IGB 220

n11013435 Cane Neilson

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WEEK 13 Assignment 3 Cleaning Up and more Testing

This week I conducted my own deep playtest with a person. It was a challenge trying to push them to constantly speak but I believe that some good info was gained. I ran a playtest with an older student that was doing the Bachelor of Games and was in his third year, so he was critical on the level design and the gameplay of the game. One complaint he had was that coins were not placed the same way consistently. Some coins would be on the floor and others would be just above the player’s head.

coins in line with player

coins in different position

He also commented on the jump mechanic, stating that he expected it to be a tap for a small jump and to hold down space for a large jump. Unlike other playtests, he ranked the controls of the game lowly when compared to other play testers opinions. This then led me to start playing around with the controls to find a good balance and to question if our setup was good.

 I also grabbed someone from university to test the game and see what his thoughts on it were. The goal of this was to get a completely naïve user that wouldn’t know too much about gaming. From the testing it was found that some areas of the game were difficult, and often the play tester would get stuck at certain levels. Especially the goblin area. We never did a deep playtest with this user due to time constraints. After further consideration my group and I decided that this was an outlier and that this target was not part of our target demographic, so we kept the game in the same state. After this we decided to just polish up the game and start work on the final report of the playtesting of our game.

 This concludes my game dev journey for this year. I felt like I learnt a lot from this and have aims to create games over the summer. I’m excited for what is to come next year.

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WEEK 12 Assignment 3 Dev Post

This week took a total focus on the playtesting of our game prototype. From the previous week’s tests, and the feedback we received from our users, myself and my group went ahead to gather information on the new prototype. There were many different playstyles among the testers, with some opting to kill every enemy on the level, collect every coin, or just try to speed run the whole game. The age range of our testers was ranging from 18 – 24.

 From our post playtest surveys, I found that from the playtests, a lot of users ranked the level design and the overall gameplay of the game lowly compared to everything else. A good thing however was that the art style and general aesthetic of the game was good, so that is something that wouldn’t need as much focus on.

 Taking this into consideration, I decided to try and think of some new features etc. One thing I made was a spike pit, where instead of falling to your death you would get impaled by goblin traps. I think this would fit the story of the game better. I also took into consideration an automatic arrow shooter, to add more depth to the game. I think including this could solve the gameplay issues/simplicity as jumping is very safe and is possible to bypass a lot of the level with it. In light of this however, these are just test mechanics and will need further thought and input from the other team members.

Early design of the spike hole

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WEEK 11 Assignment 3 Dev Post

In this week, the focus was on the testing of the game. Using the playtesting documents created me and my group did some testing to identify what was missing from our game and to just get some general feelers. Using people within our workshop we did two tests with two different users. The main concerns that were raised were mainly with the levels design. One such issues was that in the level there was a major drop to a second area, and players didn’t know if they should jump down there or not. This was fixed by adding an arrow downwards to guide the player.

Another issue was the life system, were getting hit once would put the players all the way back to the start of the level. This caused some frustrations to the player as they would feel like all their progress was lost and they would have to run through the whole level to get back to where they were.  

 Using this info, level design took main priority, and with this in mind the game was updated. Firstly, more enemy types were added in the form of traps (spikes), as well as changing how the goblins worked, making them dash quickly to the left. Finally, the levels were updated, creating a different layout as well as increasing the quantity of platforms to make the game longer. Three stages were added with the changing effect happening when the player found a treasure chest teleporting them to the next stage.

The spike traps

1st Level layout

2nd Level layout

3rd Level Layout

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WEEK 10 Assignment 3 Dev Post

For this week, development on the game begun and during the workshop, ideas were being bounced around about what the game will look like in terms of gameplay and what enemies will be added. There was also Part A of the final assignment due at the end of the week, which included a one page of the game and a production timeline/task delegation of each member.

 With the one page, we looked at it in the workshop and decided to add some extra features, one was the change from having a one hit death from enemies to enemies would take coins away from the player instead. Another was the addition of traps in the form of waterfalls and sticky zones. The one page was also helpful as it aided me to see what the game would look like in terms of art style as well as what mechanics had to be implemented and what could be missing.

