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[samgibbsmultiverse]

Evaluation.

Now we have reached the final part of the project which of course is the evaluation. Here I will be looking back and reflecting on the project to see how the project went.

What has gone well in this project?

Firstly let's talk about what has gone well in the project. I can say that in total that the project has gone well and I have managed to achieve more than I expected I could. Some things that have managed to go really well is the level design. I am really pleased with the outcome and that I was able to go ahead and duplicate the level as well as retexture them. I was also really pleased that the adding of the audio went well. Although I need to still go and add or alter some of the audio. I am still really pleased with the audio which I have managed to get into the project. Finally I am really pleased that I managed to go ahead and get in both if my game mechanics. I thought that coding these was going to be really hard but once broken down it actually was really simple to go and code into the game.

Have you found new software? New tutorial sites? New ways of working?

For this project I haven't really found any new software or tutorial sites which I don't usually use. In all honesty I don't think I used many tutorials in this project. I would say however that I have taken advantage of the Unreal engine asset store more in this project. I think this project has also taught me that when it comes to making models myself that it isn't really my area of expertise. I am more of a person who is interested in making the game mechanics and putting the game together than making the assets for the game. I did use audacity for a piece of audio in this project which in the end I didn't use because it didn't fit in with the rest of the audio.

Have you enjoyed anything about working in lockdown?

I have enjoyed a few parts of working in lockdown. Firstly I find that I don't get distracted as much. This is due to not having any of my college friends nearby to distract me. I also like the fact that I can be more flexible which what times I work. For example instead of doing the usual 9:15 -4:15 I would be doing at college I can do 10:15-5:15 which gives me more time in the morning to get personal stuff done. I also enjoy the fact that I can just be more relaxed at home and don’t feel so pressured and stressed. Finally I just feel like I get more done as I don't take a big a break at home than I do at college and might only take a 20 minute break for lunch and that would be it.

What could have gone better?

There are a few things which could have definitely gone better in this project. Firstly trying to make a transition from timelines in the switching mechanic. I tried to go ahead and have the screen go to grayscale as it transition however it didn't go to plan and I had to leave it in order to go ahead and leave it in order to work on other parts of the project. Secondly It would of been nice to of gone ahead and make an official trailer for my game,however I ran out of time and feel like this is better done while at college where chris can help me alot better in person. Another thing which Could have gone better is the eyepiece mechanic. I was hoping to texture the materials so that the new stuff that the person sees could glow in order to have it stand out more however this was quite hard and I wasn't able to achieve this.This is something which being at college would of been better as I could of easily gotten help from either sam or chris. Finally how long I spent on certain tasks could have gone better. There were some things which I spent hours on and then I either had to delete it and replace it with something else or even just not use it in general.

Would being at college with our software and hardware helped?

In all honesty I don't think so as I have all of the software and hardware at home needed to do my project. It has helped that the college has gotten students there own adobe cloud accounts now as it makes it so people who couldn't pay for it can now go ahead and pay for it. The only thing which would of been better about going  to college is being able to get help from sam and chris easier. I really struggle to get help over text and am not the sort of person who is comfortable enough to get help over a discord call.

Has the open brief been harder or easier? 

I would say that then open brief has been easier to work with. It means that people are able to have a bigger topic they can work to. When it comes to briefs which are very specific this can lead to people getting stuck on what they should create as well as people not liking what they are maling which of course means they lose motivation for the project. I liked how I either had the choice to go ahead and work on a project which I had already made or to go and create my own project which is related to one of the briefs we have already worked on.

Were you anxious due to the current situation or work?

In all honesty not really as I have all the stuff I need to still effectively work at home. I can practically get all of my college work done at home as well as I could do it at college. However I feel like if I didn't have the software and hardware to work like usual then I would definitely feel more anxious and frustrated. It has been nice however to work at my own pace and get stuff done at my own speed.

What are you planning to do in the future?

In the future I am hoping to go off and do the uni course which is being run by my current lecturer. I hope to be able to go ahead and study there and get my full uni degree in games design. Once I finish Uni I am hoping to go into the position as a games design teaching assistant at hopefully west suffolk college. I feel like this sort of field of work will definitely be the right place for me as I love teaching people and helping them with stuff. To be able to aid people in creating their own games is something I would love to do as I really enjoy being able to help people.

Has this put you off from working at home in the future...Do you now want to work from home? 

Currently I am really happy working at home but I am worried that soon the motivation to work might unfortunately fade and that I might not be as motivated to sit down and do my college work at my usual standard. I really hope this doesn't happen and that I will still have the motivation to go ahead and work like usual. I fear that I might get distracted too much at home to go ahead and do my work consistently on a monday,tuesday and a wednesday. I also feel like that it would be a lot easier at college to go and ask for help off of friends as well as my teachers.When it comes to the fact of do I still want to work from home its sort of yes and no. The yes being that I am not distracted by my friends from college as well as I can work at my own pace and speed at home. Another factor is of course at college we do have some taught lesson time on unreal which teaches us things which I might not be using in my project. This means that in my blog I feel like it is out of place as it is unrelated to my project as well as I feel like these sessions take up time which I can use in order to continue progress on my project. However I would like to return to college as getting help from others as well as having people play test my game would be a lot easier.

