Game Design Document

What is up fellow people, so our next task was to create something called a Game Design Document or a "GDD" for our game idea. Opened the template for the thing and didn't understand half of it, but after some Googling I figured out what most of it meant. It was pretty confusing since we haven't been told what game architecture or abstract classes are, so just kinda filled out what I could. It was actually pretty helpful filling out the document though. Not only is it a good place to store your ideas but when you go through the document section by section you start to put some thought into sections that you might have forgotten about or haven't got to yet regarding your game e.g. when the document tells you to write about level design you put a lot more thought into what your level design will actually be. Through this process I actually elaborated on some aspects of my game a bit, so it was actually pretty beneficial.

Heres the link to my GDD:
https://www.dundoc.com/project/5855/2ux012sybu

(Possible example of how one of my levels will look, probably like this but made of 10 pixels)

Game: No Mans Sky

Source

Unity Tutorial 5

This week we returned to the teachings of Jimmy Vegas, we watched his tutorial videos number 6, 7 and 8. The first video covered how to use a dynamic hud, this involves creating a special cursor that only appears when the option to interact with something (e.g a collectible) is available. This process also took us over how to add action text to the scene such as "Press E to take gem" and also how to actually trigger the action itself.

The second video talked about how to create a weapon that your character can use in the game. This included creating/importing the weapon (in this case an axe) and then also properly positioning the axe so that it looks correct on the screen. The final video went over how to actually make the axe swing and make the animation look legitimate. Overall I thought this batch of tutorials were a little easier to follow than some of the previous ones and I think I can actually implement this into my final
project, since its such a versatile tool that can be used for pretty much anything, from using it action games as a combat weapon to using it as a tool to collect items, there's plenty of mechanics we can add using this feature.

(Thumbnail for Jimmy Vegas's tutorial video)

Source

Game GDD

This week I read up on some material about tips on how to improve on the user experience (UI) and rule writing for board games. User experience is how the player interacts with the game, for example the pieces in a game of chess. The research material goes into great detail about this aspect of board games, specifically how it affects the players overall experience of the game. A component of this mentioned in the article was making the pieces of a board game as identifiable as possible. This can be done by altering their color, their shape or in the case of card games, their suits. It was stated that many people suffer from some form of color blindness, so these mechanics can be vital to include these people and since the pieces in games such as card games cant be reshaped, suits over a solution for people who are visually impaired.

The article also talks about using legible font because it can be really annoying to the player if they cant read the cards/rules. One aspect it mentions to include is to differentiate the 9's from the 6's so that they aren't identical when viewed upside down. The material even talks about how different regions write their numbers differently, so for example in some regions a 1 may be mistaken for a 7 in other regions. So its important to put the effort into differentiating these kinds of things. One more thing that is mentioned in the material is the box that the game comes in. While this has no influence on how the game actually plays and how enjoyable it is it must be considered for a view reasons. Mainly for marketing purposes, for example putting the name of the game on both the horizontal and vertical sides of the box in big clear writing, this way the game can catch the viewers attention and the name/logo will be visible regardless of if the store staff stock it vertically or horizontally, this is something that is an aspect that is often overlooked by a lot of board games surprisingly.

("Monopoly", a game widely known for its diversely shaped playing pieces)

Source

Additional Research

"Game UI By Example"

An article by Desi Quintans that outlines the fundamentals of user interface and delves into some examples of the best and worst user interfaces in games from recent history.

"Common Mistakes In Video Game User Interfaces"

An article by Alexander Yordanov that discusses the pitfalls of user interface that countless games have fallen into, particularly picking on aspects such as slow UI that plague video games containing them.

"Learning From Board Games"

An article by Jim Ross that talks about how board games incorporate aspects of user design (specifically monopoly) and what kind of user interface he as a player and customer likes to see in games.

Game Vision Statement

My Half Baked Video Game Idea I Came Up With At 4am At Night

So the game I was thinking of making would be a kinda adventure style game,  it would be played in the first person and the emphasis of the game would be more about the environment and soundtrack than any kind of fast paced action, in a similar way to the game "journey".

("Journey" the game)

Source

The game would start the player off in a circular area with an alter in the middle, around this area there are 4 gates, each gate having terrain/mountains visible beyond it. Each of these gates will lead to a different area, with a large open landscape themed around an element. One area will be themed around fire (think volcanoes and lava), one around water (ice mountains), one around air (floating pieces of terrain), and one around earth (forests). Each of these areas will have a collectible at its furthest point, omitting a bright light into the sky that is always visible to the player in order to guide them, the player must traverse the terrain and acquire the collectible, they will then be returned back to the starting position, with the collectible filling the alter 1/4 of the way and prompting the player to enter the remaining areas to repeat the process. When they collect all 4 items the alter activates and teleports them to a world of shadows, for one final journey.

