Owen's Game Design

Game Design Student

[owenodonoghue]

A look back on the year

when i look back on this year i see that i have learnt so much and have meet so many people that its hard to talk about it all but the major points would ve that i actually enjoyed coding that was one of the area i was most worried about going into the course but i came out loving it. And wait till next year to learn much more. 

[owenodonoghue]

Self reflection on the project

looking back on my experience in this project i definitely would do things different next time, but that is the point of all this, To emulate a studio environment and see how we handle not just working on a game for a long period of time but also how we work with people we have never met before.

I have learnt so much while doing this project but not just with game dev but with how i work in high pressure situations. If i did this over again the major thing i would want to change is how i prioritized jobs, as when one thing wasn't working out instead of just scrapping it or seeing what else could be done i would focus on getting that one thing working, and in doing this other jobs that should of taken priority were falling to the wayside. As a personal reflection i feel as though i was too nice when it came to major decisions such as things that need to be cut, in hindsight the character model should not have taken as long as it did and i should have ether cut or reorganized the scope around the longer time. I wasn't to keen on getting the producer role as my organisation skills aren't very good but i tried my best and i feel i didn't do to bad overall. 

But overall i enjoyed the project and feel as though i managed it to the best of my ability at the time hopefully my ability increases as i progress.

[owenodonoghue]

Golden

So today we have finished off our final build of the game, i’m happy with what I've made but i’m also happy to see this project done. the past few hours was the mad rush to fix issues get builds working, we had a small issue where the high score wasn't working but that was as simple as moving a coloider so that good. Over all this has been a extraordinary experience and i loved every chaotic moment.     

[owenodonoghue]

Holo Shader

As a bit of a side project i decided to practice making some shaders so after some trial an error i managed to get this holographic shader going.

I’m happy with how this came out, i will defiantly use this if future projects.     

[owenodonoghue]

Whats on the Menu?

Today we finished off our main menu scene for our game.  I am happy with how it came out i am very happy with how the ranged enemies fly though the scene, it really makes the scene feel alive and not stagnant.

I wish i could of spent more time on the panel behind the game title as it is a bit bland.      

[owenodonoghue]

Back from the dead

Finally getting this post out. Its been to long since my last post and the game has changed so much since i last showed it off. we have nice lights, cool trails and a decent controller. 

Now with a few lighting passes the game is looking really nice

via GIPHY

I’ve missed talking about the beta milestone and the lessons that i have learned from it, i’ll just talk about it a bit now.

In the beta milestone for our game we had a few problems, such as team members not showing up, miscommunication and not prioritizing our work in the most efficient way. This lead to issues down the line were we worried about the art when we should of worried about the enemy interaction. 

Now going though gold we are just making the game tight playable as just in the last few days lots of game breaking bugs came up such as the player not taking or giving damage and the you couldn't turn around. 

Now we have fixed up those bugs we are just finalizing our music and fixing up the particles we have in the game           

[owenodonoghue]

Project Progress

So today we are back at uni and back into production of our game.

The Programmers whipped up some gifs of there work so that we can put them in our presentation to show off our mechanics  

here we have:  Movement  Ranged stun mechanic  Dash 

Also the artists did some really good work today as one worked on some really nice art that we will use later, the other worked on the lighting for the environment and it came out really nice. 

[owenodonoghue]

Character and Environment

Today our artists cranked out some amazing work for our main character, we also talked about the type of building our game will take place. 

For a wile we were just calling it “Futuristic Bunker” but now we are thinking about having it in a facility that creates robots, that would then work with the enemies, who are robots. super keen to start seeing some environment art from the other artists.     

Some images that our other artists is using for inspiration for the environment, cant wait to see what comes out of it.

[owenodonoghue]

3rd Team Meeting

After our 3rd team meeting we all have a really good idea on what the game we are making is.  With the help of my fellow designers i wrote up the GDD (Game Design Document) and we now have a good skeleton for a game that we are ready to put some meat on. 

For our meeting one of the artists did some nice character sketches of the body type of our main character, as our game is going to be a bit of a hack n slash we wanted a bit of a muscular character but not to crazy so i’m happy with what they did. 

Also one of our Programmers made a small prototype of the movement script witch looked really good (no GIF sorry). 

[owenodonoghue]

Second Team Meeting

We have now had our second team meeting where we some what solidify our game idea and after our teachers give use the go ahead, flesh it out a bit more.  

Now that we have our idea approved we have stared fleshing out the fine details of what the mechanics will be and how they work. wile me and the other designers work on gathering research info for our GDD. 

We have got our artist to start making some concept art for the game as well as mood boards and to start thinking about there art bible. 

And for the programmers, they have started to brake down the scripts needed into a list.    

[owenodonoghue]

Final Project

Now that we have finished our QA and testing unit, we have begun our final project. On our first meeting we meet all our team members and discussed our strengths and weaknesses, as well as what type of game we want to make. 

I had a blast meeting every one i have a good felling we all will work well together. my team consist of 3 designers, 2 artist and 3 programmers and i have been assigned to be the team producer, in charge of most of the task tracking.

I am a little nervous about this project but ill try had and my team and i will produce a grate game.              

[owenodonoghue]

100 Days of Maya, Day 19

Its been a wile since my last post but i’m back now and with a new model for my 100 days. I’m not happy with this model but i also don’t hate it, i like how I've done the keys and the overall shape of the mesh. but i could of made a texture map for the numbers.    

[owenodonoghue]

100 Days of Maya, Day 18

So a bit of a rush job today but non the less i got something done. Not really much to say about this one i wanted to make some kunai for a wile so that’s what inspired me to make these, i might redo these one day.      

[owenodonoghue]

100 Days of Maya, Day 17

Went with some simple glasses today, im really happy with how these came out i initially had a bit of trouble with the rounded edges on the frame. But i worked it out with minimal edges to save on the tri count.   

[owenodonoghue]

100 Days of Maya, Day 15/16

So after missing another day here is another set of 2 models quit different this time. I spent most of my time on getting the dice right with the physics materials adding a bit of a bounce. 

The lantern was a bit rushed so the model is super inefficient with a way to high Tri count but i’m happy i got an animated light in it so overall pleased.        

A nice close up of the dice.   

[owenodonoghue]

100 days of Maya, Day 14

On the theme of Jewellery today i made a nice ring, i am happy with what i’ve made but i think i could of done a bit more on the ring rather then just a gem.  

[owenodonoghue]

100 Days of Maya, Day 13

Whats the time? time for a Maya model. As i though about the model for today i thought about i might make some jewellery. And on that theme i decided to make a watch 

I’m actually really happy with what I’ve made here. I sort of un-intentionally made a minimalistic designed watch, and as i’m a bit of a sucker for minimalism design i really like it.