Fundamentals of Game Design- a exploration

Hi! My name is Isabella B, and I am creating this blog to share my progress and thought processes for an assignment in my bachelor of game dev! n10794841

[undercoverninja18]

Hello!

My name is Isabella B, and I am an aspiring game designer and animator! I’m creating this blog so I can share my thought processes throughout my second semester of studying a bachelor of Games and Interactive Environments. I am currently brainstorming ideas for a mini project and learning about a software called GDevelop.

My main goal for this semester is to further my understanding on what makes great game design. I don’t have much experience in designing levels for games, or brainstorming game concepts at all; so I am really looking forward to broadening my knowledge and learning about the deeper reasons why I love some of my favourite games- because a game can be dramatically improved with proper and clever level design, and is one of the reasons I love playing games!

Anyway- I hope you enjoy coming on this ride with me, I’m really looking forward to it!

Yours in games,

Isabella

[undercoverninja18]

Week 13- Final Blog

It is finally here, the last blog post!

This week was going to be a big week, as we needed to implement all of our feedback from playtesters into our game so far. It was Gemma’s job to do this, and mine to start working on the introduction for our playtesting document for submission. I also needed to receive the final game and create a demo/trailer for it.

When we started off, I decided to go and write the summary in our design document and combine all of the answers that were gathered from the survey into a table in the document as well. This went smoothly and got Tyra to proofread my work as well.

However, I got extremely concerned as Gemma was being a bit unresponsive on discord and even though I messaged her, emailed her and tagged her in our group chat. For some reason nothing got through. This happened for a day, but I finally got a response from her with our finalized game- with an included tutorial as well which was absolutely amazing!!!!

Overall, I was extremely happy with how the game turned out and even though we were down a group member, we did really well. It was a shame that we were unable to add additional levels and weapons due to time restraints, but I feel like with our feedback from tutors and peers, we have done an amazing job along with the restraints because of Covid and additional roadblocks that we have faced. 

Here is our game demo!!!

Thank you so much for your time, and for joining me this semester!

Yours in games,

Isabella

[undercoverninja18]

Week 12

Week 12 is among us (pun not intended), so we’re finally almost at the finish line!

Since last week we were unable to receive feedback from our other three playtesters, this week was playtesting week pt 2!

Our willing ‘Guinea Pigs’ found the following:

1. The controls were not stated clearly enough, and they had to spend time learning the controls themselves.

2. It was also not stated how to kill enemies, so it was up to player’s previous knowledge of platformers to decipher how to defeat them. This also took up time for the player when they should be enjoying the game and not figuring out controls. WASD is preferred over the arrow keys

3. Continuing from last week’s feedback, we implemented a barrier so players do not die when they go left at the start of the game. However, this was an invisible barrier and people still went left. Suggestions were made to add a tree or another object so it can communicate to the player not to go in that direction.

Overall, the feedback received was really positive. The survey results were really great as well! I’m really happy we were able to get our game playtested because there would have been stuff that we would have missed, like the fact that players try to go left instead of right when the game starts. It is important that games are playtested throughout the entire process in order to create the best game possible!

Anyway, I think that’s all from me for this week. Stay safe!

Yours in games,

Isabella

[undercoverninja18]

Week 11- Playtesting!

Helllooo, Welcome to Week 11!

This week was going to be very exciting as it was finally time for our first round of playtesting! Due to scheduling conflicts, we unfortunately only had time to get two people online with us to playtest. They were extremely helpful as we were able to receive crucial information to improve the game. The duo pointed out that:

1. When the player fell off the screen, the game would not reset automatically and they had to refresh the page in order to start the game- loosing all of their progress.

2. The character was hovering above the grass and it was a bit off putting

3. There was no indication of heath going down or the enemy landing a hit

3. There were shadows on the character sprite, because of this it didn’t look like it was jumping.

4. There was no barrier within the game to stop the players going to the left at the start of the game and falling.

5. Confused to why you could climb up one vine and not the other

With two out of the five playtests done, we decided that we would work on the notes and implement them into our level so our next three playtesters will be able to play a game that was updated and fresh, as they play tested an extremely rough version of our game. The purpose of this endeavor is so we wouldn’t get the same feedback again from our next three playtesters! 

I’m very much looking forward to next week and seeing how much progress we have made and seeing what our playtesters have to say!

