Zac.B

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Assignment 3 Postmortem

This has honestly been the most work and effort I’ve put into an assignment during my 6 years at Uni.  Group work is always hit and miss but for this unit I found the unicorn.  From the moment we formed we were all in sync and ready to put in the work to create our vision, constantly supporting each other and completing tasks on time.  Somehow over the weeks we never had any major issues arise in terms of design choices or development scheduling.  From the start we organised times for us to work on the game in gdevelop so the github repository wouldn't have any issues.  The discord server worked great as our main hub of communication.  

We definitely brainstormed too much and had to reluctantly scale back the scope of the game as we got closer to submission date.  Our tutor Blake was a big help in this regard and made several suggestions for alternate game goals and mechanics that while not on the scale of what we had planned, were enough to give a basic idea of the original intention.  

Overall this was an amazing experience that I enjoyed far more than expected.  The readings (while a bit of a chore at times) were a great source of information that I kept going back to, just to reset myself and focus on the important things.  Despite the game being relatively small, the work that went into it was incredible.  It really gave us all a sense of what's required to make a fully fledged quality game.  

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Racing game playtesting and postmortem

Playtesting notes:

I tried to design a fast and tight racing game akin to the fzero series.  The testers were also fans of this racing genre.  

- loved the speed and controls

- track design was basic but as it was the first and only track it was a good starter

- npc racers are present but there is no finishing positions

Postmortem:

I realised I am becoming more aware of game design processes as the weeks go on.  Chapter 6 of Fullerton outlines the process of game conceptualisation preceding practical development.  In designing my racing game I considered the preparation and incubation stages and thought about the themes and content I could later implement.  As you can probably tell I am a huge fan of the fzero series.  The fast paced and tight controls allow for deep gameplay compared to other racers.  

Chapter 4 and 5 discusses the importance of system-player feedback and visual stimuli, and prompted me to add more effects to the game such as damage flashing, boost indicators and vehicle structure damage.  

I would have liked to added more features into the game such as a position system and extra tracks.  Also adding a drifting feature which would allow more complex track design.  I tried to add a health regenerating system in as well akin to fzero but was unable to get it working properly.  

Changes:

- more complex track design

- more varied vehicles

- stop watch to track race and lap times

- ghost racer so the player could see their best time as they raced

- difficulty levels that made npc’s faster and more aggressive 

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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Racing Game Pitch

Nook Nook Racing is grand prix 2D racing game where players compete against 7 other racers to be the champion.  Set in mythical animal kingdom, the racers do not use vehicles but their own abilities as animals to beat the competition.  Race through jungles, deserts and swamps avoiding obstacles, traps and using the power ups to speed up or slow down the other racers.  

The Genre:

Nook Nook Racing is a top down 2D racer inspired by classic racing games such as wacky racers, mario kart and f zero.  

Mechanics and Gameplay:

The racer controls the characters including centaurs, minotaur's, dragons and griffins using W A S D on the keyboard to speed up, slow down and turn left and right and use powerups with the spacebar.  Obstacles on the courses can slow you down or throw you off course.  Power ups can range from speed boosts to becoming invulnerable temporarily to throwing bananas and mud traps at other racers to slow them down.  

3 Selling Points:

- simple and familiar gameplay to other kart racers with a fresh and challenging twist

- unique characters and settings each with their own attributes

- utilizing classic gameplay elements such as drifting and snaking to fully master the courses

(Snaking is a term for a specific type of drifting used in f-zero and mario kart games that gives much higher speeds than normally achieved.  These techniques were not intended by the developers but the games communities embraced them.  Recent mario kart games have had these techniques removed purposefully to make the games more accessible and ‘’balanced’’, and fzero has just been put away after the gamecube masterpiece.)

Reading Reflection:

Chapter 2 of Fullerton is about the structure of games.  Fullerton states that conflict in games “challenges the players, creating tension as they work to resolve problems and varying levels of achievement or frustration”  (Fullerton, 2018) .  

F-Zero GX is a masterclass in challenge and problem solving for the racing genre.  Take this video for example - 

In this 46 second track the player is using several incredibly hard techniques, including one that requires a 1 frame window of input that he pulls off successfully about 20 times in a row.  These were intended by the developers and the games difficulty at the highest level is meant to have these techniques mastered and utilized by the player.  Games such as Mario Kart Double Dash, F-Zero GX and Super Smash Bros Melee are all intentionally technical games that were loved by gamers and are still played to this day.  Its unfortunate that rather than continuing down this path, the developers have turned away from this style of game making to make their games more accessible to a wider audience simply to increase sales.  

