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.
Summary
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Recently, as I have gotten back in to some of the games that I haven't played in awhile, I began to think more and more about esports in our society. It seems like anyone who has played video games feels like esports are worth while and are good for our society as video games become more and more popular. Others however, have almost the opposite view. There are a lot of people who feel like esports is a waste of time and that it encourages kids of all ages to play more video games. I recently watched a short interview with two players from the Overwatch League. In the interview they brought up some really good points about their particular esport but also the system as a whole. One of the main points I took from this was when they were talking about how they got into esports and how they had to get their parents approval. This really spoke to me because they mentioned a lot about managing your time like any other sport and how it should be the same that if you have bad grades you should not be able to play video games until they improve. They talked a lot about this topic and I truly realized how much it related to me. I am someone who loves to play videogames but just like them, I have learned to manage my time with school work as well. I think that this is a big problem that society has with esports. People generally think that playing video games is a waste of time and that it could be focused more on school or other more worthwhile activities. I however disagree with this. I believe that once all your work is done for the day that you should be allowed to do what you want to do. You shouldn't be forced to go do something outside like soccer or any other sport when video games give you the same sense of pride and accomplishment. While I am one who loves to play sports and go outside, I realize that it is not for everyone and that is a major factor to consider when trying to limit screen time for kids and teenagers. Going back to esports, I think that it will not only continue to grow but I hope that it will be a more accepted activity than it is now. I am one who loves to play video games and I wish I was good enough to play them competitively. I think that esports and video games in general needs to be accepted into our society because it is very interesting for some people and it is a good paying job if you are good at video games.
Summary
For the past three and a half weeks, we have been using Canvas for our online learning during quarintine. I find Canvas can be both very helpful and also very annoying for both teachers and students. The upside of using Canvas is that is allows for everything to be in one place and has different categories for work, announcements, grades and even just the home page. Canvas puts everything we need for school into one place that shows all of our classes. Along with this, it has a calendar that puts every assignment by due date. This is very helpful for keeping all my work in order and allows me to see what I need to do for the day or the week. While Canvas can be very helpful, it also makes other things harder. I frequently run into the issue that there are assignments that I have but I am unable to open them. This is because some of my teachers are less experienced with technology and it is very hard for them to figure out how Canvas works. Another thing that I dislike about Canvas is that if the assignment doesn't have a date, it doesn't show up in the calendar and it can be hard to find if you don't know that the assignment is required. Going off of that, when a teacher sends out an announcement, it always shows up in my to do list but never goes away until the day is over. This causes my to do list to become full and I cannot always see it fully. This is a small thing but it is something that annoys me a lot. On the teacher end, I have found that many of my teachers are unable to use links correctly because they don't know how Canvas works fully. This causes me to miss some time in zoom to figure out how it is all going to work instead of doing the work for myself. Overall I find that the negatives of Canvas outweigh the positives and I find that it is very hard to navigate and find everything I need to get through the school day and complete all my work.
Conclusion
Among Us is a mafia style game where players take control of astronaut characters. A select amount of these characters are known as imposters. These imposters are trying to sabotage the ship or kill all the other players in order to win. The crew mates on the other hand are trying to finish all their tasks to win while also stopping all of the sabotages. The other way to win as a crew mate is to vote all the imposters off the ship. This game is a great party game to play with friends and is 5 dollars on steam and free on mobile. It also allows for cross-platform so you are able to ply with friends on Steam and mobile. Each game is also fairly short and it is common to play multiple times within a session. This game has a lot of replay value because of new strategies people can acquire and also the fact that each round is different.
