Content with Hours (Examples included):
Getting closer to the end of this project, my main focus
this week was to clean up different aspects of the game structure and my individual
games, as well as implement a new one if I got the chance.
To begin the week, I tried to make the game more uniform by
adding the pink bar of pre-game instructions I had in my mini/micro-games into
each of the others as shown in Figure 1. This required modifying the timer and
stateholder scripts to consider when a game actually “starts” (instruction bar
disappears) as well as updating the scripts for each game to consider this new
logic. Furthermore, there was the issue of the low amount of points the game
awarded from playtesting, so I centralized and increased the point values and
updated all the game scripts to use these variables so that the point values
can be easily modified. Lastly, in terms of structure, I noticed that when I
updated the transition screen to compare the scores from the last game to
decide what music should play (as part of my score changes from the last build),
I accidentally had the updating of previous scores in an if-block so it did not
update every time as it should and does now. (2.50 hrs)
Figure
1. Screenshot of pre-game instruction bar in existing Runnerz game
Moving on, I
made a few additions and updates to my each of my existing games listed below...
-
Abducktion (0.25 hr)
- Added sound effects for X-ray and cup swap (whoosh)
- Draw
at Noon (2.00 hrs)
- Created an animation controller and added/modified scripts to handle animating
the alien as shown in Figure 2
- Modified motion of human knockback to coincide with the alien’s as well as to
keep the camera on the animating alien
- Fixed issue where alien would shoot itself after Ricardo shortened the
transitions
- G-Switch (0.25 hr)
- Slowed spinner speed to make it easier for aliens to affect the game
- Added sound effect for jump to make it easier for Human 2 to know when to
switch gravity
- Dance
Off (0.50 hr)
- Modified motions of player object and added slight motions to camera to try to
get more consistent motion and feedback
Figure 2. Animating
alien model in Draw at Noon
After
modifying my existing games, I had a bit of time to create a game based off of
the Whac-A-Mole arcade machine (cleverly called Whack-An-Alien) as shown in
Figure 3. Just like the real machine, moles (or aliens in this case) randomly
pop up out of the nine holes. The humans need to position the hammer over the
corresponding hole (by holding in the correct direction(s)) and slam it down on
the alien in order to get points (see the screenshot for controls). After a
short time of not being hit by the hammer, though, the alien will retract into
its hole and the aliens will be awarded points. Aliens continue to pop up
randomly until time runs out. The work for this game consisted of building the
scene up with all of the assets (including modelling a simple Whac-A-Mole-esque
machine in Maya), writing the two scripts to handle the moles and the hammer,
and retrieving the background music for it (http://www.playonloop.com/2016-music-loops/dolphin-ride/).
(3.50 hrs)
Figure
3. Screenshot from Whack-An-Alien micro-game
Lastly, since
we are nearing the end of the project, we were required to watch a post-mortem presentation
from the GDCVault in order to familiarize ourselves with the mindset we should
have in thinking about how the project went well and how it could have gone
better. After watching parts of a few different presentations, I finally
settled on watching Chris Harvey’s “Learning From Our Mistakes: A Post-Mortem
of Guacamelee!” all the while taking notes. Below you can find my summary of
these notes. (1.75 hrs)
As a co-founder of DrinkBox Studios,
Chris had a prime viewpoint to see how the process of creating their first game,
About a Blob, compared to their process for creating their much more successful
third game, Guacamelee, and thereby outlined what changed to bring this success.
Within this presentation, Chris split the process into three main stages: Concepting,
Development and Marketing.
