Game Stories

 "Game Stories"

The reading this week was quite different from the previous weeks, as we didn't just read about game design or how gamers come up with ideas, or how long it takes to create a game. The reading this week was all about building a story and what makes a story whole, basically.

The point made is that a game is not a movie, the structure of a game, is not that of a movie, in the article they said that's what mistakes were made in the beginning of gaming, basing them off movies, and that didn't work out well. We're also told about the common misconceptions of creating your games story, that it's not dialog and story doesn't matter, which in my opinion is both right and wrong. I think some games are most fun when it's a free for all and you just go on a war path, others love games that you complete missions and level up and up, you get a sense of achievement from things like that.

Then we are taught about CONFLICT!!!, that's what story is, conflict. After reading, it's very clear it is, here it is, you have a hero, something bad has occurred in their life, they will do whatever to make it right or seek revenge. The hero, has to take risks, or the obstacles will be too much, the hero has to take a much greater risk to achieve his/her goal, you win or lose and the game is over.

Image Source: Flickr

This has helped me understand how to approach making another game, hopefully that doesn't happen, but I can use this to make the idea process much easier, I can even use this information when I'm making my digital video techniques video, which I should make a start on this week!!! Overall I found this reading more enjoyable and beneficial than the other, more so because I enjoyed something different.

Alpha

"Alpha" 

We're on week nine and I'm happy to say that most of my game is finished. The only reason it's basically finished is because I told myself I'm keeping the game very simple because, from the beginning I knew I would find designing a game very confusing so I set my goals low, in a way but not to say I wasn't going to try and but in little to no effort. I f it wasn't for the unity tutorials I wouldn't have been able to make any parts of this game, it was by luck that a continues running game was one of the unity sections we had to do for part of our weekly work tasks.

So this week I put a bunch of new elements into my game, not things that were very difficult just small assets to make the overall feel of the game better. So this week for my alpha I added an explosion into my game as the player jumped or ran into a spool, previously when that happened a "Game Over" just appeared at the bottom of the unity program. So, after adding the explosion I added one more small detail  which is when the player is running dirt is appearing form behind his feet, and actually I'm remembering things a I'm writing them I also made the player fall over and die when he runs into the obstacles.

Image Source: Unity Screenshot

I added sound effects to the player as he's running and jumping, also a crash sound effects along with background music that suit the theme of the game. From adding the sound effects I learned it's not just as easy as placing a a song or sound effect into an audio source, in the player icon in the hierarchy you have to add the components into the inspector, then you have to drag and drop the sound effects into the correct audio source, you also have to add public floats into the player controller c# script but after doing it the first time it's easy to do. Making the player die when it's "Game Over" was a bit tricky, I kept having to watch the tutorial over and over because I was afraid I added the code in the wrong place.

I'm very happy with how my game has come on, things I have to add are a basic start menu, just saying "press spacebar to start", and that's all I'll have there. Then the final thing will be to add a ground to the game, maybe a pebbled road or road type of ground. I have thought about changing the type of character to a person who's les blocky like a Minecraft character, so that's everything I'm pretty happy.

Review Week Comments and Feedback

 "Review of Feedback"

Feedback In:

Firstly I think giving feedback can be stressful mainly because you want to help the person, but at the same time your afraid that person might take offense, I think the other students in the year understand that so when their giving you feedback on your introduction blog or a post about your game, they'd be two different types of feedback but put across in a nice way, whether it's about your cat or your game progress.

The feedback I've gotten has been great, straight to the point, but as I said not in a rude way. I think if you try to jump around the idea of telling the person that they did something wrong or they could do something else your going to ruin that persons progress, so telling the truth, in a nice way, put to the point is the best way to do so. Everyone who's commented feedback on any of my game posts have all been honest, constructive and phrased nicely.

Image Source: Flickr

Feedback Out:

On the other side, I think the feedback I give, is the feedback I get or I'd expect to get on my blog posts. Both very helpful, to the point and constructive advice not just saying "you shouldn't have done that, do this", that's just crap feedback. Through out this module we've been given two main different methods for feedback. The first being the "WWW" feedback method, which stands for Wow-Wonder-What if. So what you would to is start of the feedback with a complement, that being "Wow", then moving on to the " I Wonder", being, I wonder if yo could explain that a bit better, not sure what you mean. The last "W", is What if, than making a suggestion.

