Multimedia Development Game Blog

  ( https://thumbs.dreamstime.com/z/old-vintage-reading-book-s-story-time-as-people-go-pages-use-their-imagination-surreal-read-107209060.jpg ) For this weeks task I had to read two articles on storytelling in games.  For the whole semester we have mostly talked about the actual gameplay of a game but this week we focused on the importance of the games narrative. I believe that the storyline in a game is as important as everything because obviously if it has a good storyline you're gonna keep playing the game to find out what happens next. The first article was called "What Every Game Developer Needs To Know About Story" by John Sutherland.  The article talks about games being a form of art just like movies and plays. Exact quotes from the article were "games aren't movies" and "movies aren't plays" however the thing movies, games and plays have in common are that they are all a form of art and have had their addicts from the very beginning. Th...

Image from my game This week I have continued working on my game like I have been doing every week. So far I have been enjoying the process of making the game. I decided since I have limited time to just make my game simple rather than stressing myself out to make a brilliant game. So far I have my player moving and my crates disappearing however I'm still having issues ending my game. Strangely enough when I type in my game over code my crates just disappear without me even moving my player. Once I manage to end my game I feel like I will be ready to wrap it up so the sooner I get these issues fixed the better.  

Image from the tutorial For this weeks tutorial we had the choice of continuing on with the next tutorial after last weeks or going back and doing previous tutorials that will help us with our final game. As I am busy with my final game and am still yet to end my game with a "you win" or "game over" message I decided to go back and do the tutorial on how to trigger a game over message. This is one of the collision decisions tutorials which I have also gone back over as my game involves your player colliding with boxes and destroying them. Doing the tutorial this time around was easier than the first time as I had already done it before so I just had to repeat what I did last time. This tutorial has helped me with my collision decisions in my game and I found triggering my game over message easy during the tutorial however I am still struggling with it in my actual game as my game has a different setting and I plan on ending my game when my player falls off the road ...

  ( https://thumbs.dreamstime.com/z/visitor-comments-1034545.jpg ) Each week we as a class have been commenting on each others blog posts. We have mainly been commenting on each others game ideas and introduction posts each week. I've have received mostly positive comments under my introduction posts and game ideas. My game idea originally was to create a skater game inspired by Tony Hawk Pro Skater which I mentioned in all my game project blogs and I had a lot of people commenting telling me it was a very good idea and that they are also big fans of Tony Hawk Pro Skater and that they liked my idea. This was a good way to discover people with a similar taste in games as me. One of the earliest blogs I posted was about my favourite game which happens to be Grand Theft Auto and a lot of people who commented also said that Grand Theft Auto was their favourite game so I had that in common with lots of my classmates. I also had to make an introduction post at the very beginning of the s...

Image from growth mindset reading For this weeks task I had to go back over everything I have been doing this semester for this module and write about it. I was asked to go back over the readings, the tutorials and project work. Throughout this semester we learned about game design as well as game theory. One of the earliest readings we did was called "What Is A Game?". Obviously before doing this reading when asked that question I would've just said a video game but after doing this reading I learned the literal definition of a game isn't necessarily a video game. It is literally any form of playing so when asked "what is a game" you can say Grand Theft Auto or you can say Tic-Tac-Toe and they're both correct answers. If it is something you can play it is a game. As well as learning about games we also learned about time management which is an issue many students face myself included and the readings offered very helpful tips. One specific reading that ...

Image from my first playable Last week I started on my prototype for my final game. Despite running into a few problems I found it relatively easy. This week however I added to my prototype in order to make my game playable. I was really panicking at the thought of doing this as game design isn't one of my strongest areas however with a little help from the tutorials and my lecturer I managed to fix a few issues I was having last week and get further ahead and it turned out to be easier than I was expecting. At the moment I am now able to make my player move and turn with a speed of 20.0f; and a turnspeed of 45.0f; and I'm able to make my player knock over the obstacles however I might change it so that he destroys them instead of just knocking them over. At this rate I'm actually enjoying playing the game myself. I still have a few finishing touches to go. I still need to make my player destroy crates once he collides with them and I still need to add a game over message f...

  Image from the tutorial For this weeks tutorial I had to learn how to make the camera follow around my player. My player was a sphere on an island and I had to have the sphere rolling around the island without falling off and I had to have the sphere move in the direction of the camera.  First off I had to make a new GameObject called the focal point and put it in the centre off the scene. I then had to make the camera a child object of the focal point and reset the focal point position to (0,0,0) so that it would change whenever the camera rotated. I then had to make a new script called RotateCamera and attach it to the focal point.  I then had to go into my RotateCamera script and add a new public float called RotationSpeed; I also had to go into my Update method and a new float called horizontalInput = Input.GetAxis("Horizontal"); I also had to add transform.Rotate(Vector3.up, horizontalInput * rotationSpeed * Time.deltaTime); and then set the rotation speed to 50. I...

