Course Blog

I made a questionnaire after I made the final adjustments to my game to gauge how well my game is enjoyed among my peers. These are the results.    

All players like the design of the game which is really good and tells me I did a good job with designing my levels and assets. 

Everyone also like my graphic novel pages which is great.

Everyone enjoyed playing the game.

Everyone would play more if there was more.

All but one liked the story, one person didn’t know if there was one which is a problem and is probably down to game maker re sizing the room of the graphic novel pages and squished them down.  

Everybody liked my backgrounds. 

This question was added to get what I should add next time I attempt to make a game like this. Two people didn’t answer, one person said that a way to get health back would improve it which was going to be added but knowledge and time restraints limited me, 2 people wanted the graphic novel to be improved with maybe some colour and a border round it so its a bit clearer, 1 wanted more types of enemy which again was planned but not executed because of time and knowledge restraints and finally two people wanted more direction of where to go in the 2nd level which I could do with blood trails or background items. 

In this evaluation I will be assessing my personal growth and my self management as well as how well how well i have kept to my original idea and time scale. I will be reflecting on what went well during the project and things that didn’t go so well and how I overcame problems. 

My original idea was a 2D zombie shooter that would have different zombies, army and police as enemies, with pick ups of ammo, health and electrical boxes and the character would have special attacks. My idea to get a story across was to make a graphic novel to put in the game in between the 5 levels to show the progression of the infection. What I ended up with in the end was 2 levels of army enemies, no zombies as of yet, but the character shoots, the character is animated, has a health bar, the enemies shoot, I have a start, instructions and end screens as well has put m graphic novel in game maker instead of flash where it originally was planned to be. In the end, it didn’t turn out like I planned completely but the main ideas are still the same and it’s missing thing because of time restraints and lack of knowledge with particular code.   

My time management was a bit off as I didn’t leave enough time for production of the game and graphic novel but overall I kept to my Gantt chart pretty well, mainly because I’ve reached a point where I know the flow of game making and the process of making a good game. I managed myself okay though I feel I could have worked on my graphic novel more and maybe kicked the game making into gear earlier but I got a lot done and overall my self management was successful. 

My research, I feel, is strong though there could be more of it but I've looked at zombies, games an films as well as looking in books. I've also been doing research at gaming events like EGX and comic con which have been helpful. I've done a bug test, questionnaire and survey which have really helped understand the level of which my game is in terms of fun and understanding my audience. I think it went well however I didn't get to finish research into district 9 because the disk was scratched but I got the simple premise of it and why it was recommended to me as a research source.

My games health bar works really well but i had a lot of problems getting it to work in other rooms but with help from my tutor we figured out it was a depth problem and fixed it. My shooting for both the character and enemies work was something that needed fixing like the frequency of bullets from the enemies, the bug where if one bullet hit an enemy all the bullets of the same direction would disappear and just the mechanics of shooting needed changing because I needed the character to shoot in directions. I fixed all these problems by finding buttons i could use for directions, changing coding and changing which object code was attached to. My sprites are something that went really well for my first time animating sprites in game maker and my backgrounds are something I was really proud of and thought went better then expected. I had a few issues drawing the graphic novel, from artist block, to not quite feeling focused enough, my own judgement being to harsh and getting the positioning and proportions correct but overall I think they look good, even if I didn’t finish drawing all of the pages. If I could do things differently I would start production earlier and be less critical of myself. I would also throw myself into my work a bit more due to the problems I’m currently happening else where in my life so I could kill two birds with one stone in a way with improving my work and distracting myself. I would’ve done more concept art and general drawing then I have done too.

This is the final production diary and basically it will be about me adding finishing touches.

I added my graphic novel page to my game by making them backgrounds and adding them to a room with buttons to move to the next or to start the game. 

Unfortunately when the game starts up it seems to scale them down making them appear squashed during game play but they can still be seen and understood. I don’t have the time to figure why its scaling them down or how to solve it but it’s not a crippling problem for my project. 