The second method for delivering helpful feedback is the "T.A.G" method, meaning "Tell, Ask and Give", start off by telling the person about something you liked or made a big impression on you. "Ask", there are all kinds of questions you can ask about a game, you could ask about something you found interesting or confusing. The last part of the process is "Give", you can give the writer certain suggestions for them to do, or look into applying to their game. or you can share some knowledge you have relative to their game idea.

I think commenting on peoples blog posts is fun and you can read other peoples opinions on the same topic and see if others have similar ideas or opinions, but from doing them I didn't really get a sense of "getting to know people", I think reading the odd blog is far from figuring out more about a person, I found out a few hobbies and past times but I couldn't match a hobby to a face.

I think to make the feedback more effective is to be honest and helpful without being to mean r belittling to the persons work, there's a difference between not sugar-coating your feedback and being an asshole. Just following those two different feedback methods will give the people the best feedback if you practice doing it correctly. 

Week 9 Reading and Writing

"Review Week"

Looking Back:

When we started this module and I saw that each week we would have to read articles, I wasn't really up for it, I thought all the readings would be about things I found boring, like academic studies or game theory, which was all boring and horrible for me to read at the time. Now that we've gone through eight weeks of this module, what was boring to me then, is not anymore. Just like anything else, there's some readings I enjoy more than others, but then, there's more than I hate than anything else!!.

Right before we started the college year I got into reading mental well being books, or books that are about training your mind, or how to develop different mindsets, books that I really enjoy. As we started the reading tasks, there were a few that I hated, but then we got told that we'd being doing readings on mindsets, that got me excited to do these tasks, because I never thought that's the kind of reading we'd be doing, it never crossed my mind.

From then on I got excited to do the reading tasks because there we a lot of options to choose from, and a lot of great ones. My favourite reading we've done to date would have to be the growth mindset reading task, and it was the second reading of the whole semester, I think that's what got me excited about this module without those readings I would have lost interest at the beginning.

Image Source: wikimedia

This is the first image from the reading tasks about a growth and fixed mindset reading we did in week 2, the time has gone so fast I can't believe it. Hopefully the remaining weeks don't go by too fast, got work to do!!.

Looking Forward:

Looking forward, something I want to make sure I continue to do is, simply read more. I used to hate reading but the more I read, the more enjoyable it becomes and I think the more you read you can concentrate on doing tasks more, and that helps get work done quicker, which is something that I like so I have more time to do things that don't relate to college.

Since the start of this module, thanks to all the reading and typing and reading more and more articles than I ever thought I would I've started to start writing down how my day's are going or what my daily goals are, some of the readings said it's a good way to reflect so I started doing that. Which is something I enjoy doing, it's not like these blog posts where I have to mentally prepare myself for about 20 minutes before I start.

Overall I think doing all the reading tasks each week has helped me with my other modules this year, not directly or helped with one more than the other, it just makes reading easier so things get done quicker and you understand more. Reading just has positive effects on other things, don't really know how to describe it perfectly, but, it just does.

First Playable

 "First Playable"

Carrying on from last week, I have added a lot of mechanics to my game, which in turn advances the functionality of my game. Last week my game was very basic, all there was was a background and my character, and the character was only able to jump in one spot. This week, I've added more mechanics.

My background was stationary and would disappear after the player would run more than the backgrounds length, now the background respawns every time the character reaches the half way point of the background image. 

The character was previously static, now he's running. After making him run I added obstacles, one obstacle, but it spawns over and over again. The character could run, but his body was static, I've made the character more limber!!! So now, when the character runs, his arms and legs act as they should.

The obstacle I've added to the game is a a spool from a unity tutorial assets folder. First I had one obstacle and gave the player the ability to jump over it after that worked, I made the obstacle spawn repeatedly over and over as the character ran and leaped over it, the obstacle behind was coded to disappear so it wouldn't just lay there and make the game slow.

Learning about the animator of the character was hard to grasp, but after I understood it, it was fine. Learning more about how the speed, gravity and mass of the player effected how the player ran and jumped over the obstacles gave me more of an understanding of how game mechanics work, in a lot of details.

Now I have a working "First Playable" and I'm seeing it come together so doing some each week is more enjoyable when you know progress is steady, if things were not coming together this would be the worst part of my week. 

