Exhibition Night

Tonight we had our exhibition to show off our games and received a lot of positive feedback from people about the dog being cute, and the games being fun and entertaining to play so I’m really happy with the outcome. We had ideas on how to decorate the room to grab peoples attentions for example my idea was to recreate the scene just in the hall outside the room however the lack of preparation and resources meant we had to think of a plan b. After plenty of brainstorming with the lead designer, we decided to put stickers of paw prints on the ground leading from the doors to our room and a projection on the wall of someone playing the game.

Task Allocation and Production Scheduling

Our team meetings were pretty unorganized  However I mainly worked with the lead designer since he was here at tafe more often the other members. We had discussed things that were needed for the next day or week, then Id refer to pivotal tracker for any extra tasks set at a later time. Since the other members were too inconsistent with their attendance we just used pivotal tracker to track the tasks rather than allocation sheets.

Here is a link to my personal schedule with the 20+ things I worked on and completed and Here's another to the groups'.

Promotion

To promote our game I added a post to Facebook and I told friends, family and workmates about the demo night.

Final Stretch

For the past month I’ve been adding the splash screens and navigation to the game whilst polishing the mechanics of the game and making the whole game run smoothly with little to no bugs.

Below are pictures of the final games

More Animations

Over the past two weeks I have been working on the animations for the game so now the dog goes for a bath and eats his food properly (Timing was out) as well as other things. The dog now navigates through the different animations.

Below is an image with the new background

My job in the final presentation was to show off the game for the audience. I was pleased with the progress that we had made to this point but I was hoping we would have been further along with more functionality implemented. Our feedback was mixed. People thought the dog was cute, but we had it pooing too often so many people were more busy laughing at the trail of poo than paying much notice to the game itself. Reducing the pooing was the first thing that I fixed after the presentation. Seeing the ball moving on screen and seeing the dog walk around were both really rewarding, it made the game feel like it had life. Unfortunately the mini-game was not re-skinned in time which was a real set back. The other major feedback we got was the need to keep polishing the visuals.

New Found Hope

Over the weekend I had a look into the inbuilt animator in Unity, and surprisingly it was far easier than I had expected. Below is a picture of the new dog in mid walk cycle and as you can see in the top panel that I have already created a few idle animations.

Below is a picture later in the week, the dog has a new eating animation, the bowl now fills and empties, and I have started filling the scene with assets while the background is a placeholder so we get a sense of depth while the proper one gets made up.

So far I haven’t come across any complications apart from the animation being time consuming. We have a week break next week so I can work through that and get as much done as possible.

Workload just got unbearable

We found out earlier this week that the IDM group had internal problems of their own and as a result their 3D modelers had decided not to work on our assets for the 3D menu which meant we would need to do it ourselves and we were already falling behind as is. So we sat down again and had another look over our entire project to see if we can work out a way to make it easier to handle.

After a while we managed to narrow down to only needing 3 mini-games… but even that was still too much, so we looked at a few games that our lead-designer brought in on his tablet and we found one that we all liked. The game reminded me of a Tamagotchi, where you’d have to look after your pet to earn points for accessories. We decided to remove the currency and accessories and have the player work for a mini-game.

Here is a sketch of what our designer was thinking for the background. He was trying to exaggerate the Australian theme since the overall theme was already cartoony.

Then our lead artist took it and tried digitalising it and added some colour as well did a mock-up of a dog. We were trying for a blue healer looking dog to stick with the Australian theme.

I’m getting pretty concerned since I realized that the game would be heavily animation based and the Unitys’ animating tools are all new to me. But I’m going to try and learn the basics over the weekend and try to make a start on the new game.

Main Game Development

After we started working on the top down main game we had another meeting with the client to show them the current state of the project. They seemed like they were pleased with the prototype of our mini-game however the teachers didn't like the top down idea for the main game and suggested we use the IDM groups’ assets to create a 3D menu as a front to the mini-games. I don’t mind this idea because a 3D interactive menu would require less of my time so I can work on the mini-games as we are starting to fall behind.

Here is a mock-up of the planned 3D interactive menu:

Basically the scene would change from day to night and a school bus would come in the morning as a timer for all the pets to have been cared for.

First Presentation due – Prototype

The first game we decided to work on was the dog park sprinting game. We whipped up a quick version just in time for the prototype deadline. The graphics are all blocky with bold lines to try for a cartoon/hand drawn look.

The bar at the top is the dogs’ happiness level which impacts the score and speed in which the dog runs. The dog face would move across the bar and changes expression as an indicator as to how he feels. The items that come on screen are chosen at random however the good items only come on after 4 consecutive taps of the bad items to prevent spam taping the screen. The dogs’ movement is random so if the player misses an item then there’s a chance the dog will hit it. The background is made up of a tiling system that lays down a fence along the top and bottom of the screen then fills the space between with grass tiles and an occasional dirt patch. The tiling system was a challenging task for me and a lot of time searching the web for help as I had to find a way to get all the tiles to move at once without gaps and run smoothly but I’m happy with the outcome.

