Today is the day we see all our finished work and there is some very good projects. From the blogs I've seen over the last few weeks, the work is very impressive with each game being different. There are different genres of games displayed which is good it won't make everyone's game seem repetitive.
The first game project that caught my eye was Dani's game, Battle for Cleotopia. Before playing it, I watched as others played it and I was very impressed by it. I eventually played it and felt like playing the alpha of a big triple a game. It was clear that a lot of work went into this game as there is lots of detail gone into it. There was sounds, action button to attack, moving platforms, objects that help open doors in the game, a good artistic pause menu and even enemy npcs. It was great to see this work and I hope inspires myself and others to try make something like this one day.
The Tiny Farm was created as a group project and this was another great project. Like Dani's game, its clear a lot of work went into this game and it even looks like a game that is ready to be sold. The art designs of the farm with the farmer and animals is really good. The game looks like it runs well as when questions are answered, the player is taken to the next question. Sounds are also used in this game and they go well with the game.
The game that I was interested to see most was the 1916 Rising game. The game's terrain design looks really good but unfortunately the game wasn't fully finished which is a shame cause it is an exciting project based on the 1916 Rising.
Some really good work was done and I hope everyone is happy with how they did in this module.
Wednesday, May 1, 2019
Sunday, April 7, 2019
Week 11 progress
For this week week I started work on the terrain map of my game. I feel I have fallen behind on my schedule as I planned to have the map/level design of my game finished. It can be difficult working on your own but I plan to do a lot of work on this project in the next few weeks before the final deadline.
When creating the level design based on TUD Blanchardstown, I have been using an assets pack blockout which contains block items to use for creating buildings and other objects in the game. The image below is work based on the f block building. Its not final and there is still more work to be done.
A lot of work is to be done and I hope to have everything I want for the final deadline.
When creating the level design based on TUD Blanchardstown, I have been using an assets pack blockout which contains block items to use for creating buildings and other objects in the game. The image below is work based on the f block building. Its not final and there is still more work to be done.
A lot of work is to be done and I hope to have everything I want for the final deadline.
Sunday, March 24, 2019
MD2Final GDD
I wasn't able to screen record my powerpoint as I was using the office powerpoint version which doesn't have the option of screen recording so I had to record the video on my phone.
For this week, I plan to start creating the terrain map of the game, having all the riddles I want for the game finished and continue searching tutorials to help for features in my game.
My game will be based on TUD Blanch
Monday, March 18, 2019
Game Design Document
Video of Powerpoint GDD
Introduction
For my game, I am going to create 3d world based on TUD Blanchardstown Collge with the goal being to solve as many riddles as you can before the timer runs out. It would be first person view with the controls not being hard to use.Story
A story idea for this game would that you will play as a student of the college who gotten into some trouble at college
and is forced to stay back until the college feels he/she is ready to leave. Your goal is to look and the college and solve
as many riddles as you can. If you solve a certain amount before the timer runs out, you will be free to leave the college.
For gameplay mechanics, there would movement, a button to use for scanning something in order to solve riddles,
a mechanic for zooming in and out to look at something in the distance and possibly a mechanic to help open doors.
Example of controls:
Mouse= Able to look around
S= Move Left
D= Move Right
E= Move forward
X= Move Backwards
K= Zoom-in
L= Zoom-out
Spacebar= Open door and scan for riddles
The game will have a timer that may start at 20 minutes and the player must solve as many riddles as they can
before the timer runs out.
a mechanic for zooming in and out to look at something in the distance and possibly a mechanic to help open doors.
Example of controls:
Mouse= Able to look around
S= Move Left
D= Move Right
E= Move forward
X= Move Backwards
K= Zoom-in
L= Zoom-out
Spacebar= Open door and scan for riddles
The game will have a timer that may start at 20 minutes and the player must solve as many riddles as they can
before the timer runs out.
Targeted platforms
This game will be played on a computer platform.
Target Audience
Target audience would be CDM students of TUD Blanchardstown College as this the course I study so I hope to
create riddles based on the course plus riddles on areas around the college.
Project Scope
This game will be created by one person which is me. I will be responsible for all the roles including coding,
scripts, story, creating riddles and designing the game.
scripts, story, creating riddles and designing the game.
Influences
An influence for this game idea comes from the Batman Arkham Series where in each game you encounter Batman's
arch nemesis, The Riddler who has placed riddles all over the maps in each Arkham game. The riddles are based on theworld of Batman like its characters and locations in Batman lore. For my game I would like to create riddles, based on
TUD Blanchardstown College from its buildings, rooms and lecturers to test the knowledge of students from the college.
An example of riddle I may create could be based on F036 as this is a room most CDM students use or even D028.
Heads Up Display
In the top left corner of the screen, their would be a map to display where the player is and map would tell which
building is which so it will display F block for example. In the top center of the screen their will be a timer that will
tell how much time left the player has to complete as many riddles as they can. Underneath the map, it may display
a score that starts at zero and when riddles are solved, the score goes up.
In the top left corner of the screen, their would be a map to display where the player is and map would tell which
building is which so it will display F block for example. In the top center of the screen their will be a timer that will
tell how much time left the player has to complete as many riddles as they can. Underneath the map, it may display
a score that starts at zero and when riddles are solved, the score goes up.
Level Design
I will be creating this game in Unity and the level design will try to look like TUD Blanchardstown College with each building
and some rooms.
Game Menu
previous scores and possibly a settings feature.
and objects to display inside and outside the buildings like tables, chairs and computers for inside the buildings
and outside would have trees.
Assets Needed
As of now, assets I feel I need is a buildings asset to help create the block buildings of TUD Blanchardstown Collegeand objects to display inside and outside the buildings like tables, chairs and computers for inside the buildings
and outside would have trees.
Inspiration
Sunday, February 17, 2019
Layout
Introduction
This literature review looks at structures in interactive storytelling when creating stories for media such as games.
Body
Marc Cavazza and David Pizzi review the narrative theories that have inspired interactive storytelling (IS) research and provide critical insight into how these theories can support developments. Aristotle provided a model traditional drama for its progression through climax and final resolution. It had been used for centuries until IS researcher Mateas provided an extension to the Artistotelian model. It helped provide important aesthetic properties to stories. Propp was used to stable structure in Russian folktale and helped create narrative functions.
Fred Charles, Steven J. Mead and Marc Cavazza discuss user interaction with artificial actors in the context of virtual storytelling in this paper. A prototype based on Unreal engine game was created to supports both direct “physical” intervention and the use of speech recognition to interact with the sets’ characters in a game. There is a scenario shown with a graph called Figure one to show all the possible plans. Physical user intervention is discussed can change a sub goal of a game where the player can take a different action to achieve a certain goal/objective.
Kristopher J. Blom and Steffi Beckhaus make an extension to the structures of story segments in Interactive Storytelling. Software structures that have envisioned engaging, dramatic environments rarely exist and they feel that development of structures for current VR software to enable the creation of these visions is still needed in order to move VR to its full potential. Components added is the Emotion Tracking Engine (ETE) used to keep track of the user’s expected emotional state and the Emotional Path Graph (EPG) which is a time dependent graph of what the author views as the ideal emotional experience for the user.
David Thue, Vadim Bulitko, Marcia Spetch and Eric Wasylishen present PaSSAGE (PlayerSpecific Stories via Automatically Generated Events), an interactive storytelling system that uses player modelling to automatically learn a model of the player’s preferred style of play, and then uses that model to dynamically select the content of an interactive story. They tested their hypotheses by conducting a user study consisting of 90 university students trying their game.