Yours in games,

Isabella

[undercoverninja18]

Week 10

Week 10 is upon us, so that means that there is four more weeks left of uni! (and the fact that an assignment is due at the end of the week)

Our group managed to meet up and work on our timetable and respected tasks. Gemma was in charge of writing the tasks that we assigned in the table, and I assisted with writing about the influences I checked up on everyone, and gave feedback to Tyra as well, as she is composing the main theme for the game! Hannah is also doing a bit of proofreading and suggesting ideas to the group which has been really helpful!

Right now, I’m feeling really happy with the progress we have made and I feel that we will have a comfortable and successful submission!

As always, thank you for reading! I’ll be updating the blog with our progess!

Yours in games,

Isabella

[undercoverninja18]

Week 9- Group Assignment Formation

Hello everyone, welcome to a new week!

As previously mentioned, our classes will be forming groups and choosing a game to continue developing by using Gdevelop for our next assessment piece. I nervously pitched my racing game to my peers, and in all honesty I didn’t really want to do my game as I would have to design levels from scratch again as I didn’t spend time on it as I changed my racing game into a platformer. A girl named Gemma pitched her idea for a platformer called ‘Child of the Forest’. It instantly gave me nostalgic ‘Legend of Zelda’ vibes, so my friend, Tyra, and I went straight to her to ask if we could team up for this assignment. She agreed, and I asked another friend of mine, Hannah, if she wanted to join the group as well.

We joined a Voice chat with Hannah and started to brainstorm our ideas. We also started to work on our assessment plan for next Friday’s submission. After some consideration, the role in the group I would be was the organizer, background artist and video editor/gameplayer for the trailer part of the assessment. With our main communication method being via discord- It would be my role to make sure everyone would be on top of their tasks and that there would be a smooth submission for our assignments.

One of my main concerns however, was Hannah. She is really talented and lovely, but she has concerns for her mental health/well being at the moment. She has told us that even though she will try her best, she may not be able to assist with everything. I am of course okay with this, but I really hope that she will try her best to help us with these pieces of assessment to the best of her ability. And I’m sure she will. As a big mental health advocate, I completely understand what she is going through, and I may need to adjust plans to cater for her which I am completely fine with. I will just need to be prepared just in case and also be ready to take on more tasks than I asked to do.

Anyway, thank you so much for reading! Have an awesome week, and stay safe!

Yours in games,

Isabella.

[undercoverninja18]

Week 8

Well, we have officially made it past the halfway mark of the semester!

With assignment two due this week, time flew by. Changes were made to my design for the one sheet. Firstly, I changed it to landscape, and no longer portrait. I also removed the pizza background and integrated the Italian flag instead. I also decided to draw some additional features, such as ‘The Boss’ and feature the playable character of the game as well into this sheet.

To create the start of my one page, I took a screenshot from my game and added it to word to create my one page. I then listed the key features, mechanics and plots of my game to make sure the game was clearly understood.

When I finished, I was fortunate to get both of these pieces peer reviewed. I also received helpful feedback from my lecturer/tutor David.

‘One Sheet and One Page look good, I particularly like your illustrations. You have a good cartoon style that definetly works for the One Sheet. One Page also looks good, though I would maybe take some time to rescale some text proportions and maybe cut back on word use if/where possible. Sometimes a simple image with a few text elements pointed at it say everything you need to say (e.g. camera controls)’

After I tweaked my draft with the feedback given, it was time to submit! Here are the final products

I always love the feeling of being able to submit something you are proud of, and I am very happy how this came out! Now, onto the next task!

Yours in games,

Isabella

[undercoverninja18]

Week 7

Helllllooo! And we are officially in week seven. This week was particularly interesting as I was collecting feedback from my racing game, and brainstorming which game I was going to use for my one page/ one sheet for assessment two.

Overall, the feedback from my racing game was pretty positive. Players commented on the ‘cutesy’ art-style that I was going for, and the easy controls. The only thing that was confusing for the player was that the timer was a bit unclear as I only had a bar decreasing- I did not specify the amount of time the player actually had to get to their destination which was a very silly thing that I didn’t specify- so I will be implementing that in the near future.

In regards to assessment two- I spent a while trying to finalize my decision on which game I should choose. Eventually I decided to change my Pizza racing idea into a platformer as I believed that it made more sense and it would be more engaging and fun for the player.

With the platformer- I was heavily inspired by Katana Zero. As it is a really awesome 16bit game, as the soundtrack was really nice and art was really appealing to look at (see image 1 and the gif at the end) and I wanted to implement that into my game.

