On Friday, we got to playtest two games. One was a beta of a video game and the other that was a prototype for a game. The video game was called Shady Sam and was about loans. Shady Sam was very fun and addicting. In the game, you are a loan shark trying to get the most money you can from your clients. At the end of the game, you would get a rank like Slimy or Callous, which made you want to play again to get different ranks. I think that in Shady Sam, the clients need to come with a variety of difficulty. You would get one client many times, where you just had to charge her, so that was a little too easy to get the money. The prototype was for a game about credit scores, which at first was very confusing with all the rules, but very fun to watch. But as we kept playing, it became clearer. In that game, you are trying to either get to a credit of around 830 or get your opponent to around 320. I feel that the credit game will be easier if it is online because then you can have the rules right in front of you and you don’t have to keep track of your own points and number of rounds. I feel that both of these playtesting experiences provided me with a sense of how much work actually goes into making successful games. When we made games and playtested them, we didn’t really utilize the info that we got to revise our games. I think that when you playtest both prototypes and betas, you get more helpful info that will help you determine what platform will be better and how the player will feel playing your game.
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For the past few weeks, we have been doing video design in Premiere. I struggled a little on the game trailer assignment. We had to edit footage into a game trailer and then do the foley for the trailer. I’d never made a trailer before so I didn’t know what it should look like. I feel that making game trailers will come up in my future as a game design student, so I decided to better my game trailer making skills. Since the best way to find out information is to research, I looked for articles on how to improve game trailers. I found an article on GameAnalytics that had some do’s and don’ts to making game trailers. One of their do’s was to make sure that your trailer focuses on the actual gameplay. That seems very obvious, but is something that I would probably forget. I found it surprising that the article listed editing as you go along as a don’t. I thought that it was okay to edit what you had and add more as you went. Another thing I found interesting was that using animated text could make a trailer better. I thought that text would be distracting so I didn’t put in any extra. One thing that they suggested was to plan your trailer out beforehand. I think that if I had storyboarded mine that it wouldn’t have taken as long and then I would know exactly where to put the sounds. I found another article on Vanilla Forums Community Blog that had a few rules that I will definitely take into account next time I make a game trailer if it doesn’t have specific instructions. One of their rules was to keep it under 60 seconds. That makes a lot of sense because you wouldn’t want it to get boring for the viewer and you don’t want to show all the good stuff all at once and overwhelm them. I learned that a voice over is just used to hook the viewers into your game, not for just telling important information like rating and release date. I know that the beginning and end of a trailer is important, but didn’t know that the end is also important for marketing. Next time I make a game trailer, I will definitely use what I learned. Things to remember:
Works Cited
“The 9 Do's and Don'ts of Game Trailers.” GameAnalytics, GameAnalytics, 24 Sept. 2018, gameanalytics.com/blog/dos-and-donts-of-game-trailers.html. W., Amol. “Vanilla Forums Community Blog.” [Gaming] Managing Community Toxicity, blog.vanillaforums.com/gaming/make-kick-ass-game-trailer-5-easy-steps. So, for the past few weeks we have been doing audio and video editing in Adobe Audition and Premiere. I have learned a lot about audio and video editing techniques and programs. We have been using Adobe Premiere for video and Adobe Audition for audio. I had previous experience in Premiere from my digital media classes, but had never used Audition. Audition took some getting used to and I think I’ve started to get used to it.
I found some aspects of audio and video editing to be easier than others. I feel that audio editing has been more difficult than video, but I believe that is probably because I am more comfortable with video. It has been difficult to get some of the audio to sound exactly how I’ve envisioned it. I didn’t know how to speed up or loop a track in Audition and I found an article on it which didn’t help greatly, because it was outdated, but did lead me in the right direction. Even with the article, I still had a little trouble speeding up my sounds, but I found a tool which allowed me to speed up the track. I haven’t really had any trouble in Premiere. It has been easy to edit video and get the intended looks for my videos. I didn’t encounter this problem, but in the past, syncing up audio and video has been really hard for me. I think these skills will help me greatly in the future as a GAD concentrator student. I will be better equipped to make better products. I might be able to make music or sounds for a game. Or maybe make a really good trailer to advertise a game. Audio and Video Editing
For the past couple weeks, we have been getting into designing audio in Adobe Audition. Audio is used in games to evoke emotions in the players. One of my favorite game soundtracks is the Mario Kart Wii soundtrack. The soundtrack’ catchy beats set the feel for the races. It matches gameplay very well. When you are in doing the Coconut Mall race the song is very happy and perky; however, when doing Bowser’s Castle, the music is more thematic. All the songs are different, which is similar to the races, in which all the races are different.
Depending on the level that the sound corresponds with, the emotions stirred up can be different. A player might get really mad when hearing a song from a race that they weren’t able to get first in. Another player might get really happy when hearing a song from a race that they always won first in. When someone hears the loading screen sound, they might get nostalgic and have mixed emotions thinking about earlier years. The music isn’t really used to guide the gameplay, instead, it's more to add to the game’s aesthetic. I don’t think that the soundtrack had a big effect on me while I played; however, I always liked the Coconut Mall song, because I always won that race. It always made me happy to hear it. And I hated the Rainbow road song because I always got in last place. Some songs I love and others I hate, because of the memories associated with them. I think the game brings back memories from early years when the Wii was the only popular console. For example, memories of more free time, less homework, and better weather. I have included the soundtrack, so that you can listen too. Mario Kart Wii Soundtrack
F4m1LyGuy10. “Full Mario Kart Wii Soundtrack.” YouTube, composed by Asuka Ota and Ryo Nagamatsu, F4m1LyGuy10, Aug 15, 2012, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iVm8jPP_iQ4
For the past few weeks, we have been building a 2D game called Sepsis Survival. I was the production manager, writer, and audio technician. It was supposed to be due on Tuesday, but we got an extension due to unforeseen computer issues that affected the rest of the class. With the extension, we were able to completely finish our game. It has audio, dialogue, and art. Now that it’s done, its time to reflect on my strengths and struggles.