John Helmes, Xiang Cao, Siân E. Lindley and Abigail Sellen (2009) present the initial interface design. TellTable incorporates photography and a Microsoft Surface interactive tabletop to help stimulate imagination. They uses an iterative design process, tested with children gaining feedback stating adding more structures makes for a simpler system, which also mirrored the stages that children normally go through when telling stories.
Oliver Schneider presents an approach to new authoring methods for interactive storytelling. Today stories can be told from direct worldwide access of content and 3D visualization of content to interactive possibilities for the audience but artistic rules to organize and narrate the stories, the process of is still in the beginning stages. The approach to authoring non-linear stories is broken down into three sections which is story creation, storytelling and story receiving by the recipient. Application engines are created called the Conversation-Engine [Braun01a] which communicates with the audience, the Story-Engine [Braun01b] which narrates interactive non-linear stories, the Character-Engine which controls characters and the Scene-Engine which structures the scene model for the story. In the authoring process for storytelling, the author focuses on brainstorming to preparation and to final design.
Hartmut Koenitz proposes a process and a set of design heuristics for interactive digital narrative and looks into the scholarly perspectives on authoring and design. Perspectives on IDN design exist in different categories – high-level abstract descriptions, inclusion strategies and concrete design. The author's design work is specific to interactive narrative and as a critical reflection, inspired by critical practice and reflective design that provides vital clues for the continued development of theoretical framework.
Ilda Ladeira, Gary Marsden and Lesley Green present designing a storytelling prototype for preserving personal experience narratives. We detail the design of an interactive virtual environment (VE). They studied real-life oral storytelling ethnographically in order to observe how experienced storytellers connect with audiences and draw them into their personal stories. The aim was to learn about techniques for making personal stories engaging, dynamic and interactive for their storytelling prototype. Their prototype design was based on the ethnography findings in their research. A VE with interactive storyteller agents was created.
Bosser, A-G. (Anne-Gwenn); Cavazza, M. O. (Marc); Champagnat, R. (Ronan) (2010) explore rigorous formalisation of narrative concepts, both at the action level and at the plot level with the aim to investigate how to bridge the gap between action descriptions and narrative concepts, by considering the latter from the perspective of resource consumption and causality. They propose Linear Logic for a better description of causality than in Classical and Intuitionistic Logic. Intuitionistic Linear Logic can provide a conceptual model for nonlinear narratives, for it provides a suitable theory of action and change for narrative actions.
Dieter Grasbon and Norbert Braun don't create a model for generating stories in detail but instead hope for authors to create specific interactive scenarios for stories in full detail. They describe a different approach to interactive storytelling which deals with interactive plot at a higher level. A prototype of theirs consists of story engine, a story model and a small number of scenes. Interface and rendering modules separate the story engine from the user, making the engine independent of input and output modalities. Authors exerts direct influence on every part of the system except the story engine and user mode.
Conclusion
The above articles, show the steps we can take in creating structures for interactive storytelling. There a many theories and approaches we can interact with for creating stories for different medias.
Citation
1.Marc Cavazza, David Pizzi. Narratology for Interactive Storytelling: A Critical Introduction.
https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/11944577_7
2.Fred Charles, Steven J. Mead and Marc Cavazza. User Intervention in Virtual Interactive storytelling.
https://ive.scm.tees.ac.uk/beta/data/media/laval2001.pdf
3.Kristopher J. Blom and Steffi Beckhaus. Emotional Storytelling
https://imve.informatik.uni-hamburg.de/publications/EmotionalStorytelling-VR2005-BlomBeckhaus.pdf
4.David Thue, Vadim Bulitko, Marcia Spetch and Eric Wasylishen. Interactive Storytelling: A Player Modelling Approach
http://www.aaai.org/Papers/AIIDE/2007/AIIDE07-008.pdf
5.John Helmes, Xiang Cao, Siân E. Lindley and Abigail Sellen. (2009) Developing the Story: Designing an Interactive Storytelling Application
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/its2009_telltable.pdf
6.Oliver Schneider Storyworld Creation: Authoring for Interactive Storytelling
https://dspace5.zcu.cz/bitstream/11025/6006/1/D67.pdf
7.Hartmut Koenitz Design Approaches for Interactive Digital Narrative
https://s3.amazonaws.com/academia.edu.documents/39071749/Design_Approaches_for_Interactive_Digital_Narrative.pdf?AWSAccessKeyId=AKIAIWOWYYGZ2Y53UL3A&Expires=1550431413&Signature=qulfKeD2rONhoF6nf%2BLTYOpbYjw%3D&response-content-disposition=inline%3B%20filename%3DDesign_Approaches_for_Interactive_Digita.pdf
8.Ilda Ladeira, Gary Marsden and Lesley Green Designing Interactive Storytelling: A Virtual Environment for Personal Experience Narratives
https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/978-3-642-23771-3_32.pdf
9.Bosser, A-G. (Anne-Gwenn); Cavazza, M. O. (Marc); Champagnat, R. (Ronan) (2010) Linear logic for non-linear storytelling
http://tees.openrepository.com/tees/bitstream/10149/110653/2/110653.pdf
10.Dieter Grasbon, Norbert Braun A Morphological Approach to Interactive Storytelling
http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.21.8572&rep=rep1&type=pdf
Image Link
This literature review looks at structures in interactive storytelling when creating stories for media such as games.
Body
Marc Cavazza and David Pizzi review the narrative theories that have inspired interactive storytelling (IS) research and provide critical insight into how these theories can support developments. Aristotle provided a model traditional drama for its progression through climax and final resolution. It had been used for centuries until IS researcher Mateas provided an extension to the Artistotelian model. It helped provide important aesthetic properties to stories. Propp was used to stable structure in Russian folktale and helped create narrative functions.
Fred Charles, Steven J. Mead and Marc Cavazza discuss user interaction with artificial actors in the context of virtual storytelling in this paper. A prototype based on Unreal engine game was created to supports both direct “physical” intervention and the use of speech recognition to interact with the sets’ characters in a game. There is a scenario shown with a graph called Figure one to show all the possible plans. Physical user intervention is discussed can change a sub goal of a game where the player can take a different action to achieve a certain goal/objective.
Kristopher J. Blom and Steffi Beckhaus make an extension to the structures of story segments in Interactive Storytelling. Software structures that have envisioned engaging, dramatic environments rarely exist and they feel that development of structures for current VR software to enable the creation of these visions is still needed in order to move VR to its full potential. Components added is the Emotion Tracking Engine (ETE) used to keep track of the user’s expected emotional state and the Emotional Path Graph (EPG) which is a time dependent graph of what the author views as the ideal emotional experience for the user.
David Thue, Vadim Bulitko, Marcia Spetch and Eric Wasylishen present PaSSAGE (PlayerSpecific Stories via Automatically Generated Events), an interactive storytelling system that uses player modelling to automatically learn a model of the player’s preferred style of play, and then uses that model to dynamically select the content of an interactive story. They tested their hypotheses by conducting a user study consisting of 90 university students trying their game.
John Helmes, Xiang Cao, Siân E. Lindley and Abigail Sellen (2009) present the initial interface design. TellTable incorporates photography and a Microsoft Surface interactive tabletop to help stimulate imagination. They uses an iterative design process, tested with children gaining feedback stating adding more structures makes for a simpler system, which also mirrored the stages that children normally go through when telling stories.
