Gordon Connell: Game Designer

[gconnell-design-blog]

My Post Mortem: Game Designing Unit 7

Our game project is complete at this point and it was one of my favourite parts of the year seeing the game come out as it did. After our presentation at the end of Alpha we had a long lengthy discussion on the state of the game and it lasted over an hour which was a fantastic interaction that helped the game tremendously and also increased our teamwork and soft skills towards each other.

I got to experience a variety of scenarios such as how stressful the work can be at deadline and how much communication is key in a project like this. I had some days where I did work I wasn’t used to doing because of absentees and some days where there were a lot and it was really only communicating with a single member at times.

Our game ‘Get Flocked’ finished on time and thankfully we had no game breaking issues with the build, I am proud that I was able to help with the project and I was able to finish my own personal work in time which finishing stuff is definitely not a habit of mine. That said I still need to learn more even over the holidays before Year 2, i’m glad I was able to get through the year and achieve that personal goal.

[gconnell-design-blog]

First Idea Is Not Always the Best

Move or Die: Why It's Worth It to Chase Your Tail

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xPmKNHF84qc

In terms what kinds of games i’d like to make, work on and be known for, the concept of Move or Die is what comes to mind. A lot of small games but you expand on what makes them fun, enjoyable and the different ploys to use when marketing it.

I think an underrated lesson I got from this talk that I got in class is your first idea is never good. In fact, Move or Die was a different game at first concept. Nicolae Berbece made flash games as a hobby then wanted to make one of them (Concerned Joe) into a commercial game on Steam. Just a change in dynamics where he had a mode for four people to play at once created a fun atmosphere and based on reactions and feedback, he completely shifted his game which he was proud of into something different.

It shows to me that your first idea won’t be the best one, now Move or Die is a very popular series, having a ton of social media representatives, mod support and a sequel.

It will encourage me to get as many testers as possible and throw my game out into the community by showing it off, taking video of players reactions and the game, find what they like and be open minded. It’s something I myself will want to learn as i tend to get too close to my own ideas and creations.

[gconnell-design-blog]

Taking Hardware Into Account

My Hardest Bug Ever

http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/DaveBaggett/20131031/203788/My_Hardest_Bug_Ever.php

A blog on a blog. This story was recommended by a teacher while we were in our Q&A module. Not only was it a very interesting read but it also goes to show to think outside the box if what you’re looking for just isn’t working

When something is not working as intended we go to the code and decompile it as much as possible looking for the flaw and 99.9% of the time it works out that way. The worst bug you can have are game breaking or worse, break your memory card and wipe all data from it. To add onto this, this specific bug occurred at random with no significant patterns, which spells disaster for the programmer.

As part of our testing we had to list what CPU and graphics card was running the game which seems a little specific but after reading stories like this where hardware problems can be something that occurs, it does make it a reasonable thing to list and make you want to test on multiple pieces of hardware. Once you release the game and a bug that isn’t caused by your code surfaces, good luck.

Makes me a tad worried to learn programming because of these types of bugs which is something that we shouldn’t need to consider but unfortunately you need to take everything into account. Highly recommend to read the entire blog.

[gconnell-design-blog]

Selling Your Game on Steam

Let's Be Realistic: A Deep Dive into How Games Are Selling on Steam

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WycVOCbeKqQ

The first platform i think of when i think of indie developers is Steam and it’s what I have my mind set on if I ever release games

With the release of Steam Direct it has become easier for new developers to release their game and attempt to get their name out. This however has the problem of overpopulating and the amount being released every day has increased to 40 in February 2018, 15 more than August 2017. The surprising estimate stat is 82% of games released don’t make the american minimum wage (that’s very low). On the more positive side, there are facts brought up during the conference that jump out at me. On average games that are priced higher than $15 have more sales than games worth $8 - $14 which I guess states that you shouldn’t be scared of pricing your game right, in a strange way people are more intrigued by those with a higher tag. Same with paying for early access, those have a higher sale rate than those not in EA, so that also defeated any personal fear about having a game in early access and what those would think of it.

To sort of combine my previous post, I hope that I can do this in the future and keep myself financially stable but also make myself educated on the process on selling games on Steam or whatever new platform comes out.

