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Odysseus Postmortem

Overall I am extremely happy with how the entire project turned out! The game is at a point where I am happy with it, playtesters were even happy with it and it feels complete. Group communication was really good and everyone did their part. The boss worked out exactly how I wanted, complete with player detection/tracking, a health bar that constantly hovers above them and of course a health system. The report turned out very well also with an overall positive review of our game by playtesters and a great job done drawing out the findings from Tara and Elaine. For my next game I would like to have a smaller scope for the project, or at least a more manageable one, and to have more variety of enemies, weapons and maybe even add skills/abilities as I think that would make for an interesting mechanic in this type of game. This entire project has drawn inspiration from Fullerton’s book chapter 15 about role playing games and how they focus predominantly on the player and about the rich storyline and character development.

Fullerton refers to: Fullerton, T. (2018). Game design workshop:a playcentric approach to creating innovative games. AK Peters/CRC Press.

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Odysseus Changes

After playtesting we unfortunately didn’t have a lot of time left and so only major issues were fixed, this includes adding music and sound, slowing the text scroll speed so it's easier to read and fixing some minor bugs in the levels such as collisions and hitboxes.

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Odysseus Playtesting

Our group was a little over ambitious and a little too short-handed and so thus the development of the project took longer than expected. It also doesn’t help that I am something of a perfectionist and would not allow an underdeveloped game to be playtested. The combination of this resulted in the playtests occurring far too late, however not very many issues arose during them, the main issues seemed to consist of the lack of music and sound, unsure of which weapon they had equipped and collision issues in general. Out of these the biggest issue was the audio, which we promptly addressed when this was discovered. A lesser point but one to still address was that players felt the game to be too easy overall and often cheesed/spammed enemies and the boss in order to kill them far too quickly, this is simply fixed by a timer cooldown on the players attack.

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Odysseus Development

Our team has decided to go for a story driven platformer set in the underworld in a greek mythology setting. The story follows Odysseus through the underworld attempting to find theseus, achilles and hercules coins before finding the final collectable at the end of the level, the parchment. Much like my previous minigames the scope of this project was too large, but not by much. Following the parchment we originally had a final boss scene set after Odysseus leaves the underworld and is sailing across the ocean and gets attacked by a group of sirens. However due to the narrative in the story and the difficulty of the original ‘tutorial’ levels we have decided to cut out the final ship scenes and have finding the parchment as the final scene, including a boss scene at the end. This meant that we had to reduce the tutorial levels as well which meant not being able to properly implement the bow and arrows as that tutorial level would have to be pushed forward to being the direction tutorial level instead. In Fullerton’s book, chapter 15 she talks about role playing games and how they need to primarily focus around the player and about their rich storyline and character development. The development of the game overall is going very well and I am really liking the direction this game is taking majority of the assets have been implemented already, bar a few minor details such as a boss, half of hercules level, and some minor art like the coins, parchment and the addition of enemy movement and spawning.

Fullerton refers to: Fullerton, T. (2018). Game design workshop:a playcentric approach to creating innovative games. AK Peters/CRC Press.

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Odysseus Group Formation

For our group, forming was rather easy, everyone loved the greek mythological platformer idea and all available spots filled up fast. Not long after we formed the group it was apparent who would do what roles as we all had unique and useful skills. Elaine, who made the original prototype and has a history degree is to be our producer/researcher, Tara is to be our artist, Igs is to be our programmer and I am to be the level designer.

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Sell Sheet/One Page Postmortem

This assignment had a lot of ups and downs, mainly downs. Throughout the whole project I was confused and unsure if I was even on the right path. In the end I have uploaded what I think is as close to what the aim was as possible but am overall not impressed with how it turned out overall.

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Lonely Shark Postmortem

I am extremely happy with the outcome of this game. Everything that I wanted to implement, I managed to in the end. I believe that I have fully incorporated Fullerton’s words into my game and added a healthy balance of obstacles while still maintaining a good difficulty balance and not over constraining the player. Future developments might include enlarging the player's shark when eating fish and having your companion add to your lives, but otherwise everything I set out to accomplish has been accomplished. With this in mind I think that it was predominantly due to having a far smaller scope that allowed me to make this happen.

                                                   -Feedback-

Most of the feedback that was received from playtesters was very positive, noting how complete it felt however would have liked to see additions included in later versions, such as eating fish causes your shark to grow larger, or they would like to see an increase in difficulty progressively through the game. A common theme was that they found it again too easy and lacked a larger goal. There were also claims that they were confused about the friendly shark that comes to join you when you reach the designated number of fish eaten and whether to avoid it or touch it.