I think that my strengths in this project were keeping everyone on track. I made sure that we all knew the deadlines and updated the Trello board to match the deadlines. Another strength would be communication. I think I did a good job communicating with my team members about the management part of the project, such as deadlines and roles. I believe that I contributed to my group and gave ideas and suggestions instead of not participating in group discussions. I think I struggled at doing my part of the game. I was the audio tech/writer and had a hard time coming up with ideas for the script. I think I struggled a little being a leader because I'm not usually a leader in projects. I struggled at using all of my time to the fullest. I believe that I struggled in communicating my ideas in a clear way that made sense to everyone. I think that my time management issues could have been avoided, if I had prioritized the project over other school work. I felt good about being a part of a team because I know that three people can create more than one person by themselves. Sometimes I prefer being in a group over working independently and vice verse but it really depended on the assignment. Things to improve on:
This is the last week of the project and we have gotten a lot of work done. All the background are done. The art work is done and the script is almost done. Shannon has helped me a lot in editing the script. We are working on the last part which takes place at the hospital. I found sound effects and music from Youtube’s audio library. The ones I selected don’t have any licensing requirements, so we can just put them in the game. We didn’t encounter any problems this week which was very good. Chloe’s problem from last week has been solved. My plan for this week is very simple. The project is due on Tuesday at 11:59, so by Tuesday at the end of class, I plan to have the script and programming all caught up with each other. Hopefully, we get a good grade. Here is one of the backgrounds of the hospital that Shannon completed. This week we got a lot done. The script is almost finished and the starting screen is all programmed. All of the background artwork is complete. We have been discussing how the game will work at certain points and the order of how things will happen. For example, we discussed and decided that when the character gets a symptom, there will be a sound, and the then the symptom will appear in the upper right corner of the screen and stay there the whole level.
One problem we had this week involved programming. Chloe was trying to use cases or something and they weren't working. Thankful, Nick was there and gave her some help with her problem. My plan for the coming week is to finish what was expected from last week, is to finish the script by Wednesday. By Friday, I plan to have all the characters are done maybe a few scenes programmed. Here is one of the backgrounds that Shannon completed. This week, not a lot of work got done. We had the PSAT and missed two days of school because of hurricane Michael. On Tuesday, we went over each others interfaces and talking about what which we wanted to use. In the end, we decided to combine all of our ideas for the interfaces into one.
We didn’t have any problems but we all didn’t get to the expected end date, because of all the disruptions. However, the graphics for the are coming along well according to Shannon. Chloe started figuring things out in Unity on Tuesday which was great. My plan for the coming week is to finish what was expected from last week. I plan to have all the graphics and the story down by friday, so that the next week we can focus on the programming and sound effects. This is a picture of some of the concept art that Shannon made for the game. The objects on the left are some of the objects that you interact with. The pictures on the right are of one of the characters. So this week, we started our serious game development project. First, we picked the three games that we wanted to make. My game Silent and Deadly was chosen along with Get Learnt Colors and Master Disaster. Since my game was chosen, I got to be the team led and pick my group. I picked my group based off of our strengths and weaknesses. I picked Chloe and Shannon to be in my group. Chloe is amazing at programming and Shannon is great at art. I think I'm fairly good at writing, but I'm not that good at programming and I'm terrible at art. I believe that by combining all our strengths, that we will be able to make a playable game by the 24th.
We haven't really had any problems yet because we've been working individually on our interfaces. We have been discussing how the mechanics of the game. Shannon and I were discussing how we thought art style should look like, and I talked with Chloe how the style would be. My original idea for the game would be a 3d mobile game, but that would be too hard and we can't be 3d anyway. So the game will be 2d. My plan for next week depends on if we have other required assignments to do. If we don't I think by Wedsnday we would hand-drawn concept art for the main character done, and at least one sound effect made. By the end of the week, I hope to have the main character digital, a sketch for one of the location's background, and the writing for the game finished. This is my interface below. On Tuesday, we are going to meet as a group and discuss our interface ideas. Last week and today, we pitched our game ideas to the rest of the class. Then we had to choose one to reflect on. I chose Hurricane Rescue Simulator, because I feel that it is most relevant to whats happening in the nation. Hurricane Rescue Simulator is a VR game to teach hurricane rescue. It teaches the player how to navigate a rescue boat, tie ropes, rescue victims, locate victims, and first aid.
The game teaches through the use of tutorials. I think that this game could be created by students, only if they knew how to make a VR game. I do think that they would have problems figuring how to design the rope typing part. I feel that it needs a better name. It needs something catchy to get people’s attention. I was impressed by how every part of the game can be used in real life. Everything you learn can actually be applied. Hurricanes could affect the whole US, so this game could be very beneficial. I felt that the pitch was very good because the purpose of the game was very clear. I didn’t have any questions after the game was pitched, because I think the pitch went over everything I have questions about. I think that hurricane rescue simulator could be marketable We would need to do more market research; however, it is hard to find data on simulation games. It will have little to no competition, which is good for the company. It sounds like a good game; however, I don’t know if people would pay more than 99cs for the game.
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AuthorI'm a student at Durham School of the Arts, and currently in the Game Art Design pathway. I like playing the Sims 4, playing with dogs, and riding horses. This blog will reflect my learning and discoveries. Archives
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