Review Week Comments and Feedback

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Heya Huns,

My initial thoughts on feedback were that I appreciate it regardless of whether it's good or bad. It allows me to understand if an idea will work or not and if it needs to be adjusted or just completely scrapped. I do still stand by my thoughts, but I did expect more feedback from fellow students which was a bit disappointing.

Overall the feedback I have received from other students seems to be positive, they seem to like my characters and the humorous and educational side to my game. However, I do see a lack of constructive criticism from the year group as a whole, I don't know if this is because no one wants beef or what, but I'll tell you now if you hate my game idea with a passion and you want to absolutely slate me, go for it, I can take it. Some comments compare my idea to others (which is both helpful and unhelpful depending on my mood), others give suggestions that can help me improve my idea (which I do find extremely helpful) and then there are a few comments, very few in fact, that just seem to be written in order to do the declaration, which is not helpful for anyone really.

When taking on my role of providing feedback firstly I decide if I like the idea, I then look to see if there are any questions or suggestions I could pose to the other students that could get them to think about their game and how to improve it. I then offer any advice I have or suggestions for solutions to problems that they may come across in their game production. However, sometimes I do find it difficult to write the required amount for a comment either due to disinterest or lack of writing in the other student's blog post. I have to admit that sometimes if I don't like another student's game, blog post or idea that I tend to skip their blog and move onto another one.

I do think that commenting on other students blogs has allowed me to connect more with them and make some new friends or acquaintances. I am happy with my introduction post and believe it gives other students a better idea of who I am (while also not giving away too much, to keep the mystery going).

To improve my own feedback I could be a bit more critical of others work, not in a nasty way but in a way where it will prompt them to want to improve their own game. I need to stop avoiding blogs that I do not enjoy reading and give feedback on how to the student can improve. I would appreciate some feedback from students on what they don't like or think will work in my game as it will give me a better idea in what direction to go in instead of thinking that my game is this amazing thing that cannot be flawed (but that comes down to the execution also).

Overall my experience with the blog feedback has been positive, but of course I do find a fault in everything so don't mind my moaning.

Talkche,

James.

First Playable

Screenshot of my progress to date

Heya Huns,

I've been working on my first level of my game, and to be brutally honest if I continue looking at my computer screen I may have a mental breakdown. I have my character as well as the platforms, but I couldn't bring myself to make the enemy AI. I will however continue on the progress I've made tomorrow, but it's late (9pm) and I'm in work early.

I'm still finding it difficult to balance the workload for this module with other modules as well as work and my own personal life. But there's nothing that can be done so yolo.



Later Losers x

Unity Free Tutorials

Heya Huns,

This week I began to research tutorials that could help me in the development of my game. Somehow I managed to stumble across another of good old Jimmy Vegas' tutorials. This was the beginning of a series that showed me how to create my own platform game. I like the way Jimmy's tutorials are broken down and explained, but he does go unnecessarily slow sometimes (which doesn't help my time management skills).

The beginning of my platform game development

The second tutorial I found showed me how to allow for my character to jump, this will be helpful as my game involves the player to jump, slide and dodge enemy AI. I tried to research sliding actions but I couldn't find one today.

The final tutorial I found that will aid me in my game development showed me how to create basic enemy AI. It's a bit long winded but I plan to re-watch it in order to understand it more. 

I hope to incorporate aspects of all these tutorials into my game, as well as researching other tutorials that can help me.

I overall enjoyed working on unity this week and have regained a bit of passion for designing my game after formally beginning it's development.

Game Fun

Heya Huns,

This week I wad reading up on MUDs (a multiplayer real-time virtual world that is text-based). They are traditionally set in a fantasy world which implements an online chat as the form of communication, a role-playing style of gameplay, hack and slash (player combat involving weapons or powers), player versus player, and interactive fiction.

Players of these games can be divided into 4 distinct groups:

• Achievers
• Explorers
• Socialisers
• Killers

The article shows a graph that shows the type of players and their main reasons for playing MUD games.

                                           ACTING

                          Killers            |                  Achievers
                                             |

                                             |
                                             |
                                             |

                  PLAYERS -------------------+------------------- WORLD
                                             |
                                             |
                                             |

                          Socialisers        |                  Explorers
                                             |
                                             |
                                             |

                                        INTERACTING

It then continues to explain how these players interact with each other and the possible alliances or combats that can occur. 

My favourite example of an MUD - Club Penguin

I then went on to read about game mechanics, dynamics and aesthetics (MDA), which is a more formal way to say the rules of a game, it's system and how fun a game is. When talking about aesthetics it says they can be put into (but are not limited to) these categories.