 We also delegated a bunch of tasks, and I was given the job of creating play testing materials and to implement a feature with the coins and treasure chest. For this week, I worked on the coins and treasure chest, implementing a counter for the coins the player collects. For the treasure chest, I added a win scene where the player would be taken to a screen which displays their final score (based on how many coins they collect) as well as a coin shower and a play again button.

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WEEK 9 One page and One sheet assignment

For this week’s objective, I focused on more of the marketing side of the game industry, looking at the one page and one sheet. The one sheet is an A4 piece of paper used to grab the attention of the audience, and the one page, an A3 in-depth explanation of the games mechanics and what values/features need to be implemented. For my One sheet and One page I decided to go for the game I created in week 5/6, the garbage asteroid’s style game with a mix of top-down features involved with the racing sim demo I created in week 7.

 I decided to go with the game, GARBAGE MAYHEM, a game which involves picking up garbage as you dodge and destroy enemies that try to stop you from getting collected. For inspiration/guide, I looked at a variety of sheets. The one page and one sheet of the game breakout was one I took inspiration:

Toward the end, I had nearly completed my documents but luckily, I asked the tutor for feedback and found that the descriptions on certain mechanics were too long and could be more concise. By adding tables about the players and enemies ‘stats’ I was finally happy with how it turned out.

 Also today, the start of assignment 3 had begun, and I formed a group with 3 other members. Most of the session was talking to one another to see what the others interests were as well as deciding what game we would be working on. The decision was then made to develop a platformer game with a 16-bit art style based on finding treasure in the jungle.

Sources:

(https://blackboard.qut.edu.au/bbcswebdav/pid-9513997-dt-content-rid-41655626_1/courses/IGB220_21se2/breakout1-2.jpg) (https://blackboard.qut.edu.au/bbcswebdav/pid-9513997-dt-content-rid-41655627_1/courses/IGB220_21se2/breakout2-2.jpg) .

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WEEK 8 Post Mortem

The readings that inspired my design process for this development was about game premise from Chapter 4, page 106. This reading got me thinking on the meaning behind what I was creating, and how I could create a story in the game through the use of visual aspects. I did this by adding colourful fish, some swimming in schools, as well as having it seem like the player was moving upwards to imitate the fish being reeled in.

One thing I would change on how I developed my prototype; would be how I play tested and implemented changes based on the feedback. I did not emphasize taking notes of the play testers actions and what they were doing (chapter 9, Page 290), therefore I feel like I lost some useful information with how the player interacted with the level, and how they would dodge/where they would mainly play. Another thing I would experiment with would be to develop my idea for longer period of time, over different days. I found this idea from the readings on Chapter 7 Page 216, and think this method would be better, as I would be able to think of new ideas, or develop upon my one, coming up with better mechanics.

  A thing I would change about the design of the prototype would be to add a score and a mechanic where the game wasn’t infinite, with a bar displaying how much further the player has to keep the fish safe. I think this would enhance the game a lot more, by adding a depth meter, I could implement different enemies, objects and backgrounds depending on how deep the player is. For example, at 1000 meters they would start in the deep ocean, having to dodge whales and marlin, and then toward the top they would encounter lots of schools of fish swimming across the screen which they would have to dodge.

Fullerton, T. (2018). Game Design Workshop: A Playcentric Approach to Creating Innovative Games. ProQuest Ebook. Retrieved from: https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/qut/reader.action?docID=5477698

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WEEK 7/8 Fishing game Dev post

At the start of the week, I learnt how to create a racing sim game, and by using these elements I created my fishing game. Using what I learnt from previous dev productions, I decided to take a different approach and think of what mechanics I would like to implement before starting development. I then came to the conclusion to add different types of fish that swim across, in schools or alone depending on the type as well as a shark that one hits the player. I also had ideas to implement a scene where you can choose to catch what fish u wanted which would change the size of the fish, essentially becoming a difficulty setting.

 With these ideas in mind so far in development I have successfully added the fish that swim horizontally across the screen, damaging the player if they get hit. I also was able to implement the shark mechanic which would one hit the player.

Something I did learn from this process was the importance of clarity. This week I got to do some playtesting on the game, and one issue that kept reoccurring was that players didn’t know what features did what, and what the objective of the game was. For example, I had bubbles that would fall from the top and would boost the player upwards slightly, however some players thought this was food and had to be collected. From this I understood the importance of making clear features that did obvious things, or by using common mechanics shared between games.

