liam-foulger-games-t1

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Creating Death and Win Screen

To make a death and win screen I had to create a widget by right clicking in the content browser and selecting user interface and then widget blueprint.

I then had to drag and drop the sprite which I wanted to appear into the new blueprint and scale it up to fit the screen. Then you need to connect up the code so I made it when you press ‘K’ it makes your character die and then set delay so you could see the character death animation and then had it so it creates the death screen and then adds it to the viewport.

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Flowchart of game menu navigation

I chose the game Shadow of the Tomb Raider to do my flowchart on. This is a good way of breaking down the process of getting to play the game.

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Win and Lose Screen

I made my win and lose screen in photoshop so I could do it in the pixel art style. I took quite a lot of influence from The Legend of Zelda A Link to the Past. I did this because I really like the style of death screen it has, even though I wouldn’t use it for this game as I wouldn’t have a death system in the game as it is more like an adventure puzzler. I wouldn't use the win screen I made either as I would do a series of win screens which tell you how much of the story you know and lets you know what you’re missing so then people would wanna play through it again to find out what the whole story is. I still made these so then I could learn how you’d make and use them. My win screen still isn’t finished properly but I tried to follow it in the same style as my Game Over screen.

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Adding Sprites and Animation into Unreal

You add sprites into unreal by first putting in your image as a texture which you can do lots with them but it isn’t that useful until you turn it into something else so we turned it into a sprite. If you only have one sprite or image on there then you just turn that straight into a sprite but if you have multiple sprites on one sheet then you have to extract multiple which turns it into a grid. Extracting multiple is really useful for animation as you can then group those sprites and turn them into a flipbook. Turning them into a flipbook then allows you to change the timing for the animation.

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Collectible, Health Item and Damage Tile.

I made these different sprites for my game which allowed me to later put them into my game. I made a generator as a damage tile even though I wouldn’t use it in my game but it allowed me to learn how to use and make a health system. I also made a lollipop as a health item which I also wouldn’t use as you don’t need health if nothing can damage you, I could however adjust the code to make it into a life system. I also made a collectible which was a memory chip which I would use in the game as collectibles would be rare but play quite a big part in the game and trying to find out about the story.

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Tilemap Lesson

In this lesson I made a Tilemap for my game. This is where all the assets for my game would be stored, this is a good way of storing them and would allow you to keep them together. A good way of doing this might be to separate my tilemap would be by level or location so if I had an area like a dungeon I could store the assets for it in a seperate tilemap to my overworld or different level.

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Evaluation

I really enjoyed the pixel art in photoshop and that surprised me because I thought the art side wouldn’t be as enjoyable. This is because I’m that good at drawing but pixel art is a lot easier to do well and get right as it’s in  a grid. I also really enjoyed the coding and it was nice to use unreal for the first time and it is a lot easier to use than unity as it is visual based which is really nice and lets you lay it out better and make it easier to see how things link up. It also means you don’t have to worry about syntax errors which are when you make a mistake like leaving out a colon or some form of punctuation and means you have to take quite a while to work back through all your coding.

To improve on my game it would have been better if all the covid stuff wasn’t going on as it would’ve given me more contact time with the tutors and it would’ve allowed me to progress quicker. I would have progressed quicker because it wouldn’t have been 2 weeks in between coming in each time and then would have let the lessons flow better and it would take me less time to try remember and relearn certain aspects. I was absent one day which meant I was a bit further behind on the coding but we went through what I missed next time I was in so I understand how it all works now but learning how to do it earlier and doing all the work from that day would have helped the game look better.

If I was to redo the project I would work on the sprite sheet earlier because even though I really enjoyed it I worked quite slow with it and trying to get the assets to look really good. Another asset based thing I would change is creating the player sprite on more of an angle so then it would look better because it is facing forward and when it moves side to side it doesn't look the best as it has more of a stomping animation like it should be moving forward. I would also try do animate a bit quicker the sprites which would have allowed me to be able to code the animations in quicker. This would have really sped up the process because it is one of the last things we did so I would have been able to progress a lot faster and then make the game look nicer and added more to it so then it would play better as well.

I am looking forward to the next projecting and being able to do more coding and animation. I am looking forward to doing more coding as I enjoy it and understand it quite well. I enjoyed the animation a lot as well and trying to get the movement to look right and I would like to further develop my skills with it and having it look nice and a bit more realistic. I am also looking forward to when we can do more pixel art as it is something which I am enjoying and is a way for me to do art without having to draw which is what I struggle with more.

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Overlap Events

An overlap event is a form of collision which means that you connect with an object and they know they have overlapped this means that you can build a system around it. We learnt about some overlap events like getting a collectible or taking damage another example of these is pushing an object such as a box etc. This is used in lots of games to make anything from a really simple puzzle to something a lot more complex. A good example is in the Legend of Zelda games they use this overlap event quite often to make the game harder especially since you can only push the blocks once. They only use this in the older 2D Zelda games and I think a good example is from A Link to the Past where theres a room with these blocks stopping you from getting to chests so you have to move them in the correct way to get the items within them.

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Game Sprites and animation

We did animation using Photoshop so I started off by making a stickman and then animating a walk cycle for it. I made it look more like it was dancing but it was fun and taught me how to use timelines in Photoshop. Later once I had designed my robot I made a walk cycle for it as well. It didn’t go how I planned as I made it facing forward so to animate it I just gave it a stomp but I will have to change the way my character is facing so then it will look better and correct instead of having it move more side ways whilst facing forward like a crab.