Oliver Schneider presents an approach to new authoring methods for interactive storytelling. Today stories can be told from direct worldwide access of content and 3D visualization of content to interactive possibilities for the audience but artistic rules to organize and narrate the stories, the process of is still in the beginning stages. The approach to authoring non-linear stories is broken down into three sections which is story creation, storytelling and story receiving by the recipient. Application engines are created called the Conversation-Engine [Braun01a] which communicates with the audience, the Story-Engine [Braun01b] which narrates interactive non-linear stories, the Character-Engine which controls characters and the Scene-Engine which structures the scene model for the story. In the authoring process for storytelling, the author focuses on brainstorming to preparation and to final design.
Hartmut Koenitz proposes a process and a set of design heuristics for interactive digital narrative and looks into the scholarly perspectives on authoring and design. Perspectives on IDN design exist in different categories – high-level abstract descriptions, inclusion strategies and concrete design. The author's design work is specific to interactive narrative and as a critical reflection, inspired by critical practice and reflective design that provides vital clues for the continued development of theoretical framework.
Ilda Ladeira, Gary Marsden and Lesley Green present designing a storytelling prototype for preserving personal experience narratives. We detail the design of an interactive virtual environment (VE). They studied real-life oral storytelling ethnographically in order to observe how experienced storytellers connect with audiences and draw them into their personal stories. The aim was to learn about techniques for making personal stories engaging, dynamic and interactive for their storytelling prototype. Their prototype design was based on the ethnography findings in their research. A VE with interactive storyteller agents was created.
Bosser, A-G. (Anne-Gwenn); Cavazza, M. O. (Marc); Champagnat, R. (Ronan) (2010) explore rigorous formalisation of narrative concepts, both at the action level and at the plot level with the aim to investigate how to bridge the gap between action descriptions and narrative concepts, by considering the latter from the perspective of resource consumption and causality. They propose Linear Logic for a better description of causality than in Classical and Intuitionistic Logic. Intuitionistic Linear Logic can provide a conceptual model for nonlinear narratives, for it provides a suitable theory of action and change for narrative actions.
Dieter Grasbon and Norbert Braun don't create a model for generating stories in detail but instead hope for authors to create specific interactive scenarios for stories in full detail. They describe a different approach to interactive storytelling which deals with interactive plot at a higher level. A prototype of theirs consists of story engine, a story model and a small number of scenes. Interface and rendering modules separate the story engine from the user, making the engine independent of input and output modalities. Authors exerts direct influence on every part of the system except the story engine and user mode.
Conclusion
The above articles, show the steps we can take in creating structures for interactive storytelling. There a many theories and approaches we can interact with for creating stories for different medias.
Citation
1.Marc Cavazza, David Pizzi. Narratology for Interactive Storytelling: A Critical Introduction.
https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/11944577_7
2.Fred Charles, Steven J. Mead and Marc Cavazza. User Intervention in Virtual Interactive storytelling.
https://ive.scm.tees.ac.uk/beta/data/media/laval2001.pdf
3.Kristopher J. Blom and Steffi Beckhaus. Emotional Storytelling
https://imve.informatik.uni-hamburg.de/publications/EmotionalStorytelling-VR2005-BlomBeckhaus.pdf
4.David Thue, Vadim Bulitko, Marcia Spetch and Eric Wasylishen. Interactive Storytelling: A Player Modelling Approach
http://www.aaai.org/Papers/AIIDE/2007/AIIDE07-008.pdf
5.John Helmes, Xiang Cao, Siân E. Lindley and Abigail Sellen. (2009) Developing the Story: Designing an Interactive Storytelling Application
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/its2009_telltable.pdf
6.Oliver Schneider Storyworld Creation: Authoring for Interactive Storytelling
https://dspace5.zcu.cz/bitstream/11025/6006/1/D67.pdf
7.Hartmut Koenitz Design Approaches for Interactive Digital Narrative
https://s3.amazonaws.com/academia.edu.documents/39071749/Design_Approaches_for_Interactive_Digital_Narrative.pdf?AWSAccessKeyId=AKIAIWOWYYGZ2Y53UL3A&Expires=1550431413&Signature=qulfKeD2rONhoF6nf%2BLTYOpbYjw%3D&response-content-disposition=inline%3B%20filename%3DDesign_Approaches_for_Interactive_Digita.pdf
8.Ilda Ladeira, Gary Marsden and Lesley Green Designing Interactive Storytelling: A Virtual Environment for Personal Experience Narratives
https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/978-3-642-23771-3_32.pdf
9.Bosser, A-G. (Anne-Gwenn); Cavazza, M. O. (Marc); Champagnat, R. (Ronan) (2010) Linear logic for non-linear storytelling
http://tees.openrepository.com/tees/bitstream/10149/110653/2/110653.pdf
10.Dieter Grasbon, Norbert Braun A Morphological Approach to Interactive Storytelling
http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.21.8572&rep=rep1&type=pdf
Annotated Bibliography 2
Be Interactive
Oliver Schneider, Department of Digital Storytelling Computer Graphics Centre, Rundeturmstraße 6 64283 Darmstadt Germany: Storyworld Creation: Authoring for Interactive Storytelling
Link
The author presents an approach to new authoring methods for interactive storytelling. Today stories can be told from direct worldwide access of content and 3D visualization of content to interactive possibilities for the audience but artistic rules to organize and narrate the stories, the process of is still in the beginning stages. The approach to authoring non-linear stories is broken down into three sections which is story creation, storytelling and story receiving by the recipient. Application engines are created called the Conversation-Engine [Braun01a] which communicates with the audience, the Story-Engine [Braun01b] which narrates interactive non-linear stories, the Character-Engine which controls characters and the Scene-Engine which structures the scene model for the story. In the authoring process for storytelling, the author focuses on brainstorming to preparation and to final design.
Hartmut Koenitz University of Georgia, Department of Telecommunications, 120 Hooper Street Athens, Georgia: Design Approaches for Interactive Digital Narrative
Link
The author propose a process and a set of design heuristics for interactive digital narrative and looks into the scholarly perspectives on authoring and design. Perspectives on IDN design exist in different categories – high-level abstract descriptions, inclusion strategies and concrete design. The author's design work is specific to interactive narrative and as a critical reflection, inspired by critical practice and reflective design that provides vital clues for the continued development of theoretical framework.
Ilda Ladeira, Gary Marsden and Lesley Green, Department of Computer Science/ICT4D Lab, University of Cape Town and Department of Social Anthropology, University of Cape Town Lesley: Designing Interactive Storytelling: A Virtual Environment for Personal Experience Narratives
Link
The authors present designing a storytelling prototype for preserving personal experience narratives. We detail the design of an interactive virtual environment (VE). They studied real-life oral storytelling ethnographically in order to observe how experienced storytellers connect with audiences and draw them into their personal stories. The aim was to learn about techniques for making personal stories engaging, dynamic and interactive for their storytelling prototype. Their prototype design was based on the ethnography findings in their research. A VE with interactive storyteller agents was created.
Bosser, A-G. (Anne-Gwenn); Cavazza, M. O. (Marc); Champagnat, R. (Ronan), Teaside University: Linear logic for non-linear storytelling
Link
The authors explore rigorous formalisation of narrative concepts, both at the action level and at the plot level with the aim to investigate how to bridge the gap between action descriptions and narrative concepts, by considering the latter from the perspective of resource consumption and causality. They propose Linear Logic for a better description of causality than in Classical and Intuitionistic Logic. Intuitionistic Linear Logic can provide a conceptual model for nonlinear narratives, for it provides a suitable theory of action and change for narrative actions.