What software do you plan on using for your next project? Why?

In all honesty due to me not knowing what I have planned for my next project I can't really definitely say what software I am going to be using for sure in my next project. One I know for sure is going to be Unreal as this is the programming software in which I am most comfortable in and know that I can work better in compared to unity. The other piece of software I am pretty sure I will be using is going to be photoshop. This is due to me using it for stuff such as texturing and widgets. This also includes menus and win/lose screens. The reason why I use photoshop is because it is professional as well as easy to use compared to other pieces of software I have tired to use.

[samgibbsmultiverse]

Making surveys to get feedback.

We are now starting to come towards the end of the project and I am now at the stage where I can confidently say that I can go ahead and start presenting my game to people. For this I am wanting to get some feedback on my game. Due to the current situation I am not able to get people to play my game. However I can still go ahead and create a google forms for people to fill out. In the google form I can go ahead and add in screenshots as well as videos of my game for people to give me feedback on.Here is a screenshot of the form I have created.

Firstly I wanted to go ahead and see how well I was advertising my game. Did it sound like a horror game and did it look like a horror game. To do this I first asked people what genre the games name gave off. I then also went ahead and added in a photo of the environment and asked people if the image gave them the feeling of a horror game. This is to make sure that the environment fits with the games genre. The main thing with horror game is that the environment and atmosphere is what made them scary. This means that the environment is very important when making a horror game.

Here are the results of the first part. I was quite surprised as to how much of a mixed response I got. Although most people think it is a bad thing that the game title doesn't scream horror game. In some cases this isn't a huge issues. Some game titles sometimes don't really give off that it is meant to be a horror game. One example of this is Freddy Fazbear's Pizzeria simulator.

The second question is about the image and I am quite happy with the different results I got from this. Most people could tell that it was a horror and commented on the atmosphere as well. They said that the image gave off “creepy and abandoned vibes.” as well as how the dark open aesthetic would raise levels of anxiety in the player.

We now move onto the next section where I ask questions about the game play mechanics. In my game I have 2 main gameplay mechanics. In the form I show a video of the mechanic working followed up by if they like the mechanics as well as what games it reminds them of.

Here are the results from the first gameplay mechanic. This is the mechanic where the player gets to hop between the 2 different timelines.A lot of people liked the game play mechanics and felt that it was interesting,makes the game feel bigger,adds in more dynamic for the player to explore as well as feels innovative. 2 responses here really caught my attentions which was:

“ I don't really see its impact on my gameplay experience from that video - maybe some sort of animation or way of showing the movement of time as a transition would help show a change. “ - For this I can understand why they have said this comment. There isn't currently any story which suggests why you would need the gameplay mechanic.When it comes to the animation however I did look into this and tried to implement some sort of animation. However I did really struggle and due to the limited amount of time I had left I decided to go ahead and focus on other main things which needed to be finished.

Yeah I love it. just of the top of my head you can have some very scary things in one timeline and normality in the other. like if there was blood on the floor in one and then you switched and you can see why. -  With this comment I can only say that this sort of thing is what I was going for however I did run out of time.If I had more time I would love to go ahead and add in this sort of environmental storytelling.

Finally we have the question about what games it reminds them of and why.The answers I got were:

Batman Arkham series because the detective mode shows things you can't normally see.

Dishonored 2

Titanfall 2

Return of the Obra Dinn

When it came to these I was quite surprised at the answers.I wasn't expecting one to be Batman Arkham series. I didn't know that this game had a similar concept.The other one I didn't expect was Return of the Obra Dinn. Although I know what the game is about I didn't expect anyone to mention the game. I most likely should of done some research into the game.

This is the results of the second gameplay mechanic. I asked them what games it reminded them of.Most people said that they couldn't think of a game which uses them. However a few answers talked about medium and silent hill. I haven't played either of these games so wouldn't really be able to comment on them. Many said that they couldn't think of any and one said that they found it unique which is good.

Now we move onto the next section which talks about audio,What sort of games my whole game reminds them of and anything that I should add in in order to improve my game. It is good to know what they think of the audio as this is another major part in making the game scary. Next it is important to know what sort of games this reminds them off because similar games normally have the same sort of audience.This will help with my target audience. Finally we have the things to improve. This is to help me know what people would want added,taken away or even just altered. 

Firstly we have the part about the music. The question was about whether the music made them feel scared or uneasy and its good to see that the majority said yes. This means that the audio was effective and is setting the atmosphere how I wanted it to. In the answers of the next question people said that the music was too clear and said that to maybe get rid of it or move it to a location which cannot be reached. I did originally try to have it play inside of on of the top rooms in the house so that the closer you get the music gets louder. However I wasn't able to achieve this.No matter where I was in the house it still was the same volume. This is something I will have to look into when I do my next project. It was good that the other parts of the audio made them feel like they weren't alone and made there heart race.

