Hi guys, hope you are all well! I’m just going to do a quick update on the briefs I’ve been working on lately. It’s been going a bit slow since I’ve had quite a bit to take care of and focus on during these tough times but I’m working my way through them and I can confidently say they are almost all complete!
So the first brief I’m going to talk about is the ‘Your turn’. The one where I had to come up with a pack of ten levels introducing a new obstacle to a cute little puzzle game. As stated in the previous posts I went with the ‘anti-key’ enemy to make the gameplay feel like it has a limited time concept and for the player to feel like they could be playing against someone perhaps.
I created ten levels making sure to keep the essence and feel of the game all the while trying to introduce a new and exciting obstacle for the player to face. With each level I made sure it was possible to complete the levels (very important thing to do!), tried to ease the player into the new environment so they could understand the new obstacle and also provided the least amount of turns it would tale to win each level.
I have to say it was quite fun to create interesting levels that are limited to the rules that were already provided and adding something that was mine to it. In a future post I’ll add some screenshots of some of the more exiting levels so that some of you can maybe try it out for yourselves! Since it isn’t an actual game!
Ok so the last brief is my favourite, and I saved it for last just like saving your favourite part of your dinner for last! It is to create a prototype for a card game that documents how humanity came to an end while also being fun and multiplayer. The extension is to make rules for a single player option which I’m sure I have a solid idea for.
So there were many routes I could have gone for with how humanity came to an end, the obvious options are alien invasion, world war 3 and maybe a zombie apocalypse. But I didn’t want to go down the cliche route, I’ve gone for a more underworld/death realm uprising, taking over the world from below, replacing the living with lost souls bound to eternal servitude. Cool right?
So I’m still trying to figure out how I want the game to actually play out but I have some ideas, taking inspirations from other big card games out there. I’ll keep you guys posted on the progress of this brief as I can see it being really fun and productive!
In the general specialism lectures we got into groups of 5 and designed assets for a possible tile matching game focused around fantasy forests drawing on inspiration from movies such as Dark Crystal (1982), Pan’s Labyrinth (2006) and Legend (1985). We focused on assets around each of our own specialisms. We started producing assets for a tile matching game similar to Candy Crush and Bejeweled. Design wise, it was quite simple, having to match 3 or more of the same tile to add to a score bar that you need to fill to move onto the next level.
The image above is a ‘game in a frame’ of the tile matching game we designed. A simple mechanic for a special tile which would take the shape of a crystal would destroy all the tiles in a cross pattern centered on the crystal tile. This would give a larger sum of score to the score bar but is significantly rarer than the other tiles.
Tiles can be swapped with tiles adjacent with them which is the way players try to match tiles of the same kind with each other to gain more score.
Further improvements
I have thought of new ideas to improve the game including more variety of special tiles and how they act as well as trying to match the theme of the game to influence the design of the game more. For example, since the game theme is heavily on the enchanted fantasy forest and good vs. evil vibe, having the special tiles feel like they do more magical things such as swirling patterns or destroying other tiles in a more spell kind of manner. This could in turn make the game more unique and in tune with the theme.
So as promised in the last post I’m going to go through what I’ve done in the design specialism lectures a little more in detail.
Brief 1 – Newspaper website game
The first brief was to deliver a pitch for a game that would be presented on the side as readers scroll through the newspaper’s website. However, the game had to be related to an existing story within the newspaper. I designed a casual web game around the recent flooding crisis that hit the UK last month. A simple goal of getting flood victims from one side of a raging flooded river to the other before time runs out all the while dodging debris that is floating down river.
The image to the left shows a rudimentary but important part of design – a storyboard, or more appropriate for this type of game, a game board. Simplistic sketches of key moments presented within the game.
So to explain a little what is actually happening in the game board, it shows what would appear at the beginning of the game. A raging river with the player starting off on the right ahead of a bridge that looks ready to give up at a moments notice. The goal of the game is to get to the other side of the river before time runs out using only the ‘Horizontal’ keys (arrows and/or A/D keys).
To make the game challenging, hazards (such as floating logs) will float down river that the player will have to dodge. Coming into contact with a hazard will restart the game for the player to have another shot at saving the victims.
If the time should run out, then the bridge in the background finally gives way to a torrent of flood water that rushes down screen to restart the level.