• Sensation - Game as sense-pleasure
• Fantasy - Game as make-believe 
• Narrative - Game as drama 
• Challenge - Game as an obstacle course 
• Fellowship - Game as a social framework 
• Discovery - Game as uncharted territory 
• Expression -  Game as self-discovery 
• Submission - Game as pastime

Examples of which include:

• Charades - Fellowship, Expression, Challenge. 
• Quake - Challenge, Sensation, Competition, Fantasy. 
• The Sims - Discovery, Fantasy, Expression, Narrative. 
• Final Fantasy - Fantasy, Narrative, Expression, Discovery, Challenge, Submission. 

The example of dynamics that they use is monopoly; which uses dice to determine how far a player can move on their designated turn. The game works to the advantage of whoever gets ahead first, and then with their continued success, they can then penalise less fortunate players by adding houses and hotels to their properties, which raises the amount of money to be paid by the player who lands on it.

photo of the monopoly board.

The mechanics of a game are what a player is given to work with to make their gameplay more enjoyable or that can help them get ahead. In shooter games, these could include:

• Weapons
• Ammunition
• Spawn Points

These mechanics then produce gameplay like camping or sniping. Basically, the mechanics benefit the game dynamics and overall gameplay. With these 3 components, you should have a half-decent game on your hands.

Prototype

The player enters the clinic from the right, they then turn the corner to see the enemy STIs 

The player must use the arrow keys to avoid the enemy. They can also jump over the enemy and slide as the game progresses on each level.

I have begun by searching the internet for tutorials on building an environment similar to my ideas but have yet to find any. I have also been looking for assets and yet again nothing.

I need to backtrack and finish my GDD as it is not detailed enough to create my game, although I do know what I want to do. The thing I find most difficult is navigating the Unity application to find what I need to make my game. This is halting the progression of the actual game development as I have spent the last 4 hours trying to get a grip of it without much progression. But tomorrow is a new day and this blog post is due tonight.

my lack of progression

This strange video is the closest thing I could find to a Unity tutorial on how to build a clinic like environment: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ymxfsmgQgXg

Unity Tutorial 5

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I've had to play a little game of catchup due to missing some unity tutorials over the last few weeks. This week good old Jimmy was back with another of his world-class tutorials. He started off with a skybox, lighting and wind zones, I know some really invigorating stuff! 

The skybox refers to what the player sees in the sky around their world. I used the same TGU Skybox Pack that Jimmy used in his tutorial just so I could follow him the way he was teaching. I used the NewDawn1 skybox as it was my favourite.

I enjoyed playing with the lighting settings, giving it an orange hue to make my world look as if it is set at dusk. I found it quite humorous giving the wind zone a high setting and watching the trees freak out.

I was a bit confused with Jimmy's explanation of making the axe an object that you can pick up, but after a while, I got the hang of it. Jimmy's ways of explaining how to do things are a tad long-winded and overly complicated, it usually takes me 3-4 times of rewatching a certain part of the video to understand what he's actually saying.

I need to apply myself more in this module as I find myself falling behind and struggling with all this new information. A lot of the actual scriptwriting for the objects is also confusing but I can only blame myself ;).

Games Decisions

Heya Huns,

This week we read 'Social Design Practices for Human-Scale Online Games' by Daniel Cook. In the article Cook explains how to make an MMO (Massively Multiplayer Online) game. An MMO is an online game that supports hundreds to thousands of players at one time.

MMO games can be a platform for users to make friends and socialise whilst playing the game. Users can create groups of players from all around the world to then play the game. Cook explains that there is a lot of social psychology research that goes into designing these sorts of games.

I personally do not like to play multiplayer games, especially ones that involve player vs player combat as I feel like it takes away from the progression of a user if they are not up to the same standards of combat as others. Games like Fortnite seem unfair as there are players that live and breathe the game and then kill everyone else who may not be as experienced, this for me is off-putting as I like to approach things at my own pace.

Cook also explains the importance of proximity, similarity, reciprocity and disclosure when attempting to make friends through these games. Without these named factors a friendship would be unlikely as the users would seem to have nothing in common.

Dunbar's Layers is the way a person bases their relationships with others, going from close friends to friends that the individual may not see that often. During the 1980s, Robin Dunbar put forward the idea that an individual can have up to 150 separate relationships, the categories being casual, good, best and intimate friends.                                 

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Cook then explains the meaning of primary and secondary groups. Primary groups being with individuals that you share a strong bond or a shared sense of purpose with, like family or close friends. Secondary groups are more task-focused like perhaps a team that you work with in order to create a project or presentation. The members of which can come and go without any remorse for the loss of friendship. He further explains group dynamics in the terms of leadership and hierarchy, this can be shown with titles, karma points and a visual flare.

Cook says in the initial design of an MMO, building a large world straight away is not the right way to approach it. He says to visualise your big world, then add the elements that you want to fill it with and then to create the systems that will support your world.

I don't think that this weeks reading really apply to the game I plan to design but I do understand the importance of what Cook is talking about in relation to MMO gaming and i found it very interesting looking at a bit of the psychology behind it.

Thanks for reading :) xxxxxxx