We then go ahead and see which games my project reminded them of.Some examples where slender due to the dark atmosphere and the walk speed,The shining film due to the location,Folklore hunter due to the children's audio and finally layers of fear due to the small corridors and smart game mechanics. These aren't games I had really thought of which is really interesting. Due to these not being games that I thought of maybe this could be an indication that I didn't do enough research or this could just mean that there are many games similar to mine. This might means my game falls under a horror game stereotype.

Next we move onto the question about whether they would play the game.This questions I knew was going to have mixed results because this question relies on if the person likes playing horror games or not. Most people did say yes but only if it wasn't too demanding and was either free or easy to access. One person did mention that there isn't really a goal for the player to reach soo they would most likely not play it. Initially this was meant to be more of a walk around experience than a game, However if I was to continue n this project I would most likely make it a game with a goal. This is what I talked about in the win/lose states blog post.

We get to the final question on the survey which is what else should I add to my game. The thought of putting in little jumpscares when the players open a door is a really nice idea and I will definitely think about adding thi into my game.Having a clear goal as well as a transition between dimensions is also a really good idea as well. This will add more fluidity to the game and make it seem more professional and better developed. The idea of altering something in one timeline which affect the other is a really good idea and will have to be something that I look into. This would add more to the purpose of swapping between the 2 different timelines. I also think adding in ghosts would be really good to as it would give the player a more visual horror experience than it mainly coming from the audio.

In summary I have learnt alot about what people think of my game. I have learnt what parts I have done well,what parts I can improve on and stuff I can also add into my game. I have also leant what games my project reminds people of in order to know what sort of other games my audience might enjoy.

[samgibbsmultiverse]

Retexturing my other level.

In order for my concept of swapping between 2 different time lines to work I need to go ahead and retexture my levels in order to make one look more modern and the other keep its old look. Hopefully there shouldn't be too much retexturing as most of the assets can easily be retextured to be a different colour.

Firstly we have of course the living room area which although it hasn't changed much this screenshot is mainly to show off that I have changed the wallpaper texture. Instead of the wallpaper being all dirty and ripped like the previous level it is now all nice and clean as if it was freshly put up on the walls.

We then move on into the bathroom. In here I have retextured the sink,curtains,bath and the mirror. This gives the bathroom a cleaner and newer look to it compared to the other textures which were previously there.

Next we move onto the master bedroom. In here I have changed the texture of the bedding,wardrobes and curtains. This is one room where you can really see a huge difference when you switch between the 2 time lines.

Finally we have the downstairs dining room table where I removed some of the dirty stacks of plates as well as swapped the dirty plates for cleans plates.

Most of the other rooms done have massive changes to the texturing apart from the curtains and walls. So I have decided to go ahead and show you the new outside of the house. Although I haven't had time to go ahead and retexture the actual house I have gone and retextured the fences to make them look new and freshly painted. I originally made the fences white but then decided that the dark drown look was actually much better.

Finally I have also produced a video which shows off my game. In here I show off the switching mechanic as well as the eyepiece mechanic. What you will notice is that the eyepiece mechanic doesn't show anything up in the past time zone where everything is fine.One thing I can do if I was to progress with my game is of course go ahead and use it in order to find codes for things such as safes or maybe hidden passage ways. These would be intidates with a light blue instead of a red that the current ones are. This is because due to them being in the past time zone this are going to be more useful and positive signs instead of the current signs in the present timeline.

[samgibbsmultiverse]

Adding audio into my game

Now we are at a stage where we can go ahead and start adding in the audio for the game. The audio is hopefully what is going to make the game have a more creepy and horror atmosphere. After looking around quite a bit I have managed to go ahead and find some really good audio for my game which includes some creepy nursery rhymes, some footsteps for the player, some creepy laughter and some other audio.

I managed to find a creepy version of ring around the rosie which was royalty free. This means I am able to go ahead and use it for my game.I went and downloaded the audio.

From there I then went and created some of my own audio of the lyrics. I changed the lyrics a bit in order to make them more creepy and different from the original. I then took the audio and put it in a voice changer which makes it more distorted and creepy, Once that was done I went into audacity and combined the 2 audios together to make one sound file.Although some of the lyrics can be inaudible I think this adds to the effect. Like the Five night of freddy's games which contains some inaudible audio, it adds to the scare and mystery to the game.

Then in the game we need to make audio triggers. These are blueprints which are basically box collision which then when the player walks through them will do a piece of code which will then play the audio. This is pretty simple to set up and will be scattered around the map with different sounds to play. Here is an example of the coding which depending on the sound will vary.

I have then gone ahead and added it in so that the front door slams behind the player. This means they are now trapped inside of the house. Here is a video with some of the audio I have included so far.

In the video you can hear some of the audio I have managed to implement. I am quite happy with the audio I have found and feel like it adds to the horror atmosphere. For example the background music which gives the sort of ambient noise is inspired by phasmophobia as when the player walks into the house I think it really adds to the horror and supernatural aspect of the environment. All of the audio in the level is royalty free or is under a creative commons 0 license.I mainly got my audio off of youtube or free sounds like I usually do for most of my audio for my projects.

