Week 8 Comments & Feedback!

In today's post, I will be discussing the topic of comments and feedback within the module. So far, I have been finding some comments (a grand total of 4 :( may I just add) to be quite helpful. People seem to be understanding the concept of my game and how it will play and also it's look and feel, so that's good news for me because I must be describing it fairly okay in my Game Design Document. 

The main bulk of the comments I have been receiving have been overall very positive and also some good constructive feedback in there too! The comments that I have been finding the most useful are the one's that go into detail about the game and give me some advice on maybe something new I could include or add and even change the way something is done so it can be more original and exciting. 

I have been really enjoying giving people the feedback on their blogs so far! It is nice to read what other people are doing and also finding out what parts of the module they may be struggling with or having trouble getting something working within their game. I feel like when I give feedback and even the other members of the class, that person is getting some valuable criticism that can only make their game better and improve their overall knowledge of the module itself. I look at what other people are saying sometimes and if I feel I might agree with their comment and so I will also ask something similar but maybe word it differently, this could really be helpful for someone who has a great concept but is having trouble executing it and that way, it gets the message across. 

It has been fun to read and learn all about my other class mates. Since I am repeating and not currently a second year student it's nice to get to know other fellow CDM'ers in different years, as we are all essentially going to get the same degree at the end of it all. I feel like my introduction is short and sweet but fairly to the point and describes me well. I hope people have been enjoying reading it and getting to know me a bit better also!

I think when it comes to making the feedback comments more useful for both others and myself is to just comment on as many blogs as possible and hopefully by the end everyone should have a comment from each other that is both helpful and constructive in the criticism. I like how my blog is looking at the moment, and I do think it's both user friendly and easy to follow. There is nothing worse than a blog that is too hard to read or find what you're looking for.

Overall, I have really enjoyed the feedback and commenting tasks for this module and they are a good way of learning more about both yourself and the module itself. 

Week 8 Reading & Writing

So if I was to take a moment and reflect on some of the learning outcomes for this module so far I would have to say I'm impressed with the extra knowledge I've gained, especially in the area of talking about games and how to write about them in a particular manner. The reading tasks each week have been specifically helpful in upping my knowledge in these areas and I do really feel like I'm beginning to understand the mechanics of game creation on a more technical level. 

Some of my favourite research and readings have been understanding the Gaming MDA framework and what it's all about. One post in particular, (Games MDA) was one of my favourite to both research and then write about, and I feel like it was extremely helpful in helping me understand everything a little deeper and get a better perspective on Game genetics. 

Learning about and understanding things like the Mechanics, Dynamics and Aesthetics within gaming were very beneficial and will really help us to go full steam ahead with making the actual game and putting them into play. The 'rules' of the game and the constraints in which it operates, the actual gameplay itself, and even what happens when the game ends etc - are all determined by the mechanics, and it is vital to understand when we construct our own game. We even looked over the effects the dynamics will have on the players themselves - essentially, the player experience of the game or it's Aesthetics.

To date, I have been happy with the level of work involved although, it is getting increasingly difficult to keep to the weekly upload deadlines each week as other modules and their assignments reach closer. I do however appreciate how well laid out the course material is and has been since we started semester 1. I now look forward to focusing on making and completing my game in it's entirety and hopefully it will be something I can be proud of and maybe consider as a portfolio piece. My work on the finished game so far has been somewhat inconsistent - but getting there slowly none the less. I am happy with the type of game I am making and hope it will be fun to play. 

For my image, I have chosen this picture which I uploaded into my Game Design Document as an example as to the type of landscape and feeling I wanted to bring to my game and it's design. It's a screen grab from the computer game 'Resident Evil' which portrays the dark and mystical land that they explore. I thought this would best represent the eerie sense of feelings I want my game to send out when people play it and explore the world and it's surroundings while they look for the hidden items and locate the village before they are rescued. 

Looking forward, I would really like to explore more readings and how-to's about making my game look exactly as how I have envisioned in both my own head and down on paper in my GDD. I will benefit from exploring these I think, as I still have a long way to go before my game looks and plays anywhere near being finished.

Let the Unity Free Tutorials commence!

So today I started looking up tutorials specifically dedicated to how I want to design my game. Since my game is going to be adventure based, it's important my world looks impressive and exactly how I imagine it to look and how I've described in my GDD. The player should be able to explore the area and enjoy walking through the terrain. 

One of the first tutorials I looked up was how to make the terrain look realistic. I had the basic grass material imported from google images and then applied to the terrain but it's not what you would called 'realistic' looking. The tutorial I followed showed me how to apply grass in a 3D form that also allows you to play around with the colour, texture, height and even the wind speed at which the grass moves, so when you press play on the game you can see the grass swaying from side to side. The wind speed can also be changed for the trees too which adds to the overall realistic feeling. We touched on this in the Jimmy Vegas series but I wanted to find more tutorials on this so I can get the effect and atmosphere I'm looking for.

