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Assignment 3 Postmortem

What aspects of the readings helped inspire your development process?

During the assignment 3 development process, I was conducting all of the play testing and supervising the process because of this, I drew a lot of inspiration from the QA/Polish section of chapter 13. I reviewed the prototype before it was play tested and noted ‘bugs’ I had found. I kept this bugs in mind when play testing in case one of the users were to find it and how many if they had. I also made sure that my team mates knew of the bugs that were discovered and give them solutions accordingly. For example, we had had an issue with users using the arrow keys instead of WASD. I told my team mate who was mainly in charge of the prototyping process that the use of arrow imagery should be changed to WASD so the users would not get confused.

What’s one thing you’d change about how you developed the prototype?

One thing that I would like to change about how I developed the prototype is the amount of engagement I had with the game. I was in charge of play testing and making sure that things went accordingly and that all of the data was collected and analysed. As a result, I had little to no interaction with the development of the game. I have really enjoyed this unit thus far and all of the games we have developed during workshops. I would have liked to experiment more with GDevelop with my team during development and dive more into the design of our game. I would have also liked to do some of the art and animation as well as I did enjoy the art style selected. However, I did enjoy collating all of the data, finding trends/patterns and providing improvements/solutions to said findings.

Sources:

Fullerton, Tracy. Game Design Workshop : A Playcentric Approach to Creating Innovative Games, Fourth Edition, CRC Press LLC, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central, https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/qut/detail.action?docID=5477698.

#Week 13 #Assignment 3 Postmortem

Assignment 3 Playtesting

During the week 11 workshop, practise play testing was taken place. Unfortunately, I was unable to supervise my team as I was play testing another team’s game. However, we got decent feedback of our game but I would have liked to tested out our questionnaire, script and survey which my team did not. Although, I was able to spectate a friend play the game for fun and they were able to find I bug in the game that the other testers had not.

#week 11 #Assignment 3 Playtesting

Group Formation and Assignment 3 Team Discussion

During the week 9 workshop, I joined a group consisting of myself and three others; Harper Darwin, Saarsha Lucas and Chelsea De Almeida. We discussed what game we would choose and any ideas why might add. We also discussed briefly of the roles we would be interested in partaking in in both the development process and playtesting. We also created a discord server to allow better and easier communication and file sharing.

We had decided to go with Saarsha’s ‘racing game’ which was a rhythm-based 1v1 combat game as we all agreed that the m2m gameplay was enjoyable and it had unique customisation such as song and character selection. The roles that were assigned included the producer (Harper), lead designer (Saarsha), lead animator (Chelsea) and QA (myself). We had also assigned both Harper and Chelsea to be notetakers during the playtest and for Saarsha to assist the player if need be during playtesting. I would monitor the entire process and make sure everything that needs to be done is being done such as the questionnaire, the script and the final survey. I also will be reviewing the data collected and analysing it so that I can put it in the feedback table and estimate what needs to be prioritised and possible solutions to the findings.

#Week 10 #Group Formation and Assignment 3 Team Discussion

Assignment 3 Development Progress

Our group have decided to pursue making a game based on the racing game. We established the primary mechanics and the priorities of these mechanics. We also established roles to each member during both the game development process and play testing.

#Week 10 #Assignment 3 Development Progress

Assignment 2 Final Design

For the One Sheet, I ended up changing the overall aesthetic and added the required information and references.

For the One Page, I added a screen shot of the game play and labeled it accordingly. I also added additional notes and a small paragraph elaborating on the razor statement. I then added colours and fonts to connect the aesthetic to the One Sheet.

#Week 9 #Assignment 2 Final Design

Racing Post Mortem

What aspects of the readings helped inspire your design process?

Chapter 9 inspired both my racing pitch and helped me reflect on my previous pitches. When I read about play testing with people I don't know it made me reflect on my last playtest. During my playtest for my asteroids pitch I had two strangers test my game. I was uncomfortable with it at first but I found I was more open with criticism and took their feedback seriously.

Chapter 9 also allowed me to actually think of a targeted audience this time around too. My pitches before mainly relied on people who like fast pace games or relaxing games. This time I thought about who would be playing my game when I realised that I could not fit all 12 zodiacs into the race due to the time restraint. Therefore, I narrowed down to the zodiacs of my peers, dragon, snake, horse and goat.