[samgibbsmultiverse]

Polish

Now we are going to go ahead and polish up our eyepiece mechanic. This means that we are going to go ahead and test it inside of our actual game and use proper textures to try it on.To do this first we need to go ahead and add the eyepiece code into our game file. This is easy as I can go ahead and just use the code I already have.Once the code has been put inside of the game we ca then go ahead and add something which is going to be effected by this mechanic. This includes paintings.

Getting the paintings retextured.

Firstly I need to retexture my paintings in order to have a variety in my paintings. I am also going to be having 2 different versions of the paining. The original texture and the new texture when it is seen through the eyepiece mechanic.I need to first get the measurements for the image inside of the paintings I am using. I can do this by going inside the model and looking at the details. Here is says that the image is 512 pixels by 256 pixels.

From there I then go inside of photoshop and make a canvas to this size. On the canvas I need to go in and add the painting which I want to use. For this I am going to jut be using mainly old portraits of people. Here is one I found and put inside of the canvas.

From there I am then going ahead and adding in the details which can only be seen using the eyepiece game mechanic, I have decided to go for these scratch marks.Although they are black in the image in the end I did go and change them to red instead in order to help them stand out more.

Once I had that done I then exported the pngs inside of the game and made them into materials which I then went and put on the painting.Here is the painting in its normal state.

Once I had all the code done and added in the widget for the game mechanics this was the final result. In all honesty I was hoping to be able to have the scratch marts be a separate material which I could put on a plane in front of the painting. This is so that I could make them look like they were glowing however I couldn’t quite figure out how to do it and with the end of the project being so close I have decided to go ahead and focus on some other things.

[samgibbsmultiverse]

Weekly reflection week 4

it has once again come to this part of the week where I need to go ahead and reflect on the work I have done this week. Here I will be seeing what I achieved well, what could of gone better and what I pan to try and achieve next week.

What went well:

Firstly we have the what went well part and i think that quite a few things went well this week. Firstly I was able to go ahead and add in the windows and walls like I had hoped as well as go ahead and get all my assets put in place. I am really happy with how my level had turned out and am glad that I also managed to go ahead and duplicate it. I was actually really happy with how easy it duplicated and was afraid that duplicating it wasn't going to work as well and was going to be more of a problem.

What could of gone better:

I can't think of much which really could of gone better this week apart from the fact that I didn't do any college work over the weekend meaning I could of mayabe got more blog work done or maybe started on doing my audio for the game.

What do I plan to get achieved next week:

Some of the things I plan to achieve this week are :

Retexture my duplicated level

Add in some audio

Start work on a trailer

Update my itch.io page

[samgibbsmultiverse]

Playlist Week 4

This week I have been quite into a lot of horror and although I haven't personally been playing any horror games I have like many others been watching other people play them on youtube.

Resident evil 8:

Recently a lot of the youtubers I have watched have managed to be able to play this game. In the video they go ahead and are able to play the demo for the game.In the demo we are of course introduced to new characters. Due to this game not being a remake and is actually its own separate game we as the player don't know what is coming which unlike people who had played the original versions of the resident evil 2 and 3 games. When playing the remakes they knew what was coming and what was going to happen. Like usual they have done an amazing job with the graphics design as well as the character design.Not only do we have the demo we do of course have the trailer as well.

In all honesty I am not really one from really watching trailers but this was absolutely amazing. It shows off so many main characters as well as enemies in the game which does a really good job of making the player intrigued and ask questions which they are going to want answers to.

Now the question is. is there anything I can take away from this to add onto my next project and in all honesty I think I can. The main things I feel like I can take away from this is firstly the amount of detail and environmental storytelling they put into their game is amazing and in all honesty I find it to be admirable and I hope that one day I make games which look that good. The second thing I would take is the trailer. I really want to make an impactful trailer for my game and even though my trailer isn't going to look anywhere near as good as this I really want to be able to make an effective trailer which makes the player interested and intrigued.

PT:

Next we move onto PT which although is an old game I still think it was an amazing and incredible game. This game proved that you don't need a massive map in order to make a successful game. This game is perfect t get you little spice of horror. With the level design being really good as well as the character models fitting in perfectly with the game. I am not too sure If I can go ahead and take much from this game apart from the fact that you don't need loads to make an effective horror game. Sometimes simpler can be better.

Pacify:

The next game I have been looking at is Pacify and can I say that this game is actually really good. I really like the fact that the game is multiplayer and that you can enjoy the horror with your friends. The games level as well as the character designs are really good as well. The audio also adds to the horror of the game. This game does well to not head to one certain genre of fear such as a fear of spiders or a fear of the dark. This means that everyone can be scared by it. From this game i would definitely take the level design though as inside the house looks amazing and it is textured really well. I also like that the game is multiplayer so in the future that might be something to look into.

Dead realm:

Lately I have been watching a lot of dead realm videos. I find this gem to be really nice looking and I also lie the game play. The aim to find 10 pocket watches and then having to try and find the exit is a really nice game play choice.I also find the level design to be amazing as well as the character design. I think that they did really well when it came round to making these games. Not only that but the HUD is also really good as well and doesnt take up too much of the players screen. The ability to play as either a civilian or a ghost is really nice as well as it adds more fun to the multiplayer aspect of the game. Your not running away from just a random AI ghost but actually your friend. This would be a really nice feature to add into my game if I had the time and skills to implement it.