My 3rd page of my graphic novel i had to get a photo to get the proportions and positioning right and this is the picture and the drawing. 

I made my instructions page, finishing my game screens and i coded some buttons to move between them.

​Page 1

Panel 1

City view from afar with dots of zombies and soldiers. Tall buildings and barricades can be seen. Start of the flying pattern move across panels.

Panel 2

Open window in a kitchen like room with the flying pattern continuing through.

Panel 3

Flying pattern stops, leading to a mosquito. There is an arm and the mosquito is biting the arm, leaving a small bit of blood to dribble down.

​Page 2

Panel 1

Close up of a hand with small claws poking out of the skin with a load of blood dripping out where they breached skin.

Panel 2

Close up of MICHAEL'S face in an expression of shock.

Panel 3

View of outside of the open window with capitalized letters, bold across the panel spelling ahhh.

Panel 4

Close up of a back pack about to be picked up.

Panel 5

Close up of the phone in Michael's hand and the bottom of his face.

Panel 6

Close up of door with capitalized slam written on the side.

​Page 3

Panel 1

Michael leans on a wall with soldiers outlines in the street. There huff puff written next to Michael.

Panel 2

Close up of Michael's eye.

Panel 3

Close up of Michael's hand, claws sticking up with electricity building between the claws. The fingers are become discoloured.

Panel 4

Michael clutches his hand and looks at the street to the side.

Panel 5

Michael steps out in the street.

​Page 4

Panel 1

Michael's silhouette is in between two buildings and the silhouettes of zombies are around.

Panel 2

Close up of Michael's face with a worried cringe expression.

Panel 3

Close up of Michael's arm, more discolouration moving up his arm.

Panel 4

Close up of Micheal's eye looking down at his arms.

Panel 5

Close up of Michael's eye looking forward with a concerned expression.

Panel 6

Close up of Michael's eye looking forward with an angry expression.

 Page 5

Panel 1

 Michael keeled over coughing and blood smeared down the wall 

Panel 2

Close up of arm, discolouration up bicep, Michael's chest heaving

Panel 3

Michael looking up at the leg that has stomped in front.  

Panel 4

Silhouette of huge zombie with the mouth and eyes not in silhouette and a growing growl leaving it.

Panel 5

 Michael stands and moves against the wall with a scared expression.

Panel 6

 Close up of hand, electric building more and a crackling loudly.

Page 6

Panel 1

Shot of Michael from behind looking a the street in front of him.

Panel 2

Close up of Michael's face, around one of eyes is discolours and so is half the bottom of his face. His eye is clouding white.

Panel 3

 Close up of sign for the research facility.

Panel 4

 Close up of Michael's face tearing up with relief.

Panel 5

 Street view of the research facility at the end of a zombie infected street.

Page 7

Panel 1

 Michael falls through the doors to the facility but stumbles to his feet.

Panel 2

 Michael runs past a sign saying research lab.

Panel 3

 Michael run into a lab with a hand made sign saying zombie research.

Panel 4

 Michael finds several bodies of lab personnel with gunshots through their heads. 

Panel 5

 Close up of body of head scientist with a note and a vial.

Panel 6

 Michael kneels in front of scientist and carefully picks up note.

Page 8 

Panel 1

Close up of note saying that the scientists stayed behind to finish the cure but got over run, the vial is filled with the cure. 

Panel 2

 Close up of Michael's face as he cries.

Panel 3

 Michael picks up vial from the scientist.

Panel 4

 Michael drinks a small amount from the vial.

Panel 5

 Michael puts the vial down careful a bit away from him.

Panel 6

 Michael starts making pained noises as the discoulouration starts retracting.

Panel 7

 Close up of arm as discolouration starts fading. 

Panel 8

 Claws starts to retract into the skin.

Page 9 

Panel 1

Close up of uninfected arm with a little scaring and small bits of discolouration around scars.

Panel 2

 Michael cries

Panel 3

 Michael hugs scientist who had the note and vial

Michael

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Panel 4

 Michael takes the scientist's ID card. 

