And so, another school year ends. Took it long enough. Anyways, these blog posts have been, surprisingly helpful. Its a useful tool to sit down after a week and just, look back at what we've done. Compile everything we've learned and done, and put it into a semi-coherent format. I'll probably either completely forget about this, not have anything happen worth writing about, or use it frequently. So, essentially, in response to "Are you going to use this over the summer" I'd respond with "Eh." In contrast to that mentality, its actually been really useful to me personally, as it really has been a time to sit down and essentially talk to myself about what happened last week. Its let me plan, let me learn about myself, let me organize my thoughts, and I'm probably not going to use it again till next year, so that's a real shame, real proud of my work ethic here. Anyways, looking forward to next year and all the migraines its going to bring.
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As an individual interested in the career opportunities provided by the Game Design field, the most useful information I received this year was the ECGC trip, and the mountains of information imparted to me from several professionals in the field. It really helped me see exactly what is needed in this field and what I need to do to thrive in it. The most difficult information for me to understand was game history, simply from the dull presentation of it. I understand that its important information, but come on, it was a minor miracle that half the class didn't fall asleep during that presentation. Personally what I would change about the curriculum would be more focus on having kids decide what field of Game Design they want to go into. Let them explore it a bit more, and let them delve into the specifics of the field they choose a bit more.
A topic that stood out to me was the talk Narrative Designer or Game Writer? Yes. given by Evan Skolnick. This talk was interesting to me because it really went into depth as to exactly what it means to be a Narrative Designer and a Game Writer, at the very least in his eyes. From these opinions as to the differences between the two fields, I was able to gain a lot of information about writing for video games in general. The main struggle I saw in writing for games was communication. The majority of the other people on the board are focused around creating the game play for a game, and sometimes completely forget about the story entirely. This can cause major problems for those trying to create a plot for the game, as game play mechanics, level design, and audio tracks must all coincide with the plot, else it does not fit. So, as defined by Evan, a Narrative Designer's job is to communicate with the board, being an insider that speaks for the plot in board meetings and makes sure changes are made to incorporate it, while the Game Writer is doing the majority of the creative thinking and story telling. On smaller teams it is seen that these two jobs merge together, while on larger teams it is usually structured to have a team of writers, and one or two Narrative Designers getting changes made and getting their voice out there, as well as communicating with the Game Writers on what needs to be done on their part. This talk interested me because this is literally what I want to do for the rest of my life. No questions about it, I want to create fictional worlds with infinite depth that players will immerse themselves in and truly be invested in. Of course, the road to being able to do that is going to be tough, as many of the professionals that I spoke to have told me, but seeing how far you can get, and generally what the Game Writer and Narrative Designer community is like, as I basically spent a day in a half in the same room surrounded by the same professionals, some of which never actually went up and spoke but were there for the information as much as I was, it gave me a sense of a dedicated community that I want to be a part of. In fact, that is precisely why I loved this conference so much. Besides the colleges, which while I understand why they were there and how helpful they were being by being there, I didn't really care about them too much, the people there were extremely dedicated to their craft. People were not there just to sell their games, they were there to share this cool new thing that they made, and tell you all about how they made it, why they made it, and how you can make it too. I just absolutely loved the community feeling, especially as I said before the Narrative Track's community and I can't wait to go back next year.
Remembering this information was not that difficult. The majority of these questions could have been replaced with "Do you know what (insert job here) is/does?". The only thing I had difficulty remembering was the different document names, and when you send them to your employer. So, in preparation, I would review what some of the more specific jobs have to do, and what documents are sent when. Besides that, I'm good to go.
It was fairly difficult to remember the material after a year of not seeing it. I got a 77% on my first try, and got a 100% by the third or forth. I will need to spend time reviewing where the traditional games came from and the advancements that took place as they went along, as well as exactly when some of the newer advancements happened as well. Its been a year, the dates are a bit fuzzy, and I already have trouble remember dates without hundreds of days between seeing them. But, besides that, the majority of the material has stuck, which is good I suppose.
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.
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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