Fullerton refers to: Fullerton, T. (2018). Game design workshop:a playcentric approach to creating innovative games. AK Peters/CRC Press.

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Sell Sheet/One Page Development

With this Assignment I find myself very confused as to the scope of the project I am trying to create. I understand that there should predominantly be whitespace for future writings on the one page, and that I should also show off aspects of the game I created such as enemies, health system and such, but due to not having fully developed the game I have limited resources available to mention and don’t have a particular idea of the future of the game in mind.

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Lonely Shark Development

Development on lonely shark is going swimmingly. I have managed to add rocks that come at you slowly, a very large shark that comes at you very quickly and fish for you to eat. The idea is that everything is part of a pecking order, just like in the real ocean. The great white shark is at the top as it eats everything, then the rocks, as they kill the fish and you, then you who only eats the fish and then the fish who lose to everything. I have set the speeds of everything to look as though they are moving in relation to the player and it has turned out really well, especially with the animations. The rocks spawn randomly ahead and move in time with the player. The fish look as though they are frantically trying to swim away from you, and the great white shark looks as though it is coming straight for you! This idea of a mix of an enemy, prey and an obstacle I have taken inspiration from chapter 3 of Fullerton’s book where she talks about obstacles specifically about their role in a single player game. This time around I decided to use all my own animations and art, but have made it a far simpler scheme, due to my experience with my first game. And everything that I wanted to implement has been implemented which is a huge step considering my history of overzealous scopes!

Fullerton refers to: Fullerton, T. (2018). Game design workshop:a playcentric approach to creating innovative games. AK Peters/CRC Press.

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Lonely Shark Pitch

You are a sad shark, swimming your way through life, unable to stop for a moment's rest, just like those pesky predators! Oh... and rocks. This game focuses on a lonely shark just wandering through life, looking for friends. Sadly enough everything is out to get him. Even those damn rocks…

This underwater racing style game focuses on survival and progression, it is designed for 13 - 17 year olds.

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D-Day 2057 Postmortem

The project was an ambitious one from the beginning, however, I like the progress that I accomplished. I did not end up implementing enemies, a few attempts were made but I couldn’t get any semilence of AI implemented which was what I wanted. I instead used asteroids and turned the game more into an asteroid mining game, in which the player will shoot asteroids to mine them, gaining money to use at the fully implemented shop. At the shop you can spend money to gain more ammo, lives and even upgrades, which I am extremely happy with how it turned out! In Fullertons’s 3rd chapter, currency wasn’t the only aspect that I found interesting, Fullerton also talks about the use of ammunition and health, which I found to help out the playability and also add more items to the shop. The game starts off slow and progressively gets faster with more and more upgrades. Unfortunately I was only able to implement 2 sets of upgrades, how fast the bullets shoot and how fast the bullets go, which have 3 and 5 levels respectively. Overall, I was still too ambitious about how much I could get done within time constraints, however I have learnt a lot from this game and will definitely shorten my scope yet again for my next and final solo minigame.

                                                   -Feedback-

A lot of the feedback varied, but the common element was that the game was too slow-paced in the beginning, and they felt that being so slow didn’t allow the appropriate amount of time to enjoy the later stages of the game with upgrades. They found that it was very hard to die as the asteroids moved far too slow. Other feedback included having an initial tutorial to make sure the player knows what to do. The playtesters also seemed to all want the ability to move the ship around the screen, which I agree with and don’t honestly know why I didn’t think of that before. Overall the comments were very mixed. In my first minigame, the comments were all great and they wanted to play more, however I believe I missed the mark in terms of game speed and how that relates to the overall enjoyment that players feel from a fast paced game. Will have to keep that in mind for my next game.

Fullerton refers to: Fullerton, T. (2018). Game design workshop:a playcentric approach to creating innovative games. AK Peters/CRC Press.

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D-Day 2057 Development

The idea of this game is to do the opposite of my first, dragon run and implement very little to no art style but instead focus on gameplay. The main assets I want to develop in this prototype are a working pause menu/ shop to purchase; ammo, health and upgrades. As well as a working health system and limited ammo, which has to be purchased. Thus far I have developed a working pause menu and health and am working on the ammo system. I don’t think I will have enough time to implement enemies to the degree I would like, and I would rather not implement enemies at all than enemies that I am not happy with. For this game I found Fullertons’s 3rd chapter particularly useful, especially the part about resources within games and have thus decided to embrace that idea and make my game a resource driven game. Just like Fuller said in her ideas of currency, “One of the most powerful resource types in any game is the use of currency to facilitate trade.” I believe I have created a game that lives true to this statement and focuses around currency.

