The Weekly Developments

In the first article I read  (Sutherland, 2005) , the author discusses what makes a story in a game work and what it took to get to a place where they can be done well. He made a really interesting point about story being conflict. Conflict is just as important as the rest of it. It gives us drive to want to play the game, progress to the next level, get the job done - whatever it is, it makes us want to do something . I also liked that he pointed out that to have a good story, it has to be simple and it has to work. While you're gaming, you're often learning new mechanics and adjusting to the new world you're in. If your story is really complicated, it can overload someone's brain. Although a story often determines chapters, levels, etc (which is why it's done at the beginning, according to the author), nobody wants to watch a movie when they buy a game.  The next reading was a paper  (Bizzocchi and Tanenbaum, 2012) about what makes Mass Effect 2 a highly regarded...

This week I decided to do a few of the tech tasks at the bottom of the list marked as miscellaneous.  Firstly, I confirmed what I already knew - I type fast and well. I did this typing test where you type a paragraph in a minute and it scores you. I did it twice because I'm competitive and have to beat my own score. (screenshot of my typing test results; 53 words per minute with 97% accuracy) (screenshot of my typing results; 56 words per minute with 99% accuracy) I then used Google's Define features to define a few relevant words. Multimedia:   Multimedia is a form of communication that combines different content forms such as text, audio, images, animations, or video into a single presentation, in contrast to traditional mass media, such as printed material or audio recordings. Gaming: 1.  the action or practice of playing gambling games.                   2.  the action or practice of playing video g...

This week, the main aspects of my game are mostly done. It's not at all refined or even filled in with the correct questions but it does work. A lot of this is with thanks to the Brackley tutorials on YouTube. They're completely made for beginners and everything is explained a lot better than the Unity tutorials, I found. So the game works! Next week I'll be: refining it looking into more details I could add possibly adding mood music trying to change the timer from seconds to minutes trying to add more randomized elements On that last point, I currently have it so that the same is being made and it's a basic true or false system. This is fine and it works well in my opinion, but  if I can add more answer choices or randomize the drink then that would be great. Not a top priority as I want the game to run smoothly before I decide to overcomplicate.  (screenshot of my screen in unity once I finished putting the quiz elements in) In terms of plans and scheduling, I'm ...

 This week, I attempted to add my twitter into my sidebar but it just wouldn't work. I think I need to mess around more to find the right theme but the three I tried just did not co-operate.  Instead, I went on to Fotor to create a collage about gaming. I liked looking through the different templates, it really helped with inspiration. I think when we're used to using Photoshop and Illustrator, it's hard to stare at a blank canvas every time because it can be quite daunting. I definitely thing I'll explore more things with templates for inspiration and ideas.

  (kid playing with a soccer ball, freedesignfile.com ) I 100% had war flashbacks for this last lesson. It didn't help me much having a bit of experience with for loops though. They're still just as confusing now as they were two years ago, but that's okay!  It did come back to me and I wouldn't say I struggled in terms of following along but I wouldn't say I'd be confident in doing it myself with no direction or pre-written code in front of me just to edit. The latter part of the last lesson was a bit easier as it was back to stuff we'd kind of done so I felt less out of my depth there. No pun intended, but the for loops kind of through me through a loop. The challenge was manageable but I did find myself, as usual, going back and having to look through the previous lesson. I used to try and do it without looking through the explanations below the video but I found it too frustrating and I'd rather give it a proper go then just look at everything and ge...

I went through my own blog and found that I have very few comments. I thought maybe it was because I'm not someone that's friends with everyone but I often leave comments on blogs from people I've never met and there is a randomizer on the page for everyone to use. The likelihood of my name never popping up is very low. I'm not sure if it's my theme or the randomizer or what but I think I have less than 10 comments. I don't take offence, it doesn't really matter to me but the feedback could have been nice. Maybe there needs to be groups implemented? Maybe group 4 comments on group 5 for the weeks before the first review, then it changes until this review and then changes again. If there's a smaller pool of people to select from I think that might encourage comments but yeah, I don't have very many comments at all.  (speech bubbles on an orange background, motherjones.com ) I feel like I've left good feedback. I used the TAG approaches in my own w...

  (dog is squished between two pillows and has fallen asleep,  helpguide.org ) Starting off, I think that this image above is probably the most accurate example of how I feel at the moment. I'm struggling to find motivation and I'm finding that everything is starting to pile up. Because it's a lot , I can't keep up and I just want to lay in bed instead. That's not exactly how it works, I've still got to do this, but it just makes it harder to want to do. Also with the lockdown, I'm going back to work soon and I just wish I could have the extra two weeks to not do hours of Christmas retail because it makes everything harder to juggle. But also, I need money. I think lecturers really struggle to understand that because when most of them were students it was far easier to be a student than it is now; there's fact and figures to back that up, I promise. Reflecting On What I've Done So far, I've really struggled with following the Unity tutorials. Ini...

