Friday, 30 September 2016

Braid Screenshot Anaylsis

     One of the unit's I had to cover was understanding object oriented design, and the task related to this was to analyse a set of screenshots from the game Braid. I will preface this by saying that I have never played Braid, so when it comes to analysing screenshots I am guessing what some of the different elements of the game actually do. I have used my gamer judgement to guess at what they do, and I have explained the events and actions in the way I understand the game to work.
    In this screenshot, the orange squares are identifying 'objects', the red square is identifying the player and the purple outlines are identifying scenery. All of these elements have sprites, which is how they're visible in the world. The player character is the most active object in the game, and as a result will have plenty of triggers and actions. 

if player collides with scenery{
    set speed to 0 to stop the player moving through scenery
    play sound
}
if player collides with floor or platform {
    set speed to 0 and set gravity to 0 to stop the player moving through floor
    play sound
}
if player collides with ladder and hits ladder climb button {
    change the player state so that they can climb up the ladder. 
    change the sprite to the ladder climb animation. 
    play ladder climbing sound.
}
if player collides with lever and hits interact button {
    character pulls the lever, play lever sound.
}
if lever is pulled {
    trigger event that is linked to the lever pull
}
if player collides with spikes {
    trigger death animation, play death sound    
}

    Other objects will have actions too, such as the platform and the cannons.

if platform trigger has been activated {
    move from left to right at a set speed
}

if cannon trigger has been activated, then every 5 seconds {
    shoot projectile from cannon, play shooting sound
}
    In this screenshot, there are moving platforms being fired from the cannon, and there is also a collectable, in the green square.

every two seconds {
    Shoot a moving platform from the cannon 
    play shooting sound
}
if player collides with the puzzle piece {
    Make the puzzle piece disappear
    play collectable sound
    add puzzle piece to the players inventory.
}
    In this screenshot there are enemies that need to be eliminated before the door will unlock to the next level. The enemies are in red squares, and in the green square towards the top there is a HUD element, that will show you how many enemies are left to be killed. When you kill one by jumping on them, it will tick one of the HUD. The level exit door in yellow will unlock once all enemies are dead.

if player jumps on the enemies' head {
    kill enemy
    remove one enemy from HUD element.
    play enemy death sound and animation
}
if all enemies are gone and the HUD element is empty {
    unlock level end door and play sound
}
if player collides with unlocked level end door {
    end level and move to next room
}
    In this screenshot there is a HUD element on the left, which displays the controls. There are also puzzle piece objects, in red, which the player must move around to complete the puzzle.

if player hits a key {
    carry out the respective command eg. move piece
}
if all puzzle pieces are in correct position {
    complete puzzle
}
    This screenshot is a level select menu. The orange square is identifying a HUD element, which is showing a level overview that corresponds to the level that the player has selected. The green squares are showing the different levels that the player can interact with to go to the respective level. The yellow square at the right is where the player goes once they have chosen a level, to move onto said level.

if player collides with book plinth and hits interact key {
    change HUD element to display respective level overview
}
if player collides with exit door, and hits interact key {
    move onto next level, dependant on which level the player has selected with the plinths.
}


Formatting Blog Posts with HTML and CSS

Formatting Blog Posts with HTML and CSS

Setting The Structure

Applying structure to the blog post will be the job of HTML, which serves as the skeleton to your webpage. Using div tags, we can set width, heights, give our page columns, create sub sections and more. I will be keeping the structure here simple, going for a two column layout, with this text being on the left side of the page. I can achieve this by setting up two divs and applying classes to them that 'float' each one in a different direction; this one floated left, the other column floated right.

Style Over Substance

If HTML is the skeletal structure of the webpage, then CSS is the what's going to make it look nice. CSS style sheets can give styling to elements of a webpage such as p tags or h1 tags, or they can be used in conjunction with classes. Classes allow you to designate a specific set of tags as a class, which allows you to give that element more specific styling. For example, in this page each column has p tags, however I have given the p tags in this column a class, which allows these specific p tags to be coloured blue.