Gameplay The gameplay in this game is fairly simple but that is something common in mafia style games where you are constantly trying to figure out who is evil. The main gameplay is when crew mates do their tasks. On each map there are many different tasks that require varying amounts of time from five seconds to thirty seconds. Every task is different and multiple players can have the same task. This part of the gameplay is vital as it is one of the ways the crew mates can win and also how they can tell who the imposters are. Almost all the tasks do not require much skill and are very interesting when you first learn them. As you play the game the tasks can get boring but thy are vital to the success of the game. The rest of the gameplay is found through the imposters eyes. The imposters can sabotage different points on the map and it forces the crew mates to fix them or they lose the game. Along with this, there are vents across the map where only imposters can go. These vents allow imposters to hide and travel across the map very quickly. Overall the gameplay is very logical and makes sense but at times can be boring if played for too long. Visual The visuals in this game fit very well for the style the developers were going for. The visuals are fairly simple but make the game have a great overall feel and you can tell easily what everything is. As for the characters, they are astronauts with different colored space suits. You can easily tell that these characters don't look like normal humans due to their body shape but that is done on purpose to make this game more kid friendly. The visuals tie the game together really well and the environments that the characters are in look like they could be real but the game developers chose to make it look more animated. The animations in the game are very good besides some minor visual bugs from time to time. The only real animations we do get to see are the animation when someone dies, a door is opened, someone jumps in a vent, or animations in tasks. Overall while the visuals are very simplistic, they help the game stand out and is a really good fit for the concept as the main focus is on figuring out who the imposters are and not as much on the visuals. Audio In the game, there is almost no music besides the menu music which is mainly just ambient noise. The other audio is very well designed and implemented in just the right way. The sound of your character running down a hallway is just how it should and almost every task has audio ques or audio for when it is completed. Just like the visuals, the audio is fairly simple but it is executed in a way that feels natural and is pleasing on the ears. This is somewhat due to the fact that there is not much focus on music but rather the sound effects when different actions are preformed. The most useful part of the audio is that whenever you complete a task it gives you an audio piece that lets you know the task is finished and you can move on. This is a very simple thing but it helps by not just using visuals but audio as well for the tasks. Interface The interface in the game is very simplistic which fits the style of the game. There are not many things on the home menu and every option can be chosen by the click of the mouse. When you are playing the game, each item whether that be a task, the map, or even the sabotage button is able to be controlled by the mouse and shows clearly what options are available by highlighting them. Another thing is that the map shows you what your tasks or fake tasks are and where they are located on the ship. This is very helpful and it is one of the most important pieces of the interface. There is a section to adjust the audio but you are not able to change the controls which is a downside. Overall the menu system fits the style of the game and the in game map is very useful as it explains where things are and where your tasks are located. Another interface that they did well is when you are voting a player out, the cast vote option is very simple and easy to understand and they give you a big check mark or an x so you can verify your choice. Accessibility The one feature that this game does not have is a colorblind mode. Because everyone has a different color, it is easier to remember which color you saw instead of the name that is displayed. This means that if you are colorblind, you can still read the name of the person but it may be harder to remember and is therefore a disadvantage. While this is the case, there are many extra colors that can solve the problem of colorblindness and let them play the game completely. As for all the text, it is grammatically correct and everything is spelled correctly and is easy to read. The only main drawback is that there is no colorblind mode. Technical The only technical piece I have to add is that the servers are not very good. There are many times when people are kicked from lobbies or are unable to join lobbies and are forced to restart the game. While this doesn't happen all the time, I usually find that at least one person has a connection issue during a session we are playing. Conclusion Overall I have so much fun playing this game and I have played countless hours over the past month. I would give this game a 4.5/5 and I would say that unless you really want to play on the computer, the mobile version works just as well and is free compared to spending five dollars. Overall I recommend this to anyone who has a group of friends to play with as it is one of my favorite party games to play. For the third part of our summer assignment for Advanced Game Design, we were tasked with writing about what excites us about the upcoming school year in our class. I cannot explain how excited I am to once again be coding during school. This summer I have been learning how to code in Java through edx and other websites. This has sparked my interest in coding and computer science immensely. Along with taking Advanced Game Design next year, I am hoping to take AP Computer Science Principles to supplement my love for coding. Over this summer I realized how interesting coding really was and how fun it was once you got good at it. This is a feeling that I did not have when we did coding last year. This is why I am so excited to get to code more in C# during the school year. While Java and C# are not the same, they do still have the same underlying principles. I think that taking Java courses over the summer will help me improve during the school year as I know that I understand the principles of coding much better. Along with that, I think that I will be able to create better games this year especially since we will be working in groups to create more advanced games. This to me is very exciting because for me the hardest part of making games was coming up with the concept art and sketches. Now with the help of a team, I will not be alone in creating these sketches. This allows me to focus more on my strength which is coding. I think that working with a group of people will be very beneficial because each part of the project can benefit from the work of many people. Concepts become easier to make and choose, coding becomes faster and better designed as well as the actual art going into the game is designed better with more attention to detail. Overall, I am excited for this coming year because I have found a passion for coding and I feel like I will have a lot of fun doing it in class during the year.