[samgibbsmultiverse]

Duplicating my level

This blog post is going to be a relatively short one. Now I have all my assets in the right place I feel like now it is time to go ahead and duplicate the level.This is so that I can still have 2 weeks working on the final aspects such as retexturing the other version of the mansion to look newer. I can also focus on getting my audio and game mechanics such as my switching timelines as eyepiece mechanic done.

When going ahead with duplicating my level it was pretty simple.All I had to do was select all of the assets and move them across. Although this was a big challenge and it did cause my laptop to drop frames it actually went well and I am really glad that I have managed to make this much progress and get to this stage.

[samgibbsmultiverse]

Adding in furniture and wall decorations.

This stage is the last part that needs to be done before I am able to duplicate the level. I have been putting off duplicating the level as I wanted almost all the assets of the level to be in place before I go and duplicate it. This is so it will save me time as I won't have to put assets down again and all I will need to do in the new level is go ahead and retexture it so the duplicated level looks more modern.

As discussed before I have already collected some assets to use as furniture, However I may need to go ahead and friend some more assets to put in as well if I don't have all the ones I need or if some of the ones I have dont fit the atmosphere. Here Are some screenshots from my level. All the assets here are free to use and are either from the Edith Finch unreal packs or they are some models which I have found from online.

This is just a little screenshot of a really nice sitting area upstairs by the window. I put this hear as I feel like in the old times they would have little sitting areas in places where they had the space.

Next to the sitting area I have a bookcase with a painting. This painting shows up around the mansion but when I plan to retexture the mansion I will be changing the images on some of the paintings. I think the bookcase is a nice choice to have near the sitting area as people sitting there might want to of read a book. When placing down my assets in my levels I am trying to place them down as realistically as I can as I wont the level design to feel like ti is the layout of a mansion that someone would actually live in.

Here we have the downstairs sitting area. This is more of the living room than the sitting area. This is right as you come in the door and I decided not to make it its own room. This is due to the fact that in Resident evil 7 when they have all the furniture and living room area in the open space I think it is a lot nicer. I also feel like this is the sort of thing that would be inside an old countryside mansion.

Across from the living room area we have the dining table as well as a grand piano. Now some things still need retexturing to look a bit old but I have added in some features such as on the table are piles of dirty plates as well as some smashed plates too.

Now we start heading into the actual individual separate rooms starting with the downstairs. Here we have the bathroom which is pretty much simple. The toilet does need retexturing but I am in the process of doing that currently. In the rooms where I can I have added in some curtains which do contain blood on them to add to the horror effect.

Across from the bathroom we have the study. This is mainly full of books and a desk. Unfortunately many of the downstairs rooms are mainly just for fillers and to add more character to the environment as I have more space than I thought I needed. In the room we also have a tipped over chair. I do plan to eventually go along and misplaced inside of the level but thought when it comes to duplicating the level it is easier for all the furniture to be in its natural position before I go and change them.Its easier to make an object misplaced than it is to fix a misplaced object.

The next room we have is a sewing room. This is mainly for the maids to use and is why the room is across from the maids room. In here we have 2 sewing stations as well as some mannequins. 

Here we have the maids room where all the maids stay and sleep. They all get a set of drawers each and share 2 mirrors between them. This again was just a room that I filled up as I really had no planned use for it. This room was originally the room which lead downstairs to the basement. However I decided to get rid of the basement as it was not needed. I didn't have anything to fill the basement with and I couldn't think of what I could fill it with.

Now with the downstairs done we are now heading to the upstairs. This first room is the teenage daughters bedroom. In here she has her own little painting area as well as a reading area in the corner.Here is one example of one room having the same painting. These again will be changed soon.

The next room is the nans room. Much like in resident evil 7 there is also an Ill nanny.This is here room where she has a hospital bed as well as a wheelchair and walker. The wheelchair could be used as a horror feature if I have time. We can have it so the wheelchair mysteriously moved when no one it touching it almost as if it has been moved by a ghost.There is also some pill bottles on the bed too. I am trying to use the assets in order to try and do some environmental storytelling. In this room I am trying to tell the story about how someone was really ill. This can make the player ask questions such as why were they ill, who were they, did they survive and are they still in the house as a ghost.

This next room is the parents bedroom. The main feature for this is the blood stained bedding which is there to hopefully add more to the atmosphere as well as the environmental storytelling.

Finally we also have the kids room where they have their own halves of the room which contain there own little forts. As part f my hopes for this is to have some sound effects which indicate children ghosts this room is important as it showed that 2 siblings lived here.

Feedback:

I did go ahead and get some feedback from people and most people said that they really liked it and enjoyed it. One person did mention that the rooms seemed to rectangular and had no depth and dimension to them. I 100% agree with this however due to the game being so dark I feel like going ahead and trying to change the room shapes wouldn't be as impactful. Also with me only having 2 weeks left to complete my project I need to focus on other parts of my project to make it playabele.

