MD2Final GDD

For this week I tested animation and doing it frame by frame, I illustrated the last scene via stop motion on little scraps of paper and put them together to see how it'd look as a video.

Game Design Document

For this week i just collected more references for drawing. We have decided on a flat 2D style to make illustrations easier.

Continued to watch tutorials and ways of doing animation which are classics

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vdwByOaft3o

I also did some sketches of my own sort with brief story boards to help me sketch out the animations

Game Design Document

For our document we had to create something slightly different as for my group we are creating an animated story book rather than a game. Titles needed to be slightly different.

After deciding on the tasks, the majority of it is going to be based around illustrations. Dividing the tasks amongst us we will tackle illustrations together, covering various things such as backgrounds, objects and characters. Because I have a graphic tablet I'll be digitalising illustrations that Marixa and Valerie create to be used in our animation.

Learning Challenge and Making lists

 

This post was a lot shorter than I expected for Lists , I clicked onto the time management tab in hopes of getting new tips as I'm terrible at it and I didn't expect to find something short and sweet. But i guess it is helpful as I have made a list one too many times and not followed it so it is a method of procrastination...

Tech Task Meme

This meme is a little too accurate of my current situation , hope it made you smile at the least

Unity Free Tutorials

Following Jimmy Vegas's tutorials were inevitably helpful however it being all mostly 3d gaming wasn't what I wanted to accomplish, I wanted to explore the 2d platform route as I thought it would be easier to construct and because of successful games like mario are 2d, it inspired me to look at something new. I watched this tutorial on how to make a 2d platform game. As I was watching it, they were using assets which opened up a whole new world, of course they are convenient but the video links to another tutorial on how to create your own features. I'm not really into creating games but next time I wanna explore creating assets, backgrounds and characters from scratch as I have a bigger passion for graphics than anything else. An interesting aspect in the tutorial was how an animation was made by selecting multiple images and then dragging it into the work space, these automatically combine and you automatically create an animation.

Animating a coin

Its interesting as to how animation was implemented without any coding. The tutorial then goes on to how to place these assets in your game, it was good as there were many shapes so you had complete freedom as to how easy or difficult you wanted your platform to be.

Games Testing

When reading the article "Giving criticism – the good, the bad, and the ugly!" I understood a lot of it. I'm my own harshest critic so when I ask for an opinion of something that I have already criticized myself about I have already mentally prepared myself for critique as harsh as my own. But to make people feel more comfortable I tell them my own critiques so then they can agree or disagree on it first.

A good point that they mentioned which i need to implement is unbiased feed back, this is great as I have a tendency to only do things the way I like rather than do things the way other people like which in return makes my end result not as satisfactory.

Specific Criticism is key as it'll help the individual more and know what to look out for not only this project but future projects as well.

Give both good and bad constructive criticism 

Week 8 Comments and Feedback

Week 8: Comments and Feedback

I feel like the comments that we are getting and receiving seem almost a little passive because of the way they're structured and the fact it's being said for educational purposes kind of restricts us from being comfortable. However they are nice to read and I feel like as if recently they have become better. The only thing is that because some of us don't know each other well we almost feel uncomfortable commenting any constructive criticism with each-other as we don't want to be rude.

I genuinely try to leave comments that have constructive criticism and give out any suggestions or ideas that i would have for them.  At first I didn't know what to say but as I read more and more and found games that I have been interested in I see ways in which that person can improve their idea or game if it was my take on it. Even though that person might no necessarily see eye to eye, i do think it is interesting to comment my perspective. When reading peoples writhing it does inspire me and it's interesting to see their step by steps. When I see a good blog post, it inspires me to do a better one next time or even to go back and re-edit mine.

Introduction posts are probably my favourite, they're interesting and I liked talking about my interests, I felt as if I filled the word count so fast without constantly checking did i meet it yet. Reading other peoples introductions were good because they were written on a personal level so it felt more casual rather than other blog posts which are specific to assignments. It was easier to get to know people and helped me talk to other people in the course because you have something to talk about. I'm happy with my introduction post and do wish that there were more posts that we had to do which were similar as i like haven't no box to be bound to when talking or in this case; typing.

