroll. To make it more obvious that it is a collectible I added a small amount of logic to make it revolve on the spot. 

When the player overlaps with this scroll it disappears and a boolean in the character blueprint is changed. This is a very basic inventory system, however it is limited to either having the scroll or not, as this is a boolean only stores a positive or negative value. In the future I would like to improve this system to allow for the logic to track the number of items also.

 At this point it is possible to scale the tower by navigating the level, finding the scroll and jumping to the top of the tower, however I was unsatisfied so I decided to add some opposition. The dragon is the classic enemy of the wizard, so I imported a low poly dragon mesh that I have 3d modeled.

 Without diving into complex AI coding I wanted to have a basic enemy blueprint. As it stands the dragon enemy has the ability to shoot a fireball at the player (which is the same blueprint as the player’s fireball spell) and move toward the player. Both of these actions will only be performed if the player is in the line of sight of the dragon.

[thomaskennedyfutureworks-blog]

Wizard Game - Research

The first point of inspiration for this project was the wizard’s staff that I 3d modeled for a previous assignment. I knew that I wanted to use the staff as an asset in a first person game as a collectable weapon or tool.

 Looking at the brief I was also interested in the tower prompt as this would fit into the wizardry aesthetic. I began to research relevant media, looking specifically for the use of magic staves in games. The first game that came to mind was Skyrim, thanks to my extensive playtime.

 However, in Skyrim staves operate like a consumable with a number of charges, rather than using your mana resource. For my project I knew that I wanted all magic to relate to your mana pool in some way. 

Another elder scrolls inspiration point comes from morrowind, the Scroll of Icarian Flight. The player encounters a wizard who fell from the sky and died, dropping a magical scroll that give the player a temporary massive boost to their jump.

[thomaskennedyfutureworks-blog]

Recursion - Thematics

Recursion’s aesthetics is inspired by a few things. Movies such as Tron and games such as Hotline Miami for the soundtrack.

High contrasting lights, a high Field of view and fast paced music all help to push the core idea of my Recursion, which thanks to the development process ended up something like a psychedelic wingsuit experience. 

[thomaskennedyfutureworks-blog]

Recursion - UI

Recursion makes use of UI in a simple way. The crosshair is nothing more than “><” in text, centered on the screen. Other UI elements only appear at certain moments, for example there is a brief tutorial at the beginning that only lasts for a few seconds. I decided to have a minimal UI in order for the player to focus on the aesthetics of the level design.

[thomaskennedyfutureworks-blog]

Recursion - Mechanics

During development the game went through many iterations. For example, as the game began as a wingsuit simulator, the blueprints for the current movement system is very similar to it but the dampening is more simple.

After I simplified the movement mechanics I knew that I had to add a new mechanic in order to maintain the same depth to the game. Therefore I added the mechanic of shooting missiles in order to open doors in the path.

[thomaskennedyfutureworks-blog]

Recursion - Modeling and Textures

Each of the assets that make the bulk of the level design share the same texture. The only thing that changes is where the UVs are placed. On a larger scale project this could be essential, due to limited file size.

[thomaskennedyfutureworks-blog]

Recursion - Level Design

The level design in recursion is modular. I created assets that I could clip together in order build the level within Unreal. This allowed me to make a level much larger than the models that I made.

The level follows a regular pattern due to the angled joints I modeled. In future levels I would plan on expanding the available models to add more depth.