[samgibbsmultiverse]

Adding in a door blueprint

Of course in order to make it so our player can get inside the mansion as well as inside of the rooms we need to add in a door mechanic. I have fortunately done something like this before for my other games. Here we make an actor blueprint and put our door mesh inside of the viewport.

Once we have our mesh in here we then also need to add in a box collision with the collision set to overlap. This is so that when the player goes to press the button to open the door it can check whether the player is standing near the door. This is needed otherwise when the player presses the open door button it will open the door whether they are near the door or not.

Now we have that set we can now go into the event graph of the blueprint and put in the code for the door opening. Firstly we start off with when the player overlaps the box collision it will enable input and when they leave the overlap it will disable input. This is so that the player can actually press a button as an input. From there we have it set so when the press the Q key it will then go ahead and set a boolean variable called press to true. We then also have it set up so when the person leaves the box collision it will set the boolean back to false.

Then we go ahead and add in 2 integer variables called loop and loop 2. We compile these and have their values default set to zero.

Then we go ahead and using an event tick go through a delay which I have set to 0.01 seconds. From there we go into a branch which checks if the press boolean is true of false.

If the boolean is true then it will go ahead and go into another branch which checks if the value of loops is <= to 100. If it is then it will go ahead and get the doors rotation and add 1 to its Y axis. Then it will set the value of loops to loops + 1. This means that this piece of code will keep playing out until loops is <= to 100.

The loops 2 variable is going to be used for when we want to shut the door. In this I haven't given the player the ability to shut doors (although this might change later). This is so that I can have some doors slam shut in order to add to the horror and ghostly aspect of the game.

[samgibbsmultiverse]

How would I go about adding a story into my game:

Now of course all good horror games have a story to them. Due to me not having cut scenes however I need to find ways to put my story into my game. We can do this through a process called environmental storytelling which I have already discussed before. The question is what forms of environmental story telling can I use inside of my game.

The Eyepiece mechanic:

Firstly we have the eyepiece mechanic. This is a game play mechanic for The Room games which I have decided to add into my game. With the eyepiece mechanic we can do some really good environmental story telling. With the eyepiece being able to show the player stuff they usually wouldnt be able to see.This can include many things such as:

Ruined versions of paintings

Blood stains/marks

claw marks

handprints and footsteps

Journal pages and newspaper articles:

Not only can we use of eyepiece game mechanic in order to put some environmental storytelling into our game we can also use the normal horror game method of using audio cassettes and new paper articles. These can have passages talking about what happened here and what people may have experienced. 

[samgibbsmultiverse]

How can I share my work

In the previous blog post I talked about getting feedback from my game. However of course in order to get feedback I need to be able to easily share my game with people. Now there are many ways I can go about sharing my game with people.Whether this is through them actually playing my game or just them seeing videos of my game. I am lucky that there are many platforms where I can go ahead and share my game in order to get feedback. 

Discord:

Firstly we have discord. On discord we have of course our class group server where we can go in and post links to our game websites as well as our game videos. Due to this being a place where there are a lot of people similar to me this means that they will be able to give me more professional feedback on my game as they know what goes into making a game. Also due to the server being full of so many people this means that there is a chance that hopefully quite a few people will be playing or atleast seeing my game.

Amino:

Amino which isn't talked about much is an app where you can go ahead and join communities. On this app I am in some game development communities where people show off their games and get feedback on them.Thought you can directly upload your whole game onto the app you can still out in links to youtube videos as well as screenshots and artwork from your game. The app has built in polls and quizzes you can get people to answer so it means you keep all your presentation as well as feedback in one place which can be really handy. These communities can also contain lots of members meaning that your game can be seen by many people who will comment on your work and give feedback. They can also follow you in order to hopefully see more of your work in the future.

Itch.io:

Of course like usual we have itch.io. This is the only platform I talk about where you can actually upload your game onto for people to play. I know there are other platforms that can be used but this is the one that I will be using.On here people can often give you feedback through comments or even posting links to videos they have made while playing your game. Itch.io is a very popular website for people finding small little game to play either for free or for a small donation.

Youtube:

We also have youtube which I have discussed before. Here I am able to upload clips of my gameplay, trailer videos as well as audio clips of my game in order for people to see. These can be easily shared through links so they are really easy to distribute.

Friends and Family:

Finally we of course have family and friends.With this I can go ahead and send my friends and family builds of the game as well as links to my itch.io page and any videos I have of my game.

[samgibbsmultiverse]

Plan recording feedback

Now of course in order to find out what people like and dislike about my game I need to be able to get feedback on my game. This feedback is what is going to help me find out what people do/don't enjoy about my games as well as what I could add into my game to improve it. Not only will feedback be just about my game play but it will also be about my trailer as well as the audio choices I have used for my game.

How will I get feedback:

One way I will of course get feedback will be surveys. When I upload my game onto itch.io or give it to friends/family to play I can also give them a survey for them to fill out in order to get feedback on my game. This survey I can give them digitally  by using something a software such as google forums. Of course due to covid I can't do what we would usually do and have classmates in class play our game and give feedback. This means that all my feedback must be able to be done digitally and can be accessed easily. This is one other reason why something such as google forums is great as it is free as well as can be accessed on things such as pc,laptop and phones.