Dieter Grasbon, Norbert Braun, Digital Storytelling Department, Computer Graphics Center, Darmstadt, Germany: A Morphological Approach to Interactive Storytelling
Link
The authors don't create a model for generating stories in detail but instead hope for authors to create specific interactive scenarios for stories in full detail. They describe a different approach to interactive storytelling which deals with interactive plot at a higher level. A prototype of theirs consists of story engine, a story model and a small number of scenes. Interface and rendering modules separate the story engine from the user, making the engine independent of input and output modalities. Authors exerts direct influence on every part of the system except the story engine and user mode.
Sunday, February 10, 2019
Annotated Bibliography
Marc Cavazza, David Pizzi. Narratology for Interactive Storytelling: A Critical Introduction.
Link
The authors, review the narrative theories that have inspired interactive storytelling (IS) research and provide critical insight into how these theories can support developments. Aristotle provided a model traditional drama for its progression through climax and final resolution. It had been used for centuries until IS researcher Mateas provided an extension to the Artistotelian model. It helped provide important aesthetic properties to stories. Propp was used to stable structure in Russian folktale and helped create narrative functions.
Fred Charles, Steven J. Mead and Marc Cavazza. User Intervention in Virtual Interactive storytelling.
Link
The authors discuss user interaction with artificial actors in the context of virtual storytelling in this paper. A prototype based on Unreal engine game was created to supports both direct “physical” intervention and the use of speech recognition to interact with the sets’ characters in a game. There is a scenario shown with a graph called Figure one to show all the possible plans. Physical user intervention is discussed can change a sub goal of a game where the player can take a different action to achieve a certain goal/objective.
Kristopher J. Blom and Steffi Beckhaus. Emotional Storytelling
Link
The authors make an extension to the structures of story segments in Interactive Storytelling. Software structures that have envisioned engaging, dramatic environments rarely exist and they feel that development of structures for current VR software to enable the creation of these visions is still needed in order to move VR to its full potential. Components added is the Emotion Tracking Engine (ETE) used to keep track of the user’s expected emotional state and the Emotional Path Graph (EPG) which is a time dependent graph of what the author views as the ideal emotional experience for the user.
David Thue, Vadim Bulitko, Marcia Spetch and Eric Wasylishen. Department of Computing Science, Department of Psychology University of Alberta Edmonton, Alberta, Canada.
Interactive Storytelling: A Player Modelling Approach
Link
The authors present PaSSAGE (PlayerSpecific Stories via Automatically Generated Events), an interactive storytelling system that uses player modelling to automatically learn a model of the player’s preferred style of play, and then uses that model to dynamically select the content of an interactive story. They tested their hypotheses by conducting a user study consisting of 90 university students trying their game.
John Helmes, Xiang Cao, Siân E. Lindley and Abigail Sellen. Microsoft Research Cambridge 7 JJ Thomson Avenue, Cambridge CB3 0FB, United Kingdom
Developing the Story: Designing an Interactive Storytelling Application
Link
The authors present the initial interface design. TellTable incorporates photography and a Microsoft Surface interactive tabletop to help stimulate imagination. They uses an iterative design process, tested with children gaining feedback stating adding more structures makes for a simpler system, which also mirrored the stages that children normally go through when telling stories.
Sunday, February 3, 2019
Multimedia Project Research
For my project idea I have chosen to make riddle/puzzle game based on TU Blanchardstown. The idea of the game is I hope to create a game world based on the Blanchardstown college ground where the player will explore to solve riddles around the college to test their knowledge of the college. I would hope for this game to target students of TU Blanchardstown where the game may not only test their knowledge but also their growth mindset.
For the last month I've have been thinking if I wanted to do this by myself or with others as I already have other group project work for this semester but working with others has it benefits as it would take less pressure off myself while working by myself, I won't have to wait for others to have certain work done. As of now, I would be doing this as an individual project but I am happy if others would like to join in on this idea.
The finished game would be a 3D open world of TU Blanchardstown. I think I will be going for a first person camera view with the controls being the move buttons for left, right, back and up while also having an action button like A that is used to scan for solving the riddles. The platform this game will be played on in the end would be computers.
Work on design, coding, assets and creating riddles based on the college will be done. One thing I feel needs to be decided is whats does the player get in the end for completing this game? I feel my idea is unique as there isn't a lot of riddle/[puzzle games like this idea which excites me and I hope to create something special.
Links for Inspiration
https://elearningindustry.com/7-tips-use-puzzle-games-elearning
https://www.wikihow.com/Make-up-a-Riddle
https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2015/01/22/how-to-make-a-puzzle-game/
Image Link
For the last month I've have been thinking if I wanted to do this by myself or with others as I already have other group project work for this semester but working with others has it benefits as it would take less pressure off myself while working by myself, I won't have to wait for others to have certain work done. As of now, I would be doing this as an individual project but I am happy if others would like to join in on this idea.
The finished game would be a 3D open world of TU Blanchardstown. I think I will be going for a first person camera view with the controls being the move buttons for left, right, back and up while also having an action button like A that is used to scan for solving the riddles. The platform this game will be played on in the end would be computers.
Work on design, coding, assets and creating riddles based on the college will be done. One thing I feel needs to be decided is whats does the player get in the end for completing this game? I feel my idea is unique as there isn't a lot of riddle/[puzzle games like this idea which excites me and I hope to create something special.
Links for Inspiration
https://elearningindustry.com/7-tips-use-puzzle-games-elearning
https://www.wikihow.com/Make-up-a-Riddle
https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2015/01/22/how-to-make-a-puzzle-game/
Image Link
Thursday, December 6, 2018
Unity Free Tutorials
For this week's Unity tutorials, I focused on adding a mini-map and gun fire animation to my game. I originally was creating a 2D game but decided to change it to a 3D game.
The first tutorial I did was add a mini-map. This was an easy tutorial and didn't take too long. As my game is 3D, it will show my character on the map and the area around him. To create a mini-map, I first created a circle and triangle as an arrow with both being png images. This would be needed for my map render and mask. The map turned out good but is a bit too big which is not what I want for my final game.
For my second tutorial, I worked on gun fire animation. During this, I would add sound and a script to my gun so you may hear the gun shot. The script would help for the gun fire as it shows the gun shot with a little maker. The script could be useful for other gun weapons in my game as it will take less time in editing other guns in the game.
These tutorials have been helpful and will be important for my game.
My mini-map
The first tutorial I did was add a mini-map. This was an easy tutorial and didn't take too long. As my game is 3D, it will show my character on the map and the area around him. To create a mini-map, I first created a circle and triangle as an arrow with both being png images. This would be needed for my map render and mask. The map turned out good but is a bit too big which is not what I want for my final game.
For my second tutorial, I worked on gun fire animation. During this, I would add sound and a script to my gun so you may hear the gun shot. The script would help for the gun fire as it shows the gun shot with a little maker. The script could be useful for other gun weapons in my game as it will take less time in editing other guns in the game.
These tutorials have been helpful and will be important for my game.
My mini-map
Tuesday, December 4, 2018
Game Testing
For this week's blog reading, it is about testing and criticism in games. This is to help you know what works and what doesn't work in your game.
Link 1: The book "Challenges for Game Designers" helps improve your brainstorming abilities and sharpens your game design skills. It can help with its non-digital exercises to help improve your game designing skills. Challenges of the book can be made into a fully functioning game. It will help you know if the ideas you have for your game will work properly.
Link 2: In this article, it talks about criticism. Giving criticism can help someone improve their work. Constructive criticism can lead to positive and negative feedback. When giving constructive criticism, it is important to focus on valid and unbiased feedback. You can't say something doesn't look good without a reason . You need to have a reason as to why you don't like certain things and how they can improve them. This is important as it will help tell what works well and what doesn't work well in a game.