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Assignment 3 Playtesting

We had enough of a game built to conduct some basic playtesting.  Chapter 9 of Fullerton describes playtesting as a vital way of understanding how players will experience a game and with no information how they go about playing and problem solving.  By allowing players to fully experience the game without any help or guidance we are able to find oversights in our design and game bugs we didn't find ourselves.  

So far we have had some excellent suggestions in relation to the games controls and pacing.  They also found some game breaking bugs that we missed during our own playtesting.  

Fullerton, T. (2018). Game design workshop : A playcentric approach to creating innovative games, fourth edition. ProQuest Ebook Central https://ebookcentral.proquest.com

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Assignment 3 Progress

For this assignment I joined a group with Michelle and Earth.  We brainstormed a new idea which we are all very excited to develop.  We decided on a top down RPG simulation style game with a focus on resource management.  I set up a discord for us to collaborate and we have weekly team meetings either on Wednesday or Friday.  

We have been able to split the work evenly so far with Michelle and Earth mainly focusing on the artwork and mechanics of the game.  I’ll be focusing on sound, the games overworld design and conducting playtesting.  We did our first playtests during the tutorial and feedback so far has been positive with some excellent suggestions from class mates.  

Fullerton explored working with formal and dramatic elements, as well as system elements, whilst the lecture explored seeds of gameplay and what emotions are evoked in games.  For our game we have tried to implement a heavy story element onto the player to immerse them and hopefully give them more reason and motivation to keep playing.  

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Assignment 2 Progress

I think my sell sheet turned out nicely, I was worried at first I wouldn't be able to convey the scale of the game but Blake offered some excellent suggestions.  I set up some areas in gdevelop so you could see how the game would look added some extra item and enemy art to show a little more of whats in the game.  

The one page I struggled with a little.  Mostly with how to word everything, trying to explain the game without crossing over into a selling/marketing point.  I tried to include all the major parts of the games mechanics and some details of how the player will control the character.  

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Racing Development

Games like mario kart and fzero have visual and audio feedback for doing drifts and give you a small boost of speed.  Mario kart rewards you with extra speed boosts but are not necessary to complete the game and act as a skill reward.  F-zero relies on drifting and using them with very specific timing to simply complete story levels and compete in the higher difficulty races.  If time permitted I would love to add drifting, more sophisticated AI and a full set of courses to complete.  

My final product is almost identical to what we made in class, I spent most of the time looking up different mechanics and thinking of how to implement them.  I spent some time making some vehicle sprites because I either couldn't use the ones I like for fear of nintendo knocking on my door, or I just didn't like them.  I grew up playing racing games like fzero, xtreme g and wipeout, none of which have any major story so I just wanted to make a very bread and butter racing game.  

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Asteroids Post Mortem

Only 3 testers this time.  

All loved the music and sound effects and thought it helped set up the atmosphere really well, encouraging them to play more.  

Once again I made the game too difficult, however, while all playtesters thought the game was difficult, they still had fun with the game.  In future I would probably make more down time between the hard sections of the game rather than just going 0-100 from the get go.  

- players not sure how to play at the start, forgot to add controls display

- players liked the pace of the game, usually shooters are a bit slow to start but this starts you right in a cluster of enemies and obstacles

- players didnt realise there was 3 types of enemies, needed more distinct models rather than just slight colour change

A major game feature I didn't have time to implement was different difficulty.  Chapter 10 of the textbook discusses how important balance is to creating difficulty.  I was planning to have 3 levels of difficulty.  All 3 will be the same game, with different properties such as less power ups and health, enemies have more health and also do more damage.  The first level of difficulty would be nearly impossible to not beat the game, 2nd would have more challenge, and the 3rd would require complete knowledge of the game.  Balance and side scrolling shooters probably arent put in the same conversation very often but its something I’ve thought about a lot since doing this prototype.  

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Changed the style from a static setting to a side scrolling shooter akin to old school shooters such as gradius and r-type.  

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Side scrolling shooters at their core are a simple game, I knew I would need to have something to make it more unique and stand out.  Games like Ikaruga with the light and dark mechanic to absorb and be vulnerable to certain enemy attacks is something I loved experiencing as a player.  I knew I would struggle getting something that implemented so I instead focused on getting the core of the game done and then working on effects and sound to give more visual and audio feedback to the player.  

Chapter 10 of Fullerton discusses the concept of functionality versus completeness of game prototyping.  Rather than trying to create a full skeleton of a game like I did previously with the platformer, I instead aimed to complete 1 full level containing all the effects and sounds and gameplay elements a player would experience in the entire game.  To reduce the development time, I opted to make a smaller level and have 3 difficulties for it rather than 1 long level with a slowly scaling difficulty.  The first difficulty would be relatively simple to get through before the next 2 would increase enemy health and damage, more obstacles to avoid and less power ups to help the player.  That way I can create a new experience using the same format while making only small tweaks to the game.  

