I have returned – or for those new faces, arrived!
To get straight to the point, this semester (my third and FINAL semester, dun dun duuun) I will be looking at the Unity game engine again, but this time not only as a vehicle for learning and simple level design – but as something through which I can create a polished and retail-read game.
Having prepared over the summer, playing around with Unity to make sure I knew it well, I completed the fist half of my project: Mechanic design.
On which note I should probably mention – While it is intending to make a complete game, ignoring the final assets for retail, this project is primarily a mechanic and level design exercise.
Anyway. Over the summer I have produced 7 “Test of concepts”
These are VERY simple games demos to show off the idea and make sure it works, and, if I where to continue, help me identify any problems that need addressing.
Over the next week I shall talk you through the 7 game ideas, identifying my feelings towards them and any problems I had.
One has been particularly well received. (More on this later)
While For the next week I’ll be a bit ahead of you readers, I shall continue with my project and keep you posted.
Tuesday, 20 September 2011
Wednesday, 4 May 2011
Next time, on MA Games Design.
Ok guys, unless I feel like posting something minutes before I hand in (Or even after… which I do not.) This will be the last you’ll hear from me. Probably.
Having managed to learn a good amount of the unity engine to the point that I was able to produce a small game (Oh my god I made a working game! How awesome am I?) I can easily say the following:
I am happy with my progress this semester.
Hold the applause, we are all very proud, but I am here to talk to you today about whats coming next!
OK, so last semester I predicted I’d be making GDD style level design and mechanic pitch documents.. silly me. So do not take this as given, I may change my mind in the next few months!
Next semester, I am looking at doing something very similar.
Hopefully, I will develop a small game for iPhone, with a control scheme that will translate well, all finished, polished and complete.
None of this “5 levels to show variety” rubbish. Even if the game is 1 level, a full game is a full game.
Who knows, I may even retail it! (And get attacked by the Autodesk lawyers for using a student version of Maya)
So, that’s it, thanks for listening, give me 70% +
Until next time (at which point I’ll make some sort of iPhone app) …Goodbye!
Click here to play the (Somewhat) finished (but in places temperamental) game!
Having managed to learn a good amount of the unity engine to the point that I was able to produce a small game (Oh my god I made a working game! How awesome am I?) I can easily say the following:
I am happy with my progress this semester.
Hold the applause, we are all very proud, but I am here to talk to you today about whats coming next!
OK, so last semester I predicted I’d be making GDD style level design and mechanic pitch documents.. silly me. So do not take this as given, I may change my mind in the next few months!
Next semester, I am looking at doing something very similar.
Hopefully, I will develop a small game for iPhone, with a control scheme that will translate well, all finished, polished and complete.
None of this “5 levels to show variety” rubbish. Even if the game is 1 level, a full game is a full game.
Who knows, I may even retail it! (And get attacked by the Autodesk lawyers for using a student version of Maya)
So, that’s it, thanks for listening, give me 70% +
Until next time (at which point I’ll make some sort of iPhone app) …Goodbye!
Click here to play the (Somewhat) finished (but in places temperamental) game!
Reflecting on reflecting
With 2 days to go (Two?! Oh crap) till I hand in my reflective diary (and an extra week for everything else) I find that it is time I looked back at this semesters ‘reflections’
(Which is silly, really – considering that I am loosing an entire week of reflections!)
Overall, I find it has been nothing but a series of “Hey, look what I did/can not do/ how much I hate unity” but I feel this is appropriate.
The reason I said so much but meant very little last semester was because I was simply doing something I already knew how to do, while I was practicing, I was not learning anything.
This time, however, there has been remarkable progress, considering a few months ago I couldn’t import a texture into unity, and now I am chopping up and pasting code to meet my own needs and begging to think of better and more exciting ways I could make games, defiantly something handy for next time!
The reflections have been far less research-y this time, however my dissertation next year will fill this void, as like I said, it has been a learning experience. It is a case of combining my research and practice with the skills I have learnt now, to truly become a “Master” of the art!
