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Is Our Game Ready To Be Presented?

Its getting closer and closer to us being ready to present our game for Games Anglia and I wanted to check to see if we are ready to do this. We of course have a few more little development areas to work on however for the most part I would say that we are ready as a game right now you can both start it and complete it so the game is from a technical point of few finished.

I think that this project was a huge success with the game fowling most of the targets that we had set ourselves.

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Final Evaluation Of Our Project

When researching for the game my team and I would be working on, I knew it would be important to make sure to research games that had both similar themes and interesting, fun mechanics. This led me down the road of looking into many different farming games to see how they handled farming and what gameplay elements they used for their games. You can see me take inspiration from several of them on my blog, such as Red Dead Redemption 2 and Minecraft. At the same time, I needed to look into games that were very different from farming games. I looked into first-person shooters, action games, and even open-world games. This helped me greatly to understand what would make for good gameplay in my team's game. You can see evidence of this on my blog. When researching other games, I really came to understand and realize how important it would be to get the themes of our game across to our player base. I made sure to research many games that shared themes with our game. I researched many games that had themes of depression, isolation, and even loneliness, and I think this research played a key part in shaping our game's themes and making sure we represented mental health in a mature and correct way. I made sure to research my specialist practice in depth. I did this so I could understand everything I would have to do in my role to ensure our team's development stayed on track. By knowing my specialist practice, I was able to constantly contribute to our project in the most effective way. By researching, I was able to find out how to solve both ethical issues with our game and technical ones. By researching, I was able to identify problems with my level design and then fix them.

I found it fun and interesting pitching out game idea. Talking about the games native and level design was my favourite things to talk about.I think its important to talk about specific parts of the game idea that you have come up with and I fand this very fun to do so. After pitching and getting feedback both good and bad about my game pitch I came to realise just how important feed back is. As getting feed back helped me to understand which of my concepts would work and which ones I would have to adopted and change. There were a few ideas and concepts that needed working on but by getting fair feed back I was able to do this to great success. One adjustment I needed to make was to the games story. I needed to make it more clearer that the farmer you play as in this game was suffering from loneliness and isolation I of course did this by adding in a phone that would test the player telling them that whey need to get some help. We also had to change and adapt other things such as the art to make it a litter town for our game and also some gameplay elements such as removing a plank feature all things you can find on my blog. When making our game we made sure to take the menthealth side of our game creation proses very seriously. I did this by doing extensive research into  mental health and the mental health conditions that our game try to batray. I did investgation into how other games showcasue mentehalth in a mature and understanding way. And me and the team also tried to stay cleare menthealth stereotypes.

I found the process of working in a team to be highly effective for getting constructive work done. I believe this was the case because I could focus on designing the game, its story, and its levels, while my teammates could focus on their own areas, such as coding and art. That being said, working in a team can often be difficult as it does require a lot of coordination. However, overall, I thought my team and I managed to work together well.

We used several processes to keep the group organized and effective. I set up a Discord server so my teammates and I could communicate and work together even when we weren't working at the same time on campus. We also used email to frequently send each other parts of the game, such as game art and assets. Our main form of communication and organization was through Google Docs, specifically our meeting minutes. We used meeting minutes to hold a meeting every week so we could stay on track and ensure that everyone knew what others in the team were working on.

We faced few issues as a group, other than development problems, which we all worked together to fix and solve. Aside from that, we had minor disagreements regarding certain aspects of the game, but we were able to come to a conclusion by discussing them together as a team.

I enjoyed working in a group because I feel it gave me valuable experience for what it would be like to work in a team in the real gaming industry. I also found it easier in many ways to work in a team, as the workload could be divided fairly, allowing me to focus on being a successful game designer.

My core idea changed quite a bit throughout our development process of designing and doing the art for our game. For example, the most significant changes were related to the narrative and story elements. You can, of course, see evidence of this change on my blog, but I made many adjustments to the core story, such as adding a phone machine. One of the main reasons my story ideas changed was because of the mental health elements that my team and I wanted to convey to our players. These changes and adaptations happened during the creation process of the story and gameplay, such as making it clearer that our farmer was suffering from isolation and loneliness by adding a phone that texts the player.

I found working in a specialization to be highly beneficial, as I was able to focus on not only what I think I am highly skilled at—creating ideas for the game and working on level design and other elements of the game itself—but also because I was able to take full responsibility for one part of the creation of the game, which allowed me to work more efficiently. I found that working in a team taught me many things, such as how to communicate and work towards deadlines as a team, how to solve problems that a team member may have brought up, and how to properly deal with disagreements within a group.

If I had done anything differently, I would have made sure to have more team meetings and plan things more thoroughly with my team. However, overall, I thought that working in a team was very beneficial and effective.