 One part of the reading that inspired my design of this game was from Chapter 4 on page 106. Where it described the game space invaders having a simple and effectiveness that made the game premise strong without a proper story. I then tried to follow this, creating a scenario where the player is instantly spawned into the world as a fish on a hook with the fisherman having to dodge and other fish as he/she tries to land their catch. My thoughts on the readings so far have been useful for this project, as they have helped previous dev phases, and have allowed me to get the experience for this one. The readings on playtesting were the most useful for me (Chapter 9, Page 292), and I adopted the one-on-one testing, asking question before and after as well as observing the playthrough.

Sources

Fullerton, T. (2018). Game Design Workshop: A Playcentric Approach to Creating Innovative Games. ProQuest Ebook. Retrieved from: https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/qut/reader.action?docID=5477698

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WEEK 7 - Racing-Sim Elevator Post

Game Title: Big catch!

Play as a deep-sea fisherman and try to reel up your big catch, but beware obstacles such as ocean garbage, marlins and sharks that might take your catch. Jerk your line left to right and get powerups that help you reel in faster as your fish tries to move on its own and escape itself. Can you get the Big Catch!

3 Unique Selling Points

An Intense game that pits you against the dangers of the Ocean

Colorful backgrounds with vibrant fish, but don’t let them distract you!

Simple but intense game mechanics that anyone can play

Genre

Fishing game, Top-down

Setting/Style

Set in the ocean, you start at the bottom of the seafloor and travel upwards, from the deeps to the blue ocean.  Big Catch also takes the style of a cartoon type of art-style, with simple animations and images.

Audience/Demographic

Mainly aimed at kids, due to its simplicity in controls, (Age 7+)

Mechanics/Mode of Game play

player controls include left and right functions, moving the fishing line left and right within a certain area.

An Brief idea of what the game may look like

https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.com%2FNETIGEN-Best-Hungry-Fish%2Fdp%2FB00LSPL2LW&psig=AOvVaw0f6e2nyyZFjLniXmor1zd5&ust=1636094210293000&source=images&cd=vfe&ved=0CAsQjRxqFwoTCNid4IaM_vMCFQAAAAAdAAAAABAQ

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WEEK 6- Postmortem

For this development process the Chapter readings I focused on were Chapters 6 and 10. These chapters influenced my design process by taking a more focused approach on game balance and broadening my view of implementing game mechanics. By focusing on thinking of as many game mechanics within a short 30 min period I got a good list of what I wanted to implement and which ones I wanted to focus on above others. Another inspiration I got was from chapter 10, in terms of game balance. Where balancing the games movement mechanics and players abilities, this caused myself to take a good look at the players move speeds and what they could do in the game. Choosing to make them slightly faster than the enemies and limiting their usage of the gun with a slower firing rate. I also saw ways to balance the game around skillful players, where if they succeeded with a score of 2000 or higher, more objects would spawn to create a greater challenge.

 One thing I would have liked to change about the development process of the game was my planning before implementation. I think having a clearer idea of what I wanted to do would have made the game a lot better and allowed me to narrow down on what specific design ideas I wanted to focus on. Allowing more time for brainstorming and idea creation was the key here, with this including game play of other games and picking and choosing which game mechanics I thought would be fun. Another would be to add in WASD controls, as I ran out of time deciding and implementing what mechanics I wanted while creating the prototype I didn’t have time for WASD. If I had implemented it, I think this really would have enhanced the game as I could then add in more features involving enemies due to the player having better control. I could have also improved the gun, adding mouse-controlled missiles or a grappling gun.

 If I had to change the design of my prototype I would have liked to make it seem like it was moving where the player would think they where a garbage truck moving along the street picking up rubbish while fitting of enemies. This would have then allowed the player to focus in one direction rather than random directions all at once with all objects coming right to left and sometimes above and below. In addition to this, as mentioned before, I would have liked to change the design of the gun, changing its focus away from destroying objects. I think making it a grappling hook to pull in power-ups would have made the game much more unique and interesting to play, while following the theme of the duties of a garbage man, which is to clean the streets.