                                                      (Image One)

I also started on my design for the one page. It’s definitely a work in progress

Anyway, that’s all for this week! Thanks for reading!

Yours in games, 

Isabella

[undercoverninja18]

Week 6

Welcome to week six! Let’s jump straight into this week’s content!

As usual, another GDevelop task was distributed this week for us. I have been looking forward to this week for a long time, as we were able to create a racing game!!!!

Like some people, inspiration for me comes from the weirdest places- as when I was thinking of an idea for this racing game I thought about Pizza (as I had pizza for dinner the night previous). I’m sure it’s common knowledge- but often Pizza delivery companies have a statement that reads ‘If your Pizza isn’t delivered within 30 minutes from ordering- it’s free!” (well, at least I assume in America, as I saw it on an episode of Teen Titans Go!- and yes, I acknowledge that the original is waaayy better and superior in every single way- anyway!) So, thanks to a mix of dinner and an episode of Teen Titans Go!, I came up with an idea of a pizza delivery person attempting to doge traffic under a time limit in order to deliver pizzas to get a promotion! I am currently experimenting and creating the first level of the game at the moment, and look forward to sharing my progress with you!!

Yours in games,

Isabella

[undercoverninja18]

Week 5

Good Evening, and welcome to week five! (woah, this semester has flown by so far!)

Last week’s task was to create an asteroids inspired game! I was fortunate enough to have two of my peers playtest my level. 

During the design stage for this pirate asteroids inspired game- I encountered a few issues as I did not have time to finalize the game before submitting it for play testing. Firstly, the icon for the cannon was too large for the size of the ship (I did experiment with the sizing, but If there were to be a cannon that would fit behind the ship for the animation/launch it would just be the size of a bullet and not have the impact visually that I want for this game).

I also attempted to resize the ship itself, but I managed to draw it the biggest I could and it still did not work. Because of the sizing issue, it was difficult to place the cannon so it could fire properly- due to this design flaw, the cannon would often appear on the side of the ship which distracted and confused one of my players.

The second issue that I encountered this week was with the conditions and the spawning rate of the enemy ships. Even though this would have been an extremely important fix, I did not have enough time to change the settings I had to start off with. I followed along with the tutorial that we were following along with during the class- and left the settings unchanged afterwards- and for an unknown reason, only two ships per battle were spawning... I must have done something wrong with the conditions in order for it to result like this, and I am currently experimenting with the ships’ conditions so I can change the spawning rate of the ships to make the game more enjoyable for the player!

This game was really interesting and fun to create- and to be able to hear feedback from my peers is a extremely helpful resource. Because of this, I have decided not to choose this game to peruse for further assessment in this unit as it is incomplete and needs to be improved further to create a game that I will be proud of and the player will enjoy. I discovered in the  textbook Game Design Workshop by Tracy Fullerton,   that challenge is essential to games- “tasks that are satisfying to complete, that require just the right amount of work to create a sense of accomplishment and enjoyment”(Fullerton, 2019) . Arguably, the main reason that some people play games is to gain a sense accomplishment and satisfaction. With this element from my game non-existent as of yet, I believe that a past or future game idea will be a more successful idea to place into GDevelop for submission. 

Anyways! Thanks so much for reading and I hope you all have a great week :D

Yours in Games,

Isabella

[undercoverninja18]

Week 4

Good evening! Friday is almost upon us (finally!) and I hope your week was been great!

This week, I was able to further my skills in GDevelop and make an asteroids style game! Once again, we were instructed to come up with an original pitch idea; and I came up with an asteroids inspired game where the player takes the role of a pirate trying to take down the British or European navy (yes, I have been playing too much Black Flag and watching One Piece, hahaha).             Each level follows a historically infamous pirate- such as Blackbeard, Anne Bonny, Henry Avery, etc. There is a brief biography of the pirate at the end of the level to engage the player’s historical knowledge.

The unique selling points will be the ability to shoot broadside and the ablility to have pirates join your crew after each battle. Not only that, but sea shanties will be played throughout the levels to create a fun pirate experience.

I will be updating this blog with the feedback I receive from play testing, and further thoughts from this week’s content in the coming days, so I look forward to sharing my progress!

Yours in games,

Isabella

[undercoverninja18]

Platformer Elevator Pitch!

Don’t let me eat my veggies is an arcade style platformer, where the player controls a character who has been forced to eat their vegetables. Little do they know however, that these vegetables are despicable and must be destroyed. The main objective of the game is to destroy these vegetables and gain extra points from eating junk food in order to save their planet from the evil wrath of healthy food...

