Game Development

Today was the first day of the Game Development course, in the teams from the major assignment in the Introduction to Game Design-course we got to choose one of the other teams' designs to develop.

This time the first group meeting was a lot more structured and I felt that unlike last time we actually have some clue as to what we are doing. It does not at all feel like it did when creating "With Love..." although it is clear that we are still a bit inexperienced. I do wish that someone would have chosen to develop "With Love...", but I guess that just means that perhaps we can do it ourselves some day. We have also lost a team member unfortunately, so we will get to welcome a new member tomorrow.

Our lead designer asked me to do some thumbnails just to explore what direction we want to take the game we have chosen, which is basically a stealth game, the concept is very loose at the moment.
Here are some really fast sketches (about 1 min) that I threw together just to get the imagination going.

The Pitch

I just realised that I had written this post about our big presentation but forgotten to post it so here it is.

This Monday was the day we had to be finished with our projects and pitch them to the rest of our class, the second year students, our teacher and staff. Of course we where nervous but we felt prepared as we had practiced a lot and put a lot of time into this project. We got some points on how to better present our games. Generally they were positive though and I had several people coming up to me afterwards telling me they really like our idea and that we did a great presentation that looked good and complete. We also managed to engage the entire audience in the discussion afterwards, which will help making them remember our game.

It felt really good afterwards, having gone up in front of so many people and actually pulling it off without being too nervous. I have also had people telling me they liked that we where two people on stage and managed it really well. Overall its been a stressful but fun experience and I hope I get the chance to do it many times again as I feel it is valuable for the future. Now there is only a report to be written and I will be finished with my first two courses at GAME, it has been at times very intense and I have learnt a lot, especially from the practical parts. I am looking forwards to seeing if "With Love..." will be produced and showed at the GGC next spring.

With Love...

I know it's been a while since we finished our project but I thought I should post some screenshots from "With Love..." as well as the one page design. The first one is the start screen, the second is the action shot and the last one is the one page design document.

Project Romantic Pencil

The ending of our introduction to game analysis and game design course is coming up really fast now. The assignment is to design and pitch a space shoot 'em up game inspired by two randomly selected words. Our words are romantic and pencil, which seemed really difficult at first but I think we have been able to take those words and create something that is new and different.

I have been chosen from my team along with another team member to go up on stage next monday and present our game. Today we got to go up in front of our teacher and two teaching assistants aswell as the rest of our team to test our pitch and get some feedback. Even though we did not finish our pitch until last night it went really well. Of course I got nervous several times during the pitch but I feel I was able to control it and hopefully, with a lot more practice, it wont be too intimidating doing it in front of the entire class and teachers.

The feedback we got was generally positive but we also got some great tips on how to improve both our pitch and our design, altough at some points the feedback was a bit conflicting as they did not always completely agree with each other. Our teacher did say when we were asked which our words were, that he was sorry about that, however when we were finished he said that he was not sorry anymore and that he loved it.

We have been working really hard on this project, many nights have been spent passing things back and forth on skype and we have had many (and long) group meetings. I have learnt a lot during the process although I have felt most of the time that we have no clue as to what we are doing. I have been leading the "art part" as I was chosen as the Lead Artist early in the process and I have gotten a lot of practice in planning and thinking of what needs to be done and delegating tasks, as well as creating art.

At first I felt that we had some difficulties communicating with each other and it was difficult to combine our thoughts and ideas since we are very different from each other. Now i feel that we have finally learnt how to communicate and come together as a team. We still have a lot to do but I think we are in a good place considering the work and time we have left.

First Time

We have now started working on our major assignment and it's become really apparent to me that it is the first time that anyone of us is doing it. There are so many things to think of and it is hard to remember them all and harder still trying to do them in the right order. I think we have the information we need, we just need to learn how to use it and I feel that we are sorting things out as we go. We will probably do things very differently the next time around though. I really feel that I am learning how to do things, or rather how not to do them. This assignment really allows me to learn things that you cannot truly comprehend in the classroom.

It is also a challenge working in a group with five people who have very different ideas and ways to look at things but I feel that we have now established a good common ground where everyone feels on board with what we are doing. We just need to listen to each other and try to understand where the other person is coming from and I think we are on our way to accomplishing a good teamwork.

We have now been working on this assignment for two days and I finally feel that we have put together the groundwork which will allow me as the Lead Artist to take my team of artists and start on our part of the work. I have given them tasks such as trying to figure out a style that will appeal to our target group and sketching a layout for the interface, though I am not really sure if that is a task we need to do this early in the project. As I said it is the first time I am either designing a game or being Lead Artist and I am not 100% sure of what to do or when to do it but I make descisions and go with them.

Major Assignment

Our major assignment for the introduction to game analysis and game design course is to design a space shoot 'em up game that is supposed to be inspired by the words romantic and pencil. I did find those words rather difficult to incorporate into that genre, I first thougt the only thing you could do was something with pencils, either being one or shooting them, and writing love letters.