Sources

Fullerton, T. (2018). Game Design Workshop: A Playcentric Approach to Creating Innovative Games. ProQuest Ebook. Retrieved from: https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/qut/reader.action?docID=5477698

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Snapshot of a rough copy of my garbage truck themed asteroid-style game

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WEEK 5/6 - Asteroid-like game Development Post

Overall, so far in development I have mainly been focusing on the enemy’s mechanics adding in unique types to keep the player on their toes. I also started to focus on the player, and the power-ups and the mechanics that can enhance the game and enjoyment when playing. One such thing I was thinking of adding was the ability to move with WASD and aim and shoot with a mouse. I think this would be great as giving the player more control makes games such as these a lot more enjoyable and gives options to increase the game difficulty and increase enemy spawn rates and abilities.

Some features I’ve added: 

- So far in my new development process on an asteroid like game, I continued with my elevator pitches idea on creating a garbage man themed game. I think so far development has been good. Some features I have implemented are options to gain lives by picking up rare objects/power ups to gain extra lives. Picture 

- I have also added in new enemy mechanics likes trash that spawns an still trash can that continually shoots out garbage in random directions at a higher speed than all the other moving objects, which also only stays alive for a short period (8 seconds) 

- Another feature I implemented was the aspect of moving/tracking garbage/enemy to the player where I created a mechanic that would spawn in moving enemies to slowly follow the player, and if ignored would eventually corner the player with the number of enemies following them. 

 Learnings:

Something I learnt from this dev phase was the importance of the player having good control of the person they are playing. This was because during multiple play tests from myself and other people the controls the user had often limited what they could do and lower player creativity as well as create frustration when they couldn’t dodge an asteroid or shoot exactly where they wanted due to the limited number of controls.

 Readings

From the book written by Fullerton, one mechanic that was inspired from the readings was from Chapter 10 where they discussed the balancing of game variables. One extract that caused this was about Mario and how if his speed was slow than the game would be boring, or if he was too fast than he would be hard to control. From this I decided to look at the ships/garbage trucks movement speed and how the bullets traveled and at what rate. I eventually chose to limit the bullets to break after hitting an object rather than continuing to destroy all objects. I also limited the firing rate of the gun, to make the player focus more on dodging/picking up obstacles, with the gun as a secondary focus. Once again, I made the player slightly faster than all the moving debris so that they could dodge and give them more of a chance.

 So far, my thoughts on the readings were that they were useful in deciding which mechanics I should choose to put in, where it stated that I should go for quantity no matter how outrageous rather than quality and then fine tune the ones I liked (Chapter 6) (Fullerton, 2018, p. 100). This helped the creation of the game as at the start I wasn’t sure which mechanics would work and theory crafting in my head what would be fun. But from this chapter, I changed my process and just started to create mechanics from ideas I had and what I as a player would like in a game. In summary, this reading applied to how I made the game, by giving a ‘care-free’ style of approach when prototyping focusing more on a do and test style of development.

Sources

Fullerton, T. (2018). Game Design Workshop: A Playcentric Approach to Creating Innovative Games. ProQuest Ebook. Retrieved from: https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/qut/reader.action?docID=5477698

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WEEK 5

Elevator Pitch - Asteroids like game

Garbage mayhem

People don’t organize their rubbish anymore, and on top of that they just leave it out on the sidewalk! Join Roy, a fed-up garbage man as he clears the streets of garbage and other potential hazards on the road. Dodge and weave, shoot rubbish and see how long you can survive before you become trash as well.

3 Unique Selling Points

Points score (see how high you can get)

Mouse controlled

Fun colors and an interesting background

 The genre

Action / Multi-directional shooter

Setting/Style

Urban setting in a dirty city with a pixel art style. It will also aim to have colorful scenes and enemies. The game will also be fast paced and aim to create a challenge to players.

Audience or Demographics

Due to mild violence the audience will be aimed at pre-teen children (11+). Below is some art that will inspire the look of the game:

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Source:

https://www.dreamstime.com/vector-pixel-art-junk-garbage-isolated-image186967732

https://www.reddit.com/r/PixelArt/comments/8u9hhm/road_tile_for_my_game_what_do_you_guys_think_i/

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WEEK 5

Platformer Post-Mortem

One reading which inspired my design process was from chapter 4 and the term ‘flow’ and how you have to carefully balance frustration and boredom for an optimal experience (Fullerton, 2018, p. 100). My initial design for this was to create many obstacles and threats as well as many pathways for victory, while also moving away from the frustration aspect by adding lives (3). So that the player would not get punished too hard and continue engagement in with what happens after taking dmg. One classic example I noticed was super mario 64 where you can take a lot of hits from enemies before finally losing.