[gconnell-design-blog]

Inspiring Indie Devs

How to Survive in Gamedev for Eleven Years Without a Hit

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JmwbYl6f11c

This subject has lingered in my mind ever since I wanted to go down this path and try game design and develop games as a living

Jake Birkett from Grey Alien Games talks about how he has survived being a developer for 11 years without a ‘hit’ in the industry. He quit his job and wanted to try this because he loved making games, which is something I also want to do and it’s making me wonder where i’ll be in 12 months time when i’m finishing my 2 year course. Will I still have my current job? Will I get a job in the industry? Will I just make and release games in my own time? It’s something that makes me scared and excited at once.

I shouldn’t expect my first games to be successful, instead I should learn from experiences, learn from others experiences (make a lot of contacts) and continue what you do loving even if you don’t make it big, I would be satisfied if I could keep a roof over my head and be able to eat if I made profits off of the games I make and I could continue doing it.

[gconnell-design-blog]

Improving Productivity

GDC 2018: Don't Break the Chain: Maintaining Productivity on Your 19th Game

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mIPmjnsCPR4

This research blog is dedicated to the talk by Jason Rohrer on how he maintains productivity for so long being a one person developer.

This talk interested me especially at this point in my career because any projects outside of school I work on will most likely just be myself who at the same time will be developing my own skills and craft. What David has done since he began creating his own video games is keep records of how much time he has spent on them, how many lines of code he has written per week and how much income he has generated from them. If I ever start any personal projects statistics like this might be something I want to start archiving, it will also help me be more organised.

Something else he shows off is his work productivity by what day of the week and hour of the day. He sets himself a schedule of 8am to 12pm so he can spend time with his kids but it’s at 12pm and around this time he is at his most productive, schedules will be broken be it from working overtime unconsciously or procrastination. He recommends instead to set a goal time to finish and after that you can turn your brain away from the project and let it relax by browsing whatever you want or stepping away.

He shows a really good audio clip from famous writer Roald Dahl who believes writers and creators to a degree are at their most creative for their first two hours of working, then should stop working. With this, everyone has different times of the day when they’re most concentrated on their work, some start early others later in the day.

It’s difficult for myself to do two things, keep to my own schedules and when I do start working on something, I will do it for more than two hours, start overthinking and get too tired of the project, which is something I never want to do with any project but it happens too often for my liking, never finishing something I was passionate about, then despising it.

5 Productivity Hacks for Indie Game Developers

https://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/DamianWolf/20161209/287295/5_Productivity_Hacks_for_Indie_Game_Developers.php

This post goes into some other methods to increase productivity that the talk didn’t. Every person is different so it’s great to hear different perspectives but what to avoid is all similar between them.

Being an indie developer (which is something I want to achieve) has a big advantage with scheduling and you can be as flexible as you need to be. Work around other plans you have and are able to stop once you’re becoming burnt out. Experimenting with when you can work best at different times sounds fantastic to me as i feel i work better late at night rather than waking up and immediately turning on the computer and start working faster than my brain can wake up.

One thing this delves into that I may be interested in the future is broadcasting my development online. I already stream myself maybe once a week playing games but working while being in discussion with others interested in game development or ask questions to me keeps myself informed with my work and makes it difficult for me to get off track, it’s something i’d like to try.

Right now I need to focus on finishing my course and increasing my skills before getting into professional game development but I need to come back to this post and remind myself how to approach these methods and increase my workflow and productivity.

[gconnell-design-blog]

My Post Mortem: Game Designing Unit 6

Unit 6 is the beginning of the end of my first year at AIE. This and the next unit is where I as a designer work together with students from different fields to simulate how people work together to have a finished game ready to be sold.