It may not have been the most critical analysis of my work, or even others work, but the diary defiantly marks my progress. And that is what we need! (That and 2500 words.)
(Which is silly, really – considering that I am loosing an entire week of reflections!)
Overall, I find it has been nothing but a series of “Hey, look what I did/can not do/ how much I hate unity” but I feel this is appropriate.
The reason I said so much but meant very little last semester was because I was simply doing something I already knew how to do, while I was practicing, I was not learning anything.
This time, however, there has been remarkable progress, considering a few months ago I couldn’t import a texture into unity, and now I am chopping up and pasting code to meet my own needs and begging to think of better and more exciting ways I could make games, defiantly something handy for next time!
The reflections have been far less research-y this time, however my dissertation next year will fill this void, as like I said, it has been a learning experience. It is a case of combining my research and practice with the skills I have learnt now, to truly become a “Master” of the art!
It may not have been the most critical analysis of my work, or even others work, but the diary defiantly marks my progress. And that is what we need! (That and 2500 words.)
Tuesday, 3 May 2011
The User Interface
The most recent addition to my game has been graphic user interface content. And oh what a royal pain it was.
Sure, I had a button to reload the level when it decided not to load bits of script, this was easy, I could stick the same thing on each level.
But a full on title screen?
Ergh.
The Title Screen has 3 elements to it. The two buttons, “Play game” and “Instructions, and the central image logo.. thing. Laying these out was not easy. More on that in a second
Now, you might be thinking “Why is it so crap?” (I can almost hear you say it Josh.)
Simply, because anything nice was too hard.
The game will be submitted in a portable windows format, meaning that whoever is grading it can choose to play in whatever screen resolution he (or she) chooses.
This means that when positioning the GUI, if the player chooses a screen resolution smaller than I have made it for, it will get cut off.
Reversely, if they do it too big, it will distort and not be laid out as intended.
Too Big
Too Small
Just right. (Thanks, Goldylocks.)
So, here we are, with a nice simple layout for the GUI. But what of the other places?
Fortunately, I was able to use images for buttons, and choose the ‘roll over’ state as a different image!
Monday, 2 May 2011
An apology - and my game! (ish)
One thing I would like to note is that over the past few weeks, I have been able to insert images into my posts, meaning I could not show the asset generation - due to blogger having a bit of a bug, in which all my text formatting would disappear and my post would end up as an unattractive wall of text.
As well as this, My original intention of posting lots of versions of my game had been shelved due to me not having the £150 to renew my webhosting.
Well, problem solved. I may have made some shady deals with a Nigerian banker, but its worth it. Here you go!
Click here to play the (Somewhat) finished (but in places temperamental) game!
As well as this, My original intention of posting lots of versions of my game had been shelved due to me not having the £150 to renew my webhosting.
Well, problem solved. I may have made some shady deals with a Nigerian banker, but its worth it. Here you go!
Click here to play the (Somewhat) finished (but in places temperamental) game!
Friday, 29 April 2011
A look at the pracitioners, again.
Having a quick look back over some of the Practitioner lecturers (and specifically their websites... as I check thsi essay is finished) I have begun to remember what it is I found so futile about some of these practitioners.
As I state in my essay on the lecture series, I did manage to find the odd useful tidbit, but nothing that has truly changed my life, or even reflected positively on my practices.
What is it that I disliked so much?
Some of them produce some real poo, and make a lot of money from it.
I will not name names, but instead, I will change foot for some examples.
The relevance of these people is completely lost on me. Sculptors, Ceramicists. They slowly carve foofy shapes out of materials, while I create only what I need using a computer.
To prove my point, here are a few gems, while they are fantastic pieces of art, they are just that. Art. Completely functionless.
I feel quite annoyed that in a subject area where we are taught the essence of time keeping, remaining vigilante about the size constraints of our work, and constantly considering the end user, we are shown hapless artists and their pieces created on a whim.