In the Concepting stage, there were
a few different aspects that needed to be considered, including choosing a
concept, defining the game and finding the fun. In terms of choosing a concept,
they changed up their process by having members of the studio in all different
departments meet and create single page pitch sheets outlining a game idea
complete with genre, platform, target audience, story and mechanics. Therefore,
they could select the game idea that the consensus enjoyed and refine the
selected idea with pieces from other pitches to make it even better. Moving on
to defining the game, DrinkBox refused to enter production until they
understood and nailed down the basics of the game and had as few loose ends as
possible. That way the team could stay focused and synchronized meaning that time
would not be wasted later on second guessing decisions. Lastly, in terms of Concepting,
Chris mentioned that in order to find the fun while keeping consistency, the
fundamentals of the game should be conservative and individual elements should
instead be riffed on. There is no need to reinvent the wheel for every aspect
of your game, and it is better to have existing similar games to see what works
and what does not, since that could end up wasting a lot of valuable time in
the process.
In the Development stage, there
were also multiple aspects that needed to be considered, including
pre-production, deadlines, personality and charm, toolset and target platform.
Starting with pre-production, Chris mentioned the importance of having a small,
dedicated team (from different disciplines) with clear goals and roles to get
the process rolling and keep it focused. He also stressed that the leads of the
project should not be working externally or this focus could easily be thrown
off resulting in rebooting and second guessing. Lastly, he mentioned the
importance of keeping constant discussion and to work on small pieces at a time
instead of trying to create the whole game at once. This led directly into the
idea of setting incremental deadlines with small and obtainable goals. On this
front, Chris also noted the effectiveness at making the deadlines external to
publishers/the public, since it would put pressure on the team to actually get
it done, allow the team to see what each person is capable of and to identify
what in the project is not as important as originally thought. Despite having
deadlines, though, the DrinkBox team found the importance of switching to the
mindset of saying “yes” to more of the team’s ideas so their personality could define
it. Therefore, they would have team meetings to see in-progress work from all
departments and accept feedback/suggestions as well as encouraged
experimenting, which created a more positive atmosphere and revealed unexpected
talents from individuals on the team. In addition to being more open and
creative, the team realized the importance of making the development faster,
easier and more efficient in any way they could. Therefore, when they found a
deficiency or an iteration process to be slow, they made modifications to the
process to improve the situation, such as creating a programmer-driven, artist
tunable system to create visual effects instead of relying as heavily on the
artists. Lastly, in terms of determining the target platform and the release
process, Chris said they had basically no change in the result (still
self-published), but they did change their attitude to question presumptions
and to put proper thought into it before making a decision.
Moving onto the last part of the
process, Marketing, Chris laid out the importance of making the game as visible
as possible through the game reveal, public relations and the launch. Starting
with the game reveal, DrinkBox was initially scared to show About a Blob early
due to changes possibly confusing people and the belief that showing a game not
polished enough would ruin the reputation of their game, however, this resulted
in a lack of anticipation for the game. For Guacamelee, though, they took the
opposite approach and announced the game just out of pre-production with an
announcement trailer that was not perfect, but it still built excitement. Furthermore,
they showed the game off as early and often as possible anywhere they could.
This lead to them to continuously work with a PR firm to help with the
marketing side. Chris mentioned that there was not much media coverage for
About a Blob since they were trying to do it themselves and put it off until
the end. Considering marketing is a huge part of selling a game, it makes much
more sense to hire people who know what they are doing, instead of trying to
figure out it out yourself and wasting time that could be spent on the game.
Lastly, Chris discussed the importance of planning and taking the launch extremely
seriously, including a press tour, reviews and store placement/timing.
Overall, Chris started out the
presentation sounding a little nervous, but I think he definitely warmed up
throughout it. The information provided and the idea to compare the process of
creating a successful game to one that was not so successful really helped
drive home the points he wanted to make. This presentation definitely brought a
different set of ideas that I never really considered and I plan on putting
more thought into the process next time I work on a game.
Content Positive:
- Implemented a bit more uniformity with pre-game
instructions and centralizing point values
- Added to and fixed up various parts of my four existing
games (including alien animations in Draw at Noon)
- Created Whack-An-Alien micro-game
- Watched a very interesting and helpful post-mortem presentation
Content Negative:
- N/A
Total Hours for the week: 10.75 hrs
