The project has been giving me a lot of difficulty. Mostly due to the complexity of what I am trying to achieve, creating several new boxes that interact with each other and trying to work those out, as well as making it so that they interact properly with the original boxes and Lazarus. Luckily, the majority of the issues I've had can be solved by play testing and simple issues as they pop up. The most interesting thing I did last week was week was creating a line of code, which solved a massive issue I was having with trying to spawn one of several objects randomly. However, I am still going to have to take Monday to finish my project up, and I don't know if I can get the final game done in the three days I'll have. Hopefully I can.
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As a game progresses, you must have new levels. With new levels, must come new obstacles and difficulties for a player to overcome. New levels should make a player think differently, make them look at the game in a different way then other levels. Be it be increasing the difficulty to make them come up with new strategies, or introducing new mechanics for them to play around with, the player must be continuously challenged, and thus entertained by the game. In my project, which will be an expansion of the Lazarus game, will introduce new box types as the game progresses. The first 3 or so levels will be dedicated completely to the player's basic understanding of how the boxes work, and strategies to reach the button. Then, slowly, new boxes will be added, such as an explosive box and a slow time box. This will keep the player interested and engaged in the game as it progresses, as well as making them continuously think about their strategies and overall way of going about beating the game. The boxes will of course need to be added in a gradual format, as adding all of them at once may confuse and overwhelm the player, but by the final level they will be dealing with all box types and will have to use them effectively to reach the end of the game. This, I feel, will make for a very interesting game.
This week I worked on creating, testing, and finishing the Lazarus game. Aside from a day, in which I was feeling extremely tired, I worked diligently and productively. Of course, I ran into quite a few bugs, the majority of which were solved easily by going back through the tutorial and checking to see if I did everything correctly. All in all, it was actually a pretty uneventful week. I suppose that's good when working on a game, nothing going too horribly wrong. The final product came out well, and the finishing touches were added right on time. I followed my schedule and got everything done on time and done well. I am prepared to work on the project, which I've already started to lay out. It'll be an extension on Lazarus actually, adding more box types and interactions between them. A concept I learned and will use a lot in creating the project would be the use of controllers to check certain conditions, without the unpredictability of having them on a physical object on screen.
According to Overmars' criteria, the game I made, "Evil Clutches", isn't actually very good. It has no difficulty curve, as the spawning of enemies is random, there is no procedural goals, with the only goal being getting a higher score, and in fact it doesn't even have any end besides failure. While decisions do exist, such as moving up or down and when to fire, but there aren't a lot of decisions and the majority of them aren't skill based, as again, the spawning of enemies is random. Also, there are no lives, so a single mistake can completely ruin a players run. The balancing between player and game, being the only balancing, is actually not that bad. The fireball isn't completely overpowered, and the bosses attacks aren't too difficult to dodge. But, there are no in-game rewards for doing well, other then a high score. There is no progression, no new levels, no new items, no power ups, no end, its just missing a lot of things that make games fun. I suppose its fun for a bit, when you just start playing, but it gets repetitive very quickly. Not even frustrating, just repetitive. The immersion and story are also lacking, as to get any background you literally have to go into the help options, and the world consists of a single room, with a single background, with only one other real character in the room, who you can't interact with on a high scale then shooting them with fireballs. Overall, while actually kind of fun to make, as the game maker engine with the drag and drop mechanics to create and "program" a functional game, with the many different actions interacting with each other, the game its self isn't, according to the criteria laid down by Overmars. Also, I found the game maker engine to be, while not necessary hard to work with, having potential for great complexity and intricacy, and the ease of this project was most likely due to the lack of complexity in the game its self, rather then the engine.
Over the past year and a half, we have been building up to one, very special thing. This thing is the very thing I signed up to this class to do in the first place, though I have found I've had a lot of fun on the road getting to it. This thing, is creating video games. And so, before I delve into the actual creation of a game, it is appropriate to reminisce on the tools that are have been taught to me to get me ready for this experience. First off, the elements of design. These "rules" of sorts are basic guidelines to creating a product with an effective look and feel, specifically a look and feel that you want. This will be useful when creating a 2D game, as we will be starting in 2D, as it will be necessary for me to create sprites, as well as potentially packaging and other art work to go along with the game. Secondly, we have learned many different techniques to going about coming up with ideas for games, as well as the process of putting those ideas into action. These will be useful, quite obviously, for coming up with ideas for the my game and putting them into action. The work we did in Photoshop and Illustrator will be invaluable in creating the necessary art work for a 2D game as well, as those programs focus on a 2D plane. Basic scheduling and time management will be useful, as well as team working and leadership skills. As much as it saddens me, 3D programs will not be useful in this situation. Though, potentially with the use of rendering to create animations and cut scenes may be useful, if they are done in a specific way. But that is stretching it.
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AuthorI am 17 years old, and currently enrolled in Durham School of the Arts. Within the Game Design field, I'm looking to become a game writer or a programmer, preferably a combination of the two.
The views and opinions expressed in this blog are solely those of the author and do not represent those of Durham School of the Arts or Durham Public School Archives
June 2018
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