 

Unity Tutorial 07

 "Unity Tutorial 07"

When I started this weeks unity tutorials and the tutor guy, I forget his name!!, said this was considered the hardest tutorial that we had to do I just closed my laptop and walked away because I was mad, later when I went to start the tutorials, I had a accident and ended up cutting y thumb open and had to go and get my thumb all stitched up, so I had to do this weeks tutorials with one and a half functioning hands, and I cut open the thumb on my writing hand so that's great.

This weeks unity tutorials were on a sumo battle prototype, which seemed fun, I thought it would be a lot more difficult, as they said but they lied. It did take a whole lot of concentration though, so I wouldn't miss anything I was locked to that screen until I was finished. This week we learned about power ups, so basically giving the object a super power for a few seconds.

Image Source: Unity screenshot

Adding the power up and keeping track of the indicator to make sure if it was turning off was a bit difficult but when you know the codes right and it turns itself off, the anxious feeling of  "did I do it wrong" goes away. Doing this made me think about adding a power up into my game, it does suit the theme and makes sense to add one to it, I'll try and add a power up once I have my game functioning properly. 

Game Fun

 "Game Fun"

The reading set for this week was a lot better to read than previous weeks because of the topic, the topic of the reading was about fun in gaming, and to find out there is more than one type fun, that you create knowingly when designing the game and another type of fun that happens when you play the game.

In the set readings they talk about how fun is a byproduct of a well designed game, and that making a point to make your game a fun game is not the right strategy for the best results. I found the reading really informative and helpful because right now we've all started making our own games for this module, and reading about how to make your game fun at the beginning of the process can be very helpful and guide us in the right direction. 

Out of all the material I found the video the most helpful as it almost broke the big reading work down into a six minute segment, and it was easier for me to absorb the points he made, I think that's because I learn more when things are being said to me than have to read hundreds of small words. Something very interesting was said in the video which was that fun, comes from the ability to provide us with a rich possibility for learning.

Image Source: WikiCommons

Then he goes into talking about games and if they have any educational or informative concepts that we don't notice we're learning during gameplay, we are shown options of different games and what skills we can learn from them while also having fun too. Chess teaches us strategy and foresight, civilization games teach us systemic and resource management which would actually really be helpful right now and games like poker teaches us deception and how to read peoples lies. In the video these are "Type 1" games, which are all about making us think, use our brains. "Type 2" games are more about reflex skills.

Overall I enjoyed this weeks reading more than usual and the video summed everything up well and I was easily able to absorb what I needed to learn.  

Prototype

 "Prototype"

The week I've been dreading for week, the time has come to design a flipping game. To start I'm using the Unity game engine to make my game, the game engine we've done all the tutorials in through out the weeks of this module.

I have started trying to make my game in Unity. I'm using some tools from the pervious tutorial folders we've downloaded since starting the tutorials back in late September. I've used a background from one as I haven't been able to find on that I'd like to use online, I've googled "3D game background sprites FREE" over and over again and can't find anything useful.

I think I'll be using assets from previous tutorials as I know that they will be compatible together when running in unity at the same time. A bonus of starting the game with assets is the game looks like a functioning game before you get to the heavy coding in visual studio.

I'm still looking for some sort of package on the Unity site for some type of ground I can use instead of a plain white one. I have a lot of work to do, but I just have to be constantly doing something so it doesn't pile up. Luckily for me the previous tutorials we've done have been what my project is supposed to e so I can watch tutorials and use code from the tutorials to help with certain actions that I want to have appear in my game. 

Image Source: My own image!!!

Watching the tutorials again helps me a lot because the coding is very hard to remember, so it's great to have them to fall back on. 

 

Unity Tutorial 06

 "Unity Tutorial 07"

This weeks unity tutorials went well at the beginning as we were building on the tutorial we were doing in the previous week. I was really enjoying doing last weeks tutorial because the whole process and theme of the game was what I based and want my project to function and look like, so I was happy when this weeks unity work was carrying on from that and making it more detailed by adding a bunch of different sound effects and music, by doing this I learned how to add an audio source to the gameplay and the difference between an audio listener and audio player, they talk about it being the same in real life, it plays the music but there also has to be something there to listen to it.

Unity Screenshot

After finishing the end of the work be carried on from last week I thought we were going to build on it further, I was wrong, very wrong. We had to do another challenge, I hate doing those challenges because there's not instructions, so we have to try and carry the skills we learned from the previous task into this one. It's only a problem because I just forget and find it difficult to remember everything.

When that happens I just search online for pdf's with the finished version and it tells you what to do. Put when I know things and add them into the scripts myself, or look back at the previous scripts and try and make it relative to what's happening in the new game, normally that's just by changing a word or two. 