I have looked at how to make a small campsite using 3D objects and importing some assets, and also a fire in my game using a particle system within Unity. The particle system was really simple to create and gives such a cool effect, a really useful tool for creating various effects in your games. You could create a number of items in your game using the particle system, a water fountain, rain, fog, flames etc and you can change the colours and radius of the system to whatever effect you're looking for. I will be looking more into the particle system going forward because it will be very handy to know about. 

Weather will be a big feature in the game I plan to create. I want to have quite an eerie, cold and misty feel throughout. In the tutorial I watched, we created fog using two different settings, one with a particle system again and the other was a setting already in Unity which allowed for some settings changes like density and radius etc. This setting is quite useful if you want to have the distance of your game appear blurred out or misty. It might be handy if you plan on not having endless rolling hills or mountains and terrain in the background. 

(my current Unity progress/game in the making)

The last tutorial I really wanted to search for was how to make the HUD for my game. The main character in my game will collect objects as she roams the world and they will need to be shown how many she has collected. The tutorial showed me how to make this within Unity and also using some C# coding. The C# coding is still something I am struggling to get my head around as I always have done with most programming throughout the course. I did find it difficult to get this to work so I will be focusing on watching more tutorials around this as I move forward with my game as I do want to include it and add it to my finished piece. 

The final GDD

In my last post about my GDD, I tried my best to describe what exactly the game is about and how to play. The concept is a simple one - and is essentially based around collection of items in order to complete the game. Link to Dundoc GDD is available here: https://www.dundoc.com/project/4784/uwxa8xk520

Above I have included a rough sketch of the player gameplay and what it should potentially look like. You can see the path of the player from start, as they locate the village and then move to the river where the game finishes up. 

I wanted to look a bit further into the actual development of my game, and figure out what mechanics needed to be done in order for certain elements to work properly. I have linked some of the tutorials I intend to use in order to create such mechanics within my game and included them in my updated GDD. Things like using box colliders and getting unity to load a new scene will help in the process of the game mechanics. As the game loads up the starting scene, the player will be washed up on shore (I intend to included little or not much ocean in the background however) they will then have to find the map in the vicinity - which will help them locate the items needed to move on and find the village to ask for help to be rescued. 

I will be including perimeters within the game, in the form of box colliders, as these will help the world not to expand beyond what is physically possible to create or play. As I have already explained in my previous post what exactly the world will look like and what type of feeling I want to set in my scene, I won't go into much detail about that in this post. 

Tech Tasks: Twitter Follow

Although I already have a twitter account from a few years back (it's gone pretty quiet now), I wanted to make a brand new shiny account separate to my original one, and just dedicated to this module. 

I have played around with some settings today, to try make my account a bit easier on the eye and I've also just started following 20 new accounts spread across three industries of interest to me; multimedia, beauty and tech. Some of the big names I have followed include @Loreal @ConanOBrien and @YahooTech all three of which have strong opinions and such dedicated to their professional field and I found them interesting to follow. 

If you want to add me on my new twitter, you can find me @RachelMenton3

Tech Tasks: Switching up the Blog using Blogger Tips!

Hey everyone! Today I wanted to play around with changing up the theme of my blog.. make it look a little bit more interesting. I'm used to using Wordpress for blogging in the past and so I've always found Blogger a little bit limited in regards to its design tools, but never the less, I've tried to redesign my blog the best I can and I reckon it looks a little better!

I've used one of the Travel Templates and played around with a new background, and changing some of my fonts and link colours, so hopefully it's a little easier on the eye and better for all that reading you's are doing :) It comes with an easy to use mobile template too so handy for catching up with blogs, or doing blog comments while on your phone. Sure let me know what you guys think?

While I'm here, I just wanted to link a new blog I've discovered and have been enjoying reading for more knowledge on making our games. I'll link it here for anyone who is  interested https://mindofgames.wordpress.com/ Hope everyone's project is going well!

Laters,


Rachel

Introduction

Hi guys! 

So my name is Rachel and I am currently repeating Year 3 in CDM after a tough year last year. I should technically be in 4th year with all my pals but hey.. not everyone's journey through college is smooth sailing for the 4 years. I also failed the Multimedia Development 1 module last year but had to repeat it again.. yes I am probably the only ever CDM student who is meant to be in 4th year but still repeating a 2nd year module. Shaun if you're reading this I bet you can't wait to see me finally pass yay! :)

The modules I'm probably the strongest at would be all the design stuff. Visual Design Fundamentals and Brand Identity Design were my favourite classes by far. Hoping to get into some sort of visual design job once I graduate. 

A little bit about me? Well I'm classed as a 'mature student' and coming back to college was one of the best decisions I ever made after working in horrible jobs for 10 years after I left school. I also live in Swords which is handy living close enough to ITB! Fun fact: I started a society here in college in first year with my friend called The Blogger Society.. it didn't really last too long into second year once the assignments and deadlines came along. And who'd a thought, I actually blogged for 5 years previous to coming to college where I ran a beauty and lifestyle blog called The Powder Room which got me some pretty cool free stuff and opportunities to go to events. So I should be good at this blogging thing then no? 

Anyway, hope you enjoyed getting to know me some more! 

Laters,



Rachel