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Pixel Art 8, 16, 32, 64 pixel

We made our collectible in photoshop this lesson. At first we had to make it in 64 pixel which allowed to give it lots of detail and make it look as nice as possible. Then we had to make it in 32 to pixel which meant we could give it less detail and had to choose specific parts which we thought weren’t needed and get rid of them so it looked less detailed but so people could still tell what it was. We repeated this process down to 8 pixel which only left the very core components of it. I chose to do a memory chip which wasn't the best choice as it is quite basic so there wasn't any difference between the 64 and 32 pixel drawing other than the having to scale it down to size but the 16 and 8 pixel drawings made me have to get rid of some aspects. This task was very useful as it let me see how big of difference there is between each size and made me decide I wanted to do a 64 pixel game because then I could have a lot more detail in my sprites.

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Rieko Kodama

Kodama was one of the first female video game artists and designed the art for many games such as Phantasy Star, the 7th Dragon series and Sonic. She has quite a good art style which is quite different between Sonic and her other games. This is most probably due to the difference in views. The art style for the games is very basic and has a lot more detail in the background. It’s hard to comm,ent too much on her work as I couldn’t find much of it.

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Ivan Dixon Pixel Artist

Dixon is known for recreating well known characters and turning them into pixel art and doing work for the Fallout SPECIAL videos, he’s also done some adverts for companies like Snickers and Corsodyl. His art style is good and the pixel art is very detailed and is well done. I really like the Fallout SPECIAL art style as it really suits the theme of the games and looks nice and has quite a lot of detail whilst still keeping a cartoon style.

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Paul Robertson

Paul Robertson is a pixel artist who is well known for doing the art for the Scott Pilgrim vs the world: the game, the Shantae series, Fez and many more games as well as some short films, theatrical films and TV series. He has become quite well known as an animator and artist. He has quite a defined art style and makes some quite odd pixel art. He also makes things look very detailed and is good at recreating characters in a different style. His art style is good and has quite a lot of detail but is very odd and is quite sexual.

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Different menu screens in 3 games

Final Fantasy XV

In FFXV when you load up the game it takes you through the screens telling you who the developers are and then you go to the main menu/title screen. From there you have the option of starting a new game, loading a previous game, looking at the DLC, looking at special features, opening the store, looking through the options like the language, difficulty, adjusting the combat and audio etc. You can also look at the licensing and credits for the game. If you decide to start a new game it takes you through some options to set up the game and if you choose to load a previous game then goes to the loading screen and then after it’s loaded you can go to either the map, the main menu or the pause screen. With the main menu you can go to the map, look at quests you have accepted, look and change your gear, look at the ascension tree and use AP points to upgrade them, look at the party members specific skills, check or make spells in elemancy, order your items, look at archived collectibles and look at timed quests. In the pause screen you can choose to resume playing, save the game, load a previous or different save, heck the options, look at tutorials or go back to the title screen/main menu.

DayZ

When you load up the game it takes you to the title screen where you get the option to press a button which takes you to the main menu, once in the main menu you get the choice to play the game by looking at the servers, look through the options, see the control scheme, look at some tutorials or an introductory video, to customise your character and finally look at buying some DLC. Once youve chosen a server you have to wait for it to load then you get to either look in your inventory which allows you to see what items you have either equipped or just in your storage and then in the pause screen you have the choice to continuing, looking at a tutorial, whos online in the server with you, at the options or at the control scheme as well as being able to invite your friends onto the server and exiting the game.

Shadow of the Tomb Raider

After you’ve gone through the screen talking about the games developers it then takes you to the title screen and tells you to press the options button which takes you to the main menu. On the main menu you have the option to continue where you left off, load a previous save, start a new game, try out the challenge tombs both DLC and base game, look at the community hub, the store, the options and the credits. Once you start the game you have to wait for it to load then you can look at the pause screen which allows you to resume playing, reload the last checkpoint, go into photo mode meaning you can take nice stylised photos without the HUD being active, look through the options and control scheme, change save slots and exit to the main menu.

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Research & Play

There are lots of screens etc that aren’t part of the gameplay itself like the title screen, the home screen of a game, there could be a save selection screen and a difficulty selection screen as well as the pause screen which includes setting selection and other things like that. There’s also death screens which bring up the restart option or for some games it auto restarts you. On level based games the win screen is another thing like that cause it gives you the choice of continuing to the next level and on most modern games you also get the choice of replaying the level to try do better than the last time you played through it.

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Death Screens Examples

The House of the Dead game over screen is a good example of what I dont want to do as it feels rushed and extremely basic. I think they could’ve done a lot more to make it look cooler and more engaging to the player by having something really basic like a zombie hand or head or just something else on there other than a white background with the words game over and some swirls around it. I like the game over screen from A Link to the Past as it is well made and has the animation Link dying just before the screen shows and then it brings up the game over screen and looks nice and is well done with the animation of the letters flying across the screen.

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UI example review

I agree that they chose some very good and stylish UI’s from ones which dont feel like UI’s like Dead Space and Metroid Prime so make you feel even more immersed in the game to others which are the complete opposite and are so vibrant and in your face but also very stylised like Persona 5 and Assassins Creed 2 and Prey. A UI needs to reflect the kind of game you are playing so really fits Dead Space in it being a creepy horror game so wants you as immersed as possible compared to Persona 5 which is turn based RPG which is very stylised and in your face throughout the entire game. I think another good example of a game UI is the modern Tomb Raider games cause I think they help with the immersion and make it seem more survival like with the way they’re laid out and the colour scheme used. I like how it has a 3D look to it being on a slight angle and moving when the play goes across it and I like the shadow to the lettering which you can see.