Link 3: Solo testing article talked about different types of playtesting. Playtesting covers any activity where you are playing a game in progress for the purpose of improving it. Types of playtesting include bug fixing, focus testing, usability testing, balance testing and fun testing. Each has its own meaning of testing a game. You will see what works and what doesn't work when testing your game.
Testing Image Link
Link 1: The book "Challenges for Game Designers" helps improve your brainstorming abilities and sharpens your game design skills. It can help with its non-digital exercises to help improve your game designing skills. Challenges of the book can be made into a fully functioning game. It will help you know if the ideas you have for your game will work properly.
Link 2: In this article, it talks about criticism. Giving criticism can help someone improve their work. Constructive criticism can lead to positive and negative feedback. When giving constructive criticism, it is important to focus on valid and unbiased feedback. You can't say something doesn't look good without a reason . You need to have a reason as to why you don't like certain things and how they can improve them. This is important as it will help tell what works well and what doesn't work well in a game.
Link 3: Solo testing article talked about different types of playtesting. Playtesting covers any activity where you are playing a game in progress for the purpose of improving it. Types of playtesting include bug fixing, focus testing, usability testing, balance testing and fun testing. Each has its own meaning of testing a game. You will see what works and what doesn't work when testing your game.
Tuesday, November 27, 2018
Game Stories
For this week's reading blog, it was about stories in games.
For the article I read, A Practical Guide to a Hero's Journey was about how myths help us create stories for games. Myths help convey the values of society and teaches people who they and how they should behave. A myth can be brought to life in a game which would make you feel you are seeing what might these myths might have been. There are a few steps we can take when creating a story for a game:
Step 1: Pick your premise which is a theme or myth. It will help decide what your game is about and how people behave and think after playing your game.
Step 2: Create your main character that embodies the premise. Also create a enemies that will help further the premise.
Step 3: Create the character's world.
Step 4: Disrupt the character's world. You have to force the main character into action to help the story.
Step 5: Create levels that takes the player from one place to another. Each level should show some incremental growth, or struggle in the character's development.
Step 6: Confront the main enemy/main boss of the game.
Step 7: Collect your prize from winning the game.
These steps bring the story all together help create your concept.
For the article I read, A Practical Guide to a Hero's Journey was about how myths help us create stories for games. Myths help convey the values of society and teaches people who they and how they should behave. A myth can be brought to life in a game which would make you feel you are seeing what might these myths might have been. There are a few steps we can take when creating a story for a game:
Step 1: Pick your premise which is a theme or myth. It will help decide what your game is about and how people behave and think after playing your game.
Step 2: Create your main character that embodies the premise. Also create a enemies that will help further the premise.
Step 3: Create the character's world.
Step 4: Disrupt the character's world. You have to force the main character into action to help the story.
Step 5: Create levels that takes the player from one place to another. Each level should show some incremental growth, or struggle in the character's development.
Step 6: Confront the main enemy/main boss of the game.
Step 7: Collect your prize from winning the game.
These steps bring the story all together help create your concept.
In the article, a person named Gerard Jones is talked about. He has book called "Killing Monsters" and in the book, Gerard wrote about how playing violent games actually helped one young boy named Johnathan: "Games gave Johnathon control over events where he and others felt none and, perhaps even more important, they gave him control over his own feelings. With these games Johnathan no longer felt as helpless. He was not as scared of others or his own feelings". This is fascinating and I was interested to learn more about Gerard Johns.
Another interesting topic stated Rollo May postulated that narcotics are myth-substitutes because they allow people to assert control over their environment even for a short period of time.
I enjoyed reading this article and learning about stories in games. I hope it will help me with my game project.
Wednesday, November 21, 2018
Week 8 Progress
For this blog, it is about my progress in general so far.
Looking Back
For my progress so far, I feel I'm at at decent point with my marks and if I continue to do the upcoming assignments in the next few weeks, I'll be happy with my final grade in the end. I have missed a number of assignments which has caused me to miss out on some marks like the project blogs which has a good number of marks each week. My daily routine isn't like I planned back in week 1. I leave most of the work to the last minute which can stress me and cause me to make mistakes when doing my blogs. I always say to try and get the work done a day before they are due but don't always do that. Other module work has also caused this I feel and I need to plan better.
The class assignments I have enjoyed the most are the Unity tutorials. I like learning how to make games but I have missed some Unity assignments. It great to see that we can make games at home. Unfortunately I haven't been doing the extra credits options even though I keep saying I will. It would benefit me a lot more and I do hope to try get some done in the coming weeks.
Looking Forward
There are some changes I want to make. For my project, I've thought of making a 2D game but I'm thinking about changing to it to 3D first person game. I feel a 3D game would be the better option as I have watched a good number of Jimmy Vegas's tutorials while I'll need to watch a lot more tutorials for a 2D game. Some blogs I haven't published need to be done and I need to get back to doing the project blogs. I will try to know what I fully want for my final game soon.
Image Link
Looking Back
For my progress so far, I feel I'm at at decent point with my marks and if I continue to do the upcoming assignments in the next few weeks, I'll be happy with my final grade in the end. I have missed a number of assignments which has caused me to miss out on some marks like the project blogs which has a good number of marks each week. My daily routine isn't like I planned back in week 1. I leave most of the work to the last minute which can stress me and cause me to make mistakes when doing my blogs. I always say to try and get the work done a day before they are due but don't always do that. Other module work has also caused this I feel and I need to plan better.
The class assignments I have enjoyed the most are the Unity tutorials. I like learning how to make games but I have missed some Unity assignments. It great to see that we can make games at home. Unfortunately I haven't been doing the extra credits options even though I keep saying I will. It would benefit me a lot more and I do hope to try get some done in the coming weeks.
Looking Forward
There are some changes I want to make. For my project, I've thought of making a 2D game but I'm thinking about changing to it to 3D first person game. I feel a 3D game would be the better option as I have watched a good number of Jimmy Vegas's tutorials while I'll need to watch a lot more tutorials for a 2D game. Some blogs I haven't published need to be done and I need to get back to doing the project blogs. I will try to know what I fully want for my final game soon.
We're nearly at the end of the first semester but we still got to keep doing the work.
Week 8 Comments and Feedback
For this blog, it is about the blog commenting and feedback assignments I've done so far this semester.
Feedback In
Receiving comments from others doing the same work is very good. I like seeing what people think of my work and what they think I can improve on. I've been receiving some good feedback that has given me ideas for my project. Thinking of new ideas from the comments is the best thing about receiving them as others will help give ideas I never thought of. Hearing positive feedback is motivating as I do get this feeling a lot which is that people are not going like what I have but I feel a lot more comfortable now.
Feedback Out
I hope my comments are helpful. Reading other students work is very interesting and its great to see the great ideas others have for their projects. I try to give my best opinion and ideas that may help others to improve. When giving feedback, I've noticed some things I have missed in my work which helps me learn more. I do feel I should be a little more critical as this could help others improve more. For the quality of me giving feedback, I would say they could be better but I am happy with feedback I have given and hope it helps.
Blog Comments
For the first weeks, I didn't do the feedback comments for some reason and I don't know why. It is an easy task and can help a lot. Its good to learn more about people and even discover what I have in common with them. I've seen some great introduction blogs and looking back at mine, I should have added a lot more. I feel when people look at my introduction blog, they may feel it is a rushed blog and they won't learn a whole about me. Even when looking at people's favourite game blog, they have talked about why its their favourite game while I only show an image of my favourite game and not let people know why its my favourite. When commenting on project blogs, getting my word count to 150 has taken me more time than I thought it would but I still manage to get 150 words in project blogs.