  ( https://thumbs.dreamstime.com/z/pacman-game-action-icons-39279586.jpg ) For this weeks task we had to read two articles and watch a video on game fun. The first article was called "Gamification Design: What's Fun Got To Do With It". The article talked about the importance of making a game fun and how fun is on every game designers mind obviously because nobody would want to play a game if it wasn't fun. The article shows the favourite elements of gamification in the gaming design process which are narrative, rewards, competition, progress, feedback, challenge, collaboration, exploration and theme and the author mentions that he finds it strange that the word fun doesn't come up in this design process. The article also talks about the definitions of fun which obviously are enjoyment and amusement or light-hearted pleasure and entertainment but in the world of gaming it is defined as pleasurable engagement. The article also goes into the taxonomies of fun and de...

  Image of my prototype This week I started work on my prototype for my final game. I did this by following the instructions of the first weeks Unity tutorials that I did. The idea for my final game is similar to Tony Hawk Pro Skater. I plan on having a skater skating around the screen similar to the first Unity tutorial and destroying crates that come along the way. I also decided that if my player falls off the road then you lose the game but if he destroys all the crates then you win in order to make it quite challenging. I also have the camera at an overhead view so I could see how I was positioning everything in my scene view and I may try do this in my actual game as I quite that look. The little green rectangle is a prototype of my skater and the two big cubes are prototypes off my crates. Setting up the prototype was surprisingly fairly easy however it was the coding that I found quite tricky as always. Thankfully I managed to get my first obstacle destroyed but I had diffi...

Image from the tutorial For this weeks Unity tutorial I had to continue on from last weeks one. This week I had to learn how to make the player going from a running state when using the running controls, a jumping state when using the jump controls and a death state when the player hit a barrier. To do this I had to use an animation controller.  Animation controller The animation controller is what is used to control the players animations which is pretty self explanatory. The animation controller controlled each state that the player is in so I needed to use it to get him into any one of these three states when needed. When I clicked on walk or run the players animation character walked or ran however when I clicked walk_static or run_static the animation character only ran or walked on the spot. I then had to edit the players condition. I had to change the speed from 0 in order to get him to move. I then had to make the player start off by running. To do this I had to go to the p...

( https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/proxy/AVvXsEg2qRVOQwZph6ZRbE8PNUXSMzIKkZttcCFI-SWuFzLoLpOygvoRtjGyVstcgPDFsD5tnxoN-H5RKuBPah5IzQZTN3-56ifoSsDQQslgKjlzk1hqFIVWY_6zHvxlBmEnG0-wE4EDj3VcVuFTXpw9hUOPnOq1hRkejru8p7T7jWj6xP4jqf69MBOkTJZA-5Eb6C7K8-3Z9mi7pg= ) For this weeks task I had to read two articles and watch a video on game decisions. The first article was called "Building A Saving Princess App".  The article talks about how to build learning and fun into your applications. It also talks about the difference between games and apps and how games are usually good at saving princesses and how apps don't do it half as well.  Image from the article The image above is an example of a typical app. The article tells us that everything that needs to be done is already in the box and basically done for us and that it focuses on the user utilitarian tools to get things done.  The article also talks about the learning curve for apps and about how skills are a useful tool t...

Image from the tutorial For this weeks Unity tutorial I had to continue on from last weeks in which I made the character in the image above move along the screen and jump over obstacles when the spacebar is pressed however once the character gets to a certain point the background disappears so I had to make the background move along with the character. I wasn't able to duplicate the background images because eventually the image slides would've run out so instead I reset my background and added two background slides right beside each other and created a new script called RepeatBackground.cs and added it to my Background Object folder. I then had to add a private Vector3 variable to my background script and call it startPos; I then had to go to my Start method and set the startPos variable to transform.position; I then had to add an if-statement in my Update method called if(transform.position.x < startPos.x-50). I then had to add transform.position = startPos; to my if-state...

( https://www4.minijuegosgratis.com/v3/games/thumbnails/21193_1.jpg ) My game idea is to create a skateboarding game inspired by Tony Hawk Pro Skater. I want my skater to be able to avoid obstacles such as barriers by either swerving to avoid them or jumping over them. I also want my skater to have objects they can destroy such as crates just like in Tony Hawk Pro Skater. I also want my skater to destroy a certain number of crates in under a timer in order to win. I have created my own game design document for this game. In the game design document I talk about what is needed for the game. I talk about my story, my characters, my environment/level, my gameplay, my art description, my sound and my user interface and controls and what I want to do for each of these things.  I explain the basic concept of my game which is as simple as you play as a skater who has to avoid and destroy obstacles and the character who of course is my skater. I also explain how I want my game to be set in...

Image from the first article For this weeks task I had to read two articles and watch a video on game design document, GDD for short. The first article was from another lecturers website and it was called "Communication And Game Design Documents" where he described a game design document. The article tells us that game design documents have a bad reputation in the games industry. It also tells us that there are multiple myths about game design documents for example design documents are magical tools for designers to communicate their ideas to their team provided they are formatted properly and are using the right concept template which is incorrect as different games require different documents and it is very rare that one template will fit all your game requirements. It also mentions that design documents have two purposes, memory aid and communication tool. Memory aid is writing down your game ideas as you come up with them so you remember them later on in the development s...