Xavier Smith, Week 9 Journal PPJ, Blog post w, GMAP 378

Cleanup – 4 hrs
Fixing up games – 2hrs
Poke Games – 3 hrs

Lots of work done this week! We saw a lot of things that needed improving during our group meeting so I went ahead with all the tasks I assigned myself. Firstly I fixed up the Controller Select scene, and then Angela improved the art for it and made it look way better! Then I noticed the animations were pretty laggy in Stello Says, so I sped up the animations to match the game speed, as well as switching the background to a less noisy one and removed some of the obsolete text. After that I did a little tweaking for the balance in QWOP and did a fair amount of cleanup on Crazyball. The overall game should be a lot smoother and coherent now!

Finally, I started working on the PokeGames that we’re going to implement. I’d say they’re about 80% done right now, but here’s a quick preview as to what it’s going to look like. Player 1 will move left and right, Player 2 will launch the finger (foot for now) and the aliens have to try and avoid getting shot.

Content Positive:

- The game looks a lot better and is a lot less buggy!

- The instructions are a lot more consistent and coherent!

Content Negative:

- Didn’t quite get to finish the PokeGames

Total Time Spent: 9 Hours

GDC Vault  Postmortem Breaking Into The Game Biz

I chose this postmortem as it was a topic I am personally invested in. 

The presentation detailed how professionals within the video game industry got their start before Video Game programming was taught in schools. The first individuals, Randy Smith spoke about how he had a list of companies he wanted to work for upon graduating and would cold-call companies. However he advised that this is not a good approach for the modern day, however the enthusiasm behind the decision is what is important. 

The second individual,  Tess Snider spoke about how she taught herself and built up a resume on her own over the years, and eventually just sent her resume around to employers and found a job within a week

The third speaker, Ralph Koster spoke about how his first game was an unsuccessful board game project with one of his friends. He then proceeded to receive tests from Eldin online whereby he improved the system until he was eventually brought on to the team. He stressed the importance of creating a portfolio, regardless of what level you are currently at. 

The final Speaker, Gordon Walton spoke of his time before games were sold commercially, but advocated the previous speaker's point of putting your games out there. 

The speakers then talked about the most self-destructive behaviours within candidates. Behaviours mentioned were talking about never having played the company's game, generic programmer resumes, and finally speaking about where they want to be in the company rather than how they could help solve the problem within the job description. They then advised to look up requirements and learn the things consistently listed in them. 

Afterwards, they spoke of the things that stood out within no-experience candidates. The most pertinent points seemed to be passion and having a portfolio that displays interest and skill within the field. 

Finally, they discussed tips for candidates to work on and get noticed. The advice from the panel was to aim for a job that you really want, having an attitude where you are willing to improve, creating projects, networking with individuals regardless of their position, and finally having a passion for creating/making games rather than playing them, avoid getting typecast 

Xavier Smith, Week 3 Journal PPJ, Blog post 1

Xavier Smith, Week 3 Journal PPJ, Blog post 1

Project Lead, Tech Demo, Game Design

Content With Hours

This week, I organized a group meeting where we discussed game design, game mechanics, breakdown of work, and group methodology. (1 hr)

Spoke with some members individually about their work and tasks they were assigned. (1 hr)

I complied my, Cory, and Angela's game into a single project and refined my and Cory's game and began working on a consistent UI and a menu system. (6 hrs)

       

                                         Stello says Screenshot                                                                                        Interdimensional Screenshot

Content With Examples 

In our group meeting, we discussed many facets of the game. Firstly, we discussed the breakdown of work and everyone was assigned their individual tasks and a regular

meeting time was arranged. We then delved into the story of the game, how we planned to connect all the mini-games, and various other nuances of the game such as boss battles and one-player vs multiplayer modes. Finally, we discussed how the group should communicate and our methods of doing work.

I spoke with some of the members regarding their tasks for the week, such as asking Cory for a simple intro screen, 

I spent most of my time making the team tech demo using assets given to me by Cory and Angela. I also looked for some placeholder UI elements. I added a few features to my game, as well as implementing shooting, adding a crosshair and targets, and refining the UI in Cory's game. Finally, I spent a lot of time trying to resolve UI issues such as improper scaling and trying to maintain some sort of consistency between games.

Mech Game Screenshot 

Positive (Hours duplicated from above)

- Meeting was productive and everyone was assigned/volunteered for work. Game story and Mechanics were fleshed out and meeting times established (1 hr)

-Everything was done by all members in a timely fashion and Cory finished website without needing any of my help

-Tech Demo came together well and can now leave mini-games, exit application, and scale with screen sizes without problem for the most part. (6 hr)

Negative

- CrossPlatformInput package in other projects gave me some trouble

- UI kept anchoring and scaling incorrectly (6 hr)

- One member did not show up to meetings and we have yet to hear anything from them 

Total Hours for the week: 8 hrs