Looking Forward
I feel more comfortable commenting on other student's blogs now and look forward to seeing more of their progress. I'll try critique more when commenting on blogs. More blogs on my game project are needed for viewers to see and help give more ideas of what my game will look like in the end. I'm thinking about doing some new updated blogs for my game as like I said in my reading and writing blog, I have mixed feeling towards my project and I need to fix that. The blog comments and feedback have been helpful to me and I hope my comments have been helpful to others.
Enjoyed doing this blog and look forward to doing the next assignments in the coming weeks.
Feedback In
Receiving comments from others doing the same work is very good. I like seeing what people think of my work and what they think I can improve on. I've been receiving some good feedback that has given me ideas for my project. Thinking of new ideas from the comments is the best thing about receiving them as others will help give ideas I never thought of. Hearing positive feedback is motivating as I do get this feeling a lot which is that people are not going like what I have but I feel a lot more comfortable now.
Feedback Out
I hope my comments are helpful. Reading other students work is very interesting and its great to see the great ideas others have for their projects. I try to give my best opinion and ideas that may help others to improve. When giving feedback, I've noticed some things I have missed in my work which helps me learn more. I do feel I should be a little more critical as this could help others improve more. For the quality of me giving feedback, I would say they could be better but I am happy with feedback I have given and hope it helps.
Blog Comments
For the first weeks, I didn't do the feedback comments for some reason and I don't know why. It is an easy task and can help a lot. Its good to learn more about people and even discover what I have in common with them. I've seen some great introduction blogs and looking back at mine, I should have added a lot more. I feel when people look at my introduction blog, they may feel it is a rushed blog and they won't learn a whole about me. Even when looking at people's favourite game blog, they have talked about why its their favourite game while I only show an image of my favourite game and not let people know why its my favourite. When commenting on project blogs, getting my word count to 150 has taken me more time than I thought it would but I still manage to get 150 words in project blogs.
Looking Forward
I feel more comfortable commenting on other student's blogs now and look forward to seeing more of their progress. I'll try critique more when commenting on blogs. More blogs on my game project are needed for viewers to see and help give more ideas of what my game will look like in the end. I'm thinking about doing some new updated blogs for my game as like I said in my reading and writing blog, I have mixed feeling towards my project and I need to fix that. The blog comments and feedback have been helpful to me and I hope my comments have been helpful to others.
Enjoyed doing this blog and look forward to doing the next assignments in the coming weeks.
Tuesday, November 20, 2018
Week 8 Reading and Writing
For this week's blog it is about looking back at the reading and writing in blogs I have done so far in this semester.
Looking Back
There has been a lot of reading posts this semester and its probably the most reading I have done since secondary school. I think its interesting reading about games but to me I find reading difficult. Reading is something I say to myself that I need to do more but I just never get around to it and I get distracted easily which takes me away from the reading. I'm a very slow reader as well. Learning new things about games is good as I feel its gives me better thoughts when making my game and when playing games.
I've been doing most of the reading blogs the last few weeks and every week the readings are about something new. Some readings have been missed. The readings included what makes games fun, learning about MUD games and cozy games. My favourite reading was the games decisions article which talked about cozy games. I liked learning about what makes a game cozy and when reading this article I thought of games I played that makes the player feel cozy. Some things I learned from the blog was factors that negate coziness and ingredients of coziness aesthetics.
When done doing the reading blogs each week, I feel I should get back to the readings a lot more to help me for my game project. I think some readings on Unity about the coding for example would have been useful to help us learn more about it as it I did encounter some problems in coding while doing the tutorials.
For my project right now, I have a mixed feeling towards it. I feel I have a good idea but not quite sure how the end product is going is to be. Maybe I'm thinking too big for my game but I feel with all the other module work, I need to do more on my project.
Biggest accomplishments so far in this class have been learning more about games through the readings and learning how to use Unity.
Image
This image is probably my favourite. It was used in my game fun blog and I feel it fits the title of the blog. The image I feel is good for our project as we should be having fun making our game in Unity and making it fun to play. Relaxing is something I need but work comes first.
Looking Forward
Looking forward, I hope my game turns out good. I've missed a few recent submissions for my project and need to get back to submitting them. Hopefully the remaining reading tasks will help me learn more. I'm thinking more about my project plus what to do with it and how the final game will look in the end. When first starting this module I was a little worried but it been an interesting module and I do look forward to see what happens next semester.
Looking Back
There has been a lot of reading posts this semester and its probably the most reading I have done since secondary school. I think its interesting reading about games but to me I find reading difficult. Reading is something I say to myself that I need to do more but I just never get around to it and I get distracted easily which takes me away from the reading. I'm a very slow reader as well. Learning new things about games is good as I feel its gives me better thoughts when making my game and when playing games.
I've been doing most of the reading blogs the last few weeks and every week the readings are about something new. Some readings have been missed. The readings included what makes games fun, learning about MUD games and cozy games. My favourite reading was the games decisions article which talked about cozy games. I liked learning about what makes a game cozy and when reading this article I thought of games I played that makes the player feel cozy. Some things I learned from the blog was factors that negate coziness and ingredients of coziness aesthetics.
When done doing the reading blogs each week, I feel I should get back to the readings a lot more to help me for my game project. I think some readings on Unity about the coding for example would have been useful to help us learn more about it as it I did encounter some problems in coding while doing the tutorials.
For my project right now, I have a mixed feeling towards it. I feel I have a good idea but not quite sure how the end product is going is to be. Maybe I'm thinking too big for my game but I feel with all the other module work, I need to do more on my project.
Biggest accomplishments so far in this class have been learning more about games through the readings and learning how to use Unity.
Image
This image is probably my favourite. It was used in my game fun blog and I feel it fits the title of the blog. The image I feel is good for our project as we should be having fun making our game in Unity and making it fun to play. Relaxing is something I need but work comes first.
Looking Forward
Looking forward, I hope my game turns out good. I've missed a few recent submissions for my project and need to get back to submitting them. Hopefully the remaining reading tasks will help me learn more. I'm thinking more about my project plus what to do with it and how the final game will look in the end. When first starting this module I was a little worried but it been an interesting module and I do look forward to see what happens next semester.
Thursday, November 15, 2018
Unity Free Tutorials
For this week's Unity tutorials, I have begun working on the game I am going to make. The game I am making is a 2D platformer game and I have watched some tutorials for starting my game. I found a Youtuber name Brackeys who has some tutorials for making a 2D platformer in Unity.
For the first tutorial, it was the basic starting point of getting my character to move and the camera to follow the character. I downloaded the 2D assets pack to help me make my 2D platformer. The pack came with a character design and prototypes for the ground which the character walks on when in play mode. The look of this character will not be the final look in my game. At first everything was going well but when I first tried to enter play mode, once again I encounter errors again with the script just like in other tutorials. I was frustrated at first but I got it working by editing the script of Platformer2DUserControl.
The Platformer2DUserControl script needed fixing with these these changes below:
In the script, delete the namespace reference 'using UnityStandardAssets.CrossPlatformInput;'
Finally: under 'Update' and 'FixedUpdate' replace 'CrossPlatformInputManager' with 'Input'. They should read: m_Jump = Input.GetButtonDown("Jump"); and float h = Input.GetAxis("Horizontal");
After this, I focused on the main camera to follow and be in the same position as the character. I worked on how smooth the camera would be, meaning how focused it would be on the character. It can help for player direction to see what lies in front of them when moving forward.