Fullerton refers to: Fullerton, T. (2018). Game design workshop:a playcentric approach to creating innovative games. AK Peters/CRC Press.

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D-Day 2057 Pitch

The year is 2057, humans have developed infrastructure on mars and the moon, this brought on many advancements, however it has also brought on many new challenges. Like who will be crowned king of Mars. In this space war for reign, will you be victorious as the sole survivor against enemy fighters? Fight through the front lines of this space war to be the last survivor, upgrade your ship with crew, weapons and parts.

This asteroid shooter style game focuses on upgrades and resources, as is primarily for 13 - 21 year olds.

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Dragon Run Postmortem

I developed this game with the intention of having a playable mini-game to showcase the art style and playing features. With this in mind, I almost completed the project's assets to how I would like it; the art style is exactly how I imagined and most of the game mechanics have been completed. However, I would have liked to create more of a level to showcase this better as well as have added more variety to the game, such as other attack methods, more enemies and more detailed background and foreground tiles. I have learnt that being too overconfident in what I can achieve in a week was my major downfall. What I wanted to achieve extra to what I did, would be extremely difficult and time consuming. For this game I took reference from Fullerton's book, chapter 2 where she talks of engaging the player, unfortunately I was unable to fully incorporate this into the game due to having too large of a scope and time constraints, but for the next game I will have to keep this in mind. For the next game, I would like to focus more on gameplay than aesthetics. Overall I think I, for the most part, completed my game to how I envisioned it to be with the exception of a lack of playable level.

                                                  - Feedback -

Majority of the feedback that I received said the same thing; they love how smooth the animations and design of the game are however would love to see the game progress and have more to play. There were a few mentions about how the fireball attack mechanic can be abused however as there is no recharge time before firing again, I will take this into consideration in the next project. Playtesters also mentioned that there were a considerable amount of bugs that needed to be ironed out, however it was not an issue as there was not much to play. I imagine that with more of a playable level, a lot more bugs would have been discovered as well as the ability to more easily test out particular mechanics, such as health, as the majority of the time the sole enemy was killed before the players took any damage and thus rendered the health potion unusable.

Fullerton refers to: Fullerton, T. (2018). Game design workshop:a playcentric approach to creating innovative games. AK Peters/CRC Press.

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Dragon Run Insights

From week 2 till now, I have discovered that my minigame scope was far too large and will thus be shortening it dramatically for the next game. I also discovered that my pitch was far too loose, probably due to the fact that my scope again was far too large, with a smaller scope that would be easier completed within the time concentrates it would have been easier to make a more informative as well as concise elevator pitch. Through in-class playesting I discovered that my artistic efforts were not in vain as everyone seemed to love my cute pixel art style, however they also wished that my game was more complete as I had a lot of testers comment that they would have loved to see where I would have taken the game. And from all of this I have taken away that I severely oversighted my scope and will be condensing my idea further in later games.

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Dragon Run Development

The goal of this prototype was to develop a platformer game in a week using G-Develop. This process started off with an idea of a cute pixel art style game. The beginning of the project was mainly learning how to use GDevelop and what I can do with it, specifically how to get the character to fire a fireball, which was particularly hard as I have never used GDevelop before. The art style was harder than anticipated as it required a lot of time and effort to edit each animation, making them seamless and cute. I have only managed to create the animations for Player Idle, Player Walking, Player  Attacking, Enemy Movement, Health Potion, Fireball Moving and Fireball Exploding. Majority of the time was spent developing the art style and thus left not enough time to complete the level. In this first game I took inspiration from Fullerton's book, chapter 2 where she talks of engaging the player. Specifically where she quotes Salen and Zimmerman about play, who defines play as “free movement within a more rigid structure”, this led me to feel as though the platformer aspect was the structure and to give the players as much freedom within the platformer as I possibly could. Unfortunately I have not been able to produce that rather large task, but that would have been the outcome if I had the time. In the future I will use free assets rather than developing my own art as it is far too time consuming, especially with an already limited time allocation of only a week.

Fullerton refers to: Fullerton, T. (2018). Game design workshop:a playcentric approach to creating innovative games. AK Peters/CRC Press.

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Experimenting with GDevelop

This week I began playing around with an unfamiliar program to me, GDevelop. As far as I can tell it mainly consists of visual game design as the programming is simplified as well as the animations. My idea for my first game is a pixel art platformer consisting mainly of cute art animations which is great for me as Gdevelop like previously mentioned focuses more on art style and gameplay over programming which really helps me develop this art driven game.