samyeung1122

[samyeung1122]

Week 13

Assignment 3 Postmortem

Finally we finished developint our game. Most of my works for the prototype are focus on polishing the boss fight and "clue" (collectables). Although I am not really good at using Gdevelop, i still tried my best to do the backend function and thanks for our head programmer Jamie so that we didn't need to spend too much time on backend function.

We had a playtest for the prototype on Wednesday 27/10. We tested the game with testers. I have to say it is a great oppotunity for us to know what is missing of our game so that we can improve it.

I found out

Most of the players didn't how to use the laser charge.

Most of the players didn't know the ship would turn invulnerable.

They were a bit confused before they got the first clue.

None of them can beat the boss fight the first time.

During the whole process, we worked quite good. We were all willing to listen to each other, we separated the work, we were happy and we didn't have any arguments. We were just doing things we were good at. There is one thing I would add to the prototype is a tutorial. I don't think there is something we need to change in the game but add a tutorial since players were not know how to use the control mechanic to win the game. Missing the tutorial is the biggest issue of our game. Players can use the boost to make the ship move faster and escape from danger because it will turn invulnerable when boosting which is one of the ways to win the boss fight. But our players didn't know that, they didn't know they can just pass through the enemies without losing health when using the boost. I saw they use the boost to dodge the enemies, of course, it is totally fine but eventually, they lost health because there were too many enemies and they couldn't dodge all of them. So I think adding a tutorial can help them know more about the control and win the game easily. I just hope they can enjoy the game.

Submission & GG!!

I enjoy this unit so much, I learnt so many things about making video games. Through the assessment, I understood it is very hard to make games alone because you need to do the art, programming and design by yourself. Specially the coding part. It took the longest time to make it work and I don't think I am not the programmer material haha. Thanks to my talented teammates. They did a very good job. Sometimes I would think I am a bit useless haha. Things that need to be done are some paperwork which is not really hard. Time to do it and submit the assessment and rest!

[samyeung1122]

Week 11

Assignment 3 Playtesting:

So we had 3 play testers today and they gave us very important feedback. Based on the feedback, we found some main issues with the prototype.

it was a bit hard to find the "Clues" (collectables). It took them longer to start. boss fight since players needs to get 6 clues to start the boss fight.

Players didn't know need to do during the boss fight.

Players didn’t what does the “Clue Finder” do before they get the first clue.

The map was too big, they were just moving around and shooting enemies without purpose.

The animation of the final boss didn’t look really well, I think I need to adjust it.

Change the animation of the mother ship.

Add something for players to know what they need to do during the boss fight.

Change the possibility of dropping health

I think these are the things we need to do based on the feedback. I have feedback that is very important for game development. Since we are making games for them, we need to know what they like and what they don’t like so that we can provide a better experience for them.

We are going to fix these problems before the next tutorial. Hope we can do better.

[samyeung1122]

Week 10

Assignment 3 Development Progress:

Here comes the final assessment. This group assessment is about developing a mini-game by using GDevelop. The game calls Centripede which is a 2D Asteroid type game. Players need to collect something on the map full of enemies and finish the boss fight at the end. We have 3 people in the group, me, Michael (Artist) and Jamie (Programmer). We all working well and we are almost finished with the prototype for the playtest next week. So far, we have made the basic system like the enemy, collectables for the boss fight, health, shooting and map. Now we are trying to finish the boss fight and make the enemies drop health when they got killed. Also, we are preparing the playtest script, survey and questionnaire for the playtest.

For the collectables, there is something called "Clue" on the map and the boss fight starts once players have six clues. I made a "Cluefinder" which points to the nearest clue for players so that they can find them easily but I just finish like 50% of it. Thanks to our head programmer Jamie, he helped me to figure it out.

Overall, we are on the right track and I think we are doing good. We will improve the game after getting the feedback in next week.

Group Formation and Assignment 3 Team Discussion:

About group formation, forming a group is quite easy because we only had 9 people in the class on that day. Although we only have 3 people in the group, we have good a programmer and artist. Literally, I am just like an assistance in the group haha. We develop the game based on Michael's prototype and we have a meeting on Discord each week so that we can know what tasks we need to do before next week. We put the game file on discord which solved the file sharing problem cause we didn't know how to work on the same game file. It's like we take turns developing the game. So far we have good planning although there is a lot of work for 3 people.