Its a simple game but I think it fits the need for where the game would be positioned and could raise awareness for the real victims of the floods that hit the UK last month. As part of the pitch I had to talk about why this game would be an asset to the newspaper focusing on the financial and technological side of things to a board that might not be so caught up with the ideas of games and creating games.
Brief 2 – Specific level design
For this brief I had to create 10 levels for an existing puzzle game in which I introduce a new obstacle to spice up the game for its players. The image below shows how the original game actually works so you get an idea of the original game.
So essentially its a puzzle game in which the player has to reach an objective that allows them to proceed to the next level as long as they don’t run into any of the hazards also moving across the board. This brief was quite hard in the fact that the game had to remain basically the same in its self as too not change the fundamentals, but to produce another obstacle that was fun and interesting enough for the already loyal fans.
Many options came to mind for a potential new obstacle. The brief was vague enough to think of an obstacle as being a potential enemy, a new environmental factor or possibly even something that could affect the player in a good/interesting manner.
The idea i came up with is a twist on an actual hazard. How about an enemy that doesn’t focus on catching the player or cutting into their path every now and then what about an enemy that goes after the key that the player needs for the exit of the current level?
Now I know this was a little out there but I thought it would be interesting to mix things up. The way the enemy would essentially work to try and make it as fair as possible because this enemy wouldn’t have to really plan its moves around the other enemies like the player would, is that it would spawn the furthest space from the key possible. This is turn gives the player a fairer chance of reaching the key before the enemy does while planning around the other moving obstacles. The ‘Anti-key’, as I have so in-eloquently named this enemy, would follow the same movement patterns as the triangle enemy, in which it moves one square at a time either vertically or horizontally (choosing the one that has a greater distance to the key, and preferring horizontal in the case of ties). The ‘Anti-key’ cannot occupy the same space as any other obstacle and ceases to move anymore if the player reaches the key first, becoming a stationary obstacle from then on out.
I tried to create levels in which the player could feel like they are being challenged by someone/something else, to give the illusion of facing an opponent as if the game was multiplayer.
Brief 3 – End of the world card game
This brief is the one I am currently working on and has me design a prototype for a card game for multiple people while also documenting and records how the world came to an end in the first place, a kind of time capsule if you will for showing that humanity existed in the past.
Now there are many options I could take for deciding how the world ended. it could be the good old fashion nuclear war, global pandemic, alien invasion, zombie apocalypse or even natural disasters worldwide.
I also need to look into existing card games such as Legends of Runterra, Hearthstone and Pokemon as well as many others, to try and draw on inspiration for how the card game could play out, how to win and to determine the uses of different cards. Furthermore, I will need to create a physical prototype of the game as well as a detailed instruction manual of how the game should be played.
So quite a lot of information there but I’ve managed to catch you up on the work I’ve been doing over the passed few weeks, which I’m not going to lie, has been challenging with all that has happened recently but I am determined to get it all done, and done to a good standard.
It has been quite a while since my last post due to some unforeseen circumstances but I’m going to quickly catch you guys up on everything that has been going on within the course and specialism briefs I’ve been tackling over the past couple of weeks or so.
Design Specialism
So the last time I spoke about the briefs was back with the first brief which was to pitch a casual game that would be presented on the sidelines of a newspaper website, with the game taking inspiration from a major story within the newspaper. I decided to pitch a simple casual web game focused around the flooding crisis that hit Britain last month in which the player has to get victims of a flooded house across a raging river in time all the while dodging incoming debris from up river. More in depth info in the next post!
General Specialism
The general specialism lectures have had me create assets for a tile matching game based around a fantasy forest inspired from movies such as Dark crystal (1982), Pan’s Labyrinth (2006) and Legend (1985). It was quite cool to work in a team we got to pick and create assets related to our specialism.
Little bit of context
So like I said at the beginning, I haven’t really been able to keep on top of posting recently because unfortunately I fell ill a few weeks back and then everything got kind of flipped upside down with the current situation with COVID-19 that its been quite stressful to say the least. However, I am going to try and keep on top of posting what I will be working on in the coming weeks, but in the mean time, hope all you guys are ok with everything that is going on out in the world at the moment, stay safe and I’ll see you in the next post!
So, I had my first design specialism session on Tuesday. For half of the session we sat and my lecturer went through each of the 14 briefs we could choose from.