My team and I made many adjustments to our game to ensure and produce a fun, well-done player experience. One thing we made sure to adjust was the ladder in the game, so that the player would be able to climb it seamlessly, as well as making the game's tasks feel fluid and comfortable for the player to do and complete. One thing that I was always trying to work on and improve was the game's level design.

I am happy to say that, though I would add more to the game if given more time, it is fully ready to be presented at the Games Anglia Festival. We have confirmed this by having a player start and a fully functional game, which can be completed. If I had more time, I would like to focus on making the game more accessible to people who have trouble with their vision. But overall, I think our game is highly accessible, and you can see evidence of this on my blog.

I'm very happy to say that my and our team's game is an outcome that I am more than happy with. The game's gameplay is fully completed to how we wanted it to be, with all three of the tasks in the game being fully compatible and all gameplay elements added that I and the team wanted to incorporate. I think our game conveys the feeling of loneliness and isolation very well. You can see this on my blog, where we gathered feedback, and many people said that our game made them feel lonely, which is exactly what we wanted to convey. We did this through our great gameplay elements, such as our text message system, our shadow system, and the game's overall vibe.

I would say that, through the narrative side of the game, which I had full control of creating, we managed to convey our mental health elements by having an incredible world and a focused story. The text messages telling the player that they are worried about them, the shadows throughout the game reflecting the farmer's friends and how isolated he feels, and the overall quietness of the game conveying that the farmer is on their own. There are also some gameplay elements, such as our game's fog, which helps make the player feel isolated. You can see evidence of all this on my blog and in playtesting.

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My Proposal/Our Proposal

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A Phone Was Added To Our Game

I really wanted the player to have someone be testing them throughout the game. Tell them that they are worried about them and that they feel that they are going down a bad path of mantel health. I did this so that the player could more easily understand what the games story was about and what the games core mantel health focuses was on.

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Level Designing #4

I added in the shadow people and I made sure that I placed them in key placed in the map/level so that the player would be able to instantly. I wanted there to be more and more shadow people as the game goes on and on so that the player can feel more and more overwhelmed.

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Level designing #3

I finally made my full level for the game. I made sure to first focuses my attended on the barn adding all the objects that the would only be for the background first. Then I would add in key intractable objects and place them into good spots that I think people would find ither harder or easier.

The second thing I did was make the outside of the map look nice and also play interesting. I then added in the games hoe that the player would have to find I made sure to make the maps layout with the main intractable objects in mind so that the gameplay would revolve around the core pick ups.

The last thing I did was add in the game’s crops. I made sure that all the activities in the game were placed in the order we thought the player would be most likely to do them in. We also did this to encourage the player to explore more around the game’s level and the world as a whole.

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Play Testing #2

We have got our play test info back so I thought I would go over what the play tester had to say about our game.

All the people who played our game said they liked the art. People, as you can see, had positive things to say about our art, and for the most part, they had very little complaints and said that the game’s art fitted the game and was good.

people said that they liked our gameplay mechanics which we were very happy to see. Most people also were in agreement that the gameplay felt good/smooth.

We were sad to see that people had problems with our games audio however in the in the end we understood the problem and I am happy to say as of writing this audio problems have been fixed and the games background audio has been changed out for something more fitting.

People came up with some great things to add to the game. We ended up adding in the fog that the first person suggested as me and the team think this makes the game feel a little bit more unsettling and really helps to show just how lonely the farmer truly is.

We were most happy to see that people thought our game was about Loneliness/farmers mantel health. This was great and we are glade that we could delver a strong mantel health message to most our players whop played our game.

Finely I was very happy to see that people found our game to be easily accessible.

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Play testing

We wanted to do some playtesting for our game to see what people thought now that it was nearly fully finished as a project. We wanted to understand a few things when playtesting for our game. The first thing we wanted to know was what people thought of our game’s art, as we knew how important a good art style is for a game project to be successful.

The second thing my team wanted to find out was what people thought of our game’s mechanics. Our game mechanics are the very things that hold our game as a whole together. I also understand just how important it is to get the gameplay right, so I wanted to make sure we asked players what they thought of our game’s mechanics.

The third thing the team and I wanted to ask about was the game’s audio. By this time in development, we had placed sound effects and audio into the game. We wanted to understand how the audio made the players feel, and if they thought the game’s audio was fitting and worked well with the game.

We also wanted to ask what the players would add to the game. I think it’s important to gather constructive feedback during playtesting so the team can see what players would have liked to see in the game that is not yet included, but could potentially be added.