My pitch was also inspired by the week 7 lecture on balancing techniques as my pitch was a multiplayer game. For my pitch I had chosen the "Lizard, frog, mouse race" technique. For this I changed the animals into the Chinese zodiacs and the terrain into favourable terrain for the zodiacs mentioned in the above paragraph.

What’s one thing you’d change about how you developed the prototype?

Something I would change about how I developed my the prototype was the amount of time and research I put into it. I had finished the base on the day we were shown how to do it. However, I was unable to elaborate on it due to other courses. As a result, I did what I could with the small amount of spare time I had. During this time I attempted to change the terrain after a certain amount of time. I planned on changing the terrain to grass and add rocks. This would be the horse's favourable terrain and the snake's weakest terrain. However, the rocks did not move like the approaching traffic cars did in the base even though I followed the same pattern. Thankfully, the terrain did change however. After failing with the rocks, I instead tried to add another player and change the controls to WASD. While the second player did move via the WASD, they would run off screen. Again, I had followed the instructions from the base and found no difference with my events.

Sources:

#Week 9 #Racing Post Mortem

Assignment 2 Progress

Currently for assignment 2, I have laid out the basic information for my One Page. I have done this so I focus more on the actual content of the page rather than it's aesthetic composition as I believe it will be easier to design after I have all of the format finished. Some of the information I have written are mainly within the 'Game Features'. These include the player's controls, enemy hit damage, level design and life/point system.

For my One Sheet, I have only done the title and the basic design of the overall document.

#week 8 #Assignment 2 Progress

Racing Development Post

What have you been trying to achieve in GDevelop?

- Tried doing a multi player but the second car would only move when the first car moved even if it was assigned to different keys.

- Tried adding a timer to the highway so it would change into grass and make the car slower, make the traffic would disappear and instead rocks but the rocks wouldn't spawn and the traffic wouldn't despawn.

What was something you learned?

I should try and research from other sources and to expand my knowledge than solely relying on experimentation alone. I plan to do this with my following assignment and hopefully learn interesting mechanics to implement into GDevelop.

Showcasing design ideas and concepts from/inspired by readings

My pitch in mainly inspired by the balancing techniques mentioned in the week 7 lecture. For my pitch specifically, I had chosen the 'Lizard, frog, mouse race' balancing technique and changed it to chinese zodiac signs.

A screenshot on my attempt to implement changing terrain and obstacles via experimentation:

#week 8 #Racing Development Post

Racing Elevator Pitch

Title: The Golden Trio Race Breakout: you play as one of three different zodiac animals (the dragon, horse, and goat) that race against each other across different terrain. Each animal has its pros and cons across each of the different terrain as they race to win the golden ring. Controls: WASD for horizontal movement for player 1. Arrow keys for horizontal movement for player 2. Similar to WASD, the 3rd player uses the IJKL keys for horizontal movement.

Image source from: https://www.the-sun.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/6/2021/01/JF-US-DAILY-CHINESE-ZODIAC-OFFPLATFORM-03.jpg

#week 7 #racing elevator pitch

Asteroids Post Mortem

Aspects of the Readings that Helped Inspired the Design Process

The aspects of the readings that helped inspired the design process once again involved choosing one core mechanic and branching off that from chapter 7, and brainstorming ideas and concepts of potential games from chapter 6 (Fullerton, T, 2018). The mechanic I added was gaining points from colliding with the objects unlike traditional asteroids. However, I had brainstormed multiple concepts and pitches before i had decided on this one but none of them involved a mechanic that I personally found interesting.

Things I Would Change About The Prototype’s Design

One thing I would definitely like to change about the prototype’s design is adding levels and difficulty. In the current prototype the player dies if they consume too much rotten cheese however, there is no reward for consuming the normal cheese and no function to the pointing system. To solve this I would like to add levels. The player would reach a certain amount of points to continue to the next level and with each new level there’d be increased difficulty. This could be increased spawn rate of rotten cheese or as users suggested during my user testing, mouse traps and perhaps a final boss battle including a cat. My users also suggested increasing the mouse’s speed and cheese spawn rate. I like the thought of increasing the mouse’s speed but increasing the cheese’s spawn rate was a reserved idea for higher levels as mentioned previously.

Player Testing

Sources:

#week 7 #asteroids post mortem

Asteroids Development Post

What have you been trying to achieve in GDevelop?