[undercoverninja18]

Week 3- Gameplay

Hello, and welcome to week 3- gameplay!!

I have been looking forward to this week for a while, as I had just finished playing The Last of Us: Part II a couple of weeks ago, and have loved the gameplay ever since I started playing it. A lot of my favorite games have used clever gameplay mechanics. Such as Portal, The Witcher 3 and Persona 5 . Each game displays and furthers their chosen genre through gameplay choices, such as the puzzle-platform, rpg and turn based jrpg (Japanese role playing) genres.

This week, I finally came up with an idea for my GDevelop game- a platformer where the audience plays as a character who doesn’t want to eat their veggies  and wants to eat junk food. So, they defeat evil veggies and gain extra points for eating junk food in the game.

I will be posting a proper elevator pitch after this post!

Here’s a test of my game:

It was super rough around the edges, as I ran out of time to fine tune the game, and was yet to make the sprites move in order to make it harder for the player to kill the veggies. In future, I plan to spend more time to understand the mechanics of GDevelop and make a proper game that can be playtested properly to get detailed feedback to improve on my game development skills.

I was fortunate enough to have one of my classmates to playtest my game. They had both positive and negative comments that were extremely helpful.

“Cute concept and nice sprites to accompany it. I appreciate the background text which provides a bit of information on how the game works and a bit about the idea behind it. The score works perfectly and increases when completing the games objective of collecting the foods. If you can move the controls to A and D (I had it as the arrow keys) it would make the experience a bit easier and more natural. I feel like there needs to be a distinguishing way of obtaining the veg and the fast foods, like jumping on the veg’s head or something. Also a way to lose the game would make sense.”

This feedback was really valuable, and I will be heavily implementing the feedback I was given to further enhance the gameplay experience for the player.

Anyway, speaking of junk food...

When I was watching the lecture this week, a comment made by my lecturer/tutor really stood out to me. He said that:      

“Another analogy is that gameplay is the ice cream filling surrounding the chocolate chips. Chocolate chips are nice, but if that’s all you’ve got then you probably get sick of eating it pretty fast; On the flip side, if the filling isn’t delicious enough, if you find the flavour of the ice cream bland or boring, then you’re not going to eat it just for the choc-chips. Likewise you’re likely not going to play a game with bland gameplay just to get to the achievements and good bits” (D.Conroy, 2020)

Yes, I did have to eat ice cream after he explained that analogy

Anyway, the reason it stood out to me is that I have never viewed gameplay in a lens like that before- and it is true, as I have put down games (Kingdom Hearts : Chain of Memories specifically) because I did not enjoy the gameplay (notably this game’s) at all. As because you were only able to inflict damage on your enemy if you could present a higher card. Because of this, I haven’t played another Kingdom Hearts game since as I really enjoyed the classic hack and slash system of the first game. (A video is down bellow, skip to 3:50 if you would like to see an example of combat within the game)

                                             (rpggamer16, 2015)

Anyway, thanks so much for reading this week’s post! As always, I hope you had an awesome week and are staying safe!

Yours in games,

Isabella

[undercoverninja18]

Week 2

This week was super exciting, as I was able to experiment with GDevelop for the first time in my workshop on Tuesday. We made a simple platformer game and worked on brainstorming game ideas for our solo project assignment.

I let my imagination get the better of me when I came up with the idea of a mobile murder mystery game, kind of like Cluedo and loosely inspired by the Professer Layton series. However, I remembered what was said in the lecture about not making RPG’s or complicated games in the short timeframe that we have, as it is obviously a recipie for disaster. So, I’m now back to the drawing board. Hopefully inspiration will strike when I’m least expecting!

                                       (Know Your Meme, 2020)

When I was reading chapter one of Game Design Workshop by Tracy Fullerton, The playtesting section of the chapter really caught my interest, as it explained the importance of play testing within games. When I studied IGB181 last semester, we learnt about the QA/UX roles within the industry, and when also researching other roles in the industry, the QA role to me personally didn’t seem as important as the other roles. In the production pipeline I created, I only placed the testers towards the end. However, in this chapter I discovered that they can also be involved at the very start of the development process- and it greatly assists the developers if they are involved heavily throughout all stages of development as they can pick up mistakes before they become worse and even make it’s way into the game itself towards the end of development when it is a burden to change a simple mistake.

Well, that’s it for week two! I hope you are all staying safe in these weird times!

Yours in games,

Isabella