Here are the two files I used to create this blog post; HTML (left) and CSS (right)

Thursday, 29 September 2016

Portfolio Website Layout

    During this year I will be creating a website that will serve as a professional portfolio of my work. This will contain images of work I have done, analysis of my work, development blog entries and is generally going to be used to showcase the skills I have as a games designer. One of the first tasks for this project is researching existing portfolio sites, seeing what fellow creative media professionals are producing, analyzing trends, and using this research to come up with a layout for my own portfolio site.

    One the clear trends I can see in my research is the popularity of video splash screens, where the landing page of a website has a moving image as the background, with minimal text on screen. The video immediately grabs your attention and pulls you in and the sparse use of text on these pages and the negative space surrounding text also adds to the effect of the media first approach, whereby the image or video, whatever the media product may be, is center stage. This is an effective design and layout for a media student portfolio, it get's straight to the point of why someone would be viewing your portfolio; because they want to see the quality of your work. I think that this is an approach I would heavily consider for my portfolio, as an interactive media student. Maybe I could take this approach one step further and have an actual game on my portfolio screen as opposed to a video of one.

    Another trend is the movement towards a clean and clear layout. Rather than cluttering the screen with huge reams of information, many sites choose a minimalist approach, keeping any text on their site clear and concise. This is a good approach for artists, video producers and photographers, whose bodies of work are strictly visual. However I feel that for a game, a picture only tells part of the story. With games being an interactive medium, it is important to communicate to anyone viewing your portfolio exactly what the interactive elements of your game are. A video can accomplish this to a certain degree, but it may be necessary to provide a little more of an in depth description of the game you have created.
This website uses a huge image as a landing page, a common trend amongst recent portfolios
    Below I have created a mock up of the general structure and layout of the site I aim to create.    
A page structure mockup, created in Adobe Photoshop
    For my portfolio website, I want a bold landing page with big images of the games I will have created. I want to split the page up into a number of sections (A,B and C) which will be dependent on the number of projects I have completed to a desirable standard, and each of these sections will have an image of the game. This will be still images upon loading up the page, but when the user hovers the cursor over the image, I want it to play a video of the game, and have it be a clickable link to a page that shows more information about that project. I think this is a great way of firstly showing off the different games I have created, and then bringing the page to life when the user hovers over each image. Also, having the images link to further pages will allow me to show off eye catching work on the landing page, whilst being able to elaborate on each project specific page. The main landing page will also have a header, which will contain my name, navigation buttons to other pages (eg. about me, gallery) and maybe a logo. There will also be a footer, which will contain contact information such as email address, and it will contain social link buttons, so that my site can be shared to Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and more. 
The same page structure, created in Sublime using basic HTML and CSS
    Above is a HTML and CSS layout I have quickly create in Sublime Text Editor. Of course it is very raw, but to be able to knock up a quick template in code and already see the structure coming together is very encouraging, and makes me believe that whilst the aims for my portfolio are ambitious for a novice web developer, they are very achievable if I put in the effort.

Level Layout Sketches and Pseudocode

I wanted to create a walkthrough of how a level would work in my game, as an exercise to better help me understand how the core gameplay loop will work and what is potentially missing from the game as it stands. Below I have sketched out a rough diagram with annotations, as to how a level may be set up.
A simple level sketch

The yellow bar at the bottom is the door to the room, and as a result it is where the player will spawn in from when they enter the room. From here they will be able to move around the room, they will collide with scenery, and they can leave the room if they wish.
  • if player enters the room {
  • spawn them at the door
  • }
  • if player hits move keys {
  •        move in the corresponding direction
  • }
  • if player collides with scenery {
  • stop the player moving in that direction
  • }
  • if player collides with door {
  • leave the room
  • }

In a standard room in the game, enemies will already be placed in the room, and more will spawn from the designated enemy spawn point. The basic enemy AI will see them move towards the player, until they reach a certain distance, and then start shooting.