Games Decisions

 "Game Decisions"

The reading for this week was focused on how the design of games can decide if a player will enjoy the game and come back, or get bored quickly and leave the game. It focuses on keeping things basic so people know what to do and they don't fall into either bored, causing them to leave, anxiety because it's to difficult or the flow state, being there given a challenge to complete with instructions and the tools to complete the task. 

The flow state is what every game developer wants to create within their game, getting players into a flow state will give the players an incentive to keep playing because. they won't want to stop when their moving up level by level. The flow state can depend on who the players interacting with, whether it be a new player or a vet in the game. I f the player keeps winning because the other player is new to the game , that player will become bored and leave, if the opposite player is a the same level or better that's when the players will enter the flow state, which will lead them to play the game for hours on end not realizing where all the time went.

From reading the academic study provided in this weeks reading, we have found out that the flow state is good to get things done, but when it comes to spending hours on end, most days of the week there can be very negative impacts on those players lives. The study focuses on Thai children, the studies found that 2.5 million thai children had a game addiction problem. I also states the a high number of children in the U.S also suffer from game addiction along with Australia. It found that in  South Korea a death was caused by acute heart failure due to 80 hours of continues game play.  

Below are links to good articles that help you understand more about the flow state and how it plays part in successful games.

Link 1: https://medium.com/@raydaz/the-applications-relevance-of-flow-state-design-in-video-games-1572dac0d2c

Link 2: https://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/166972/cognitive_flow_the_psychology_of_.php

Link 3: http://www.strategy.rest/?p=1676

Game Design Document-GDD

 "Game Design Document"

For this weeks project tasks we had to create a G.D.D, which stands for a game design document, which essentially a document you give to a developer, with that document the programmer should have all they need to create the game you have thought of. Earlier in the week we had some reading on these documents so it gave me more clarity going into creating one myself, I wasn't so nervous.

Here's a link to my G.D.D I created using Dundoc.  When I first opened the document to start typing I was very confused, I had no idea where anything was r where to start typing. So for a while before I started typing away, I started to navigate my way down the map, and read all the headings and subheadings until I knew where everything was going, then I started typing.

I used miro to make the flow chart for a part of the game design document which was very easy as I'm gettig used to creating different boards on their thanks to our group project module that I really love a lot. The G.D.D is a constantly changing document, as the game development process continues new ideas are added and taken away, so there will be edits made to this document as times go on.

Twitter Task Week 10

 "Twitter Task"

For this weeks twitter task I created a twitter list, before completing this task I've never heard or used a twitter list before, it's all new to me. I t took me a few minutes to find where to create a list, it wasn't in my account page like the example on the cdmonline website, but after searching for a few minutes and going by it a couple times I found it, right in front of me.

All I had to do was click on the "List" button on the side of the twitter feed, then it comes up with the option to "create list", all you do is click on that then it asks you to name the list, add a description and a picture, the last two were optional. When that's done it opens up a search bar, and below lists different accounts and people that might relate to the title of your list, then you just start searching and adding people to the list. 

To add people to the list you don't have to follow them, but when their added, post recently uploaded by them will appear under the list.

I named my list "Internet Geniuses", not a serious list of internet smart people, it's a joke, kind of on the people of the list, some I really like and think are funny others are just straight idiots, such as Donald J Trump, he is a clown. Since this was my first time creating a list I thought it might be a bit difficult but that's not the case today, it was a grind, but I got through it, now I think I could get through anything.

Image Source: Flickr

Thanks for wasting your time here for another week, see you next time!!!

Unity Tutorial 05

 "Unity Tutorial 05"

I found this weeks Untiy tutorials harder and more frustrating than normal because there was four different lessons we had to complete, normally there's only 2, at a push the odd week three. Another reason it was frustrating is because the unity program on my laptop kept on crashing, more than once, I think it crashed around three or for times. This week it just seemed to have gotten more technical than the previous weeks, which would obviously happen as weeks progress at anything. When I first started this weeks unity tutorials I felt the same as I always do when I know I'll be spending hours doing this, but this week when I found out what we were doing I got really excited because my chosen game for the project is a running and jumping game similar to Temple Run and Subway Surfer, and in this weeks unity tutorials we did just that, I actually learned how to make and design my actual project game by doing this weeks unity tutorials which was something I was not expecting at the beginning of the week when I sat down to get this weeks work over with.

