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The Programmers of Skylanders Spyro's Adventure

The lead programmers for Spyro's Adventure are Antonio Hsu and Owen Chaing. There were also a lot of other programmers that worked on the game.

Benny Yang, Cosmos Chen, Duke Lee, Elvis Hsiao, Edward Chen, Farl Lee, Gary You, Henry Chen, Ian Pan, LingShih Fang, Mark Lee, Ping Hsu

I couldn't find much about Hsu and Chaing other than the other games that they have worked on.

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Creation of NFC and RFID Technology

RFID was rumored to have been created during WWII. However, it was officially invented in 1983 by Charles Walton when he filed the first patent of the technology under the name "RFID". In 2002 NFC Sony & Phillips co-invented NFC which since then has continued to develop.

The first NFC tag was officially created in 2006 and was implemented into the Nokia 6131 NFC making it the first NFC enabled phone.

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Evaluation

Media and techniques:

In this project I have improved my understanding of widgets.  I used research to understand how to work with widgets and what they can be used for, providing me with the confidence to use them in my future work. I also learnt how to use some nodes that I haven’t used much/at all before, such as maps and switches. I now have a strong understanding of when to use switches and that they can be really useful since before I was using a chain of branches. 

I have also improved my knowledge of RFID technology as it was a key part of this game's production. I researched lots about RFID technology and found out the best ways to use it in Unreal Engine. I also learnt how to work with vectors when creating the cards using Adobe Illustrator. I didn't need to do much research to figure it out as I already had some knowledge of Photoshop so I understood the layout. All I needed to do was figure out the tools and how to make use of them.

Purpose / theme / concept:

Before I decided to go with RFID technology I explored a few other alternative controller ideas but decided to go with RFID because I felt that it would give me the most freedom and allow me to be more creative. I then started looking for games that had used RFID technology for the game. I found that there weren't that many games that used this technology so I didn’t have the largest range of references to look at. I focused a lot on the gameplay design at first to get an idea of what direction I wanted the game to go. I decided to go with a card game as I really liked the idea of the cards being placed down onto the physical reader and then things happening digitally. I then started working on the artistic parts once I had a game idea that I liked. I designed the cards for both the physical and digital parts of the game using Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop. I wanted to make changes to the gameplay design of the game as I felt the current gameplay idea didn’t allow for me to make use of the digital part of the game but due to time constraints I wasn’t able to make this change.

Outcome:

My final product for the project has met the project proposal, all of the Musts of the MoSCoW and my expectations. I have produced a working prototype that allows the game to be played using the physical cards to make changes digitally. The main thing that hasn’t happened is that I didn’t make use of the digital part of the gameplay as much as I would have wanted, as there isn’t a need for the digital part with the current gameplay mechanics. Another thing I wanted to do but I couldn’t do was create my own custom way to get the information from the NFC tags.

Conclusion:

To conclude I have successfully created a game prototype that allows two players to fight using physical cards to input on the digital game. During this project I have stayed really organized by doing loads of planning and research throughout the whole project. I have really improved my understanding of widgets, switches, Illustrator and RFID technology. In this project I found myself making more physical notes as it helped me get my ideas down quickly.

In future projects I will make sure to think about why the features in the game are important to the gameplay and if there isn’t a reason, what can I do to make it important. Another thing I will do in the future is make more physical notes because they allow me to get ideas down quickly and also freely make notes around them unlike digitally where you are usually limited to lines of text.

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Project Proposal

Targets:

In my previous project I didn’t do enough planning early on which led to me changing almost everything about my project plan after the first two weeks. This meant that I had given myself less time to work on the project because most of the previously done work for the project was not related to the new plan. Also in the previous project I didn’t do enough research into the code I was trying to create, leading to me spending ages working on the same code through trial and error rather than spending some time doing some research into it. Another thing I didn’t do enough of in the previous project was play testing, so I ended up having some features that the mechanics would have been better without.

So for this project I will make sure to do, throughout the whole project, a lot more planning and research into my ideas before spending too much time on them to avoid changing my idea completely. I will also aim to do multiple playtests to gain feedback so I can fix anything that I might not have noticed being an issue.