Perhaps I will neglect all end users and create a completely selfish and self gratifying game? It could be an interesting result.
As I state in my essay on the lecture series, I did manage to find the odd useful tidbit, but nothing that has truly changed my life, or even reflected positively on my practices.
What is it that I disliked so much?
Some of them produce some real poo, and make a lot of money from it.
I will not name names, but instead, I will change foot for some examples.
The relevance of these people is completely lost on me. Sculptors, Ceramicists. They slowly carve foofy shapes out of materials, while I create only what I need using a computer.
To prove my point, here are a few gems, while they are fantastic pieces of art, they are just that. Art. Completely functionless.
I feel quite annoyed that in a subject area where we are taught the essence of time keeping, remaining vigilante about the size constraints of our work, and constantly considering the end user, we are shown hapless artists and their pieces created on a whim.
Perhaps I will neglect all end users and create a completely selfish and self gratifying game? It could be an interesting result.
Thursday, 28 April 2011
What I’d change.
Having got to the point that the primary game play and graphical elements have been completed, I am beginning to look back and thinking what I would change if I could re-do the project from the ground up.
While this is a bit of an upsetting prospect to see how it could be made better, it will let me see what may be best next time.
Camera
One of the biggest thing to cause my issue is the camera – having changed several times during the creation of the game, I am still not happy with it, though its current incarnation gives me the least problems.
Had it been rotating, the controls would have kept skewing at certain angles causing block pushing to become very difficult.
The over the shoulder camera would have required greater attention to detail in the modelling, nicer textures, (Both of what I did anyway) but most importantly, would have gotten caught on the terrain in such an enclosed environment. While it may have been ok in places, catching raised terrain in the camera would have been a nightmare.
First person is simply a big no no here. You would end up just seeing the boxes. You’d never see what you where doing!
Controls
Not such a problem here, but I would certainly have liked to consider the control scheme for iPhone from the beginning.
Had I made it mouse based, I could have easily made it touch based. As it stands, I am stuck with keyboard input for now.
Animation
My big problem here is due to my inexperience I had to choose between having an idle pose and walk cycle or having a walk cycle OR having a walk cycle and a ‘push’ animation.
The push animation looked better, so I took it!
Hopefully in the future I will not have to have limited animations. With a better grasp of what I am doing I can better experiment and repair mistakes.
Style
The style of the game fits quite well with the mechanic, I’d like to do a game in which the graphics do not take as long to create.
Perhaps a game made entirely of squares!
Hang on, I did that for my honours project in my undergraduate. Maybe not!
While this is a bit of an upsetting prospect to see how it could be made better, it will let me see what may be best next time.
Camera
One of the biggest thing to cause my issue is the camera – having changed several times during the creation of the game, I am still not happy with it, though its current incarnation gives me the least problems.
Had it been rotating, the controls would have kept skewing at certain angles causing block pushing to become very difficult.
The over the shoulder camera would have required greater attention to detail in the modelling, nicer textures, (Both of what I did anyway) but most importantly, would have gotten caught on the terrain in such an enclosed environment. While it may have been ok in places, catching raised terrain in the camera would have been a nightmare.
First person is simply a big no no here. You would end up just seeing the boxes. You’d never see what you where doing!
Controls
Not such a problem here, but I would certainly have liked to consider the control scheme for iPhone from the beginning.
Had I made it mouse based, I could have easily made it touch based. As it stands, I am stuck with keyboard input for now.
Animation
My big problem here is due to my inexperience I had to choose between having an idle pose and walk cycle or having a walk cycle OR having a walk cycle and a ‘push’ animation.
The push animation looked better, so I took it!
Hopefully in the future I will not have to have limited animations. With a better grasp of what I am doing I can better experiment and repair mistakes.
Style
The style of the game fits quite well with the mechanic, I’d like to do a game in which the graphics do not take as long to create.
Perhaps a game made entirely of squares!
Hang on, I did that for my honours project in my undergraduate. Maybe not!
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