Summary
As I mentioned in my previous blog post, I have been trying to improve my skills in Photoshop or in the free version Pixlr. This time I decided to incorporate one of my favorite things into my artwork. To improve my skills I chose to learn how to create text art in Pixlr which is slightly similar to what I did in my last post. I have always found using words in images to be very creative and also interesting as they can bring spotlight to other elements in the piece that are not usually highlighted. To improve my skills, I first followed a video tutorial on creating text art using a guitar and words associated with music. I found this to be very informative while also simple in design. The main preface is using masks to cover parts of images and using the magic wand to help add the text into the spaces. After following the tutorial, I chose to do something more advanced which included not just an outline but other lines inside the picture that I had to figure out how to mask and replace correctly. For this I chose to do a image of the Philadelphia Eagles Logo with the starting offensive players of the team as the words. I found that it worked very well as it is something that interests me while also being more intricate than the guitar in the tutorial. The main struggle I had in creating this piece was figuring out how I wanted to mask the logo in order to make the words stand out while also making it identifiable as the logo for the team. To finish off the piece, I added a gradient as the background in order to give it more depth which I found added a lot to the piece as a whole. Here is the final product: As you can see in the image, there are many details in the logo which is where I ran into the most trouble. Overall, I found Pixlr to be once again, a great substitute for Photoshop as well as having its own features that make it easier to use.
Summarry
Kipfer, Kyle "Create Text Art in Pixlr E" YouTube, 17 Apr. 2020, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2XeJaGlwehQ. Since the summer began I decided I wanted to improve my skills with Photoshop and other programs like it. While I do not own Photoshop, I was able to use the free program Pixlr which happens to have many of the same functions of Photoshop. The first thing I decided to learn and the focus of this blog post was how to use images and words in different ways and combining them. I started doing trying to fill words with images to make cool banners and other artistic pieces. I found this both very interesting and I found many ways that I could use this to help others around me. The first piece I made was one in which I took a photo from my friends music video and put it into his artist name. This came out really well and he is now able to use it as a banner or anything else he wants. The biggest struggle I had was transitioning from how to do something like this in Photoshop to Pixlr. Even with the help of a step by step on Photoshop I still found it quite difficult to transition with the new interface and different capabilities. After doing this, I decided to challenge myself more by using multiple pictures and trying to learn new effects. My next project was one I made for my friend of his dog. Instead of using one picture for the whole name, I used a different picture for each letter of the name. This helped show me how careful I have to be when editing the pictures around the letters as I found myself going back and having to fix the pictures over and over again. After I was done however, I found that this picture came out very well and I was very proud of myself for accomplishing it. Through this process I not only learned how to make these kinds of images, I also learned how to navigate and edit in Pixlr which took some time to get used too. As well as learning new things about Pixlr, it really helped me to get used to Photoshop like programs again which will be very useful for projects later this summer and continuing on through the year. I am proud of myself because at the beginning of working on these projects it took me at least an hour just to get the first one right, and now I am able to do these very quickly. This will allow me to help my friends and family with edits like these and others that use the same skills. Overall this expanded my knowledge of the program and helped me learn a new technique that will help me in the future.
Summary
For almost a week and a half now we have been out of school and are having assignments online. This has been a very interesting transition as I have never done anything like this before. While it has been interesting, I find online school to be a lot easier and a lot less stimulating for most of my classes. This class however is about the same as it was when we were in school. While there are definitely downsides like we are unable to work in-person with our classmates, most of our work is already online and fairly easy to do at home. This means that this class doesn't really change and it has kept me very involved and also because most of the class is online already, it allows me to get information quicker than my other classes and we can use better technology. This brings a huge benefit to the class as it allows us to stay on schedule and we don't fall behind like in other classes. While this class has been very easy to keep track of, Durham Public Schools has released very little information to students about the situation and that is one of the key reasons I get confused during online school. While working in Unity is no different, deadlines become very hard to keep track of because of all the missed school due to our spring break being moved. While all these things are true, as more and more information is released, online school becomes less stressful to worry about. Finally, while I believe online school to be easier, I do want to go back to school because it is a very different environment when you cannot see the people you spend so much time with throughout the year.
Summary
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.
Summary
As over half of the year is over now I feel like I can give a good description of how the class has been this year. I realize now how hard it is to manage a class like this which is constantly changing because of all the things that need to be learned in the short amount of time. While I don't enjoy everything we do like the drawing assignments we do for example, I still find this class to be enjoyable and a very good environment to be in. As we have been moving into our coding unit, my enthusiasm had been very high and my enjoyment for the class is a lot better than it was at the beginning of the school year. So far this class has been very up and down in terms of my enjoyment but overall it has been pretty good and I will be taking AGAD next year. In terms of what the class could improve on, I believe that we should do the drawing assignments in the early years but focus more on digital drawing or design in later years as everyone becomes more advanced. Along with this I feel like we should do more coding because it is a valuable skill that can be used later in life if you decide to pursue a career in the game industry. Like I said before, while this class has its ups and it's downs, I have really enjoyed the class and I have especially enjoyed the coding that we have done so far. With this in mind, I hope we continue to do more coding in the future and start to create our own games.
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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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