 Given another chance, one thing I would change in terms of my processes in developing the prototype, would be having more emphasis on play testing. Due to time, I was a bit rushed and couldn’t implement the player feedback and then get it tested again. Therefore, if I could do it again, I would get the prototype tested earlier and then get it tested again with animations and the feedback given added in. Another is to use better animations/sprite models. By doing this I could create a better feel for the player and make the characters movement feel more impactful when moving/jumping. I would have also liked to do this to some enemies, where enemies with animations dealt more dmg.

 If I had to redesign my platformer game, I would have liked to focus more on the aspects of my enemies. This is because I think they were too basic and having one dimensional movement made the game a lot easier than what I envisioned it to be.  I would have also liked to make my game more side-scroller like, where the game moves along on its own, I think this would have made it a lot better as it would have given the player less time to think, increasing difficulty and thus forth increased player satisfaction when the level is completed.

  Sources

Fullerton, T. (2018). Game Design Workshop: A Playcentric Approach to Creating Innovative Games. ProQuest Ebook. Retrieved from: https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/qut/reader.action?docID=5477698

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Week 3/4 Development Post

Platformer development

So far in the development of the 2D platformer game, I have been trying to achieve to create a base level to play test, while keeping the themes of the elevator pitch. This mainly entailed testing out the player move speed and jump speeds. I also found an asset pack that suited the style of the game however some aspects of the art need to be altered as well as a new character model needs to be made.

https://www.gameart2d.com/free-sci-fi-platformer-tileset.html

Within the pipeline, I would say I am nearly finished with one playable level in the game.

 Learnings

From this initial dev period, I learnt that researching games and truly understanding what the game needs is important. In doing so I think this initial period would have been a lot quicker, then I could have it play-tested earlier and refined the initial prototype.

 One takeaway I took from the readings is from chapter 7 from ‘Game Design Workshop: A Playcentric Approach to Creating Innovative Games, Fourth Edition’ where it talks about working fast and working economically. I agreed with this idea, where taking things one step at a time and developing smaller, more specific prototypes is important. I took this with heart when starting to make my prototype and made many smaller scaled scenes to test out specific mechanics and gameplay features. And then once happy I will compile them all into one.

 Another reading that influenced my design ideas, was in chapter 8 of ‘Game Design Workshop: A Playcentric Approach to Creating Innovative Games, Fourth Edition’. This inspired the design of the level to focus on giving the player a challenge by setting constraints in the game such as adding a ceiling to the game to limit jump height and placing moving enemies throughout the level to limit where the player can move/land.

“constraint define sensation … You should put in some kind of platforms or enemies, some kind of topology that will give the motion meaning.”

References:  Readings ( CH 7-8, Book - ‘Game Design Workshop: A Playcentric Approach to Creating Innovative Games, Fourth Edition )

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Inspiration/Concept Art for my electricity ball and what my platformer art-style/game-play may look like.

https://www.vectorstock.com/royalty-free-vector/energy-sphere-electric-plasma-ball-explosion-vector-25061470

https://www.halfbrick.com/games/jetpack-joyride-2

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Elevator Pitch

My first game: 

Geometry dash meets electricity meets Jetpack Joyride

In Hardwired, you play as a ball of electricity that has come to life and is trapped within a wired world. In a quest to reach a battery so that is can live another day, you must control the ball of electricity in a 2D platformer world made of wires and potential hazards to electricity. By using your skill to avoid, dodge, and jump over many obstacles, you can save this little volt of electricity.

Bonus info

Genre?

platformer, action

Audience/demographic?

This game contains bursts of electricity, mild explosions, and some cartoon violence. So an age range of 10+ will be the aim, as referenced by “https://www.esrb.org/”

Setting/style?

The style of game will have a cartoon feel with colourful aspects. The setting will be inside a large wire tube where the background will be a dull colour of wires and the foreground being the player and the colourful obstacles