IGB120 - Reflective Journal Assignment

Hey all! I'm Alec Tonkin (n11133082), eager to explore the the world of game development. My passion lies in game design, coding, and storytelling. This blog will display my progress in mastering game mechanics, narrative construction.

[alecmass]

Week 13: Assignment 3 Postmortem

Hello fellow game enthusiasts! As I wrap up the development of G.R.U.S.H, it's essential to reflect on the successes and challenges faced. This post mortem aims to provide insights that could help other developers in their own game development journeys.

Successes: Integrating rhythm-based elements in a space arcade shooter was a significant risk with the given time, but the extra work paid off by setting G.R.U.S.H apart from traditional games in the genre. The multi-phase gameplay tied to the rhythm of the music created a unique and engaging experience that was generally well-received by players during playtests. Utilizing tools like Discord for communication and GitHub for version control facilitated a smooth workflow among team members. Regular meetings and updates ensured that everyone was aligned with the project goals and milestones.

Challenges: As development progressed, the scope of the project occasionally threatened to exceed our initial estimates in terms of time and resources. Managing scope creep without compromising on the quality and vision of the game was a learning curve for the entire team.

To conclude...

The development of G.R.U.S.H, and by extension this unit, was a complex but rewarding endeavor that pushed the boundaries of what I thought I could achieve as a game developer. I hope that my experiences shared can inspire and assist other developers in their projects.

Thank you to everyone who supported me throughout my journey, I look forward to working on more innovative and enjoyable games in the future.

[alecmass]

Week 11: Assignment 3 Playtesting

Hello fellow game enthusiasts! This week marked the most pivotal of the assessment, as it was this week that my team conducted a series of playtests for our Prototype. This exercise was crucial as it provided us with valuable insights into user experience, game mechanics, and overall engagement.

Positives:

Ease of Learning and Control Accessibility - Most testers found the game relatively easy to learn and play.

Player Experience - The fun factor of G.R.U.S.H was generally rated highly, despite not fully grasping the rhythm mechanics.

Game visuals - Feedback on game aesthetics was overwhelmingly positive. Players enjoyed the enemy designs and the game's background, which is a testament to our design team’s efforts.

Negatives:

Rhythm gameplay - Play-testers noted that the rhythm mechanics were hard to grasp and were not conveyed well during gameplay.

Lack of visual queues - Testers found that they could not differentiate the difference between the level's 2 phases, which stemmed from the game's lack of visual queues and animation variety.

This feedback points to a potential need for revising how the defense mechanics are presented or making them more varied to keep the excitement consistent throughout the game.

[alecmass]

Week 10: Assignment 3 Progress

Hello fellow game devs,

To start the final phase of my game development course, I have undertaken the development of a space shooter, G.R.U.S.H. I'm excited to share the tremendous progress we've made. With about 80% of the game prototype completed, it's been a valuable exercise of teamwork and GDevelop coding.

Current State of Development:

Game Mechanics and Features: We've successfully implemented the core mechanics that blend space enemies with rhythm-based gameplay. Players can now engage in the attack and defense phases, shooting and dodging in sync with our soundtrack.

Visual and Audio Integration: The visual elements are nearly complete, with most sprites fully animated and integrated into the game environment. The background scrolls effectively to simulate movement through space, enhancing the immersive experience.

Health and Scoring Systems: The health bar and scoring mechanics are operational. The health bar decreases upon enemy contact but regenerates if the player avoids further hits, adding a strategic layer to the game. Scoring is rhythm-based, however our team still needs to integrate the visual queues for rewarding enemy kills.

Stay tuned for the final product, and let's continue to push the boundaries of what indie games can achieve!

[alecmass]

Week 9: Racing Post-Mortem

Hello fellow game enthusiasts! I have reached a third major step in my game development journey - finishing my car racing game. Project successes:

Driving Mechanics - I successfully implemented complex driving mechanics, including acceleration lane-changing behavior. This gave me an increased understanding of how to simulate realistic driving and effective user-input response.

Game Environment - The integration of a detailed road environment, explosions and added cars for further immersion contributed to the overall identity of the game.

Challenges:

Game Balance - Balancing the game's difficulty, particularly with regards to traffic activity and player speed, required much more trial and error than originally anticipated.

Feature Integration - Given more time, I would have liked to implement additional features such as a additional racing maps, recognizable cars (Diverse designs rather than generic colors).

[alecmass]

Week 8: Assignment 2 Progress

As I navigate the exciting world of game development, creating a compelling one-sheet and one-page to function as a pitch has been both challenging and rewarding. My recent efforts have focused on developing a concise yet captivating one-sheet and a detailed one-pager, to promote my ideas outlined in week 2.

The One-Sheet I focused on maintaining a cyberpunk aesthetic, with striking neon colors and a gritty urban backdrop to set the tone. I have included 2 screenshots to convey the player idle and in combat, which demonstrates the environment and gameplay potentials.

The One-Page The goal for creating this one-page was to communicate the depth of gameplay clearly and effectively. By outlining elements like NPC roles and death mechanics, I aimed to provide a thorough preview of the game dynamics to fellow game developers.