Of course, I wanted to ask about the players’ thoughts on the mental health elements of our game. I wanted to do this because if the players don’t understand what the mental health aspect of our game is about, then we have a serious issue.

The last question I made sure to ask the players was whether they thought the game was easily accessible. I find it important to know if players think that many different kinds of people will be able to sit down and play our game.

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Level Designing In Unreal Engine #2

The first thing I did was place all the assets in the unreal engine world I did this so that I could see what I would be working with to make my games level. Once all the assets were in my games world I would first texture them so that I knew which asset was which.

The first thing I did was place the farm barn into the game. But I realized that the farm was by far too small for our game's world. I had to scale the barn up so that it would fit into the world. Once I did this, I placed the barn textures on the barn itself and then made sure the barn was where I wanted it in the game world. Once this was done, I could start my level design.

Once the barn was in the game, I first started to add some of the level's objects to the world. As the barn was one of the key places in the game world, I wanted to start by adding lots of different objects to the barn first. I started by adding in the wheelbarrow the player would need for the first task. I also added in 5 pieces of poo that the player would have to find in the level. The last thing I did was add some decorative items to make the game look appealing and like it had a lot in it. In the end, I think my first attempt at level design has gone well.

I then made sure to place some assets around outside the barn.

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Level Designing In Unreal Engine #1

I wanted to start to do some real level design in Unreal engine. I first got the artist of the group to send over everything they had made so far for our game. I would then downloads the art and convent it once this was done I would move it into unreal engine.

It would be important that the artist and I would be able to communicate and send each other texts through email to make sure we could both receive art, and I could, of course, text him to let him know that I have got the art.

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What I learned from looking at alternative media

I did some research, as you can see through my blog work, on other media and how they deal with different things that I have in our game. The things I looked into were how sound is used in different media and how the setting is used in different media. I chose to look into one TV show and two films. The TV show I wanted to look into was Better Call Saul, because this is one of my favorite TV shows of all time. I also wanted to look at the film Star Wars: A New Hope, as it comes from one of my favorite film series of all time, Star Wars, of course. I then wanted to have a look at a standalone film called Fall. This was a great film that came out in 2022, and it was great for the setting to look at.

When looking into Better Call Saul's sounds and music, I realized how important it would be to make sure that when I want sound in our game, we would really need it to stand out. What I mean by this is, yes, we are going to have sound—such as the sound of picking up stuff in the game, doing tasks, and even the sound of background ambiance—but I found that by looking at how Better Call Saul used sound, it can be a very effective storytelling element. I wanted to do the same for our game, so for key storytelling sections, we made sure to focus on audio design. We did this by having our game's main audio completely cut out at certain points and then replaced with key audio placed into the game instead.

From Star Wars, I learned how important it would be to have our game's sounds make sense for our game's setting. Star Wars has created some completely awesome worlds, and they always have sounds that fit each of these great worlds. Now, the game I'm working on is set on a farm. It's not a lone planet, but yet the sounds had to fit the game correctly. If they didn't, then the game would not work. I made sure that all the sounds in our game fit the game's vibe, feel, and atmosphere as a whole.

Fall was a great film to research. It really helped me and the team understand what isolation can do to a character. This helped me understand some of the emotions our farmer character might be going through. This film also helped me understand how setting can be so important. Fall is set in only one place, but yet the setting is done so well, and the film is still so entertaining. Much like Fall, I wanted our game's setting to be just on a farm, and I made sure that throughout the creation process, our game's farm stayed entertaining for the player and had enough gameplay elements so that the world would feel full. I hope that, just like in the film, players will stay connected to the game setting as there are many story elements and gameplay elements to keep the player engaged.

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Researching Alternative Medias #3 Setting

Fall is a film that came out in 2022. The film is about two girls who climb a really tall tower and end up getting stuck, unable to get back down. This film does setting really well; it is set on a large tower, and of course, that is it—there is no other major change in the setting whatsoever.

The film is set only on a tower—this is the only setting in the film, really, and it’s a great setting. The film is a really fun watch, but you might think that with no change in setting, how does the film keep the interest of people watching it? Well, the setting is consistent, but the story is very entertaining. The game, of course, that me and my team are working on does this as well, as you are only in one setting, but of course, that is the point—so that you can get immersed in the story of the game and understand everything that’s happening related to the farmer and the main character.

The film also, of course, does isolation really well, a concept that our game specializes in and makes one of the core features of our game. This helps us understand how setting can be so important and also how isolation can affect people, just like it affects our game’s farmer.

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Researching Alternative Medias #2 Star Wars A New Hope

Star Wars is one of the best TV media of all time. The film series has been going since the 70s. The films do so much right, both from a writing standpoint and from an action standpoint. The films do nearly everything right—well, depending on which film you’re watching, of course. The films are, for the most part, great, and the first one, now known as A New Hope, is a masterpiece in cinema history. One thing the film does exceptionally well is the sound and music.