  • if player enters the room {
  • enemies start moving towards player
  • }
  • if enemy is close enough to player to engage {
  • start shooting at player
  • }
  • if enemy hits player {
  • player loses 1 health
  • }
  • if all enemies are dead {
  • spawn another wave of enemies from the enemy spawn point
  • }


   When players manage to hit and kill the enemies, they gain score, and there is a chance they will drop money, keys, ammo or health. If the player is lucky enough to have the enemy drop a key upon death, they will be able to open a chest.


  • if player kills enemy {
  • enemy dies
  • enemy has a chance to drop loot, loot randomly selected between the four options
  • player gets 100 more score
  • }
  • if player is next to chest and has a key {
  • player opens chest
  • player uses and therefore loses 1 key
  • player gains random loot
  • }

   Not every room in the game will be a combat room. Some rooms will contain NPCs that aren’t enemies. They could be traders, quest givers, puzzle rooms. The way these rooms function is that the player will be able to move around the room as normal, and when they approach the NPC they will be able to interact.
  • if player is next to the NPC and hits the interact button {
  • contextually interact with the NPC eg. talk, trade, give item
  • }
 These are the individual rooms, but these rooms are connected by overall levels.
    These levels are randomly composed of different rooms, although every level will have at least one NPC room and one boss room. The player will spawn at the spawn point on the left, and can choose to go into any room in the level at any time.    

  • if player enters the level{
  • spawn at the player spawn point
  • }
  • if player walks into building{
  • spawn into the corresponding room
  • }

   This is the core gameplay loop to my game. The player enters the level, walks to a room, completes the objective within the room, gets loot, leaves room, and repeats until all the rooms in the level are completed.

Wednesday, 28 September 2016

HUD Elements and Composition

There is definitely a science behind the composition of a heads-up display. The HUD is a screen overlay, and is one of the best tools for communicating key information to the player in a clear and recognisable way. Presenting these in a way that the player can quickly identify is an important part of the player feedback loop, especially in a fast paced action game like I am aiming to create. The player needs to be able to see how much health and ammo they have at a glance, as to not slow the pace of the game or even worse, have the player die because they were too busy trying to find the health bar to dodge enemy attacks.

I have researched HUD design, and have researched the way that similar games have designed their HUD, in order to gather an idea of the elements I need to include in mine.

The elements that I need to include in my game are:
  • Health Bar
  • Ammo Counter
  • Total Money
  • Current Weapon
  • Current Active Item
  • Map
  • Inventory
  • Score
  • Context-Sensitive Prompts

I have made some rough sketches for some ideas of what these elements could look like, and where they could be placed on the screen:

Some rough sketches of various HUD elements
An example sketch of how I could compose the elements of my HUD on the screen
    When it comes to designing the elements that will make up my HUD, I favour simple and clear icons. This is because firstly I am not a gifted artist, but secondly and more importantly I believe that the HUD is there to serve a purpose, to clearly communicate key information to the player, and as such having fancy icons may be counter-intuitive to achieving this goal. In regards to the composition of the HUD elements on the screen, I learnt that important information should be placed in the top left corner. In western civilisation, people read from left to right, and from top to bottom, hence why it makes sense to put the most important elements at the top left, as this is where the player's eye will naturally start reading from. It is also a good idea to keep as much information on a level horizontally, as this will make it easier for the player to quickly look at one then the other.

With the research I have conducted and the sketches and notes I have made as a result of said research, I have a good understanding of the elements I need to include in my game, how I want them to look, and also where they need to be placed on the screen for maximum effectiveness. As previously stated, I am not the most arty person, and as a result I was previously worried about having to draw as a means of communication during design. However after this task I now understand the purpose of rough sketching isn't to nail down an aesthetic, but is a method of generating and communicate ideas for aspects of design that aren't easily explained in written form.

Course Goals and Career Aspirations

 During the course interview back in January, I remember being asked “What area of games development are you most interested in?”. I remember my answer. My answer was that I didn’t know. I don’t have a gift for creating beautiful artwork, I wasn’t sure if creating complex scripts that control AI behaviour was for me, the only thing I was sure about was that I wasn’t sure. In the time between then and the start of the course, I went away, I researched what kind of roles a game development team was comprised of, and found that no one particular role stood out to me. Part of the reason I chose this course was because it was an all encompassing course, and it covered many aspects of game development, I felt I could maybe find the area that appeals to me at some point over the next two years.