The hardest part of this weeks work was all the work in visual studio, it just took a lot of concentration so I wouldn't get anything wrong, which I did and I had to go back and fix things multiple times.

Image Source: Ctrl.blog

Thanks for reading this weeks blog, which was voted this weeks CDM year two blog of the month, thanks for all the support!!!

Games GDD

 "Games GDD"

What is the GDD for?

A Game Design Document (GDD) is a blueprint for the design and development of a game.

The GDD is a way of being creative and documenting the approach to the development of the game. Gonzale (1999) states that “ the important thing is to have something that describes your game project (or any other project for that matter) before jumping into production.( Gamasutra ) It should help to plan out your game. Though it is recommended that the GDD should be short it needs to be detailed enough so as game developers and artists can coordinate the development of the game independently whilst still keeping to the design. 

The GDD is a blueprint for how the game is going to be designed and built, similar to a mind map. In conclusion, the game design document is vital to making a game and it is important to have in order to describe your game project.

How do we make one?

There are a variety of tools that could be used to create a GDD. These include word processing tools, visual tools like Powerpoint, or new web-based tools such as DunDoc. Each of these tools has their advantages and are a personal choice. Many of the examples shared via the internet are in Microsoft Word format. Romero Games(creators of Doom) favour a more visual tool such as PowerPoint. Whichever tool is used they should support the development of the game in an open and transparent manner.

Image Source: Pintrest

What should be in it?

The GDD should be simple enough to read through details about your game design and concept. Schubert (2007), who was at the time lead designer for Bioware Austin, gave a GDC talk in about how to create design documentation, some of the most relevant elements include:

1. Know your target.- Have a clear vision and understanding of what you want to make. Make sure your game is suitable and fits your target audience.

2. Keep it short.  Keep it to the point and clear, the shorter they are, the easier it is to read, write, and maintain.

3. Prioritize the design.  - Divide your game in order of importance e.g have a functional game. Concentrate on core mechanics and visuals, and then expand 

4. Illustrate. - Draw sketches of your plans that make it easier to structure and implement. Present what your game would look like as it’s important to have a clear idea of the visuals before you begin creating.

5. Use user stories.- Describing the game through the player’s vision (Similar to what we did in the game vision statement).

Take into account the games users, their ideas may help develop future storylines or ideas.

6. Invest in a good format. Take the time to structure your work so that it is easy to navigate.

7. Use clear terminology. Don’t over-complicate the document. Make sure language is concise and accessible.

8. Kill redundancy.  -Recycle your code - use variables, not hard code). Always reference the new section on your page to have a clean document. Avoid copy and pasting sections.

9. Capture your reasoning - why did you make the choices you made? What led to that thought process?

References

Nachen, Lennart. 2014 Communication and Game Design Documents accessed 02/11/2020 http://acagamic.com/game-design-course/communication-and-game-design-documents/

Ferns, Shaun (2020) Readings Week 06 accessed 02/11/2020 https://cdmonline.ie/multidev1/reading-week-06/ 

 Gonzalez Leandro. 2016 How to Write a Game Design Document accessed 02/11/2020 

https://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/LeandroGonzalez/20160726/277928/How_to_Write_a_Game_Design_Document.php

Unity Tutorial 04

"Unity Tutorial 04"

 Personally I found this weeks unity gaming tutorial harder than the previous weeks, I'm just guessing as the weeks go on, the work load will get gradually bigger and more difficult and also time consuming, because that's what college work does!! consumes all your time until you have none left, the only thing you have energy for after it is bed!!!. I liked how it carried on from last weeks tutorials and wasn't something completely new like some of the previous weeks. For the first have of this weeks unity work I worked my way through it at a normal pace so I didn't make any major mistakes and have to go back steps to see where I went wrong, like most weeks, take my time and get through it.

But the second part, that's where I struggle a bit, not a lot, a bit. It's just when everything is taken away and I have to remember what I did in the previous tutorial to use those methods I have the biggest brain malfunction the world as we know it, knows!!! I try to remember what I did last time but I end up having to search the internet for help and watch a video tutorial on YouTube or find a pdf document that lists what need to be done to complete the tasks.

Image Source: Ctrl-blog

Just like the start of every week I can't wait to get these unity tutorials finished because they drag on because it's not fun, but there is always that feeling of accomplishment when you complete the declarations after you publish a blog post. Oh, I love unity gaming tutorials so much, thanks for reading.