I feel like I should go back on previous posts when giving feedback so I can see the persons progress. It would be nice to see a master post with all the information at once so that we can see the progression where ideas are scraped or reworked. It doesn't necessarily mean that the person should make a new post but rather copy and paste their game progress into one big post. Looking at other people's blogs definitely inspires me, and I have fiddled with my blog design so far. I definitely want to edit it slightly more so that it reflects both the module and myself.

Tech Task : Changing my blog theme

For the weeks tech task I changed the look of my blog, using the templates already available I changed my blog completely. I really didn't like the color scheme at all of my old blog as it was far too dark. I changed the color to a bright pink/red tones which really brightened it up and then I also changed the font of the blog and headings in the advanced settings. As I continue updating my blog I might just add in a custom banner but for now I'm satisfied with how it looks. Hope you like the look of it too!

Game Brainstorm

Platform Game

I'm not a frequent player of many games so finding out the names of different game genres came in use to be able to describe my potential ideas more. A game which stands out to me is the iconic Mario Games, when I was younger and played online, platform games were very popular. I played lots of variations and would look forward to new releases to play with my younger brother on websites such as "Miniclip" and "Nitrome"

I think that it would be fun to do something college related that's a platform game for example "Meeting a Deadline" where the player would be a student and the end goal is the assignment deadline. There would be obstacles such as balancing work, social life, and other assignments thus making it more difficult to reach your end goal. Too real? Maybe but it's just an idea and I could swap in different obstacles but it was the first thing that came into my head that felt relate-able.

Fantasy Role Playing

Although I don't play many games, I am interested in the fantasy genre animes and in some cases, these fantasy shows are originally based on a game such as "Fate/Stay Night".  I like the concept of these games as they not only require to fulfill a task/mission to progress in the game, they also have a plot/story to tell which interests the player to continue on in order to find out the rest of the story line. I have not personally played this game however I have watched the show that was inspired by it and thought it was really interesting.

What interests me the most when it comes to these games are the actual graphics associated with them. I really enjoy art and the graphic design aspect of games. I'm not too well informed in the realm of popular game plots but I do have ideas and story lines both in my head and written out which I have done previously out of my own interest. I'd like to implement these ideas into a game. 

MMORPG

Whilst watching the anime "Sword Art Online" It's unique story line of a massive amount of players being sucked into an MMORPG (Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game)  peaked my interest. When I was younger I played online virtual worlds such as "Club Penguin" and "Fantage" which I spent countless hours upon. The anime's game was similar to this so I went onto the internet to see if I could find something similar that was targeted towards an older age audience. I stumbled upon "DOFUS" which is an MMORPG, I played this for a while and thoroughly enjoyed it as I could customize my character and interact with others who played this game whilst leveling up my character and completing missions. This would indefinitely be a very difficult game to mimic but if I could attempt a super and i mean SUPER simplified version, I'd be very proud of myself

Dofus MMORPG - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dofus

Shooter Game

Lot's of these games inevitably dominate the Market. Fortnite being one that rose to popularity very quickly and others such as COD. I know that games based on World War are already existent but it would be interesting to attempt something that is based on a true story in other countries that have a plot line as well. So that the player would be able to both be reeled in by not only the game play but by the history of it as well.

Feedback Thoughts

I read the article "Seven Ways to Crush Self-Doubt in Creative Work" . This article was reassuring to read, he introduces the article by talking about his own moments of self doubt which was interesting as it shows how no matter the age or occupation you have that, at some point everyone goes through this insecurity. I was able to relate to this article more than I thought and found myself reading tendencies which I do frequently. 

The first point which he covered was to stop comparing yourself, I find myself doing this a lot and it therefore grows my insecurities and self doubt, I want to strive for this perfection immediately and give myself unrealistic goals to achieve in short time spans. He also covers a point that talks about abandoning perfectionism. A problem which I also do, I strive for this ultimate level that I sometimes abandon what I'm doing because I don't feel like I can accomplish this unrealistic goal that I have set out for myself.

Self destructive words

Continuing on I read an article to Rewire your self-critical brain. I felt as if this article would go hand in hand with some points from the previous one. Knowing that perfectionism and comparing yourself is holding me back but what I needed to tackle know is how to get out of this thinking routine to do with that. To summarize this article talks about the individuals own experiences and how he justifies his failures. You can relate to him in this aspect but at the end he basically talks about how we should congratulate and award ourselves on even the smallest of accomplishments.