However I thought it would probably be really boring and way to obvious. It felt like just taking the words and not actually doing anything with them rather than being inspired by them. So I did what you always should do with your first idea no matter how good they seem and threw it in the bin. Then I tried to figure out something that was a less literal interpretation of the words, trying more to be inspired by them than directly translating them into a game.

I thought instead of doing a game about someone trying to get home to their love through a vast enemy territory, not knowing if their loved one was still there or still waiting for you, completely made in pencil art.

The assignment: the Presentation

I was chosen from my group to go up in front of the rest of the class and show my PowerPoint-presentation. It made me really nervous and I felt my mind go blank and I did not know what to say. I had made my presentation so that it would speak for itself as I did not want to break the mood created by the music and pictures by spekaing.
It went rather well I feel, thinking about how I felt the panic when I realised I was gonna have to go up on stage, I did not feel as nervous when actually standing there. And I did manage to make everyone laugh (purpousely).
It felt like good practise though and I am glad I got the experience. One thing I probably could have done better was to prepare a short list whith the things I wanted to say and perhaps prepare the speaking part a bit better as I tend to blabber and forget everything I have thought of when I am put in the spotlight.

The Assignment

This monday we had a lecture with Ernest Adams about Art and music, he also gave us un assignment in which we were to choose a genre. We could chose from survival horror, real-time-strategy and children's non-violent game. We also had to research an artist/photographer/filmmaker and a composer/musician and finally make a powerpoint presentation. The only criterias were that it had to be a minimum of ten slides and have pictures and music.

The fact that there were hardly any instructions made this assignment seem rather tricky at first. I did not really know what to do, but I started googling the genres and I found an artist quite quickly that I liked an thought would fit perfectly with the survival horror genre. So I found some pictures I liked that went with that theme and started googling for music.
That was the part I found the most difficult as it is something I have never done or ever thought about before. After some initial searching I started clicking my way through youtube while watching the pictures, trying to find what music made me feel most uncomfortable while watching them. Finally I chose to go with György Ligeti's "Volumina" as I felt that was the song that made the most impact in combination with Federico Bebber's dark pictures.

The assembly of the Power Point was rather straight forward and just kind of fell into place once I got started and I am pretty satisfied with the final result.

Our very first game

Last week we had a seminar during which we were asked to play a game called "Sissyfight 3000", basically it's a bullying game in which the players are to gang up against each other.
Earlier in the day we had a lecture about the MDA (Mechanichs, Dynamics, Aestethics) so when we had played for a while we were asked to change the dynamics and create our own version of the game. The only thing we had to keep was the "target->action" mechanics.

Our first version was a war game called "World war 3,5" and honestly, apart from names and settings the game was not that different from Sissyfight. I found it difficult trying to change the concept into something new. It is very easy to get stuck in a thought of how it should be, I believe it is easier to create something new rather than trying to change something into something else. It became clear when we presented our games to the rest of our class as many had continued on the bullying theme.

At the end of the seminar we got an assignment to start all over and make a completely new version, we spent two long afternoons discussing and play-testing and finally came up with a game we call "Snitch™", where four players are maffia and two players are snitches. The mafia want to find the snitches while the snitches want to kill all mafia and be the only one/ones left alive. We added a bunch of cards and I think we actually came up with a rather fun game that is based on Sissyfight but different from it.

I think our group worked really well together, we have a good team and I felt everyone contributed and participated while we are also having fun. I found during the entire game developing process I had this feeling that I want to participate and I want to make my mark on the game and I really liked that feeling.

First few weeks at GAME

I have now studied game design at Uppsala University for three weeks, last week and this week I have been feeling like we're really getting started. We've had our first assignment in communications class and I personally found it very difficult to find a subject and writing a bit more scientifically about something artistic. I decided to write my popular science article about Concept Art which turned out quite well and received good critique from my group. The critiquing of other people's articles is also something challenging as you really need to read it thoroughly and think about what they have done well and to help them improve.
I have heard people saying it is boring and unnecessary but I do not agree. I believe that this course could really be useful, if not for the rest of the time in school for the rest of my life. You can always learn something and when you meet someone you should try to find what you can learn from them.

Game analysis class also seems interesting so far. Our first assignment was to go home and play Pacman and then analyze it and break it down into objects, properties, behaviour and relationships. The game looked very simple at first but when I started analyzing I just found more and more. So we all went to school with these long lists and we discussed it in our groups and finally one of our mentors reduced it to half. Perhaps we were all trying to do the analysis really thoroughly so we just overcomplicated it.
I did find it interesting that our mentors seemed to disagree upon one thing we discussed, whether the ghosts are one object with different behaviours or different objects because they have different behaviours. We came to the conclusion that it was one object with different behaviours when one of our mentors came and asked about it and corrected us, saying that when it comes to game designing they are separate objects. When we went through it all in the end another mentor corrected us back, saying that when it comes to game designing they are only one. I think that is probably the gap between artists and coders that this course aims to bridge.

I seriously have to stop now because it is getting way to long but I do have a lot more that I have been thinking about, but that will have to wait for another time.