Panel 5

 Michael takes another ID

Panel 6

 Michael takes another ID

Panel 7

 Michael takes another ID

Panel 8

 Michael takes another ID

Panel 9

 Michael takes another ID

Panel 10

 Michael take another ID

Page 10 

Panel 1

Michael picks up the vial and puts it into the safety of his pocket.

Panel 2

 Michael backs out of the lab.

MICHAEL

I will tell people of your sacrifice. I will bring the cure to people. I promise, you will be remembered.

Panel 3

 Michael leaves the facility. There's a distant sound of a car.

Panel 4

 A car skids to a stop in front of Michael and Michael jumps in surprise.

Panel 5

 Passenger side door opens towards Michael and reveals MARTHA leaning over from the driver's seat 

Martha

Get in.

Page 11

Panel 1

 Michael gets into the car

MICHAEL

What are you doing here? How? Why? How did you know where I was?

Panel 2

 Martha looks him over

MARTHA

You didn't show up today so I dropped by your place. You weren't there, there was blood and your stuff was gone. I drove to the army barricade and they said that a guy has killed several soldiers and went into zombie infected zones. We have had many conversations about the facility.  

Panel 3

 Michael looks at her.

MICHAEL

They worked on a cure, the did it, it works. There's still a vial of it, look!

Panel 4

 Michael pull out the vial.

MARTHA

Well I'll be. Guess that means you'll be alright.

Page 12

Panel 1

Michael nods and smiles.

MICHAEL

I fought like hell to get here. I have the ID's of all the scientists that stayed behind.

Panel 2

 Martha starts driving, she has tears in her eyes.

MARTHA

God bless them. We'll make a shrine for them. I sure once you give them the cure, your little killing spree will be swept under the carpet.

Panel 3

 Michael's face is regretful.

MICHAEL

Maybe a shrine for them would also be an idea.

MARTHA

*chuckle*

MICHAEL

I can still work in the diner right?

Panel 4

 Shot of the car driving through the city.

MARTHA

So over the last week i have been slowly adding to the game, I have made a lot of progress so far. 

I managed to make a health bar which has been my biggest achievement this week. I looked online and found a walk through of how to code a health bar and what to put in. I started by making a health bar sprite which was just a black sprite and made it into an object. I then added a draw event with a draw health bar code. 

It came up with a separate part where i had to put values in and set colours to which i followed the online guide, which at first didn’t work but i removed the view bit in the beginning of values and then it worked. 

I then went to my character object and added a create event which i added a set health code and made it 100 for the health of the character.

I also added a step event to the character which i added test health code and said if health is smaller then 1, then added a start and end block and in-between them i put a jump to start code and a restart game code so it tells it when the health hits below 1 to restart the game and jump back to the start position.  

The final thing I did was add collision events with the enemy bullets so that when they hit the player they take of 15 health. 

I also made a second level, a end screen and I’m in the process of making a start screen and instructions. 

I wasn’t happy with the speed of which the enemies were firing so i slowed in down by changing the code of it to 45.

I made a survey on my Gmail account and sent it out on my facebook to get people to fill it in. I will be analyzing the results. 

The first question i asked was whether or not the person answering the survey played zombie games so i could know how many of my target audience actually play zombie games. Most of the people that answered do play zombies games but some don’t which tells me zombies are a popular theme. 

The next question, i wanted to know why some people don’t play zombie games to see if there was any way i could bring them to zombie themed games. 1 wasn’t very helpful as it says “I’m not 12″ and none of the people who answered this questionnaire were 12 and its not my targeted age group. The second one said that zombie themed games give them nightmares and they have no relevance to their life which is something i can’t help but it has given me insight into why people don’t play zombie games.

I wanted to see how long people usually play games for and the majority play for over 6 hours, 11 people out of 19. Only 1 person plays games for less than an hour, 3 people play between 1 and 3 hours and 4 play 4 to 5 hours. This tells us a lot of people will make time to play games for a long period of time.

