B00104265 MultiMedia Blog

I think My GDD document has really started to take shape. I've come up with some new ideas and further developed my old ideas since my last blog. I enjoyed making the game design document on DunDoc. The template on the site helped me to lay out all my information. I like that the document can be adjusted at any time. In my opinion, it's an easy to use website and should be used when designing any game. I was unsure what to write in some of the tabs on the template but sorted that problem after using google. This website did a good job with helping me visualize my game better. Now I can start with the early development of my game. Researching and coming up with ideas is fun, I will continue to do so as I develop my game, but I can't wait to start making the actual game in Unity. My GDD Document breaks down my ideas. It also includes some images for the type of look/feel the game will have. Although I was inspired by other games mine will have its own unique feel.  When ...

This weeks Unity tutorials thought me about a dynamic HUD, weapons,  weapon clipping and commanding the weapon. After finishing all the scripts at the end of the first tutorial I ran into some problems. When I tried to drag the scripts onto the gem I would get an error. I read over the code again but still could not find any differences from the tutorial. I then looked online to see what the error meant but still failed to fix it. In the second tutorial, I made a fence and added a box collider to prevent the player from walking through the object. I then imported an axe and attached to the first person camera. After that, I learned how to animate the axe. I first created an animation folder before clicking on the animation tab. I then clicked the record button and made keyframes. The final part of the tutorial showed me how to stop the axe from constantly swinging. I found animating the axe a little difficult at the start but got it to work in the end.  ...

The first reading gave a quick introduction about the early stages in the design process. I liked that the reading asked questions about the design process, it really got me thinking about my own games elements. I have a bunch of different game elements so far, but I can't just throw them together and call it a game. I learned that design is an iterative process. This iterative process includes design, playtesting, and evaluation. The second article I read, gives tips on improving the UI and rules for board games. I found this article useful because these rules can be applied to video games. Components  A game with well-designed components adds to the overall enjoyment of a board game. In games that include tiles and spaces, the tiles should be made smaller than the spaces they're placed upon so they can be moved without disturbing nearby tiles. Make sure pieces are distinguishable from one another so people do not get confused. A good way to make pieces distinguish...

The website I used to make my collage was fotor.com. Upon entering the website I selected the classic collage option. I then chose a collage that held three images. After that I downloaded and imported the images. I finished up by renaming the image and downloading it to my desktop.  This is a collage of the video game Black Mesa (The collage I made using  Fotor ) Image Links  Image 1 by Robert What Image 2 by Robert What Image 3 by Robert What

Introduction  "Obsessed" is a first-person platforming game for the PC, designed using the "Unity" game engine. You play the role of a young boy who is obsessed with collecting shiny gems. He sneaks into the forest every morning to get more before his parents wake up. Description Your parents have banned you from accumulating any more gems. You only have a limited time before your parents wake up and find out that your collecting gems, so run! Get as many gems as you can before its too late. Scan the forest well, you never know where those gems could be hiding.  Key Features Light Hearted Soundtrack  Cartoon Art Style  Timed Gameplay Exploration  Platforming  Gem Collection  On-Screen Score Genre The game falls into the genre of a first-person platformer. The games niche genre is fantasy - a forest filled with magic gems.  Platform This game is targeted towards people on the PC platform. This is the games ...

The Unity tutorial this week was different from the other tutorials by Jimmy Vegas. This weeks tutorial required us to make a clock that displays the current time.  I first made the clock shape by making a cylinder into a flat clock face shape. Next  I made the twelve hour indicators. I copied the indicators eleven more times and increased the position of each by 30%. I kept increasing each of the indicators until I ended up with one for each hour. I then made the hour, minute, and second hands. I changed the colours of the indicators by clicking assets/create/material via the project window. To change the colours I went to the albedo tab. I repeated this process twice to get a black and red coloured material.These materials could then be dropped directly onto the clock. For the last part of the tutorial I created a new script and copied in the code.  It was really cool to see the clock ticking in real time. The clock looked like a difficult thing to create in th...

The first reading for week 4, thought me about "The MDA Framework". This framework breaks down games into three parts, "Mechanics", "Dynamics", and "Aesthetics". Mechanics of a game are essentially a game's rules. eg. what actions can the players take. Dynamics emerge from mechanics. It describes how the game plays when its rules are implemented. eg. what strategies emerge from the rules. When referring to "The MDA Framework",  aesthetics are the experience of the game. eg. what emotional responses does the game evoke in the player. I like "The MDA Framework" because it really helps with analyzing games. I think this framework will come in useful to break down my own game. Aesthetics can also be broken down into eight different parts or kinds of "fun". 1) Sensation - Game as sense-pleasure 2) Fantasy - Game as make-believe 3) Narrative - Game as drama 4) Challenge  - Game as obstacle course 5) Fellow...

The meme I created on Cheezeburger ( Link to Cheezeburger Website) I first selected the memes category on the website and then chose this image. I centered and typed the font on the top and bottom of the image. I chose the "Impact" font and scaled it up to make it easier to read. I didn't change the font or outline colours. I then saved the image by right-clicking on it and selecting the "save image as" option.

The first article I read "Five Reasons to Stop Saying "Good Job!" by Alfie Kohn. The author explains different reasons why he thinks loving and making your child feel good is very different from praise.  Praise will work in the short run because children just want approval from their parents when they are young. Overexploiting this idea will eventually make kids feel manipulated. Kids will start relying on their parent's evaluations too much if they are praised for every little thing. It's damaging for a child in the long run because when they grow up, they will still feel the need to hear whether what they did was ok from others.  Overpraise will make affect how a child feels when they actually achieve something for themselves. They will not appreciate actual achievements if they are constantly getting praise for anything they do. Children will lose interest in whatever they have to do because they know they'll get praise or rewarded for whateve...