("The 4 Elements")

Source

Obviously this concept is going to rely on beauty and visual impact to connect with the player, to assist in this I thought I would add build-up instrumental music, songs that can get the player invested in the game. I thought a nice touch would be to use a unique song for each area, each one representing the kind of environment the player is traversing.

Potential soundtracks I've identified so far

Air Realm (Epic) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IknGOnwZ1xc

Fire Realm (Fiery and intimidating) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ga8yUafqiLM

Water Realm (Chill) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RepXOI13fVI

Earth Realm (????) -

Shadow Realm (Mythical) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m3zvVGJrTP8

In terms of story and narrative i'm not sure how heavily they will be featured, currently i'd need a theme of the collectible objects and a reason for the players actions and journey to complete a full storyline but i'm open to the possibility of leaving the story's meaning as ambiguous, which could be the better option but i'll put more thought into that and get back to it.

In regards to production, the game should be easy enough to make, it more than likely wont feature any super advanced features unless I find a way to incorporate them. For the most part the player will be walking, swimming, jumping, collecting collectibles and potentially moving objects to solve puzzles in order to advance. Of course i'll probably need to spend a quarter of my life creating the landscape for each area but i'll cross that bridge when I get there. 

Overall I'm looking forward to expanding on this game, it definitely has potential to flop and be mind blowingly boring but I think that if I get everything just right I can create something enjoyably unique. Anyway, that's my game so far, thanks for reading.

Unity Tutorial 3

For our latest Unity game editor tutorial we were taught step by step how to create a working clock that operates in real time. Thankfully we were given a break from Jimmy Vegas videos for this one, instead we were given a step by step article to help us out.

To make the face of the clock we used variations of shapes such as cubes and cylinders and reshaped and re-positioned them to match the layout of a clock,  we then used C# coding to animate the clocks arms to move in conjunction with the correct time. In assessment I wasn't actually a big fan of this tutorial, yes we were able to learn some C# but only how to use it to do this one specific thing (make the clock move), I don't think this can translate very well into a functional tool we can use to create our final game. As well as this I had some problems with the editing itself, I don't know if the guide was using an out of date version of unity or if the instructions were unclear but I had trouble correctly setting each hour indicators at the correct rotation, plus the option to change the color of them was grayed out and I've no idea why. So ultimately while my clock did end up working it resembled a pancake more so than it did a clock.

(How our final effort should of looked, mine did not look like this at all)

Source: catlikecoding.com

Games MDA

There was a lot of useful information within the material that I researched for this article. The material discussed the aesthetics of video games, particularly it delved into the topic of "fun" in games. It talked about how we derive eight different kinds of fun from different games. These eight types are sensation, fantasy, narrative, challenge, fellowship, discovery expression and submission. Finding a game as fun is upon inspection a very loose blanket term, it indicates that we enjoy the game but this could be for so many reasons, this material discussed the reasons why we enjoy them.

It used some examples of games, such as Quake, Final Fantasy and party classic Charades, we like Quake because of its fast paced action (sensation) and its competitive nature between each and every one of its players, but that isn't why we like Charades, we like Charades because of its comradery (fellowship) and its fun nature. There's no solid equation for enjoyment of a video game, instead its a mix and mash of various different aspects. 

Most games contain models, as talked about in the reading material models are a collection of game mechanics, shooters contain fast action gun play while strategy games contain methodical turn based movements. By unifying this information with the aforementioned eight types of fun we can see a link between video games that we haven't seen before, because when stripped to their core these games contain identical fundamentals to others based on their genre alone. This MDA framework helps to break down games and helps people to better understand the relationship between game producer and game consumer.

"Quake Champions"
Source: Polygon.com

Here are some additional readings I did relating to this topic

Why are video games so fun?

A short article by Wesley Yin-Poole on why we find video games so appealing, he goes into detail on the mental aspects, explaining how we into the foreign characteristics we inherit. while playing video games.

Using the MDA Framework as an approach to Game Design

An article by Jenny Carroll discussing the MDA Framework and how it can be utilized in our analysis of video games.

The Game Design Theory Behind Games

An article by "Marco" talking about the core aspects of the MDA framework, which he defines as the bridge between game development and game design.