What will I be getting feedback on:

Due to covid I also have to think about what I will receive feedback on. Of course as much as I would love to get loads of people playing my game I have to understand that a lot of my friends as well as family members won't have the right sore of equipment to run my game. This means I will also need to receive feedback from other things. This will include the looks and presentation of my itch.io page, game play footage, trailer videos as well as game audio. This makes it easier for me to get feedback on my project.

Video feedback:

Firstly we have the feedback for any videos we upload. Now of course we can just provide the person with surveys which talk about the videos which have questions about the gameplay as well as the setting and atmosphere of the game.Due to it being a horror we also need to make sure we hit the criteria for making the player feel somewhat scared. These questions could include:

What did you think to the gameplay mechanics featured in this video

Was there anything you saw which really interested you

Was the atmosphere right for a horror game genre

Did you find the video scary and if so why

From what you have seen would you play this game

These questions can give me some guidance into whether people like the game and if they find the setting of it to be right for a horror game.For this game I really need to make it a horror game for all so I cant use phobias in order to make the game more scary as it means that the game will be scary for some and not others. This is why I need the feedback to know whether I am making the game scary while avoiding using phobias.

Audio Feedback:

We can also talk about audio feedback,with the game heavily focussing around audio in order to give a horror atmosphere to the game I need to make sure that the audio fits my style of game and whether others feel like it fits too. In order to do my audio feedback I would most likely put together a series of audio clips from my games audio. The request that the listener closes there eyes as they listen to the audio. The the first question I would have is:

“what did you imagine while listening to the audio”

This is a good way of getting the audio feedback as it doesnt tell the person that the audio is directly from a horror game. This means if they answer with something that is happy and positive then I have done my audio wrong. However if they reply with a dark and negative image then it means that I have done my audio correctly.

Then what I could do is show then screenshots as well as clips of the game and ask them whether they believe that the background noise fits the setting.

Presentation feedback:

The final way I can get feedback is of course through presentation. This will be me getting feedback on my itch.io page. From the feedback I can find out whether I need to add in more screenshots as well as game play footage in order to show off my game better to people viewing my itch.io page.Here are some of the questions I can ask in order to get some feedback from my itch.io page:

Was the trailer long enough

Did the trailer show enough content.

Do I need more screenshots of my game for my page.

Do you think the page represents the game well

Is there anything I should add to the page

Does the page make you want to play the game. explain why

This will help me develop my knowledge as to what I need to add into an itch.io page in order to make it stand out as well as interest people into playing my game.

[samgibbsmultiverse]

A Theoretical problem:

For one of our blog posts we need to discuss a theoretical problem. This is where I discuss a problem which I may or may not encounter. This includes the possible situation of me uploading my game to itch.io. What sort of problems may I encounter and how would I go about overcoming my problem. To start with I am already familiar with how to set out a page for my itch.io game but of course there are going to be some problem which I may have to try and overcome. The first problem is that I am going to have to overcome is building out my game ready to share with others as well as to put on itch.io.

Now of course the first way I can go ahead and start to find a solution to my problem would of course be the internet. This is of course meaning stuff such as community forums as well as youtube tutorials. The other way I could go about finding the solution of the is asking my Lecturer Sam who can talk me through the process as well as help me out with any problems I have.

Making a multiplayer:

Another theoretical problem could of course be trying to implement a multiplayer into my game. As discussed in my other blog posts I have discussed how multiplayer could possibly be implemented into the game. This could include having a cat on mouse feature in the game where one player has to try and find the other player. Almost like the multiplayer inside of assassin's creed 3 where one person has to hide from the other. Now of course the theoretical problem in this situation is that I don’t know how to implement multiplayer into my game. Of course I know how to do split screen multiplayer but I don't know how I would go about implementing in an online multiplayer. In order to go ahead and try to solve this problem I would need to go ahead and look at youtube tutorials on how to do it as well as maybe ask my lecturers if they would have any idea on how to do it as I know that they have been looking into doing online multiplayer stuff inside of unreal. 

Making a game trailer:

One final theoretical problem which is linked to my project is making a game trailer. I really want to try and focus on presenting my game in this project and try to think about how I can present my work. Of course one way I have decided is to make a game trailer which will show of some of the games environment as well as some of the gameplay. In order to look into how to do this I can of course look online at tutorials but I can also talk to my lecturer chris who has previously gone through how to get clips out of unreal before by using a cinematic camera. I would also need to learn how to edit it and maybe add in some dramatic music and effects to make it feel more like a trailer.

[samgibbsmultiverse]

Adding in lighting

Now of course I am going to be starting work on adding some lighting into my level. In order to do this of course I need to find some model assets which are going to fit in with the environment and style of my level. I originally was going to look into adding in some torches however doing the fire particles would be quite difficult as well as the fact that I personally think that having torches might be a bit old fashioned. Instead I decided to look into finding some 3D models for wall mounted candle holders however I have really struggled to find them. However along my travels I have been able to find some really good lanterns which I have decided would be really good to use. I downloaded the models and out them inside of Maya. In the download there is 3 different types of lantern shapes which include a rectangle shape, a cylinder shape and a hexagon shape.