One game idea I've decided to research further is my gem collecting one. This game will be part of 3D platformer genre. The story of this game is about a character who is obsessed with collecting shiny gems. The characters parents have banned him from collecting gems as his addiction has gotten out of control. Every morning, he sneaks out of the house to collect as many gems as he can before his parents wake up. The game's location will be set in a forest terrain. Four of the games main mechanics are running/jumping, time, gem collection, and undirected exploration. The running mechanic will play a large role in my game because the player will be required to move fast. The more gems you collect the better your score will be. Jumping will help the player to reach gems on platforms or higher ground. The time mechanic is also another big mechanic that will feature in the final game. At the start of the game, a timer will automatically start ticking down. The idea behind ...

After completing week 3's "Unity" tutorials, I now understand how to a improve graphics, how to add "raycasts" and make an in-game cursor. Tutorial 4 started by showing me how to add sound effects to an object in the game. I added a ding sound to a gem. The sound plays and the gem disappears when the player comes into contact with the object. I was then shown how to make a hole in the terrain before adding water. After that, I made a wall and adjusted it using the X, Y and Z co-ordinance. I then added shadows into the game. I played around with different shadow settings but finally settled on using softer shadows. In Tutorial 5, I learned how to make a cursor. I customized the curser by changing its colour and shape. I also learned how to add "raycasts". A ray gets sent out from a position and moves in a specific direction. I enjoyed learning how to make the cursor. I liked making the cursor because a lot of games use on-screen cursors. Although ...

I thought the "Formal Abstract Design Tools" article by Doug Church was an interesting read. It thought me to use proper "game vocabulary" when talking about games and about "Formal abstract design tools". I learned that "Formal abstract design tools" is a framework used to create a vocabulary for describing a game and that it's used to break up a game into its components so that other game designers can understand them. I then learned about different tools for games and where to find them. We can find them by looking at other good games that have already been created. After looking at these games we can take and formalize a few key aspects from them. I loved the Mario 64 game example given to us in the article as it helped me understand how Mario 64 used it's different design tools to create such an all-around game. Some of the tools I learned about in this article were "Intention", "Perceivable consequence" and ...

Tech Tip: Blogger Template I went onto the "Blogger Theme Designer" and selected the theme called "notable". I then selected the standard black and orange colour scheme. I picked this colour combo, but I later changed it to a black and blue colour scheme in the background panel. I liked these colours better because the blue matched my blogs profile picture. Blue is also my favourite colour so I wanted it to be a colour that featured in my blog. I  then made the sidebar slightly smaller and reduced the sidebar and content width. I thought the text in my blog already looked good so I made no more changes. I came up with this design because I wanted a nice clean look with contrasting colours. I would encourage other people to edit their blogs because I think it makes it more personal and professional looking.

Game Brainstorm  I got my first game idea after looking at endless runner games such as "Temple Run", "Subway Surfers", "Sonic Dash" and "Super Mario Run". I noticed a lot of these games in this genre are on Android and iOS devices. This got me thinking about creating a similar game for PC. The first of these games to become popular was "Temple Run" back in 2011. This game made the genre popular on mobile devices which later inspired the other endless runner games I mentioned. Endless running games have very simple controls, such as jumping over and dodging oncoming obstacles. A player's score is generally determined by how far they travel without hitting any obstacles. The games have simplistic controls but are difficult because you cannot stop the forward momentum of your character. Although these games have different art styles the gameplay is the same.  I think this would be a good type of game to make because the gameplay ...

Feedback Thoughts The first blog I read by was about how too much praise can force a person to develop a fixed mindset. The article pushes the idea that people who are praised too much don't bother to develop new skills or better themselves because they are already "brilliant". This blog also focuses on how a fixed mindset can hold a person back in their workplace. Technological developments are constantly changing the workplace, which forces people to adapt and learn new skills. In the second article, I read the author gives us advice on how to crush self-doubt based on his own experiences as a teacher. He talks about seven different ways and goes into detail about each. I liked this article because the author talks about what he did to crush is own self-doubt. I thought both articles were useful in their own way. I found the first one focused more on the benefits of a growth mindset whereas the second focused on how to achieve a growth mindset. I thought the seven...

Unity Tutorial  01 Blog After finishing the Unity tutorials, I now understand the basics of the program. The tutorials taught me how to import material into "Unity", and how to make basic terrains like mountains, trees, and grass. They also gave me a quick preview of how to code in "Unity" which I then used to make a gem rotate. I enjoyed adding assets into the game world. After placing more and more objects, the world started to feel alive. The best part was being able to walk around and explore what I just created. I didn't like that all the assets had to be downloaded directly from their website, I would have preferred some to be preinstalled so I could play around with the program more, before moving on to the next set of tutorials. I'm looking forward to watching more tutorials and improving my knowledge of "Unity". The tutorials were easy enough to follow because of their slow pace. I still find getting around the programmes interface a...

It must be understood that games require a lot more planning and iteration before development starts. Board games have been around a lot longer than electronic ones. People can take a lot of inspiration from board games because all of their game concepts/ rules can be applied to video games. Producing a playable paper prototype of a game first takes less time than creating an electronic one. Storyboarding a game is a useful technique to use during the design process.  The refinement process mainly consists of playtesting for modifications. It's important to have different ideas and designs, as the first idea in your head might not necessarily be the best one. There are many different game genres and game elements. Not all game elements are suitable for every game. It's important not to bunch together different game elements because they may not cohere. Take inspiration from other games as it's a useful way of finding new aspects, that can be applied to yo...