[samyeung1122]

Week 9

Racing Post Mortem:

Yep, this is the final version I think. I have changed the animation of obstacles and added a health system. The game is inspired by the platform and asteroid game I made. Same as the previous games, I created a scence variable which call life and every time the car hit the obstacles, the "life" will be -1 and show the current number of "life" on the top left corner. I used the animation I have used in the platform game cause they look cool haha. I think the most important thing about the racing game is the control of the car. The movement should be more smooth if we won't give players a better experience. Unfortunately, I am not able to make it like those really good racing games now but I want to try in the future.

Assignment 2 Final Design:

These are the final design of my assessment 2. It is a platform game about a ronin seeking revenge for his family. The game includes some little elements of soul-like and roguelike games. Players can upgrade their abilities and weapons and the level would be different every time they die.

These are the final design of my assessment 2. It is a platform game about a ronin seeking revenge for his family. The game includes some little elements of soul-like and roguelike games. Players can upgrade their abilities and weapons and the level would be different every time they die. This is the first time I make something like this so I don't know how to do it correctly but I tried my best to do it.

[samyeung1122]

Week 8

Racing Development Post:

This time I am making a racing game. But it is a bit different from normal racing games. Based on the asteroids game I made last time. I want to mix them. I want to make a car that can shoot bullets. The game is about something chasing the player's car and it keeps explosion behind it, so the player's car has to keep running and there will be some cars standing on the road and trying to stop the player's car. So the goal is to keep driving and avoid cars. When players start the game, it will spawn some cars in front of players randomly and it will hit the players if they don't dodge or shoot the car and they will lose health. Players only have 3 lives and the game will be over if they lose all of them. Players can press space to shoot and get 100 scores when they hit the car. I have learned how to design car movements through development. Trying to make things realistic in-game is very hard, especially in a racing game. Since you need to consider the speed, gravity and friction. Although physic doesn't exist in-game, you need to make it looks like it does exist. Also, those moving trees are very important cause it makes players feel like the car is really driving on the road. It is not the final version cause I think there are a lot of things I do better, like adding more "enemies" and the graphical design. Also, the movement of the car doesn't look very smooth, I think I need to spend more time on it. For now, the game does not have an ending, maybe I can add an ending when players can survive in 3 minutes or something like that.

Assignment 2 Progress:

Assignment 2 is about making 2 game documents which are a "One-sell sheet" and a "One-page sheet" based on the prototype I made. "One-sell sheet" is for the readers to understand the vision of my game and buy-in. "One-page sheet" is for the development team to develop the game as a reference tool. The name of my game is Road To Strong which is a 2D platform action game. It is kind of a mix of a Dark Soul, Mega Man and Returnal. Players would see some element of them when playing this game.

For the "One-sell sheet", I will include the selling points, 1-2 slogans, my detail and 1-2 sentences about the game. For another one, I will write about the game feature, the flow of the game and how to control the character.

[samyeung1122]

Week 7

So this week is focusing on making a racing game which I haven't played a lot. I have never played any racing game like Need For Speed, or Forza Horizon cause it is not my type, I am not so into cars lol. I have only played the racing game in GTA5. But it is good to learn some basic skill of making racing games.

Racing Elevator Pitch:

Title: Zoom Dragon

Breakout elevator pitch:

Zoom Dragon is a fantasy multiple-player online racing game. Players can ride their own dragons to compete with other players in the sky. Each type of dragon has a different ability. Players can also control the dragon to attack other players during the racing which is similar to Mario Kart. Besides players can train their dragons to be faster and stronger so that they won’t get beat by others easily.

Concept art:

Control diagram:

Players can play with a keyboard, mouse or controller. Controller would be the best. During the racing, there will be some items that can be collected on the track. Players can only attack other players when they have got the items. Items such as fireball, lightning, speed up spell etc. When players get the fireball, their dragon can breathe fire to other players.