For the second tutorial, it was about adding art environment. I've used some artwork from the asset store that fits the idea of the stage level I have for my game as I didn't want to use artwork from the tutorial video. The tutorial helped me learn how to use the artwork for foregrounds and backgrounds. The tutorial also showed how the add grounds that can be used for platforms but I haven't added any yet.
I feel this was a good start at making my platform game and look forward to continue working on it.
Tutorial 1
Tutorial 2
Work in Unity
For the first tutorial, it was the basic starting point of getting my character to move and the camera to follow the character. I downloaded the 2D assets pack to help me make my 2D platformer. The pack came with a character design and prototypes for the ground which the character walks on when in play mode. The look of this character will not be the final look in my game. At first everything was going well but when I first tried to enter play mode, once again I encounter errors again with the script just like in other tutorials. I was frustrated at first but I got it working by editing the script of Platformer2DUserControl.
The Platformer2DUserControl script needed fixing with these these changes below:
In the script, delete the namespace reference 'using UnityStandardAssets.CrossPlatformInput;'
Finally: under 'Update' and 'FixedUpdate' replace 'CrossPlatformInputManager' with 'Input'. They should read: m_Jump = Input.GetButtonDown("Jump"); and float h = Input.GetAxis("Horizontal");
After this, I focused on the main camera to follow and be in the same position as the character. I worked on how smooth the camera would be, meaning how focused it would be on the character. It can help for player direction to see what lies in front of them when moving forward.
For the second tutorial, it was about adding art environment. I've used some artwork from the asset store that fits the idea of the stage level I have for my game as I didn't want to use artwork from the tutorial video. The tutorial helped me learn how to use the artwork for foregrounds and backgrounds. The tutorial also showed how the add grounds that can be used for platforms but I haven't added any yet.
I feel this was a good start at making my platform game and look forward to continue working on it.
Tutorial 1
Tutorial 2
Work in Unity
Tuesday, November 13, 2018
Game Fun
For this week's reading, the articles were about fun. Two articles I've read are by Noah Falstein and Richard Bartle.
The first article by Noah Falstein is about fun and what makes a game fun. Fun is described as a source of amusement or enjoyment. A paraphrase used is "we may not be able to describe fun, but we know it when we have it". Each person has their own way of having fun. The article talked about how human evolution over the last thousands and how humans maintained their place in their families and communities.
There are different types of fun explained and why people may like these.
Physical Fun
There may be a connection between our evolutionary heritage and games and entertainment in physical form. Our primary urge of survival instinct. Anything that threatens our survival gains our attention. Anything that involves threats to survival and countering those threats will gain an audience. Hunter gathering is compared to fitness sports today as they involve body fitness and good coordination.
Social Fun
This is about meeting new people. Online multiplayer and even single-players games in group settings have helped. New technology devices like phones have helped put people in contact with new people that is also likely to further the social aspects of video games.
Mental Fun
This would involve using our intelligence to focus on mental fun. We practice and improve our mental abilities. Our ancestors would think of how they would survive, what animals would that hunt for food and how will they hunt them. They learn from their experience and use for future events and us humans today learn new things that may benefit us in our future.
The second article by Richard Bartle was about MUDs which I have never heard of. MUDs have been active since 1978. From the reading, it discusses four types of players who play MUD games. These approaches may arise from the inner-relationship of two dimensions of playing style.
Achievers
Regard points-gathering and rising in levels as their main goal.
Explorers
Like exploring the world to discover new locations.
Socializers
Interested in meeting new people.
Killers
Prefer to kill instead of focusing on a objective.
I enjoyed reading Noah Falstein's article as I liked it discussing how people from thousands of years ago are compared to people today. Richard Bartle's article was interesting at first but my interest declined through reading.
Noah Falstein Article Link
Richard Bartle Article Link
Image Link
The first article by Noah Falstein is about fun and what makes a game fun. Fun is described as a source of amusement or enjoyment. A paraphrase used is "we may not be able to describe fun, but we know it when we have it". Each person has their own way of having fun. The article talked about how human evolution over the last thousands and how humans maintained their place in their families and communities.
There are different types of fun explained and why people may like these.
Physical Fun
There may be a connection between our evolutionary heritage and games and entertainment in physical form. Our primary urge of survival instinct. Anything that threatens our survival gains our attention. Anything that involves threats to survival and countering those threats will gain an audience. Hunter gathering is compared to fitness sports today as they involve body fitness and good coordination.
Social Fun
This is about meeting new people. Online multiplayer and even single-players games in group settings have helped. New technology devices like phones have helped put people in contact with new people that is also likely to further the social aspects of video games.
Mental Fun
This would involve using our intelligence to focus on mental fun. We practice and improve our mental abilities. Our ancestors would think of how they would survive, what animals would that hunt for food and how will they hunt them. They learn from their experience and use for future events and us humans today learn new things that may benefit us in our future.
The second article by Richard Bartle was about MUDs which I have never heard of. MUDs have been active since 1978. From the reading, it discusses four types of players who play MUD games. These approaches may arise from the inner-relationship of two dimensions of playing style.
Achievers
Regard points-gathering and rising in levels as their main goal.
Explorers
Like exploring the world to discover new locations.
Socializers
Interested in meeting new people.
Killers
Prefer to kill instead of focusing on a objective.
I enjoyed reading Noah Falstein's article as I liked it discussing how people from thousands of years ago are compared to people today. Richard Bartle's article was interesting at first but my interest declined through reading.
Noah Falstein Article Link
Richard Bartle Article Link
Image Link
Thursday, November 8, 2018
Unity Tutorial 5
For this week's Unity tutorial, I focused skybox plus winds, fade screens and work on environments of a game.
The first tutorial focused on skybox and winds. First I started off with the skybox which is basically designing the sky that surrounds your game. This will help for the to look of your your game as your game may be in dark or bright setting. The lighting also helps with the shadows of objects in your game like a tree for example. I tested different colors sources for environment lighting to see how it would affect the game.
Next part of the first tutorial was on windzone which is controlling the wind for the environment of the game. I feel this is very useful for those who are making open world games as it will help give life to their game. When editing the turbulence and main wind, if you set to a high number, it gave a crazy look to my trees in Unity. We would need to keep the settings for the wind low so it won't seem broken or have a crazy look to it.
The next tutorial was creating a fading in the screen and creating a script which allows me to pick up an axe from a tree. First part was picking up the axe which was stuck in a tree. A cube with an invisible box collider was then positioned over the axe. Finally I added a script to the "TakeAxeObeject" which allowed me to take the axe from the tree. This part of the tutorial was very helpful as it is useful for a game that has players able to pick up weapons.
The final tutorial involved fixing bugs but it also involved adding a house and editing its look. I enjoyed working on the house to give it a look I liked. I had to edit the lighting on the house as well so it would look like it fits in with environment around it.
I enjoyed doing this week's tutorial and these tutorials are close to the end. I start working on my main project soon and I'm looking forward to it.
Axe in the tree
The first tutorial focused on skybox and winds. First I started off with the skybox which is basically designing the sky that surrounds your game. This will help for the to look of your your game as your game may be in dark or bright setting. The lighting also helps with the shadows of objects in your game like a tree for example. I tested different colors sources for environment lighting to see how it would affect the game.
Next part of the first tutorial was on windzone which is controlling the wind for the environment of the game. I feel this is very useful for those who are making open world games as it will help give life to their game. When editing the turbulence and main wind, if you set to a high number, it gave a crazy look to my trees in Unity. We would need to keep the settings for the wind low so it won't seem broken or have a crazy look to it.