   However the more I look into the world of games development, and how it is shifting towards independent development, I feel like narrow minded specialization in a particular area is becoming less important. Whilst being an amazing artist or programmer will always get you work in the AAA space, I believe that the modern indie dev has a much more rounded skillset, as it is necessary to be multi-functional in a small team. My focus for this course isn’t on learning any one aspect to perfection. My focus is on designing experiences and creating games. Through creating these games over the next couple of years I can hone my skills in all areas, be it programming, creating art, designing levels and systems and mechanics, writing stories, creating rich, vibrant worlds that players want to exist in, every facet of a game’s design and development.

   I am under no illusions that I am going to be a whizz kid at everything or a one man band, that’s not what I am trying to accomplish. What my aim is is to finish this course having created complete experiences. If I can do this, it will prove to me, to my tutors, to universities and to prospective employers that I have a strong, well rounded skill set that has something to offer in the world of independent game development. That is what I want to be doing long term, making the games that I want to make, the games I am passionate about. The indie game scene is the place for me to do that, whether that be joining an existing studio, or starting my own with fellow indie developers. I am confident in my ability that I will be able to do just that. Hell, one day I may even meet Ken Levine.

Supergiant Games - Creators of Bastion & Transistor

   Supergiant Games is an independent development studio based out of San Francisco, California. Founded in 2009 by Amir Rao and Gavin Simon, the studio is best known for indie hits such as Bastion and Transistor, two critically acclaimed titles that have brought the studio worldwide recognition. Supergiant announced on 19th April 2016 that they are currently working on Pyre, a new IP.


Pyre is a party-based RPG in which you lead a band of exiles to freedom through an ancient competition spread across a vast, mystical purgatory.” - Supergiant Games
   Rao and Simon had been working together at Electronic Arts’ Los Angeles studio, on titles such as the classic strategy series Command & Conquer. In 2009, the pair decided to take the indie plunge, leaving their jobs at Electronic Arts to work on a new game together. For two people used to working at a AAA development studio, this was a big risk. Leaving the safety of the huge financial backing of publishers that the AAA space consists of, leaving their secure (and most likely well paid) positions at Electronic Arts. But the difference between AAA development and independent development is freedom. Freedom to make the games that you want to make. With that freedom comes the risk that it will all fail spectacularly, but that is what makes the decision of Rao and Simon so commendable. They left their positions in pursuit of their artistic vision, of the games they wanted to make. And they would certainly suffer for their art. To keep costs to a minimum, they made the decision to move into the same house and live together. With the two living together and working together, the house became a live in studio as they spent every waking moment on their new project, living off instant noodles and coffee.


   Between the two of them, Rao and Simon had plenty of experience of various aspects of game development. Rao boasted pedigree in design, with a leading role in the design of Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars and Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3, whilst Simon got his start in the games industry at 15 and worked his way up the ranks from QA testing, due to his skills as an engineer and a designer, to work on Command & Conquer titles alongside Rao. However during the development of their first game, they did enlist outside help, most notably from Darren Korb, a musician they hired for audio work, who has gone on to be responsible for the music on all of their games so far. They also contracted freelance game developers at key times in the production cycle.


   Their first game would be Bastion, a beautiful action role-playing game. First shown mid-way through production at PAX 2010, the game generated a significant buzz amongst fans and industry professionals alike, with it’s eye catching art style from the talented Jen Zee, the lead artist at Supergiant. The most notable interest came from Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment, who would go on to publish the title. Bastion was released in summer of 2011, and was a featured title in the Xbox Live “Summer of Arcade”, where Xbox highlighted significant indie titles released around that time that deserved recognition. Bastion was very well received by critics, and Supergiant found their debut title among several “Game of the Year” lists from various media outlets.