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Asteroids draft pitch

Elevator Pitch

VoidZone

An arcade style shooter where enemies constantly spawn around you more frequently the longer you play.  Reach checkpoints to be rewarded with a full zone clearing blast for a moment of peace.  Survive the onslaught as long as you can for a high score.  

Maybe gun upgrades, time slowing (probs not possible in gdev), physics             

Mouse and keyboard

New spin on retro classic

Pick up and play easily, difficult to master 

Simple and addictive gameplay

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Expanded pitch

What is the gameplay:

A side scrolling platformer set in 1 large open area with differently themed mini areas.  It will focus on player precision movement as they go around collecting powerups and 4 tablets.  

Why will it be compelling:

The player will utilise double jumps, dashes and wall jumping to navigate the different areas, with each area having an emphasis on those specific mechanics.  Each area will start of relatively easy as the player learns to utilise said mechanics to their potential and then slowly ramp up the difficulty of progressing as well as enemies as they search for the tablets.  

Target audience: ages 10+

What is the players role and motivation:

The player awakens with no memory and only a faint voice calling out to them, it speaks to the player periodically and gets louder as they approach each tablet which then reveals parts of the story.  

Game genre and setting:

Side scrolling platformer set in a large area with many enemies and power ups.  The player learns as they play that they were sent to this planet after receiving a distress signal but crash landed and lost their memory.  The 4 tablets awaken an ancient guardian that will free the planets inhabitants who were captured by an invading species and forced to work in mines under the planets surface.  

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Farewell platformer, unfortunately I couldn't get the dash to work and I wish I could continue working on it.  

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Platformer Feedback

4 testers, split in thinking movement was too fast or it felt good.  

Need more direction e.g coins/collectables to guide the player

Health bar

More animations on the player for things like taking damage, wall hanging

Different types of enemies e.g trick the player, pink enemies can be jumped on, green enemies must be avoided and will 1 hit kill

Those that thought the game speed was good were open to the idea of slower movement with a dash move

Better design overall e.g player model/enemies/platforms/background

All players like the idea of 1 big open level

All players like the double jump and wall jumping and being able to double jump in a different direction to the initial jump

Needs sounds

Introduction to the character and more context for the games purpose

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Managed to get double jumps and wall sliding implemented.  Trying to get wall jumps working but cant get it to launch off the wall yet and just gives infinite jumps when touching the brown walls.  

Being fairly new to game development I often became distracted with different elements while making the prototype.  Fullerton explains that as a designer we should “advocate for the player” (Fullerton, 2018) .  I became distracted looking at different art assets and thinking of music to use and different effects and animations and neglected main aspects of the player experience.  Towards the end of developing the prototype I became more focused on the simple mechanics of the game and moment to moment gameplay, trying to achieve (at the least) a fun and flowing experience with an achievable win condition.  

I believe this will help me in future to better streamline my work, as Fullerton states that focusing on a well defined and attainable goal are “part of your brainstorming process, can also focus your creative process” (Fullerton, 2018) .  

Going back and playing games such as Owl Boy and Ori, the player is guided on their journey through story telling and stage design initially before using what they've learned to progress on their own in more challenging scenarios.  This process of introducing the player to the game through staggered experiences is one I hope to create during this unit.  

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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In chapter 7 of Fullerton, “the fundamental mechanics, and if these mechanics can sustain the interest of playtesters” was a statement that stood out to me while making the platformer prototype.  I was spending a lot of time searching for art assets and music to use in the game rather than firstly ironing out the core mechanics and gameplay.  The great thing about prototyping is that it allows a game developer to “focus on gameplay rather than technology”  (Fullerton, 2018).  

Originally I was planning to have an underground and dark setting for the platformer but as I’m putting it together I think it would suit a more open setting as seen in Owl Boy.  Hopefully I can implement some sort of flying/floating mechanic.  

Reasoning for the change is if I were to make it more underground it would be a lot tighter spaces and rely more on enemies and obstacles.  However as I was putting a map together I found I was naturally creating a more open and explorative style of map that (hopefully) I can add double jumps, dashes and either a slow fall or flying mechanic.  

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I grew up on games like metroid and zelda and love the open world layouts rather than individual levels.  Recent games like Hollow Knight, Ori, Axiom Verge are keeping the genre alive and well.  I’d love to make a game like that one day.