As this year is coming to an end I thought I would do a reflection of Advanced Game Art and Design as a whole. This year has been completely remote so that is taken into account but I think I have learned a lot anyway. Firstly I think that while all of my classes were online this year, this class was the easiest to adapt to as we are always using technology even when we are in school. Because of this, most of my classmates and I already had the programs installed and we were able to use all of the same things that we usually do. I enjoyed this year and I think that it was very helpful that before we started making our game we went back to 3DS Max and Unity to refresh ourselves with the programs. This allowed us to both learn more about them and also become better at the skills we had previously learned. This also benefited our final project as we were able to make models and create the game a lot faster than we would have otherwise. Another benefit from this year was that we focused a lot on the pre-production for our games and this allowed us to go through the production stage fairly quickly as we knew exactly what we were looking for. Being able to create a game design document for our game as well as mapping out what choices the player would have allowed us to not have to think about these things and focus solely on the actual creation aspects. If there are any aspiring game designers out there, I recommend doing as much pre-production as possible as it will help a lot later. Moving past this, when it came to making our game I thought that as a whole our team did well. We communicated well and often and I think that our game as a whole turned out good. I think it could have definitely been better but for us being seniors about to graduate, I think we did a great job. Overall I think that this year went as well as it could have given the circumstances and I am very happy with how it all turned out. As this is my final year of this class this will be my last blog post and I have to say that I will not miss having to write these all the time.
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Recently, as more and more games become free, I have been thinking about what I would rather have, the cost being upfront, or having in-game purchases. I would rather have the game be free with additional add-ons. As someone who has played on both console and PC I have realized that a game either costs around 30-$60 or is free to play (in most cases) and that usually, the free games tend to do pretty well with consumers if they are made well. Some great examples of this are League of Legends, Fortnite, and Rocket League. All of these games are free to play from the beginning and most of the money spent comes from buying cosmetics. On the other hand, games like Call of Duty or Overwatch require the consumer to spend money to buy the game before any in-game cosmetics are factored in. Firstly, I think that both of these work well from the business perspective but as a consumer, the game being free is always an advantage. As someone how does not care that much about in-game skins and cosmetics, free games have always allowed me to participate fully without having to spend money. On the other hand, most paid games already have many customization options that I also enjoy when I have them unlocked. I think that as a game company, making your game free will help bring a lot of attention and allow more players to play even though you are not generating as much revenue. I think this is better in the long term. This strategy allows you to keep producing cosmetic items which some consumers will continue to buy. This is why it is better in the long term.
Moving away from that, I did hear one idea that brought both ideas together. My friend told me that he would spend around $40-$60 in cosmetics on a game that was free because he felt he would have to pay that much if the game was not free. I find this very interesting because, in theory, this idea makes sense but, in reality, this should not be a valid argument. This is because I do not feel spending money on pure cosmetics is worth it, especially when they can usually be earned. Overall, I think that both free and paid games can be good but I prefer to play free games as I do not usually spend money on cosmetics. Summary
Over the winter holiday and the weeks before our class once again started to work in Unity and create our own games. Our project was to create a 3rd person parkour game that allowed the player to jump over and on different obstacles. This project was something that I had never coded before. Learning once again how to set up a player controller script was very helpful as it reminded me of some of the other processes and helped me get back to coding games. The one thing I really struggled with however was working with animations. Because this was a parkour game, the player had to have a jump and walk animation at the very least and this meant that I needed to learn how everything worked in Unity. This was a struggle that took multiple hours to figure out. From making sure all the code was right in my player controller script to setting up an animation controller, I finally remembered what a struggle Unity can be. After long hours, when I finally figured it out, I got a great sense of enjoyment that I remember from creating games last year. For creating my first game in half a year, I would say it turned out pretty good and it helped get me back into the groove of coding. The gameplay is featured on my selected works if you would like to check it out. Along with this class, I am also taking AP Computer Science Principles and I am learning Python which does help me when coding in C#. I have found that they are very similar even though they use different keywords and I think this will help for design later in the year. In Python, we have been learning much more about loops and functions and that will hopefully correlate to our future projects. I hope to keep improving and is I think that because of this refresher, I will be able to contribute much more to the game design process for our full game later in the year.
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As I think more about what makes a good game I got to the music aspect of games. For me a good game has music that fits the style of the game. If it is an adventure game then usually it will have nice peaceful music to guide you on the path. If it is a sports game then usually it has upbeat music that raises the overall mood of the people playing the game. Music in games ranges almost every genre and it is something that a game designer needs to think about in order to make their game complete. I find that some games however don't really put much effort into their music or at least they don't listen to their fans. One of these is the games in the madden series. Madden is known for having music on all their menus and this music is a lot of the time rap music that is very upbeat. I don't have a problem with the actual songs they play but the problem I have is that when playing the game you don't get to listen to all the songs. This is because it always starts the game playing the same song and follows the same pattern. This is something that the madden community has expressed as a change they want but it is always the same. While the music isn't perfect in some games, when it is perfected it makes the game so much better. When I think of good music I always go back to Mario Kart for the Nintendo Wii. This game has good music on all the menus and it is not overpowering. They also designed the game to have different songs on every track and they all match the style of the track. For example the coconut mall song is very upbeat which resembles the track in that there are a lot of turns and jumps. In contrast with this, the music for the map grumble volcano is slower and deeper which matches the gloomy and scary theme that the track has. Nintendo does a really good job in their games with the music and it ties the whole game together. Music in games is one of the most important pieces and bad music can almost ruin an otherwise good game. Music is something that usually isn't thought about a lot when creating a game for me but I now realize how important it is to the overall experience especially in a game that is more adventure and less pure action.