“Bastion is the first title from Supergiant Games, an original action role-playing game set in a lush imaginative world, in which players must create and fight for civilization’s last refuge as a mysterious narrator marks their every move.” - Supergiant Games
   In March 2013, Supergiant announced their next title, a new IP called Transistor. Transistor is an isometric, semi turn-based RPG set in a neo futuristic city. Similar genre to Bastion, Supergiant were sticking with what they knew, but taking it to a new setting with a new story. Many were crying out for a sequel to Bastion, and felt that they moved to a new IP too soon. However, Transistor was another Supergiant masterpiece. The game released on 20th May 2014, again with critics raving about the genius of the creators, with a striking art style complemented by a touching love story, all providing the backdrop to solid action RPG gameplay.


“Transistor is a sci-fi themed action RPG that invites you to wield an extraordinary weapon of unknown origin as you fight through a stunning futuristic city.” - Supergiant Games
   That brings us to present day, with Supergiant currently working on Pyre. Anticipation for this game is palpable, and for good reason. Seven years on from Rao and Simon coming together to found the studio, the company is setting the standard for independent games development. They are now twelve employees strong, still independent of any publisher, and still creating the games that they want to create. Bastion and Transistor were huge successes for Supergiant, and have won them the trust, praise, and the hearts of all those who have the pleasure of experiencing their games. I can’t wait for Pyre.

Researching and Analysing Enter The Gungeon and Hotline Miami

 I have decided upon a top down action game for my first project. Having made this decision about the kind of game I want to create, I sought out a couple of similar titles for research purposes. The two games that immediately jumped to mind for me were Hotline Miami from Dennaton Games, and Enter The Gungeon by Dodge Roll. Both of these games are excellent examples of what the genre has to offer, and they’re also two very successful independent games. I played each game for a couple of hours, taking notes, so that I can see what they do well, what doesn’t work, and see what influence I can take from these games into my own project.

Enter The Gungeon
   The two games have very differing themes and story. Enter The Gungeon is set in a dungeon on a distant planet, that is home to an ancient artifact; a gun that can kill the past. You play as one of four characters, each of whom have a dark past, hence their desire to ‘enter the Gungeon’ and kill the past. The Gungeon is guarded by the ‘Gundead’, a series of enemies ranging from walking bullets that shoot at you, to big angry mushrooms. As you can tell from even just this very brief summary, the game doesn’t take itself too seriously. It’s tone is very light hearted, a bit tongue in cheek. This is in stark contrast to Hotline Miami, a hyper-violent, stylised 80’s action film inspired game. In Hotline Miami you play as a sociopathic character, who falls into homicidal rages on a regular basis, killing entire swathes of people who stand in his way. The ultra-violence alongside the psychedelic 80’s aesthetic and soundtrack is reminiscent of early Quentin Tarantino films, clearly where the game creators have drawn some inspiration from. The developers have looked at the tropes of the genre of cinema they’re aping, and have really rolled with it to create a distinct and deliberate style.


Hotline Miami has a very distinct style
   The story serves a similar purpose in both games, predominantly just to give purpose and context to the player’s actions, with neither game leaning heavily on a narrative approach. However the way that the games deliver their stories is very different. Hotline Miami has what you would consider a traditional delivery of the story, with each level being preceded and succeeded by a cutscene, and scripted sequences in the levels adding player agency to the story in the form of boss fights. On the other hand, Gungeon has a skippable opening credits sequence when you load up the game that gives you backstory and context for the world if you want it. From then on in, the story and lore of the game is also completely optional. You can interact with NPCs, read descriptions of weapons, items and enemies, and interact with secrets within the Gungeon in order to get as much or as little story as you want. I have always been a big fan of this method of storytelling, ever since playing Bioshock and discovering all the audio diaries. Not all players will want to hear your story, and they will appreciate not having it thrust upon them, and those that do want the story will feel a greater sense of reward when they find those little bits of backstory and lore.