This week during my asteroids' development, I have been trying to achieve having a successful lives and a pointing system. These two factors contribute the most to the collecting and dodging mechanics within my game pitch.

What was something you learned?

Something I learnt this week whilst working on my pitch was how to implement a health/point system, eliminate objects after a collusion with another object, how to resize sprites/hit-boxes and implementing gifs into Gdevelop. I have also learned PUT IN DYNAMICS EG FEIRO AND BLUH BLUH

Showcasing Design Ideas & Concepts From/Inspired by Readings + Thoughts on Readings

The design ideas and concepts from or inspired by readings include considering the foundation and structure topics from chapter 10 (Fullerton, T, 2018). Whilst I was brainstorming for my pitch and also executing it, I was thinking a lot about the foundation and if the bare mechanics would excite engaging gameplay. Much like my platformer pitch, I thought a lot about if my main core mechanic was intriguing enough to be entertaining without being complicated, as I know I do not have a lot of time to implement it into the prototype base. I also thought a lot about the structure of my game and what the player would expect the layout or features would be based on other games like it. As a result, I put the point count in the top left corner like many other games and had a 'game over' screen when the player had lost all of their points.

Sources

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

#week 6 #asteroids development post

Asteroids Elevator Pitch

Game title: Munching Mouse

An asteroids based game where you play as a ravenous mouse eating all of the cheese it sees. The more cheese you eat, the more points you receive. However, consuming the rotten cheese will decrease your points and if you get to 0 it's game over.

Controls: Using the computer mouse you control the mouse around the map to dodge and consume the cheese.

The mouse, cheese and background of the game will be in similar art-styles as these images:

Image 1 source: https://cdn3.vectorstock.com/i/1000x1000/45/67/top-view-mice-or-rat-with-peanut-butte-cartoon-vector-27064567.jpg

Image 2 source: https://pnglux.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/1612481673_Cheese-PNG-image-HD-Background-990x863.png

Image 3 source: https://t3.ftcdn.net/jpg/02/57/71/76/360_F_257717689_dOEzjdOvMhY2lZbsWM1eVGum8v7yTBWx.jpg

#week 5 #asteroids elevator pitch

Platformer Postmortem

Aspects of the Readings that Helped Inspire the Design

The main aspects within the readings that helped inspire my design the most was paper prototyping and identifying one basic mechanic as the core of the game. The textbook really highlighted how important it was to have an interesting base mechanic and building the game from that one mechanic. They made me think more about my pitch and what I could have as my one simple core mechanic in which I chose a ‘breaking foundations’ mechanic. The textbook also mentioned the importance of play-testing at the early stages of prototyping/brainstorming. When I was decided my core mechanic and pitch I constantly thinking of how the player would interact with the main mechanic and how I make it the most enjoyable for them. As a result, I was regularly asking people about the mechanic and if they found it intriguing and I was able to get confirmation on my idea.

What I Would Change About How I Developed the Prototype

The main thing I would change is the overall aesthetic of it and the level layout. The overall aesthetic of the prototype was not what I had in mind and I would have liked to have learned how to better design to fit my pitch but given the circumstance I was pleased with what I had. Based on the player testing, I would have also liked to have changed the level to have more complexity to it as it was a very simple left to right platform design with few jumping ledges. In general, I would have liked to have been able to experiment more with Gdevlop and level design.

#platformer postmortem #week 5

Platformer Development

The main mechanic of my pitch was to have breaking foundations. Due to technical difficulties however, I was unable to complete what I had intended to. My scene would open as a black window and would not play the scene. After speaking with my tutor at my workshop, they also did not own how to fix this issue. As a result, they had handed me their platformer so I could player test. I had altered the position of the platforms to more fit my pitch so I could receive more accurate player feedback. Although, this had happened I did learn how to do multiple things in Gdevelop through research and workshop experimentation.

What was Learnt: Through Youtube videos (Levin, 2019) and workshop tutorials, I was able to learn the basics of Gdevelop such as creating a scene, importing sprites, platforms and objects, and adding animations. Through my own research I was able to learn how the ‘breaking foundations’ mechanic would be implemented in Gdevelop.