Unity tutorial 1

After viewing some of Jimmy Vegas's introductory tutorials on the Unity game editor I worked in tandem with them to create aspects of the editor shown in the video. For this set of tutorials I was thought some of the basics of Unity, including how to spawn in objects and terrain and reshape them as needed. This same video also showed us the very basic fundamentals of Unity but I don't think I need to talk about them in much detail.

In the next video Jimmy showed us how to utilize that aforementioned terrain, not only how to reshape it in multiple ways but also how to use imported textures to color it and make it usable in our games as environment. Speaking of environment Jimmy also shows us how to add trees and plants into our game before going on to explain how to add collectible objects into the game which he goes on to elaborate on in future tutorial videos.

Overall all of these new features will be fundamentally vital to our final project, of course because the map design features we learnt will be necessary for our games and there's also a requirement that we must include collectibles as well.

(Terrain in the Unity game editor)

Source: Unity3d.com

Game Elements

Game Elements

This week we did research on the elements that make up a game, the material we read through talked about what the qualities and elements of a game are and how we can correctly analyse and criticize a game and its mechanics. The material suggests to first look at a games elements without trying to interpret them in a positive or negative way, then we can analyse what direct effect those elements have on the game, before attempting to understand why the designer chose those elements as opposed to others. I think this three step process is effective in critically analyzing a game, mainly because its an alternative approach to more common methods such as simply judging if you like the game or not. 

We also read about each formal element that goes in to making a game (objective, rules, themes etc.) and I think I learned a lot from this bit of research particularly. Not only did I learn new terminology for genres of objectives or levels of player interaction but it also changed the way how I look at certain aspects of games. The theme for example is mentioned as dogmatic in deciding how easy it is for players to understand the rules of the game. For example in chess there is no theme, the names of the pieces are not related to their role in the game, a knight is not called a night because he moves in an L shape. However, in other games such Sid Meier's Civilization 5 builders build and farmers farm, this makes their role clear to the player. 

(Chess)
Source: Publicdomainpictures.net

Here are some additional sources that I found useful in further understanding advanced aspects of game analysis. 

Formal Abstract Design Tools

An article by Doug Church in which he offers information on advanced tools used to analyze and criticize games.

Game Criticism and the Myth of the Objective Review
An article by Micheal Heron in which he talks about how games are criticized in comparison to movies and other media.

The Impact of Fandom on Game Criticism
An article by Josh Bycer in which he discusses the effects that being a fan of a game has in relation to its criticism.

Feedback Thoughts

Feedback Thoughts

The first article I read about feedback for learning was "A fixed mindset could be holding you back". This article ventures into the familiar topic of fixed mindset vs growth mindset, a topic i'm familiar with due to my research of Carol Dweck. The article starts off by talking about how the way we raise our children is potentially harming them in the long run, it argues that by praising children for everything they do they are put in a fixed mindset which prohibits them from growing when faced with a difficult obstacle to overcome. This is due to the short-sighted thought that praising children for everything they do will give them robust self esteem when in reality its just made them stubborn and brittle when faced with a challenge and when they become adults it can lead to an inability to take criticism and a habit of being defensive over such feedback which can greatly limit a person from growing mentally. 

The article does go on to mention that you can learn to have a growth mindset. The writer points out how in hospitals when a mistake is made there is no finger pointing or sweeping under the rug, the team comes together to solve the mistake and learn from it for the next time they face the same problem again. I think this is a very apt analysis, in the TV show "House M.D" (which is about doctors curing sick patients) the characters go through this exact process every episode and they grow from it every time, so for me its very easy to see what the writer was trying to say by making this analysis.

The second article I read was "Why Its So Hard To Hear Negative Feedback" by Tim Herrera. This article was very interesting to me. It starts off by describing the scenario of a boss questioning an employee over an apparent mistake they made and the boss is looking to give the employee an earful about it. The article ponders the possibility that this usually stressful situation could be looked at as an opportunity to grow and as something to be craved.

This mindset can apparently be trained and the article references  TED podcast by Adam Grant as something that suggests this. Its definitely intriguing to think that we can train ourselves into seeing usually stressful situations as something that we can improve as a person from. From my reading of these articles I've learned to try and take criticisms positively instead of seeing them as something negative and I think the concept that we can decide to do that is what inspires the ability to do so, because why wouldn't you want to grow as a person.