   Both games grab you with their theme and style, but they sink their hooks in with fantastic gameplay. Gungeon, a classic roguelike, will see you shooting, dodge-rolling, flipping tables, collecting weapons and powerups, defeating bosses. Hotline Miami is a ludicrously fast paced action game, where meticulous planning combined with twitch reflexes will see you slicing and shooting your way through hordes of enemies in seconds. Both games have a selection of weapons, with Gungeon’s wacky theme allowing for some awesome and crazy finds, whilst Hotline has a much more grounded and realistic set of melee and ranged weapons. The selection in Gungeon is excellent, with hundreds of different guns offering different fire rates, projectile types, some guns are chain or beam weapons and there are some nice references such as the Megahand, which will see your character don the iconic Megaman blaster. The sheer amount of different weapons and the variation of them, coupled with random loot drops means that no two runs will be the same in the Gungeon, and you will have to change your strategy based on what weapons you have at your disposal. Hotline Miami’s weapon’s are much less inspired, and whilst there are a fair few different guns and melee weapons, they function similarly for the most part. All blades will kill in one hit, whether it be a switchblade or a katana, all blunt objects will knock an enemy down to be finished and so on. This gives the player the illusion of having a nice variety of weapons, however there is a palpable sense of disappointment when you get your first katana, only to realise it is no different in substance to the knife you swapped for it.


Enter The Gungeon has an extensive selection of weapons and items
   The health system in the two games is different, in that Hotline doesn’t have one. One hit and you’re dead, forcing you to start the room again. This sounds frustrating, but the fast pace of the gameplay coupled with the quick restart times between deaths means that dying isn’t a grueling punishment, but is rather a learning experience where the player can learn from their mistakes and adjust their strategy and approach accordingly. Gungeon on the other hand has a conventional health and armor system, where the player can take six hits before death, with health and armor pickups available in random loot drops. In my game I feel that my tendencies lean more towards Gungeon’s way of doing things in terms of health systems and the overall gameplay being more roguelike, whereas I believe for the theme I am going for the more grounded weapon selection will suit my game more than a wacky selection, however I want to avoid the Hotline Miami problem of weapons feeling the same as one another.

  Both games have a high level of polish and consideration in their design. Whilst most roguelike games have completely randomly generated levels, Dodge Roll have developed a system for Gungeon whereby each room is hand crafted, and the rooms are put together in a random order to create a ‘floor’. This gives all the benefits of random generation when it comes to replayability and unpredictability, but the thoughtful design that has gone into each room ensures a level of quality throughout. Another aspect of the design that both games get right is the idea of permanence in their levels. Permanence is an important aspect of game feel, things such as shell casings littering the floor when you shoot, breaking pots or barrels leaves debris, blood splatters and corpses remaining until the level is completed, all of which are prevalent in these games. This permanence of the players actions gives more weight and consequence to everything the player is doing, which increases the player’s immersion and emotional investment in the game. Hotline Miami’s permanence is doubly important, as once you have killed the last enemy in the level, you must double back through the building the way you came to escape in your car outside. If the level were empty at this point, this would be a boring way of padding out the game. However because of the permanence of the bodies, blood, broken windows and all the other carnage you have caused, you have time to reflect and feel the weight of your actions in this down time, reflection you just don’t have time to experience when you’re lopping heads off at one hundred miles per hour. This idea of permanence is one I want to integrate into my game, and I can take lessons from these games in how to use permanence to add emotional weight to the player’s actions, particularly Hotline Miami.


The permanence of Hotline Miami lets you feel the weight of your actions. Your terrible, terrible actions
   After playing these two games, I have a clearer idea of some of the staples that need to be in my game. The rogue-like elements of Enter The Gungeon are what I want to base my game around, while the very deliberate style of Hotline Miami gives me ideas of how to take cliches and tropes of genres and use them to give a game a distinct theme. Throughout development I will continue to look back to these games for reference, ideas, solutions to problems and as very rough guidelines for the game I am aiming to create. These games stand out to me as two excellent examples of independent development in a genre that matches the game I want to produce, and if I can learn lessons from them then I will be starting off on the right foot.  

Tuesday, 27 September 2016

Project One Pre-Production: Production Schedule

    The first real day of pre-production was today, and first things first I had to organise what I was going to be doing over the next couple of months, in the form of a Production Schedule. The schedule is split into the three sections of production: pre-production, production and post-production.