Below are a few screenshots of what the game looked like on the Prototype Stage:

The feedback we got from the teachers was that the game wasn't very fun and the graphics looked bad. They felt as if the storm was a pointless idea, and that the dog shouldn’t actually be moving randomly but maybe give the illusion. In response to the feedback I removed the storm cloud and tweaked with the speed increments and the timing of objects coming onto screen. I also reworked the dogs’ movement so now instead of moving randomly, he now moves up or down to the closest object coming his way so now the player has to tap the items otherwise the dog will get them. They suggested refining the scope of the game (make it about feeding the dog instead of avoiding bad things for dogs and collecting good things). They also said the game would look better if we used vector based graphics instead of bitmaps.

Our New Game Idea

Over the weekend I had thought up a few different ideas for games. Below is a picture of my preferred game idea. I tried to use the concept of subway surfer however have the dog move randomly on its own and have objects come onto the screen. The player would then have to tap on the good objects to make him run faster and clear bad objects to stop them hitting him which would make him run slower.

After we had our meeting on Monday, we were split into two concept groups. One half of us wanted to make a chicken running game, although it seemed fun it lacked the educational stuff that was required by the brief. I was in the other group with the idea of a matching tiles type of game that taught the children how to recognize animals and then gives them extra points for matching the correct food, and care to the animals.

We had a talk with the teachers to try and get help with our situation than was instructed to go and take both of the ideas and create something fun yet still educational from them. After another brainstorming session we had moved towards an arcade game based concept. Basically we decided to take a top down shot of a house and have the player run around the house caring for the animals. When the player gets close to an animal in need, they can interact with them in the form of a mini-game.

Here are a few concept images for the house and a few mini-games:

Fish bowl - the player feeds the fish, trying to keep the fish in a healthy weight range for as long as possible.

Cat backyard - The player uses a ball of yarn to lead a cat through the backyard hedge maze - avoiding dogs and sprinklers. The player also gets control of the sprinklers so they could prevent the patrolling dogs from reaching the cat.

Dog park – we decided to turn my game into one of the mini-games and added a storm to chase the dog so it gives the dog a reason to be running home.

Change of plans!

We had started working on the spelling bee game for the past week. However we were told a company approached the TAFE and was interested in having an educational game developed for their schools program and since our game was the closest to an educational level, the client was offered to us. So we stopped working on the spelling bee game and went back to the drawing board to come up with a game that fit with the brief that was assigned to us.

The brief we had gotten from the client was rather clear about what wasn't to be allowed however it left a broad design scope. What they were looking for was something that would help teach children about how to care for animals. A big factor that wasn't allowed was harming of animals and this proved to be a difficult issue to work around as punishment to the player is usually a key mechanic in games, so we had to think of ways to avoid this creatively while keeping it ‘fun’.

We started to look at other games, mostly educational games, games with animals, and games aimed at children, which included the clients existing games they were offering to kids to play. The few games they already had made it clear as to why they wanted a new and improved game. One game they had for example was made up of 5 mini-games and as a whole worked perfectly to the brief however it lacked in the ‘fun’ department. On the other end of the scale there was a skateboarding gecko that was fun but had very suspicious assets and interactions. It looked as if the player had to collect alcohol and drugs.

Next week we’re going to have a group meeting and work out what our next move is and what game idea we’re going to go with.

Games and roles decided

Unfortunately my game wasn't chosen by the lecturers however I was still given the role of a programmer. The game that I was assigned to was a spelling bee style game where Letters would spawn on the right of the screen and the player would guide the bee to collect the letters to spell a word set at the top of the screen. Successfully spelling the word would add points to the players score. Hitting the wasps would be a penalty. Additional points would be earned by collecting flowers and banking them at the bee hive at the bottom right of the screen. Here is a concept image as to what the game could look like.

It looks like an interesting game to create that could be fun yet educational at the same time which is usually hard to do. I do believe that the game should be achievable within the 3-4 month timeline that has been given to us. I can’t wait to get started!

Project Pitch and Interviews

In this semester we are going to be working in a team to create a game that will hopefully be able to be released. To start off everyone had to pitch a game idea to the entire class. My idea was a robot smash 'em up style of game, where the player would enter a tournament to see how if they have what it takes to be the champion.
Here is a link to the presentation and self assessment documents.

After the game pitches we were to undergo an interview with the lectures to apply for a role in a team. The lectures are now putting the teams together based on the roles that people have applied for. Here is a link to my resume, cover letter, and feedback assessment.

For the role of a programmer that I have chosen to apply for I’ll need to make sure I have an understanding of what the producer wants from the game at all times so it is completed on time. Also to achieve that I’ll need to make sure I have a constant line of communication with the other team members and work with them to implement their elements to the designers specifications.

Being the programmer means I’ll have to integrate the artwork, modelling, and audio into the game and give feedback on any issues to ensure that the game functions and complies with the designers expectations. Another important role for the programmer is to make sure the game runs smoothly on the relevant platform and debug any cross-platform issues that may arise while creating builds.

Project Goals and Objectives

My goal this semester is to get a better understanding of how a programmer works efficiently in a team environment whilst trying to improve on my skills and knowledge at the same time. By the end of this coarse i would like to have a game that is finished and releasable to the public. Then in the future I want to be using the skills I develop from this coarse to participate in the making of games from big title companies like Ubisoft and Valve etc.