(The aforementioned Adam Grant)

Source: ted.com

Game Brainstorm

Game Idea No.1 

My first concept for a game would be an adventure game set in a huge map, in which the primary appeal of the game is its visual and audio aspects. A game like this wouldn't require have advanced features, but would include elite map design and a top-tier soundtrack. My inspiration for this concept comes from the game Journey, in which the player traverses a vast desert to get to a mountain in the distance. The majority of the game is simply walking and contains practically no dialogue but was still able to become one of the most critically acclaimed games in recent history. Of course however, if done wrong this concept could easily be seen as boring and lacking features so it would be a high risk choice. Here's some gameplay of "Journey"

(Gameplay of "Journey") 

Source: Reddit.com

Game Idea No.2

My second idea for a game is a puzzle/platform type game. This concept would rely on clever and increasingly difficult puzzles and challenges that the player would have to solve in order to progress through the game. My inspiration for this game comes from the "Portal" franchise in which the player advances through several rooms each with a unique puzzle the player(s) must solve by using the franchises signature portal mechanic. The thing that separates the "Portal" franchise from other puzzle games is this unique mechanic which completely changes how the player has to approach each puzzle. My game would have to revolve around some kind of unique mechanic such as a speed boost, teleportation or throwing objects to imitate the kind of game changing effect the Portal series uses, which i'm confident I can come up with. The game would probably utilize multiple levels and raycasting as well.

Here's some gameplay of Portal 2

(Portal 2 gameplay)

Source: Greenmangaming.com

Game Idea No.3

My third idea for a game is a stealth based game, the main premise of this game would be you have to avoid being spotted by an enemy and make it to a certain point. A mechanic that I thought might be interesting would be the ability to kill/eliminate the enemy when you manage to get behind them, however if you're caught inside their cone of vision you would be insta-killed. With the added dimension of you being able to kill the enemy it would became a matter of outmaneuvering them and not getting trapped in a position where you cant escape them from. Some other mechanics I could include would be hiding in lockers/under beds and using distractions. Perhaps the enemy could be blind, so they cannot directly see you but enclose you by following the noise you produce. This kind of game would allow for a lot of creative options but would take more effort to produce. Two inspirations I drew from are "Amnesia" and "Alien: Isolation" both games involve you outsmarting much stronger enemies to survive in an environment where you are the prey. They also contrast how the different intelligence's of the enemies can reshape the game, the monsters in Amnesia simply chasing you when they see you while the alien in Alien: Isolation hunts you down based on where you last were and even checks hiding spaces, becoming progressively more aware of your tactics.

(Alien: Isolation gameplay)
Source: Videobilly.com

Game Idea No.4

My final idea for a game is probably my favorite. It's a shooter that is pretty much a parody of every traditional shooter game. It's inspired by a game created by the creators of the game "Bulletstorm" (Epic) in which the game parodies one of their competitors "Call of Duty" in hilarious fashion. The game which would go on to be called "Duty Calls" would pretty much make fun of popular cliches in well known shooter games such as "Call of Duty", "Halo" and "Counter-Strike" among others. This kind of game would be comedy based and is the kind of thing that I specialize in, taking the piss out of things. I'd utilize raycasting for the shooting in the game and the comedic undertones mean that graphics and character models wouldn't need to be top quality, allowing me to focus on other aspects of the game. I feel like this is a concept I can run with, despite my lack of overall thought put into it so far. Here's gameplay of the legendary "Duty Calls".

(Gameplay of "Duty Calls")

Source: Softonic.com

Workshop 01

For my most recent assignment I worked from a Unity game editor tutorial. There were 2 separate tutorials, the first of which covered a few things, one of which was how to import sound files into the editor and assign them to different objects, it also showed how to bring textures into the editor and use them in tandem with shapes to create walls. These skills will be useful for my final project, walls and textures are the literal foundation of a games level while being able to attach sound effects to an object will be necessary when making collectibles for the player to pick up.

The second of these tutorials covered a few different things, but primarily it thought me how to create a cursor as well as how to resize and reshape it as I see fit. I'm definitely going to include a cursor in my final game, since it'll make collecting objects and interacting with things like doors much easier for the player. The tutorial also went into ray-casting, which is used to determine a players line of sight, or perhaps how far a thrown object would travel.

For this assignment I completed the work on Unity in tandem with the tutorial videos. It was easy enough to follow along with the video, one problem I encountered with this however was that the creator of the tutorial videos (Jimmy Vegas) was using a different version of the Unity game editor than me so I wasn't able to follow along for certain parts. As well as this it seemed he had some parts of the tutorial pre-loaded while I started from scratch which also made it more difficult to follow.
Overall though I enjoyed the assignment and i'm legitimately looking forward to learning more about how to use Unity since I do enjoy making games. Plus everything I learned from the videos feels applicable to my final project, which does make you more enthusiastic about learning more as you aren't just learning random stuff you're never going to use.