    I have time slots and dates on the document, so I can allocate certain tasks to certain slots to give myself plenty of structure and a clear plan for each day, week and month. I have also added a 'Blog Update' column, so I can keep track of what I need to be evidencing throughout the day, and so when it comes to updating the blog I know exactly what needs to be included. Further along to the right of the spreadsheet I have included a key, so that myself or anyone reading the schedule can understand the colour code, and also over to the right I have included a list of the units that need to be covered, and whether or not I have accounted for those tasks in my schedule, to make sure I do not miss any units.

At the present time I have completed the pre-production section of the schedule, but not the main production section. The reasoning behind this is that whilst I am confident in the overall style and theme of my game, I am not completely sure of the intricacies of it just yet. I believe that tasks such as playing other similar games and designing the core game play loop will give me a much clearer idea of the individual elements of the game, and thus make it easier for me to plan out the production schedule in a more informed way, rather than just guessing. As you can see on Thursday 6th October, I have allotted time for reviewing the production goals, so that I can see exactly what game I am going to be creating, which will allow me to go on and create a well planned main production schedule.
A side by side capture of my production schedule (left) and checklist (right)

I also created a Production Checklist, which is a list of everything that needs to be completed in each of the three stages of production. The checklist is used to fill the production schedule, so the green boxes indicate that that task has been accounted for on the production schedule. I tried to cover every aspect of the game's development that I could think of, using reference material such as this IGN article about video game production, but I am sure I will have missed things off the checklist, as I believe is natural for someone who hasn't been through a production cycle before. Again, once I have a better understanding of the game I am creating I believe I will be able to add plenty more to this checklist.








Monday, 26 September 2016

Project One - Start of Pre-Production

Our first project is upon us. The brief is to make a simple 2D game using GameMaker:Studio, using the skills I have learnt so far and those that will be learnt over the next couple of months. The first stage in this project is pre-production, where I will be generating ideas about my game. This is everything from the game's camera angle (top down, side on, asymmetric etc), to level and character design, to the systems and mechanics that will define the gameplay.

Pre production will last two weeks, and by the end of this two weeks my aim is to have a solid idea of the game's core loop, some kind of flowchart or storyboard for the game's story, and hopefully have some levels designed, preferably the earlier levels, as the design in these early few levels is crucial in teaching the player about the systems and mechanics they can come to expect and really sets the tone for the game.

From here, the next stage will be production, where I will make the game in GameMaker. This is going to be a long stage, and will have deadlines on the production schedule that I need to hit, so it is hugely important that I make the most of pre-production and give myself the best possible foundations for actually building the game.

Thursday, 22 September 2016

GitHub and SublimeText

    In this session we worked again on the websites we had began developing the previous week. Using Sublime Text I have created an index.html document and a style.css cascading style sheet (both pictured on the left, below), and through both what we have learnt so far in the course and using my prior knowledge of web development, I was able to create the web page you see below.

    The page has <div> elements to add structure to page, using nested <div>'s in the gallery to display four images side by side. Other common html tags such as <h1>'s, <p>'s and <img>'s are used throughout. Also there a plenty of links on the page, with some text under the 'Favourite Game' heading linked to the game's website. This link has a regular styling, and also an a:hover styling, so that when the cursor moves over the text, the underline will disappear, letting the user know clearly that clicking this text will make something happen. The four images in the gallery are also linked to their respective websites.

The code in the two documents on the left, created the page on the right... Magic!

    We also focused heavily on GitHub for this session. We touched on it last week but I have to admit I struggled trying to tackle it on my own at home. However after today I really understand the basics of how it works, and I see the value of such a piece of software for a project based course.

Changes published to the web client.


Publishing changes in the GitHub desktop app

    In the two screenshots above, you can see the commits I made in the desktop app to the local repository, and the changes that were made in each individual commit. In the other screenshot above you can see that these commits have been published to the GitHub web client.

    The other part of GitHub we looked at was branches, in particular we looked at the gh-pages branch which allows you to publish your website so you can view it in a browser. We set up the gh-pages branch, and looked at how branches worked in relation to the master branch. When publishing the gh-pages branch, we could then go to the web client of GitHub and view our site in a chrome window (pictured below)

Website live!