I’ll clarify what we actually have to do with the briefs first. Each brief focuses on a specific area with in design and presents a problem, or more accurately, a situation that could occur in the industry. For the module, we have to select three briefs and attempt them over the course of the semester. However, we only have around 2 weeks to do each brief before having to stop and move onto the next one. We don’t actually have to complete the brief necessarily, just attempt them.
The first brief i decided to tackle was quite an interesting one. So the scenario is that I need to provide a pitch for a game that can be embedded into a newspaper’s website based on an existing big story within the paper. Extended work is that I provide a mechanical demo for the game if I am able to reach that point which hopefully I can within the two weeks.
First steps are deciding which newspaper and what story the game could possibly be about that would be helpful and beneficial to the paper. After that I will have to do some research into other embedded website games around the genre or on the newspaper I have selected before developing a plan for the pitch.
I’ll keep you guys posted with each step I complete as well as letting you know what will be happening next, so stick around!
If we start of with level design, all you need to do is look a bit more carefully at the structure of the first level in Super Mario Bros and how it teaches the player how to play the game without any complicated tutorials or pop up messages. Lets be honest with each other for a minute… tutorials suck. Yes they can be helpful and if done right and subtle enough they are great, but there is nothing worse than booting up a game that you have been waiting to play for months now but before you can actually play the campaign or online with your friends it says… HERE’S 6 10 MINUTE TUTORIALS TO TEACH ABOUT EVERY SINGLE MECHANIC AND FEATURE IN THE GAME! Okay it doesn’t really say that but you get what I mean, there will be a lengthy tutorial or multiple tutorials to teach you everything you need to know. While that is all well and good, sometimes its just not needed.
This is where Super Mario Bros comes in, designed by the amazingly talented game designer, Shigeru Miyamoto. He designed the first level in such a way that it could teach even non-gamers how to play in minutes. There are so many specific parts to the level that they took into account that this post would be pages long if I went into them all, so down below is a link to an amazing YouTube video that explains them much better than I can. Take a look at the video and you’ll understand so much more and realize that every block placed in that game has a purpose.
The other side of design that I personally really enjoy is the narrative side. Now speaking as a student in a class of about 30 other game design students, I can tell you now that this opinion on narrative being important or required is split. Personally I love narrative in games, I feel like they really help to immerse the player within a game. There are quite a few games that have a narrative that I really enjoyed including:
The Last of Us
Skyrim
Divinity: Original Sin (and the sequel)
Subnautica
Outlast
Firewatch
Gunpoint
The Crooked Man
I was getting a bit carried away there and had to actually stop myself, but there are a lot more games that have strong and interesting narratives that I could continue this list for ages. But to save you just reading a list of games I enjoy i’ll just briefly explain why. For me, a good and consistent narrative can keep me intrigued. I could just go play an online FPS and just be captivated by the unlocking of new weapons or whatever but I can guarantee you I will be bored after a few rounds (probably because I’m bad at them, but not the point). Lets take Subnautica for example. The game doesn’t present you with all the narrative at the beginning, as far as you know you’ve just crashed on an alien planet and you just have to survive until help arrives. But as you explore the new world you start to piece things together, find answers to questions that present even more questions. The narrative pulls you in gradually, slowly building up your innate curiosity to find out what has happened or why something is happening. This is when you realize you’ve been playing the game for hours and its now dark outside… no? Just me? moving on then.
So, to sum up, certain parts of game design really do intrigue me and I feel like some parts are actually underappreciated sometimes. But I hope you guys have learnt something cool or fun and maybe even peaked your curiosity to play one of the games I listed above for yourself, If there are any games I didn’t mention that you think has a great narrative, please let me know! I’d love to check it out!
Hey guys! Just want to start off by saying thank you for taking the time to read this blog and I hope you enjoy it! If you haven’t already, head over to quick introductions, it’ll explain what this blog is about, why I’m doing it and most importantly, who I am!
The Module – Game Specialism
So this blog is primarily for documenting my work throughout one of my modules during my second semester, that being Game Specialism. Now there were a lot of specialized and cool areas I could have chosen including programming, graphics and narrative. However, for me it has to be design. Not to toot my own horn here but I would say I am pretty good at art, relatively new to the old Photoshop and illustrator, but I reckon I’ve mastered the basics. Enough so that I was the Art director of my last group project, but there is something about design that has always intrigued me. Designing the actual levels the player will be experiencing to the themes and narrative of the game just seems a bit more interesting to me than picking up the pencil and drawing.