("Gone Home" a game created using Unity game maker)

Source: Wikipedia.org

Game Design

https://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/JoshBycer/20120903/177027/A_Look_At_Negative_Game_Mechanics.php

A Look at Negative Game Mechanics

This article by Josh Bycer really stands out to me, it covers the negative aspects of games as opposed to the more mundane and traditional topics predominately written about in today's gaming blogs. However, in today's video gaming industry this topic is more relevant than ever.

The blog talks about negative gameplay mechanics purposefully put into to games for usually cynical reasons, a classic example of this that is mention by Josh in his blog is the use of difficulty spikes in old vintage arcade machines like Pac-Man and Street Fighter, these games worked by charging per go, so for example you'd pay 50c for one turn. So these games would generate money by having players play numerous times, as opposed to the modern one off payment of 50-70 euro. This would mean that game developers had to consistently keep their customers coming back for more. They would do this by making the games significantly more difficult as the game went on. This lured the gamer into a sense of fun before they lost the game and lost their turn, which fueled an addictive cycle that made this method so effective.

In more modern games this method is employed differently. In mobile games the developer would cause the games to require a certain amount of points to perform an action, these points would be available by either waiting until they renewed or by real life payment. As the game would progress actions would cost more points to perform, eventually halting the player in a stalemate and encouraging them to pay money or have the game they put their time into become unplayable. This is extremely common in mobile games and would become known as micro transactions. Another form of micro transactions would be made famous by game developer EA, in EA's game FIFA 19 for example players would be encouraged to buy packs for real money with the slim possibility of packing a top player and making their team on the game better. This has brought millions of dollars to EA along with plenty of controversy due to its similarities for gambling. Finally the blog also mentions social games, a famous example of this being Club Penguin, in which access was free but 90% of the games features were reserved for "premium players" of course requiring real money. These types of mechanics hinder the game but do so to encourage players to toss their money at them.

(Promotional image of FIFA 18)

Source: Flickr.com

https://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/180018/When_digital_versions_of_board_games_surpass_the_originals.php

When Digital Versions of Board Games Surpass The Originals

This blog post written by Soren Johnson talks about how the board games of old have been replaced by digital versions on modern day consoles such as PlayStation, PC and/or iPad. Soren mentions how this isn't necessarily a bad thing. The majority of digital board games outsell their original counterpart, some even outsell them 3 times over, this means more money for the games developers and overall a better economy for the gaming industry. A lot of these board games such as Carcassonne and Ticket to Ride were well past raking in any money from a vastly adjusting audience and their digital crossovers completely revitalized their sales.

The improvements brought upon by these digital adaptations are significant. On screens and monitors the actions within the game can be animated and shown to the player as opposed to being represented by an immobile playing piece, this can add a layer of excitement and immersiveness to the players experience. A huge setback of board games is the challenge of getting multiple players to sit down for long hours of uninterrupted play to finish a match, digital games like Sid Meier's Civilization have eliminated this issue by allowing the players to save the game and replay it from the exact point they left off at. In summary the digital era has revitalized board games and has created an entirely new market in the gaming industry, one for players who favor the strategy and skill required by a vintage board game.

http://pulsiphergamedesign.blogspot.com/2009/07/ways-to-reflect-fog-of-war.html

Ways to Reflect The "Fog of War"

This is a blog written by Lewis Pulsipher, in the post Lewis details his experience with a game mechanic known as The Fog of War. Fog of war is a common game mechanic used in strategy games that involve player vs player combat, it is used to hide information from the opposing player. For example an enemy player may not be able to see your soldiers when they are past a certain distance, or perhaps he can see the soldiers but he cannot see what level they are, meaning that if he chooses to engage with those units he faces a level of uncertainty about whether he can win that battle.

Its this uncertainty that Lewis talks about in his post, he talks about how uncertainty is a necessity in any good real time strategy game. He details how he ordered a naval board game when he was younger and how each battleship was distinguishable from each other. However this meant there was very little uncertainty in the game, a destroyer would also destroy a cruiser, a warship would always destroy a destroyer and so on. It made the game dull and inspired Lewis to come up with ways to implement the fog of war mechanic. He says how he used concepts such as upside down pieces and block pieces with four sides in an attempt to make this happen, but every attempt had its faults and difficulties. Lewis then goes on to remiss about other board games and how they implemented too much or too little unpredictability before ultimately stating that it all depends on the players preference, with "classic" gamers preferring less unpredictability while "romantic" gamers favored more unpredictably in search for that elusive big play.