The next tutorial was creating a fading in the screen and creating a script which allows me to pick up an axe from a tree. First part was picking up the axe which was stuck in a tree. A cube with an invisible box collider was then positioned over the axe. Finally I added a script to the "TakeAxeObeject" which allowed me to take the axe from the tree. This part of the tutorial was very helpful as it is useful for a game that has players able to pick up weapons.
The final tutorial involved fixing bugs but it also involved adding a house and editing its look. I enjoyed working on the house to give it a look I liked. I had to edit the lighting on the house as well so it would look like it fits in with environment around it.
I enjoyed doing this week's tutorial and these tutorials are close to the end. I start working on my main project soon and I'm looking forward to it.
Axe in the tree
Tuesday, November 6, 2018
Game Decisions
For this week's reading, it was about what productivity applications we can learn from games. The article focused on cozy games and how to design them. Coziness is a state or quality of being in control but still being engaged during times of rest.
Coziness itself refers to how strongly a game evokes the fantasy of:
Safety: A cozy game has an absence of danger and risk.
Abundance: A cozy game has a sense of abundance.
Softness: Cozy games use strong aesthetic signals that tell players they are in a low stress environment full of abundance and safety.
Factors that negate coziness include:
There are a number of highly specific design patterns for each domain of game design.
Ingredients of cozy aesthetics:
Coziness itself refers to how strongly a game evokes the fantasy of:
Safety: A cozy game has an absence of danger and risk.
Abundance: A cozy game has a sense of abundance.
Softness: Cozy games use strong aesthetic signals that tell players they are in a low stress environment full of abundance and safety.
Factors that negate coziness include:
- Extrinsic reward:
- Danger, fear, threat:
- Responsibility:
- Unpleasant distractions:
- Intense stimulus:
- Distance
- Confinement:
- Deception, betrayal, lies, insincerity
Cozy games can fulfill player needs. They can create spaces for higher order needs like mastery and self-reflection.
There are a number of highly specific design patterns for each domain of game design.
Ingredients of cozy aesthetics:
- Abundance: a theme of plenty and generousness assists in player calm and security.
- Smooth Transitions: Gentle gradients between states, colors, or environments within the cozy area.
- Protection & Support: Clear signals of strong safety and comfort, from the environment and characters around the player, signal that this is a safe place in which to explore higher-order needs.
- Focus: Elimination of interruptions, pressures or sources of unwanted distraction, allows the player to feel a place is knowable and thereby becomes familiar and comfortable.
- Refuge & Escape: if there is an “outside” to this space, it is contrasted in its discomfort or danger.
- Human-centric: The comfort and ease of humans in this space or system is apparent.
Cozy visuals cam help give games a sense of safety and comfort. This be achieved with bright colors, bright lights, natural materials, open space and contrast.
Cozy locations are places without danger and the player can do what they want. It can also allow creative expression where players can design the location to what they want.
Cozy locations are places without danger and the player can do what they want. It can also allow creative expression where players can design the location to what they want.
Two examples of cozy places are below:
- Places that fill basic needs, including food, rest, warmth, and opt-in sociability. They should include visible places to comfortably sit, eat, drink, and view beauty.
- Transition spaces without danger or obligation: trains, backseat of a car, slow-moving spacecraft
This was a very interesting article as I feel it gave a good look as to what can make a player enjoy a game they play. I never really thought about coziness when playing a game but this article has help me think more about it when playing video games.
Links of interest:
http://www.lostgarden.com/
This week's article
https://medium.com/@kitfoxgames/designing-for-coziness-d33d2519a59e
Similar article
https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2018-11-05-how-to-design-for-coziness-and-kindness
Interesting perspective on how to design coziness in a game
http://www.lostgarden.com/
This week's article
https://medium.com/@kitfoxgames/designing-for-coziness-d33d2519a59e
Similar article
https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2018-11-05-how-to-design-for-coziness-and-kindness
Interesting perspective on how to design coziness in a game
Sunday, October 28, 2018
Game Design Document
GDD screenshot
GDD Link
When first making a game design document with the example template given on Dundoc, I didn't have a clue what to do at first. After some time, I realized what I had to do. I have done document with some early ideas I have for my game. There was some sections I hadn't even thought of yet like sounds for my game and I'm not sure what I will do for sound right now.
There is still a long way to go. More things will be needed for my game idea and I'll work more on Dundoc.
Enjoyed this task and look forward to the next.
Game Vision Statement
This is my vision statement for the game I would like to make.
Article Link
Introduction: A working title I have for now is "The Hunt". You will play as a bounty hunter character who is hunting the most wanted person in this game world. The game will be made through Unity and will be a 2D based platform action shooter game. The age rating may be 12 but most people will be able to play it.
Description: You play as "Wolf" who is one of the best and most feared bounty hunters in this game world. He is tasked with capturing or killing the most wanted criminal in this game world. Through the game you play through multiple stages with different designs like a city and jungle design. Each stage will have different enemy types each with their own abilities. Along the way you may run into other characters like different bounty hunters who may help or try to stop you.
Features:
Genre: The game will be a 2D platform action shooter game. It will have sci-fi look and feeling to it.
Gameplay: It will be shooter game and the player's main weapon will be a laser rifle but will be to earn more weapons and abilities through progression. You will be able to run and jump. There will be platforms that may stay still or move and you will jump to them if they are below or above you. A score will be displayed through each stage and you will earn a grade when completing a stage and the game. Each stage may have hidden locations were you can extra score by taking out secondary bounty targets. A timer will also be display to see how fast you can beat each stage and will effect your grade. There will be boosts through the game that may assist you like regenerating health or you may not lose any health for a certain amount of time like 30 seconds.
Platform: I would like for this game to be played on a computer. I feel this platform may be best suited for this game.
Target Market: This game would be for players who may want to test themselves and see how good they can be this platform game.
Resources: I feel the main resources I need is planning my times for working on this game and prototyping to make sure everything works.
Image Link
Metroid is one of the inspirations for my game.
Article Link
Introduction: A working title I have for now is "The Hunt". You will play as a bounty hunter character who is hunting the most wanted person in this game world. The game will be made through Unity and will be a 2D based platform action shooter game. The age rating may be 12 but most people will be able to play it.
Description: You play as "Wolf" who is one of the best and most feared bounty hunters in this game world. He is tasked with capturing or killing the most wanted criminal in this game world. Through the game you play through multiple stages with different designs like a city and jungle design. Each stage will have different enemy types each with their own abilities. Along the way you may run into other characters like different bounty hunters who may help or try to stop you.
Features:
- Run/jumping/movement
- Enemies jump, fly, and attack you.
- Moving platforms
- Player boosts
- Score
- Timed gameplay
- Secondary targets
Genre: The game will be a 2D platform action shooter game. It will have sci-fi look and feeling to it.
Gameplay: It will be shooter game and the player's main weapon will be a laser rifle but will be to earn more weapons and abilities through progression. You will be able to run and jump. There will be platforms that may stay still or move and you will jump to them if they are below or above you. A score will be displayed through each stage and you will earn a grade when completing a stage and the game. Each stage may have hidden locations were you can extra score by taking out secondary bounty targets. A timer will also be display to see how fast you can beat each stage and will effect your grade. There will be boosts through the game that may assist you like regenerating health or you may not lose any health for a certain amount of time like 30 seconds.
Platform: I would like for this game to be played on a computer. I feel this platform may be best suited for this game.
Target Market: This game would be for players who may want to test themselves and see how good they can be this platform game.
Resources: I feel the main resources I need is planning my times for working on this game and prototyping to make sure everything works.
Image Link
Metroid is one of the inspirations for my game.
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