I had learnt through this video that although the mechanic seemed quite simple, it was not so simple to implement. I had struggled with locating certain tasks and often had gotten confused when adding the condition/action and putting them in incorrectly. Nonetheless, because of this I am now a lot more aware of what I’m doing when adding conditions/actions and that even simple mechanics might be hard to implement within a short time frame.

Throughout my platformer development, I had also been reading about prototyping and play testing (Fullerton. T, 2018). I had learnt that it is best to create a paper prototype of the basic mechanics of the game to see if there is anything interesting there before getting ahead of yourself and creating a digital prototype. This assures or lessens the chance of making easily avoidable mistakes early in the making process. This also goes for playtesting. If you playtest within the paper prototype stage with friends or family you are able to get free and easy playtesting. Most importantly, you able to get feedback on the basic mechanic/s and rule/s. With this in mind, I thought of how my platformer could be paper prototyped. I had thought of potentially playing a ‘floor is lava’ game crossed with cops and robbers with my friends to see if the concept of running away from someone while having a set time limit on the flooring had an intriguing mechanic. However, I was unable to carry out this idea.

Platformer Playtest: I was able to get a small amount of feedback on my platformer. In which the user said, "I enjoyed the use of the slimes and the large amount of platforms which made the gameplay more interactive and fun. Although maybe some use of dramatic differences in height of platforms could add some extra fun."

Through this I was able to see that because I was trying to make a simple level due to the lack of experience I had and time, I had made it too simple. The change that they had suggested was also an easy and quick change to make. In the future I will try to see this small and easy things to add to make the game more engaging.

Sources:

Levin, J., 2019. Falling Platforms Tutorial | GDevelop 5. [Online] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rKUucoM626o [Accessed 19 August 2021].

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

#week 4 #platformer development

Platformer Elevator Pitch

Game Title: Zoo Zoomer

Audience/Demographic: Casual gamers or people who are just getting into games as it is simple and quick to play.

A fast-paced platformer where you play as a runaway elephant who is on their journey to freedom. Using WASD controls, you maneuver around multiple enemies including the police and zookeepers. Through water collected throughout the urban environment, you attack these enemies through spraying them. However, you are an elephant and not made for the city! These houses weren’t made for your feet! So, the longer you stand on a block, the more it breaks and through the city’s foundations you go.

Art Style Concept: A simple 2D pixel art style such as the imagine below. This is because it suits similar platformer games in it genre and is pleasing to the eye.

1st imagine source: https://www.alamy.com/vector-pixel-art-elephant-isolated-cartoon-image363369739.html

2nd imagine source: https://images-wixmp-ed30a86b8c4ca887773594c2.wixmp.com/f/d2ac5435-0e39-4e62-b441-383a95161c42/dc4cvhq-2b47157b-99a7-4999-bff0-d549a8171f93.jpg/v1/fill/w_1024,h_576,q_75,strp/pixel_art_city_background_by_persegan_dc4cvhq-fullview.jpg?token=eyJ0eXAiOiJKV1QiLCJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiJ9.eyJzdWIiOiJ1cm46YXBwOjdlMGQxODg5ODIyNjQzNzNhNWYwZDQxNWVhMGQyNmUwIiwiaXNzIjoidXJuOmFwcDo3ZTBkMTg4OTgyMjY0MzczYTVmMGQ0MTVlYTBkMjZlMCIsIm9iaiI6W1t7ImhlaWdodCI6Ijw9NTc2IiwicGF0aCI6IlwvZlwvZDJhYzU0MzUtMGUzOS00ZTYyLWI0NDEtMzgzYTk1MTYxYzQyXC9kYzRjdmhxLTJiNDcxNTdiLTk5YTctNDk5OS1iZmYwLWQ1NDlhODE3MWY5My5qcGciLCJ3aWR0aCI6Ijw9MTAyNCJ9XV0sImF1ZCI6WyJ1cm46c2VydmljZTppbWFnZS5vcGVyYXRpb25zIl19.zLEr8rlVVQbHy-kQJiXh8WathRdPFQqqD51M7rPWAJY

#week 2 #elevator pitch

About Me

Hi, my name is Isabella Franchi and I am currently studying both science and game design at QUT. What I enjoy most about games is the bonding and nostalgia aspect of playing. I like playing games with both family and friends and creating memories through them. Throughout this unit I want to learn how to make a game intriguing even though it might be simple.

#week 1 #about me

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