I continue to learn my lesson from three units ago where I need to complete previous work by its completion as I was continuing previous unit work for the first two weeks of this unit. For those two weeks, one of our three days was dedicated to being with our team to discuss what game we were going to be making and pitching. We decided on the soccer style sheep herding game ‘Get Flocked’. During the time I spent with my team I feel as though I did luck out, all of them are eager to participate in discussions and are super friendly. I say this because I know from my own work experiences and other peoples stories that you don’t get along with everyone you work with, that’s just a fact. My favourite aspect of development so far has been encountering a problem and working with other members on how to solve it. At this point we haven’t had a problem where it has hindered our game. Working together particularly with the programmers (because that is a field I want to get better at) is truly fun and I feel has improved myself when working in a team in the future. The biggest task myself and my design partner had on our tasklist was making sure we had a good, cohesive presentation to show to both teachers and those working in the industry. Surprisingly my best performance speaking for the games mechanics and how it played was during the most important one. It made me feel afterwards that I could do it again for my own products in the future and really take what these professionals for granted.

The project has finished Alpha at the time this blog was due, I am confident Beta and Gold will be more clean in terms of production work as it is all our first time doing this sort of project. I will be proud of myself once this project is complete and the entire year, as finishing something is what I want to do more often and I hope it becomes a trend.

[gconnell-design-blog]

My Post Mortem: Game Designing Unit 5

Q&A Testing and Assurance was probably the unit I had the least amount of trouble in, during it I was still doing previous unit work but I don’t think it hindered my performance during this one.

In terms of the work, it would be something I would do if I were to get a job in the industry as a student. Long documents and testing plans are not intimidating to me and making them for this unit was not a problem for me. At the start of the unit we each got given a game from alphabetagamer.com to do testing plans and user interactions for. I got given the game Sprignore by Joellikespigs which is a quirky little 2d platformer that keeps you engaged with its humourous dialogue and setup. We also had to create sell sheets for this game as practice for our own in the future which we had to learn another new program InDesign by Adobe to create them. Researching the target market was also an exercise we did which involved looking at games similar to our ABG games, see what they do better and what their audience likes and doesn’t like about it. Similar to peoples comments on Steam we also did the same to people on Facebook and this was more complex for the fact that there is a lot more information about a person including age, location, hobbies, occupation and ethnicity. Just reminds me how much you can find out about a person on the internet.

Overall this unit went pretty well and for the first time in a while I was on time with the submissions, super helpful learning about all the different testing i should do in the future.

[gconnell-design-blog]

My Post Mortem: Game Designing Unit 4

Narrative Design is the main focus of this unit, to learn how to tell stories and create atmosphere within our games. The group activities we took part in at the beginning were really fun exercises where we made stories in very bizarre, comical ways.

Some examples were being given prompts and writing each paragraph with a new prompt attached to the story and each of us taking in turns to write parts of a story and have no idea what the previous person wrote. These activities were fun but most importantly especially with the former, made me think fast and realise what I was capable of putting to paper in strict circumstances and time. The main project I worked on was a game where we had to show an example of what we learned on creating atmosphere and a story through gameplay. My idea which was given by a teacher, was about a ball rolling down a hill. This was to depict a sad story of it being lost, descending down the hill and eventually in the ocean where it is lost and forgotten. Creating a character profile for an inanimate object turned out to be pretty silly. It not being expressive proved to be not very interesting. If in the future I create a game that has an elaborate story and detailed characters I will use the various psychology studies and spectrums we discussed as well as storyboards to help with plot, narrative and story. Narrative based games aren’t what I cease to do but at least I somewhat of an understanding of how to approach it when the time comes. Creating the game itself did take time, it went past the unit itself into the Q&A unit and I was having difficulty with both programming and the modelling. Again, I was just happy at the time I did finish it for the sake of finishing it and not happy with the product itself, i’m more interested in the work before the game and the discussions we had about story elements and character design. Once again though I need to learn to finish things on time and i’m not too fussed about admitting that publicly and in the industry.

[gconnell-design-blog]

My Post Mortem: Game Designing Unit 3

I was looking forward to this unit the most out of all them as it delved into the basics of programming which is something I want to become competent in. I considered it an achievement making an object move left and right, even if I just copied code and didn’t know most of the terminology.