3 unique selling points:

Flying system

Players can collect the special items to get ahead easier

Players can train their dragons

Asteroids Post Mortem:

So this is the final version of my asteroid game. I didn't change the gameplay a lot cause I want to make it like an arcade game. When players shoot the asteroids, it would splite into two smaller asteroids and those smaller asteroids will splite into two much smaller asteroids again. So they need to dodge or shoot them. The asteriods will also bounce when they touch the edge of the map.

[samyeung1122]

Week 6

Asteroids Development Post:

The game I have developed this week is an asteroid game. It is just a very simple prototype and I followed the tutorial to create the game. How to play this game? So players can control the spaceship with "WASD" and a mouse to change the angle and shoot those big asteroids. The spaceship can shoot some green bullets and when the bullets touch the asteroids, they will break them and get the score. Also, it will lose health if the spaceship hit the asteroids. Players only have 10 health and game over if they lose all the health. Literally, making this game is easier than platform games. I was stuck for a while when I was making the bullet system because the spaceship shot the bullets like a water gun, it wouldn't stop. So I read the instruction again and I knew I needed to make a timer for the bullet. When it shoots, the timer will start and it can only shoot again when is longer than 0.25 seconds. After shooting the bullet, the timer will restart. Overall there is nothing too hard to develop so far. I will change the animation of asteroids into other objects cause it is too boring to keep shooting rocks. Furthermore, I will make it harder to play since it is too easy to play and hard to die in this version. If I can, I will make a boss fight and change the bullet into different forms like shooting lasers. Finally, this is what I have done in week 6. I go back to continue my development now. You will see my work next week.

[samyeung1122]

Week 5

Asteroids Elevator Pitch:

So this week is about asteroid-type games. I haven't played many of these games. I only remember I had played something like that on mobile when I was a child. Maybe it's not my type but it is good to touch different things so that I can know more about how to create games cause I can learn something useful from this and help me to make others type of games.

Game title: Silent Space

Theme: Shooting, Space, horror, Cthulhu mythos

Pitch:

A pilot found he lost his teammate after waking up in his spaceship. He was supposed to go to a target plant for a secret mission with his teammates. He is in an unknown galaxy now and everything surrounding him looks weird. It looks like hell, and he knows that he is not alone in this space. Something is approaching him and seems they are not friendly. The pilot will dig out the truth while he keeps moving forward.

Control diagram:

Players can control the spaceship with a keyboard or mouse. Each level has at least one boss fight. Players can know more about the story by finishing every level. The plot allows players to have different choices so they will have different endings and different enemies. Each time players finished the level, they can upgrade the ship so that they can be strong enough to fight more tough enemies.

Selling point:

Different endings

2. Boss fights

3. Can upgrade the ability of protagonist

Concept art:

Platformer Postmortem (Platformer):

So this is version 1.0 of my platform game. I added loss and win condition, more enemies and a trap room. When making the trap room. I have put a trapped chest and when the character touches the chest. The room will be locked and spawn a skeleton and players have to kill it to escape. This idea is inspired by Dark Soul. I didn't have much time to develop this game. If I can, I would add more scenes and melee attacks. to make this prototype, I have watched some tutorials on Youtube and some documents on BB. It is quite easy to find tutorials on the internet. Without those tutorials, it might spend more time to figure out the health system and movement of enemies.

Overall it was a great experience. I have learnt many things about game development. It also let me know more about platform games cause I have to do some research on platform games which inspired me to make this prototype.

[samyeung1122]

Week 3-4 (Platformer Development)

So, making games alone is so hard! I have faced many errors when making my prototype. This time I made a platform game. It is not a finished game, just a prototype. I used some online free resources and watch some tutorials on Youtube to make this game.

I tried to make the game looks more completely but it needs more time to figure out the backend function. I tried to add the character will die if they get hit by creatures many times. Like when the character touches the enemies and it is not falling, it will lose 1 health and the character only gets 3 health when beginning. But when the character touches the enemies, it will keep losing health very quickly, every second it touches the enemies, it keeps losing health. I guess it's the hitbox problem. So I tried to add an animation in which the character will get hit and jump backwards. Turns out it didn't look good so I just gave up. Maybe I will figure out the get-hit problem in assessment 3 if I am going to make a game like this one.