[alecmass]

Week 8: Racing game development

Hello fellow game enthusiasts, I'm thrilled to share the latest updates on my racing game project!

I've been following the workshop, importing multiple car sprites, a detailed road backdrop, and explosion animations which not only accomplishes dynamic animations, but also contributes to the high stakes 'feel' discussed in last week's pitch.

The initialization of scene settings, such as the camera position centered around the racing track, has been crucial. I used past knowledge gain to adjusting the car's movement based on key presses. However, I needed to ensure the car returns to a straight position when the player releases the steering keys.

To-Do by next week: To complete the project, I plan to integrate a scoring system serves as a reflection of the player's performance. In addition to this, I will need to add additional cars with collision mechanics to include realistic impacts and consequences.

[alecmass]

Week 7: Racing Game Pitch

Upon wrapping up "Galaxy Defender," I have shifted towards creating a racing game.

Title: Speed Demon

Introducing "Speed Demon," a fast-paced racing game where you take the wheel in adrenaline junkie street racer zooming across the city. Players maneuver tight corners, avoid obstacles, and outsmart rivals to dominate the racing scene. Featuring a retro-style top down POV, the game offers an arcade driving experience that captures the high-stakes nature of street racing.

Control Scheme: A/D: Steer vehicle W: Accelerate S: Brake Space Bar: Nitro Boost As players advance, they'll face increasingly challenging circuits and skilled rivals, requiring precise driving techniques and reflexes.

Speed Demon combines minimalist yet striking visual elements with complex urban layouts to emulate the high octane environment of street racing.

[alecmass]

Week 7: Asteroids Post-mortem

Hi fellow game enthusiasts! Having completed the second step of my developer journey - completing my Asteroids game, I've taken some time to reflect on the project, examining both what went well and what could have been better.

Project successes:

Effective Use of GDevelop Events - By implementing features such as the behavior of asteroids, shooting and movement mechanics, and collision detection, I have gained invaluable knowledge how events respond to user inputs and other game state changes.

Gameplay Balance Development of this project has enlightened me on the importance of variables like asteroid speed, spawn speeds, and spaceship controls to ensure the gameplay is balanced. Challenges:

Stale Gameplay - Creating varied gameplay in an Asteroids game presents several challenges, especially when working within the constraints of the simplistic gameplay mechanics. For instance, given more time, I would implement more enemy types, such as spaceships that would fire back. Developing the Asteroids game was an incredible experience that taught me a great deal about game development, particularly within an event-driven framework of GDevelop.

I hope sharing these insights can continue to inspire my fellow game devs.

[alecmass]

Week 6: Asteroids Development

Hello fellow game enthusiasts!

I'm excited to share my latest progress on creating an Asteroids-style game on GDevelop. Firstly, I have utilized the following assets provided by the IGB 120 unit content:

Creating this game has given me an opportunity to learn the full potential the 'events' features in G develop has to offer.

Initialization and Timers: At the beginning of my game scene, I learned that setting up initializing settings and starting timers are vital. In the context of my game, the initialization events controls how often asteroids appear and when bullets can be fired. Setting up these timers ensures that the game mechanics function as intended from the start of the game

The control scheme is matched by what was advertised in my pitch last week. Thanks to my continued progress in mastering how to configure events, I was able to set up the behavior of the lasers so that it would fire at a consistent rate, and allow for some time in-between the spawn-time of asteroids

At the time of this blog, I have set up the basis for the final product of my asteroids game, with a variety of sprites, an engaging space environment and the fundamental game mechanics.

To-do by next week: In order for the successful completion of this project, I will need to add a score and lives counter, as well as set up events that allow for collisions of these asteroids to mean losing a life. After 3 deaths, the 'Game Over' screen should appear. Once again, thank you for following my game development journey. I hope this inspires you to dive into your own projects and iterate on your great ideas!

[alecmass]

Week 5: Asteroids elevator pitch

As I concluded the my first platformer game development, I made the pivot to creating an Asteroids-style game. Title: Galaxy Defender Dive into "Galaxy Defender," a high-octane asteroid shooter where you navigate through an ever-dangerous asteroid belt to save the galaxy. The player must use strategic shooting and evasive movements to survive endless bombardments of deadly asteroids. With stunning cosmic visuals, the game will offer a thrilling experience that harkens back to classic arcade machines.

Control Scheme: Mouse/Touchpad: Aim lazers Space Bar: Fire lasers. Arrow Keys/WASD: Move ship As the game progresses, the player will encounter progressively difficult stages, with smaller room for error.

The game will contain minimalistic yet striking cosmic imagery to mimic the classic arcade experience.

Galaxy defender will be an endless experience, providing gamers the opportunity to boast about their high scores.

[alecmass]

Week 5: Platformer Postmortem

Creating a platformer game for the past couple weeks has been a challenging endeavor, from conceptualizing  an idea and materializing these ideas in a way that works in a gameplay medium. This post serves as a post-mortem with the purpose of reflecting on my experience, highlighting the successes, challenges, and lessons learned so far.

Successes:

Playtesting: One of the most eye-opening aspects of this project was implementing playtesting. Thanks to the valuable feedback of my peers, I was given input that I could directly use to improve gameplay mechanics, ensuring they were intuitive and enjoyable.