Activities I did revolved around commenting on code, fixing mistakes within code and creating pseudo code. I had no idea and still do on how to make myself learn every piece of terminology and how to even get started on writing code. Commenting was a habit I never got into, mostly for the fact I had no idea what every line was particularly doing and most of my work were from activities and examples anyway. Something I could do was fix mistakes within code, it involved playing the game and work out what problems were present and use logic to look at the code and fix mistakes. I’m at least positive that I have the problem solving skills to fix problems but in terms of creating from scratch I just have zero clue where to start and it’s a common trend throughout the rest of the year. Final assessment to hand in involved creating a game to show off what we learned in the unit. My motivation was pretty low at this point as I see others working away at their code with some knowledge of what they’re doing. My own biggest flaw this unit was getting work done at home but my attention span got the best of me so I never ended up going back to exercises and fully try and understand what a float, public or quaternion is. My biggest achievement was being able to finish the work despite no motivation, I took time to come into the school during the holidays to achieve this. It was a stressful day with many thoughts of giving up looming in my head but I am thankful of the students and the teachers that were there on that day help me find something in me to finish it. I may hate the end result but i’m just glad I finished it in the end.

By the time these posts go up, they will be considerably late compared to when they’re actually supposed to be up, as such all of these are also made a lot later than when the units actually finished.

[gconnell-design-blog]

My Post Mortem: Game Designing Unit 2

The two cores themes of creating a game is Art and Programming. Unit 2 named ‘Level Design Fundamentals’ delved into the Art side of things. These six weeks taught me how to greybox a level, get the player engaged in the world created and a brief, basic understanding on how we can achieve this.

For the majority of the unit we all worked in groups of four or three designing and building our own level for the given game ‘Mother Duck’; A two player game where you collect ducks in a small map, I won’t go deep in explaining the mechanics.

We were given popular Melbourne landmarks as inspirations for our levels and our group chose the Queen Victoria Market. We made the trip and walked around it for the day drawing up sketches and taking plenty of photos for concept, modelling and textures.

The programs we learnt to use included Photoshop for textures and uv images, Maya to create 3d models and most importantly Unity which I could maybe guess will be used just a bit for the rest of the course.

My experience with the group project was very enjoyable, it was a great experience working on something with dedicated teammates. Our group didn’t have merely as much problems outside the project than others and it’ll certainly be a great learning step once another project like this comes along in the future.

As an individual, before this course about four years ago I did a course that involved work with Blender and I developed a hatred for 3d modelling after that. I have to say it made a difference to me having teachers physically beside me guiding and answering all my questions. Modelling is still intimidating for me no doubt but I at least have decent knowledge of Maya and how it works.

Next unit will be programming which is something I intend to be good at and have more knowledge of than art. I hope I’m able to be responsible for myself as it’s a solo project we will be working on.

[gconnell-design-blog]

Wii Sports: An analysis on revolutionary methods on similar mechanics

I am writing this post as part of my course to discuss mechanics of well known games. I have chosen Wii Sports as it is one of the most unique and revolutionary games in the history of video games.

Published by Nintendo in 2006, the game demonstrated the concept of motion controls by utilizing familiar activities such as bowling and golf. This game is noteworthy for shaping an entire console generation. It was the mascot for the Wii which sold 101 million units and was the catalyst of the motion control boom.

Some time later, rival companies started cashing in on the market, Xbox releasing the Kinect which didn’t utilize a controller and Playstation released the Move. I think it’s amazing that a game that only showcases this new way to play could spawn such a phenomenon and I can’t think of many games that have done the same.

At my age when all I knew was wired controllers and keyboards, the thought of actions on screen being done with body movements was pretty amazing to think about. Thinking back on it now I laugh at the times when it was difficult to get your hands on the Wii compared to now when you buy one preowned for $18. Playing Wii Sports then was just adrenaline whereas I play it now recently it really showcased the basic mechanics of using motion controls.

The game featured five sports; Bowling, Tennis, Baseball, Boxing and Golf. Each required different movements of your hand and thus made it feel like exercise rather than just ‘playing a game’.

Tennis you swing your arm in time with the oncoming ball. Baseball required hand eye coordination when batting and as pitchers do in real life, try and fake out batters with what pitch they’ll send. Bowling allowed you to twist your wrist while bowling to give spin. Golf took into account the height of your build up swing and Boxing utilized the nunchuck to convey blocking and punching movements.

These games are played with 1-4 players depending on the game, usually playing one round of these familiar sports. Or you could do challenges of these games to try and master the mechanics.