I had a bit more success this week! After not being able to access the timer resource we were given, I looked for others. The first one I used didn't work. I think now I know what was wrong with it but it wasn't mentioned in the video so I can't be one hundred percent sure either. There was a Text option in the script but this didn't show up in Unity, however, after completing a different tutorial and seeing how that worked, I think it should have been textDisplay. Again, just a guess for me and I deleted it sadly so I have no way of knowing.  The third tutorial that I followed was a success, finally. It took a bit of pausing and going back to try and keep up but I did get it in the end, which I'm really happy with. The countdown timer only goes to 59 seconds, which is fine for now, but I may try and work around but it would mean coding some if statements to set up minutes instead of seconds, or I could just say 120 seconds. While I was thinking about the creation o...

 In this week's Unity tutorials, we learned a few different things, as per usual. Firstly, we started working on cameras and focal points. I actually liked lesson 4.1 because it was different from the other ones and a refreshing lesson. I found it a bit easier to follow because  it was different and new so I accepted it for what it was. We the other tutorials, even though I don't know all that much, I'm trying to guess the answers or recall what I do know. This was a nice change.  (screenshot of the game play from the introduction video for lesson 4 on unity.com ) I enjoyed adding the different materials in lesson 4.2 but struggled a bit with the scripts. I usually have to rewatch or check the script a few times because my visual studios doesn't automatically fill in any words like the person teaching often finds in his programme. Lesson 4.3 was, again, hard to keep up with in terms of all the new scripts. I'm trying to work on this but honestly, I'm not sure wh...

The posts that interested me weren't readable without a subscription so I decided to do my own research on sleep! (dog is squished between two pillows and has fallen asleep, helpguide.org ) Firstly,  I read an article with 22 interesting facts about sleep. I found a few facts that really struck me. Sleep deprivation can kill someone faster than food deprivation  (Thomson, n.d.), which is something that made me think about how much more important sleep is than food and yet we talk more and see more about how important what we eat is.  Sleep experts have discovered a direct link between people’s favourite sleeping positions and their personalities  (Thomson, n.d.), which also made me think about how specific sleep is to every single person. What I find enough may not be enough for one person and may be too much for someone else. The next article discussed why we need sleep. It says that there are several influences to why and how we get tired, but I was really interest...

  Games can be described by the 3 components Mechanics, Dynamics, and Aesthetics (MDA) or otherwise stated as rules – system – “fun” . The three reading selections this week and the synopsis below all address the term “fun” in relation to game design. There are eight types of Fun outlined by the MDA. These eight are both a source of reference and player experience that blend together in many ways, and essentially what makes a game engaging and enjoyable. Figure 1: Eight kinds of Fun Both Oxford and Merrian dictionaries define Fun as an enjoyment, delight but within the context of a game it refers to a form of pleasurable entertainment. MDA papers define the '8 kinds of fun' sensation, fantasy, narrative, challenge, fellowship, discovery, expression, and submission, remain a source of reference and possibly the most popular list of player interactions combining in various forms to attract each player to a particular game. Nicole Lazzaro presents four types of fun that are invol...

 This week I began to build my game on Unity. I successfully found and downloaded some Bar assets. They were limited. I had hoped for a background but there were only props so that will just have to do. Then came the real trouble. I watched several tutorials and spent about 2 hours trying to create my start menu as I needed something to click that would kick off the timer. All was well until I reached the ending point where I had to integrate my game scene into it so that it would pop up when you clicked start. It kept telling me something was missing when it wasn't. I watched the same tutorial twice, and then looked for others, and nothing worked. At this point, I'm going to skip the start screen and find an alternative to adding the timer because that was a waste of two hours to get absolutely nothing out of it. (screenshot of unity, where it clearly says my scene is in the build but the error kept saying it wasn't) I also realised that the tutorials I had been doing up u...

  (screenshot from introduction to lesson 3.4 video, character running with forest in the background) In this lesson we learned about sound effects. I didn't mind the lesson but I did find it hard to keep up in certain parts where I had to rewatch the video or sections of the video more than two or three times. It was interesting though because it was something a bit outside of the moving, jumping etc.  We also learned about particles and creating something like an explosion. I thought it was cool. I like that we've moved past the walking forward and the likes. I just find it more interesting. I understand the basics are important and the grand scheme of things, I don't understand the interesting stuff any more than the basics but I think because I find it more interesting, I'm more willing to listen more and try harder because I want to replicate the 'coolness'. I really struggled with the challenge and had to keep going back on the videos from this week and la...