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As I have become more advanced in coding and we have done many more activities, I feel my skills at coding have become a lot better and it feels more natural. While sometimes I do get confused and have to look back at activities, I am really getting a handle on my capabilities at this point along with a great overall sense for what I can do with coding. This has really come into play during our project in which we create our own game. While we are not creating all the assets because that would take a long time, we are doing all of the coding and making the games by ourselves using our ideas. This has been a really interesting experience for me because it has shown me how much time and effort has to be put in to make games and how even though are games are very simplistic, they take a lot of work. Along with this, it helps me test my capabilities as a game developer and shows me how much I really know about coding. While this assignment has taught me a lot, I wish we had more time to work on it to not only make it more detailed but to also create our own assets as give a larger sense of accomplishment. Overall, while I am getting better at coding, there is still a lot to learn and a lot to improve on that will in the future help me create better games and be more successful.
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In the past couple weeks we have started to code in unity for class. So far this has been a great experience for me and it is something that I am really enjoying. I find it really interesting and whenever I successfully code an a project it gives me a great sense of accomplishment that makes me want to continue to keep going. Along with this, it is very nice that unity is a free program and it allows me to work at home which allows me to stay on track if I get behind in class. Another reason why I find coding really enjoyable is that I get to create playable games which is something I never thought I would be able to do. Since I was a little kid I have been playing video games and being able to create them myself is very fulfilling. While coding is going very well, I find the tutorials that we are watching to be pretty slow which is one of the only reasons I have disliked coding. I feel that as I become more skilled, the amount of things I can create will increase and I will be able to make my own games that will be playable by other people. That is one of my goals if I choose to pursue a career in game design and I hope I will be able to accomplish that in my future. Overall, coding has been very enjoyable for me and it has been probably my favorite topic we have covered this year.
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In the past couple weeks, we have been learning a lot more about the production process and we have started and now finished our own games. I have found this to be very interesting because I never realized how difficult it could be to create your own game. The game we were creating was called Magnet Attack. The whole premise of the game was that you have to launch magnets and land them in a pattern that matches the card you get. While this might seem like a pretty simple thing to make, we had a lot of struggles. The first problem we had was that we were making the game board using a 3D printer and midway through printing our board, the 3D printer broke and we could no longer use it. Because of this we only had 2-3 days to come up with a new idea for our board. We eventually solved this problem but the end product did not turn out exactly how we wanted it too. Along with creating our games, we had other classes play test them which was a very interesting and new experience. After they were done play testing, the feedback they gave was very helpful and we know what we need to change to make the game better as a whole. The act of play testing was very helpful because it allowed me to see that people actually liked our game and it gave a great insight into what needed to be changed for the better. Even though our game was not perfect, and I did not expect it to be, I was very proud of what we created and I thought my team members and I worked very well together which is the reason we were able to battle through the problems we had in the production process.
Since the start of the second quarter of the year in class, we have been working on a lot of pre-production and concept sketches in class. While pre-production is my least favorite step of the game design process, I know that it is vitally necessary. Pre-production is my least favorite because I am not a very strong drawer and I feel my talent could be better used programming or helping during production. While I despise pre-production, the past weeks have not been too bad and I have actually been enjoying doing concept art are the start of pre-production. I find that while I am terrible at drawing characters, I am fairly decent at drawing weapons and I find myself drawing these things during other classes after I finish a test for example. Drawing to me is something that I do not really like doing in my free time but if I am confined to do something during school, I like to doodle and drawing random things to pass the time. Unfortunately, the game me and my team are currently designing has no weapons. Even so I am having a good time because I only have to draw inanimate objects which do not have facial expressions. Like I said before, I would much rather be doing an activity like programming but if I have to do pre production the assignments have not been that bad. The one thing that I wish would happen is that since we are doing so much drawing for the assignments, I wish we could stop doing the other drawings that we have to do because I feel like that is the only thing we have been doing in class and I feel I need a change in pace. Overall the concept art we have had to do has been fairly enjoyable and I hope it can always be like this in the future.
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I was given the idea for this blog post to be about what kind of games a ancient roman soldier would play in the old days and now. I started off by thinking what genre of games a roman soldier might like and I thought that because a soldier loves to fight, they would like games with combat and competitiveness. The first game I thought of was the Aztec Ballgame because not only was there competition between teams but there was also people sacrificed at the end which could be of enjoyment to the soldier. The second game I thought of was the game L'Attaque or more recently stratego. I thought that I roman soldier might like this game because it has an element of attacking and defending but also has different roles for the different pieces, similar to an army. In terms of video games, I think that a roman soldier would like a game like Call of Duty because of the advanced combat and war like realism. I think that roman soldiers would be very into these games because it would be like their job and give them a sense of familiarity. I also think a roman soldier could possibly like a game like Super Mario Bros for the elements of adventure and fighting for what they want which Mario does very well. Overall I think that a roman soldier would like combat and war games that would bring back some memories for him if not triggering his possible PTSD.
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AuthorHi, my name is Nick Bayer and I will be posting blogs about every 1-2 weeks in the 2020-21 school year. I am doing this for my Advanced Game Design class at Durham School of the Arts(DSA). The views and opinions expressed in this blog are solely those of the author and do not represent those of Durham School of the Arts or Durham Public Schools. Categories
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