Lessons learned:

Implementing an improved iterative approach for developing games moving forward to ensure consistent and quality progress throughout. 

Looking to the future, I will use the lessons learned from this short project to shape our approach to game development. The challenges encountered have provided me an improved understanding of the intricacies of platformer game design and development. I intend on applying these insights to new projects.

[alecmass]

Week 4: Playtesting

Playtesting stands as a critical cornerstone in the game development process, acting as the bridge between the creators' intentions and the players' experiences. This important stage in game development involves more than simply finding imperfections in code or scripting, rather, it identifies player interaction, satisfaction, and engagement with the game. Playtesting provides developers an opportunity to gain insights into how players perceive and navigate the game, uncovering challenges and that were not evident from the developer's point of view. It ensures that gameplay mechanics, narrative flow, and difficulty levels are in line with the target demographic's expectations and abilities.

With all this in mind, it is vital to construct meaningful questions once play-testers have finished the game. I have written the following to be asked:

In one word, how would you describe the atmosphere of the game

Name 3 emotions you experienced during the playtest

What was your favorite part of the game and why

How you describe the difficulty? Too easy/ Fair / Challenging/ Too hard

What game mechanic did you like?

Was there any mechanic that felt missing?

Rate your experience 1-10

Here is a sample answers from a play-tester who tried my platformer demo:

[alecmass]

Week 3: GDevelop and Platformer fundamentals

This The past week I have familiarized myself with the fundamentals of platformer game development, thanks to completing the "Intro to GDevelop and Creating your Platformer," workshop. It was through this tutorial that I made my first conceptualization of a platformer game to the hands-on experience of bringing it to life. This workshop, aligned with Fullerton’s The Game Design Workshop chapters, were invaluable to my development as an up-and-coming game developer.

GDevelop, a versatile game development platform will be used for the duration of this project. I started by creating a new project. I then started importing my first sprite from a supplied platformer materials folder containing a number of free-to-use assets for a platformer game. The playable character has multiple images to represent different states and animations, which would be set up with the help of "Behaviors".

As seen below, configuring behaviors for sprites allows the setup of actions such as movement and jumping:

This week's exercises has significantly empowered me with both a developer and player-centric perspective, reminding me that at the heart of every great game is an experience that resonates with its audience. My venture into platformer development is just beginning, now armed with the fundamental knowledge of GDevelop, I am able to start building upon this to create a fully functioning demo.

[alecmass]

Week 2: Platformer Elevator Pitch

This week I attended my first workshop. I was ecstatic to be finally surrounded by fellow enthusiasts who share my  passion for gaming. I embarked on a journey not just of learning but of creation. The workshop provided my first foray into the fundamental tools of GDevelop, a software solution that will serve as the tool to materialize my storytelling and gameplay ambitions.

As I begin the development of a platformer game, my overarching goal is to subvert the traditional left-to-right progression that has long defined the genre. I intend to challenge the conventions by orienting the gameplay vertically, inviting players to ascend through the futuristic landscapes of towering skyscrapers.

That bring me neatly into the story. Whilst platformers favor gameplay over story, I aim to tell my story through the environment and enemy types, not unlike how fromsoftware approaches their stories in their games. I envision the game starting at the bottom a futuristic city, perhaps the slums or ghetto, where our protagonist begins their journey. As they progress through the duration of the game, the player discovers they are traversing a large sky-scraper, and the environments gets more complex and sophisticated. I intend on letting the players interpret themes of life's hustle, or perhaps fighting to the top of a corporate empire, losing all sense of humanity and integrity along the way (destruction of environments, killing of enemies). If I were to cite any game's art style, I'd have to reference Cyberpunk 2077, Hotline Miami and Huntdown as major inspirations.

The vertical gameplay won't be just a gimmick, instead it will serve a variety of gameplay and storytelling purposes. Firstly, the will have a strong influence on movement and combat, with an increased consciousness of gravity. Fundamental gameplay includes running, jumping, and climbing, all while integrating dynamic combat. Power-ups, weapon variety and upgrades will be scattered throughout this vertical world secret or unlockable areas to reward attentive gamers.

One of the advantages of platformers is that they have mass appeal, given that they are typically more accessible compared to other genres. That being said, fans of sci-fi, violence in games, and puzzles are the target demographic.

[alecmass]

Week 1: An introduction...

Hey everyone! I'm ecstatic to finally have the opportunity to contribute to this booming gaming community. Undertaking this course has finally allowed me to harness my lifelong love for gaming and my growing fascination with game development to flourish. From princesses being in a different castle to not knowing what the hell the numbers mean, gaming is not just a past-time, but a hobby. Delving into the intricacies of game development, from intricate coding puzzles to the artistry of world-building, has only deepened my appreciation for the games I've always loved. As I embark on this new chapter, crafting experiences that I hope will captivate and thrill just as I have been captivated, I'm eager to learn, share, and connect with fellow enthusiasts who understand that gaming is not just entertainment; it's a form of art that speaks to the heart of innovation and creativity. Let's create, play, and inspire together!