Project Concept:

My idea for this project is that two players compete against each other using physical cards that make use of RFID technology so each card has an NFC tag attached to them that once placed onto an RFID reader will use the information from the NFC tag to identify the card in the digital game. There will be three types of cards and the aim is to win three times with a different type of card each time or to win once with each type of card. The game will be made using widgets as there isn’t any need for a player character and the art for the game will be flat and done using Photoshop. 

The biggest influence for this game is Club Penguin’s Card Jitsu as my game is mostly inspired by this minigame. Some other influences for this game would be Disney Infinity and Lego Dimensions as they are great examples for games that make good use of RFID technology.

The main thing that I want to do in this project is improve my productivity. To do this I will focus on organisation, planning and research early on and keep it going throughout the whole project unlike previous projects where I stopped doing research after the first couple of weeks. I also want to work on this project in some of my free time as it will give me time to focus on the more important things at college.

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Testing new ideas for the projects gameplay.

I do not have enough time to continue working on this game for the project, but I plan to continue developing this game after the project ends as I am really interested in this idea, and I feel I can create the game to a playable state.

Here I'm testing out different games that make use of these cards. I want to keep the new gameplay relevant to the theme and name of the project and I don't want to make the gameplay completely different to the previous plan.

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Research into printing cards

Here is a video that guides you through the process. Only issue I see is that it might be possible to see through the cards from the back if the light is bright enough so it would take some tests to see if this is true in a fairly lit room. How To Make Print and Play Game Cards - YouTube

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What could the mix of physical and digital bring to the game?

Since I am making a cross between physical and digital for my game, I need to think about how I could make the digital part more prominent because at the moment my game doesn't benefit heavily from the digital part at the moment and could be played completely physical without the digital part.

Most of the common reasons for why digital board games don't apply here is because my game still makes use of the physical parts. So, for this game I need to think of ways that I could mix the two seamlessly and in a way that doesn't make the extra effort of setting it up seem wasted.

Some ideas for what I could do are:

Playing against A.I. If you were to play a 2-player card game by yourself, you would end up playing both sides which wouldn't be as fun as playing against an artificial enemy

Online multiplayer. Similarly, to playing against A.I, playing against another player online would mean that you could both play the game physically but not in the same place and even between two countries.

Digital updates. Having the digital part of the game could mean that I could update the game and add new features without requiring the players to buy an updated version of the game physically. This could be expanded into creating brand new games using the already existing cards so players wouldn't have to buy another digital game and physical parts, they would just need to update the digital game.

A global leaderboard. This would mean that players would be able to see where they are compared to the other players over the globe.

Click for link to a blog about phygital games:

Phygital aspect of gaming. For many people, playing games is not… | by Pavel Shlapak | Medium

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Digital gameplay design layout concept

I have created a digital version of the concept I created the other day. In this concept I have used the card design idea I created to represent where each card would go.

This isn't what an actual match would look like since I have got 12 cards on display here when really there should only be a 10. I did this to show where the cards would be before they picked up and where the chosen card will go. I plan to make a random on of the cards move each time since there isn't a way for me to know what order the player has the physical cards held in.

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Card Design Continued

I have added to my previous card template to now have a more rounded style. I am unsure if I want to keep the curves in the top of the type box as I liked the overlapping style but I prefer other added curves compared to the previous.

I have made a change to the sizing of the number and type boxes because for the type I plan to use an image so I decided that a square box would work better. I also tested it with an image I found on google that I do not plan on keeping. I aim to create my own icons for the final design. I also changed the background colour of the boxes to test what it would look like and I think it look good.

I have decided to change the border to be two different colours. The outer border will stay black as the reason for it being there is to stop other players from being able to recognize the cards from the very edges of the card. The inner border has been changed because I want to use it to help quickly identify the cards type and also because I think it will blend better with the design on the card.

Here is a darker inside border as I felt the previous one not standing out as much from the inside. I am thinking about other ways I can change it. Also I am not sure about if I should the the type and number black or the same colour as the inside border.

Here is the inside border and the information being the same colour. I feel that it all being the same makes it look really flat and doesn't make the important information stand out.

I definitely prefer the darker information as it stand out over everything.

Now I need to think about the colours of each type of card and then what images could be on each card. I think the cards should have funny visuals like exploding kittens cards as this would make the cards more enjoyable to play.

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The Devil Design Research

The devil is usually depicted as a humanoid monster that has long horns with a wrinkled face.