A New Hope spawned a whole new load of iconic music and sound, all of those sounds, like I said, coming from this film. The music, the shooting noises, the sounds of the different objects—all of them fit so well. They blend perfectly, and they truly help create a fantastic and iconic atmosphere for the film's world. The team who made the first film really did a great job at making the sound effects in Star Wars, and just as a whole, making the movie’s music sound so iconic and unforgettable.

I wanted to talk about Star Wars because the films are some of my favorites to watch. They are truly made so well, done to the best ability of so many. I want our game to have sound that fits just like the sound in Star Wars. While, of course, our farming game won’t sound iconic, it may be able to sound just as grounded in its own world’s sounds as the Star Wars world does.

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Researching alternative medias #1 Better Call Saul

Sound

I wanted to research other media to see how they deal with different elements that we have in our own game. I ended up looking into Better Call Saul, a TV show that first released and started airing in 2015. The show is, of course, a spin-off of the highly popular show Breaking Bad. The show is breathtaking in so many ways and is also a great improvement in many areas compared to Breaking Bad, such as camera work, opening credits, and even the sound, and how sound is used. While sound in Breaking Bad can be used in cool ways, it is used even better in Better Call Saul.

Better Call Saul is a TV show that does sound well in many different ways, such as in action, romance, and especially in using sound and music for the show's often great time lapses. However, our game uses sound in quite a different way. Our game focuses on sound at critical moments, where the sound takes over and becomes the main focus just long enough for the player to understand the story more clearly. Better Call Saul does this in two standout ways. The first is through its flashback sections, or rather its "Gene" sections in the show. If you see a black-and-white section in Better Call Saul, you can often assume that the music and sound are going to be important. For example, when the show is in a Gene section, it really focuses on all the background sounds around Gene. This, of course, helps the audience understand how little Gene, the character, feels and how insignificant he has become as a person.

The second way the show does sound really well is through the character of Chuck McGill, a man who suffers from a mental condition where he is affected by electricity, so he can't get near anything electric, or it will cause him pain and discomfort. When there is electricity near Chuck, the show will introduce a buzzing noise, and as Chuck is more affected by the electricity, the noise becomes louder and louder, pulling the focus away from Chuck and more onto his condition, really showing the viewer just how uncomfortable he truly is.

Better Call Saul is a great show that handles sound in an excellent way. It also handles sound in a way very similar to our game. We only use sound to elevate our game's story at very key, important moments, much like Better Call Saul, which only really focuses on sound at key moments in the show.

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My Final Story Plan

This is my final story plan for our team's game that we have been working on. There isn't much I want to say here other than that I added the use of phones into the story plan. The phone/text messages will be triggered when the player enters key locations on the player area/map. Once triggered, a text message from a friend, or anyone the farmer knows, will appear at the bottom of the screen. These messages are being placed into the game to help the player understand that the farmer they play as is feeling lonely and isolated from people and friends. These text messages will enhance the game's story and help the player understand what is happening, making them feel empathy for the farmer. Bellow this text you can see the final story plan I also shared this with my two other partners who worked on the game.

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Our Final Team Meeting

We had our last team meeting today. As you can see, we had to make cuts for our game to be completed on time and released. I spoke to both the game developer and the artist of our game, and we discussed what each of us would be doing. I myself am going to do some level design, make sure my team is doing their job, and also ensure that our story fits the game.

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Adding a Text Message system To The Game

I was going over the story of our game just to make sure it was easy for the player and others to understand and know what the message is. While I feel the game's message is easy to understand, I also think it could still be worked on in a few different ways. So, I started thinking about how I could make it really obvious to the player that the farmer you’re playing as is going through feelings of loneliness and isolation without making it seem like I’m insulting the player’s intelligence.

That’s when it hit me: one of the main reasons farmers feel so lonely is because of their long hours of work and hard conditions, which almost require 100% attendance. This means they don’t have any time to go out and meet with friends and different people. I wanted the farmer to have a worried friend who would text the player at key points in the game, saying things such as: “Mate, I’m really worried about you,” and other things like, “Mate, I really think you should talk to someone, you know?”

I would have a PNG picture of a phone appear from the corner of the screen and show the text message to the player. This would show that the farmer is so overworked that he has forgotten to check on his own mental health and that he needs to talk to people. It also clearly shows that he has friends he clearly has no time to see due to work, and that he is suffering from loneliness and isolation. I think this fits the game's themes really well and works effectively at conveying that the farmer feels lonely and isolated to the player.