I’ve basically described everything the game has to offer, but it built a legacy on the Wii console and the industry at that point. Motion controls ran rampant and it built an almost Atari 2600 atmosphere with everyone trying to cash in on the success of games such as Wii Sports, creating an unnecessarily huge library of mediocre games.

The game built a legacy that bridged a gap between ‘hardcore’ and ‘casual’ gamers, it received a family game vibe shortly after it came out and in turn gave the Wii the same title. I’ll remember the game as being one of the most revolutionary in the industry because of its impact on both the industry and its audience.

[gconnell-design-blog]

My Post Mortem: Game Designing Unit 1

My first few weeks at AIE have been a blast. Meeting people who share interests and goals has really made it more enjoyable for myself, making me feel like i’m not alone for the ride. Of course, i’ll also give credit to the teachers and staff who have given me the utmost support so far.

Our first project was working on board games and using them as a step ladder into proper game design, our group did not have the greatest time putting together our own game, really shows how hard ideas come by.

During that week we had a visit from a local board game developer Sye Robertson, who has shared his experience in the industry and making us feel bad about our game to that point, which of course was not bad honestly, ‘all our ideas are crap’ is what our teacher reminds us all the time. Taught me that not everything is perfect first attempt.

That week also introduced me to Masques which was the game I did my analysis on which really took me by surprise when playing it with family how much we were enjoying ourselves. It definitely gave me a new view on board and card based games.

Learning more about the history of video games has been enjoyable the past few weeks and gave me an idea into life as a game designer and how that job has changed throughout.

I had my first experience with Unity and i’ve had experience with other 3d software but it wasn’t a particularly good experience. I hope I can persuade myself to work with this tool outside of class as I feel like everyone else is miles ahead at this point. I feel the same with Photoshop, another tool i’ve hardly used before.

The last few weeks on this unit I developed a Game Design Document or GDD for short, which lists everything about a game. We had to build these from scratch and with an original game idea in our head.

This process took a lot longer than I anticipated and I both enjoyed making mine (which ended up being a multiplayer 2D space shooter) and going through the process itself. Now knowing how most games are first put on paper before put in code and on screen, I have taken gratitude towards games more than I did before this. Ideas flow endlessly when creating these and it’s difficult to let some of these go at the deadline, this is something that’ll be in my mind for the rest of my designing career.

As i’m currently writing this I am completed and passed the first unit of my course and I've been through other courses, subjects and activities and I usually have a good idea three weeks in if I enjoy it and If I want to pursue it. Well, six weeks have past and I couldn’t be more happier thus far. I’ll be writing up another post mortem after our next unit.

[gconnell-design-blog]

Balance and Game Design

As part of my game design course, i’m looking to research a couple topics about the process of how a game is made.

GCAP 2016: NERF THIS!: Game-Changing Player Feedback and Wrangling the Metagame - Brad Power

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1_yujzdOkzg

This video discusses player feedback in games where it’s consistently played in a multiplayer space. The presentation lists many ideas to aspiring developers (like myself) including knowing your game, which talked about the games core mechanics and are they fun? I learned it's important to always keep the mechanic that makes your game fun when changing or balancing anything in the game, because everything that isn’t the core mechanic will end up affecting it in some capacity.

Empowering the player: Level Design in N++

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VZ4xevskMCI

Although not having to do with my previous topic, this video while browsing caught my eye the most. A talk about level design in a simple looking 2d platformer, as someone who much prefers how a game plays than anything else, I had to watch it.

The games in discussion are N, N+ and N++ which were made by only two people. They discuss how the epitome of a platformer (the player movement) can influence level design. Each level is designed by how the player can move their character by running, jumping and wall jumping. These mechanics allow designers to give a set of rules to players and its the players job to work around them and find what can be achieved within these set of rules.

Enemies and objects are put into the game as obstacles to provoke the player into thinking how to use the set of rules they’ve been given to avoid them. Some enemies move on their own in a set pattern, others aim based on the players position which forces the player to move, even perhaps into another situation where they must use what they know to progress and so on.

These are two different types of games that i’d like to work on. I’ll be remembering the lessons these speeches gave me and what I should expect when working on projects on my own.