This week, I looked in to different exercises for helping anyone sitting a desk. I looked at a few articles listed below to find five minutes to stretch. https://www.tinypulse.com/blog/sk-desk-exercises https://blog.fitbit.com/desk-exercises/ https://www.doyou.com/exercises-to-do-at-your-desk/ https://www.goodhousekeeping.com/health/fitness/a31667105/best-desk-exercises/ What worked for me was            1. Leg Raises ( youtube.com , woman and man doing leg raises on a chair)          2. Neck Tension Relieving Exercises ( youtube.com , woman doing seated yoga and stretching)          3. Figure Four Stretches ( openfit.com , woman stretching)          4. Seated Heart Opener  ( popsugar.com , woman stretching on a mat)

  “In order for the player to be optimally engaged, challenges should be presented at a level equivalent or slightly higher than their current skill. Not too easy, not too hard.” ( Gigity McD ) The word 'flow state' was coined by Csikszentmihalyi (1975) also known as being “in the zone” This is when the player is fully engaged in the game experience. Csikszentmihalyi put a lot of work into observing and analyzing various groups of people. This theory is focused on the idea of how people should balance their skills and the demands of particular tasks. An example of Flow would be a challenge in a game that interests the player such as a puzzle or a boss battle meant to keep the player interested and not get bored. Csikszentmihalyi also states that flow is related to an ideal psychological condition when a person engages in a challenge-skill activity, often resulting in concentration and a focused emphasis on a task. A practical technique for improving Flow is to look at what pla...

  (unity logo, en.wikipedia.org) I found this week of the Unity tutorials a bit better. Maybe because everything from before is a bit more recognizable or maybe because it was an easier tutorial, who knows! I learned about the different animation options there is and particularly found the falling and death functions really funny but interesting too. I like that we're learning about more detail now. I also liked seeing more of Unity and seeing what there is to offer that goes hand in hand with scripts rather than hard coding everything with the lack of knowledge I have. I still struggle with the code, even though I have more experience with if statements and booleans, ints etc than most in our course. It's still a lot to take in and I feel like because nothing is familiar we're kind of in the deep end. I find that if I can make logical sense of what's being done, I can take it in, but the guy in the tutorial doesn't always explain things and so I have a lot of gaps....

My GDD can be found at this link:  https://www.dundoc.com/project/6894 Introduction I have set up my Game Design Document using Dundoc. I'll be using both Dundoc and this blog to document the process. I used the starter game design document that is given in Dundoc to give me a guideline but there's changes that will be made to it. It's quite detailed and so I've taken particular parts out that I may not need now or at all. Granted, this is a game I'll be creating, but I don't work for Ubisoft so I won't have as in-depth of a document as they would. (screenshot of dundoc.com showing my current list) I like the idea of a GDD as it's easier to pinpoint particular areas rather than having to scroll through pages upon pages in a document. I also like that it has the ability to constantly be updated. I think it's important for the creative process because it's so common to run into issues or find something that you want to change. At least if it's ...

List for all the CDM peers I could find:   https://twitter.com/i/lists/1323260845367971841 List for game developers I enjoy following:   https://twitter.com/i/lists/1323262203521359872?s=20 (twitter bird logo wearing a face mask, twitter.com ) I liked making these lists because my own personal Twitter is so cluttered and I couldn't pick and choose my feed. I like that lists kind of let you do that. For my CDM Twitter, I created a list with as many peers as I could find so that I can keep up to date and keep an eye out for any interesting articles they may post. I then made a list with some of my favourite game developers. I like to keep updated on new games and have found in the last few years, most games are postponed for a while and I found Twitter the fastest way to find these updates.

  (futurithmic.com, vector of a games console controller) A Game Design Document (GDD) is a blueprint for the design and development of a game. The GDD is a way of being creative and documenting the approach to the development of the game. Gonzale (2016) states that “ the important thing is to have something that describes your game project (or any other project for that matter) before jumping into production . ( Gamasutra ) It should help to plan out your game. Though it is recommended that the GDD should be short it needs to be detailed enough so as game developers and artists can coordinate the development of the game independently whilst still keeping to the design. The GDD is a blueprint for how the game is going to be designed and built, similar to a mind map. In conclusion, the game design document is vital to making a game and it is important to have in order to describe your game project. How do we make one? There are a variety of tools that could be used to create a GDD...