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Card Design Ideas

Plan to later explore these designs using photoshop and colour

Creating these design ideas digitally:

First I want to create a template that I can use as a base for each card design so they follow the same rules. The most important thing I need to think about with the card design is clarity I need it to be clear what each card is.

For each card type I will use different colours so the players can quickly understand what type of cards they have.

I started by using the shape tool and creating one really large rectangle that covers the entire canvas and then I curved its corners providing me with a card like shape.

I then added two more rectangles one along the top and one smaller in the top left corner that I also curved to make it fit with the shape better.

Next I used the scissors tool to remove the line between the number and the type to clean it up however I am unsure if I prefer it with or without the line separating the number and the type. I could have a subtle separation between the rectangles by making one of the boxes darker than the other.

I could create a subtle separation between the number and the type by darkening the numbers background.

I have decided to keep the line separating the two rectangles but I have used the Direct Selection tool to remove the curve in the to right corner so that it is a straight line. I think this looks better than the two other options but I might end up changing it further into the design.

Next I am going to add a border which can be coloured to correspond with the type of card. So for example if it was water I could have the card be blue.

Next I started to explore different layouts for the card design. Here I have made the type box really small as in this design I will put a symbol that represents the type of card instead of the text.

I decided to make the type box more square as the previous design looked a little squished.

Now I have moved the information boxes so that the inside part of the border is inline with the cards inside border. I also have removed the curve on the top right of the type box as it was no longer looked right being curved.

I decided to move the type box to the underside of the number box and I think this looks better and would be easier for players to read if they held their cards in a fan.

I have now made the border of the two boxes thicker to match the thickness of the cards border but I have kept the border separating the number and the type thin to show that they are both information.

I have adjusted a few things slightly like decreasing the size of the number box to make it more balanced with the type box and also increasing the amount the corners of the card are curved to give the inside corners more curve.

At this point I have completely redesigned the cards layout and I am really happy with this current style. I really like the design and how I have made them more useful by changing the location of the type and how I planned to display it. I plan to experiment with the template by making changes to certain aspect of it.

My card design was inspired by the design of the cards from Club Penguin Card-Jitsu.

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Notebook: Project Ideas/Notes

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A gameplay idea I came up with influenced by the image from before.

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An Image I have found that has influenced my ideas for the games art

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Variations of the Chosen Name

The Hand of the Devil

The Devil's Hand

The Devil of the Hand

The Hands of Hell

The Devil's Cards

The Hands of the Devil

I really like 'The Devil's Hand' and 'The Hands of Hell' as they both make me think of a horror themed game.

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My Chosen Theme/Name/Design Ideas

I spent a while trying to think of the design, themes and name of this game. I have finally decided on these things and I am excited to find out how this will change the project.

These are the chosen names/themes/designs:

Name: Hand of the Devil

I chose this name as I liked that it uses the word 'hand' as both players in the game have a 'hand' which refers to the cards that are in each players hands that could be played.

Theme: Fears/Nightmare/Horror

I chose this theme because I felt that this would allow me to explore creative designs for my cards and also cards are often related to gambling which is seen as evil. I also was influenced to this theme because I really enjoy the horror genre in both games and films.

Design Ideas: Horrific, Hellish, Worn, Dark, The Devil

I decided to choose these design ideas because they heavily influence the horror theme.

Card Types:

Still Unsure

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Game Theme/Name/Design Brainstorms

Theme:

Christmas

Creatures

Magic

Giants

Goblins

Mystical Beings

America

Violence

Mythology

Reality is a dream

Rich vs Poor

Survival

Fears/Nightmares

Colourful

Space

Witch Craft

War

Animals

Name:

Chaos of Eternity

Demon Cards

Colours of Fire

Pointless Beasts

Whimsical Elves

Absurd Pancakes

Evil of the Devil

Cross Dimensions

Elves, Gargoyles and Goblins

Gnomes, Golems and Goblins

Spirited

Hand of the Devil

Design:

Cartoony

Colourful

Eye Catching

Horrific

Bloody

Hellish

Dark vs Light

Worn

Dark Colours

Card Types:

Fire

Lava

Demons

Souls

Demons

Ghouls

Angels

Ghosts

Spirits

God

The Devil