Then my next step was to go ahead and turn them around in order to make it more wall mountable. To do this I had to seperate the meshes of the lanterns as they were connected to the stands. I then rotated the lantern in order to make them look more like something you can mount on the wall.

Unfortunately when I imported them into unreal and tested them they really stuck out too far from the wall. So I decided to go back into Maya and make some changes. I have make the holder smaller and shorter. I then added in the rectangle in order to make a holder for the wall.Here is what it looks like.

Now with this complete we can go ahead and add in the lighting to our game. For this I went ahead and created an actor blueprint and put 2 point lights inside of the blueprint. 1 point light is what was actually going to be showing off the majority of the light,The other was going to be a very small light which was meant to act like the candle flame.However when I place it into my scene it looked like this.

This is due to the intricate shapes.I asked what people thought and whether they thought it looked okay or if it just looked weird. One person did suggest to make the light source bigger than the actual model so it wont cast the weird lighting shapes. However due to it being a point light you cant scale it up. Instead I just moved the point light to be slightly underneath it.I also changed the coulour as well as the temperature of the lighting. This is the result I got.

While getting feedback it was suggested that due to my game being a horror game that I should make the lighting less bright. I decided to lower the brightness and found this to work really nicely and really well. It gives the right sort of lighting for the level.

Problems I have encountered and how I have fixed them:

Unfortunately due to having so much lighting the game starts to drop frame rates. This is not only when playing the game but also when you are in the editor mode.In order to resolve this I decided to go ahead and take out the lights and instead give the player a flashlight. I may be able to add in a few lights here and there but I won't be able to have as many as I originally did. In all honesty though having to switch over to a flashlight might be better as it might make the game scarier for the player to play. If I was to go ahead and add in some lights again it would mainly be for the ghost features of them randomly lighting up and going out. This would hopefully add to the horror atmosphere.

[samgibbsmultiverse]

Solved problems:

One of the blog posts required this week is to go and work through a problem and find out a way to solve it. For this I am going to be looking at the problem that my door frame wall doesn't match up with my other walls when we put a texture on it.Here is a picture of the problem below. In the picture I am just using the basic walls from the starter content and then placed my texture over it.

The first step to starting off fixing the problem is to export the wall door frame as a model which I can put inside of maya. I am doing this because the door height and width is the perfect size for my game. I then put the wall inside of maya and line it up with one of my existing walls which I used for the rest of my level.As you can see below they are different sizes. However we only really want the doorway height and width.

In order to get this we are going to select our walls and then our doorway. In the side panel we are then going to pick boolean and then the difference setting. This leaves us behind with the parts of the wall which don't overlay. This of course includes the perfect shape for our doorway.

Then to get just the doorway shape we need to separate it out from the rest. To do this we can just use the separate mesh option in the mesh tab. This will let us remove the doorway shape from the rest of the model. Like this...

Once we have this done we can then go forward and do the same process as before. Put the door shape over a wall and then use the boolean difference mode again.

This will then leave the doorway shape we want. Once that is done we need to go forward and export the model and put it  inside of our unreal project.

Inside the project we can go ahead and add our texture and now the texture all lines up. This has now successfully fixed our problem and we hopefully shouldnt run into the problem again.

[samgibbsmultiverse]

Blog post checklist for week 4:

Playlist (25/01-31/01) (100 words+ with images)

What media have you taken-in this week? Discuss the Games, Film/Tv, Music and general media you have taken in this week in your free time. Where there any standouts? Good/Bad? Can anything be used for this project?

Polish (100 words+ with images)

To polish something is to refine it and make it better in some way. Take one aspect of your project and polish it, documenting why you have chosen this (maybe it wasn’t working or the player sees it a lot) and then say how you have worked on it. Linking to old or new research here is excellent.

Solved Problem (100 words+ with images)

Show how you have solved a practical or technical problem, this just needs to show how you have made something. This could be drawing, coding, change a file type, uploading something, sharing something, maybe you can see through you tabletop cards? Any issue you have had and solved tell us about more in-depth.

A Theoretical Problem (100 words+ with images)

If you were to carry on this project to release or put in a portfolio what future issues may you have? Are their things you don’t know how to do? Export at a large or smaller size? Make multiplayer? Upload to Steam? Get professionally printed? Think about possible ways to solve these problems (you don’t need to actually solve it, just discuss where you would start.

Plan Recording Feedback (100 words+ with images)

How will you get people to give you feedback on your work? Can they just look at it (Art)? Watch it (Video)? Listen to it (Music) or interact with it (Game)?

How can you share your work? Family members, friends, Discord, itch.io, Reddit ect.

How many people will be able to give you feedback? Will it be enough? Are they your target audience? How will you collect this information? (Probable Google forms). 

Weekly Reflection (100 words+ with images)

What has gone well in the past week?

What could have gone better?

What are you planning to do next week?