For the feature of my prototype, of course, some there would be some basic platform game elements like you need to jump to other platforms. Also, I add a hanging function. The character can grab the ledge of platforms and hang. There is an action that can allow the character to grab the ledges of platforms. When it is hanging it will change the animation to "hanging" so that to make it looks like it is hanging.

Besides, I add two enemies that will move in the level. Mushroom and flying eye. I add a variable for the mushroom which call "direction" and two invisible objects near it. When the Mushroom touches the object. It will change the value of the variable "direction" to "left" or "right". When it's "left", it will move to the left. When it's "right", it will move to the right. Very simple isn't it? When the character jumps on the enemies' heads, it would kill them and let the character jump again. For the flying eye. Pretty obvious it's flying in the sky. To make it able to "fly". I found out I only need to set the position of it. Then it can just fly without stepping on any invisible platform which is my first plan.

For the next week i will add a loss and win condtion. Maybe also attack and get-hit function. I just want to make it looks cooler.

[samyeung1122]

Week 2

Platformer Elevator Pitch:

We were asked to create a platformer elevator pitch during the tutorial. This pitch is related to one of our assessments. It was fun to think about what the game would look like.

I took some inspiration from Mega Man and Kirby. I always wanted to play these two games when I was very young. So I added some elements of them to my pitch. So the character controlled by players can transform into different forms and get different weapons. It gives players more choices to play the game and every player can have a different experience so that the game won't be too dull. Also, it is a roguelike game cause roguelike games are quite popular now like Hades. The next level will be different if players choose a different path and I like this mechanic so that's why I add it to my pitch.

I prefer not to make it too complex since it is just my first pitch. Maybe I will take out the pitch from the drawer and create this game if I can. It is not just for the assessment, it is a real idea.

Below is the detail of my pitch, feel free to read and give me feedback if you like!

Game title: Road to strongest

Theme: Action adventure, Rouguelike

Platformer Elevator pitch:

It is a Samurai platform fighting game. Players can control the character and fight the enemies to reach the goal on every level. Also, the character can transform into different forms and every form has different abilities and weapons. The character could learn skills to be stronger. Another feature is the level would be different whenever the players restart the levels due to dying so that they could have different experiences.

Concept art:

(CK Göksoy, 2016)

This is not art style of the game but quite similar.

Control diagram:

Players could control the character to move left, right, jump and crouch. Also, it can attack and block the attacks from enemies. There are different types of enemies in the game. When the character kills the enemies, it could absorb the power from the enemies and transform the different from and get the ability and weapons of that form. The character could be stronger when it absorbs more power from the enemies.

Selling points:

The character could learn different skills in the process.

The Character could transform into different forms.

The levels would be different every time players restart the levels due to dying.

Target audience: 15+

Student contact info:

Name: Sam Yeung

Email: n10929266@qut.ed.au

GDevelop Experimentation:

I also learnt how to use GDevelop. This application is very suitable for a beginner like me. It doesn't require any coding skills to make a mini-game. So in the tutorial, we used the provided resource to make a small level. We followed the tutor and this is what it looks like. This tool is quite easy to learn and use and I like it. I can use this tool to create my own game. The hardest thing I think is learning how to set the command (event). Overall it was great. I think I would keep using GDevelop to do some cool stuff.

Reference:

Ck Göksoy (2016). Ronin [Image]. ArtStation. https://www.artstation.com/artwork/Gqq53

[samyeung1122]

Week 1 / Introduction

Hello folks. This is Sam Yeung n10929266 from QUT. I am currently studying Bachelor of Games and Interactive Environments (Game Design). I created the account to write the reflective journal for my subject IGB220 Fundamentals of Game Design and it is my first post on Tumblr as well.

I play many games like shooting, survival, 3A, solo and some indie games. I play different types of games so that I can learn how to design games and broaden my horizons cause they have different features, you can't make it if you only play one game. It can also refine your taste in gaming.

I want to join the game industry as a designer in the future cause I always want to create my own game and this job allows me to do that. Another reason is programming and animation are a bit hard for me haha.

My aim in IGB220 is hope to create a fun mini-game with my talented classmates. Grading is not a priority but experience. Experience is very important in the game industry and I hope to learn how to create a game and what we need to do and how to do that when making games through this unit.