This question was to get a sense of how many, in a group of people, like zombie games and if there was any depending factors for the zombie themed games. Most people like zombies but a couple of people don’t like zombies. There was a large amount of people who said it depends. The zombie theme seems to have a lot of fans but there are some that need to be sold more into a zombie game to like it.

I wanted to see from the people who answered depends on the last question, what they like in zombie themed games. One person liked horror based zombie games, one liked multiplayer but it depended on their mood, two said they like original and non traditional games, one like the survival aspect of zombie games and the other like story based games. This tells me that within the zombie theme there are many different ways to use zombies and different game types that appeal to people but most want an original type of game evolving zombies.

In my plan my game was going to be free and put onto a free game site online so I wanted to know how many play on online free game sites or used to. Most people used to play on free game site and as most of the people who filled in this survey are over 14 its a good sign. Some people do still play on free game site and some haven’t ever played on those kind of sites so overall it would be a good move.

My game is a 2D shooter so I wanted to know how many like 2D shooters. I got varied results, most like 2D shooters but a lot don’t like them and some didn’t know what i meant by 2D shooter telling me although some have a good opinion on them they aren’t as popular as some other types of game. 

I asked what would they want to see in a 2D zombie shooter and I got a lot of responses. 3 people said a fun story, two were unsure, some wanted a creative sort of game where you craft and make stuff instead of gore like most zombie games and actually have a story that ends with a positive outcome like building a new world. Some wanted a survival based game with upgrading, crafting and killing zombies with cool weapons. 

In this post I will be looking at different zombies from games, TV and movies and looking at the design, behaviors, attacks and speed to see what kind of zombies i prefer. (L4D2 will not be included as I've already looked into the zombies in detail)

The last of us

The zombies in this game are called infected and there’s four different types of living zombie. This infection came about from a mutation most likely from a fungus origin. 

The first one we will look at is stage 1 of zombies which are called runners. Runners are recently infected humans still somewhat fighting the infection but its a useless fight. They don’t have much in the way of mutation and look like normal humans except the eyes which are orange. They differ from humans through behaviors such as: highly aggressive, human like moans, hunched over, weak eyesight but can still see the player and will grab the player and try to bite them. They are fast and will run after the player, hence the name runners. They attack directly and are not very strong compared to the other types. They flail around hoping to trample the player and making them vulnerable to be grabbed. They are very noisy and when mixed with clickers, can be more problematic then usual.

The next type are called stalkers. They are usually found near water and are a lot more mutated with fungal growth happening around the head and face which leaves them with one eye. They can see and run but unlike the runners they don’t go in for an attack immediately, they hide around stuff and try to seemingly sneak up on the player but close up they are very aggressive. They make a less human croaking noise which can be heard in other rooms but more for ambiance. 

The most prominent stage in the game is the clickers. The clickers are formed after 2 years of infection and are blind. Clickers are very mutated with their face completely changed with fungal plates and their skin completely molded. They still have clothes on from their human years but they are very dirty and ripped. As they cannot see they produce clicks and screeches to use echolocation. They are sensitive to noise and will attack if they hear noise. They are generally slower then other stages due to their echolocation having a limited reach and not being able to see. They can go into a berserk mode and will flail wildly while running which is dangerous as the player cannot wrestle clickers off, if Joel get grappled he is dead unless he has a shiv. Clickers can not be strangled and hand to hand combat is incredibly dangerous.

The final stage is the bloaters who develop after a decade of infection. They are the hardest to kill in the game and they instant kill if too close. Their body is completely covered in fungus and the body has bloated with the fungus. It can throw Mycotoxin at the player which it produces from 3 areas of its body, one on its lower right abdomen, one on its upper left chest, and one on its upper right back. If he is unable to throw these, he will charge at the player. If Joel gets grabbed the bloater will usually rip Joel’s jar open or smash his head with no chance of using a shiv or fighting it off. They are very slow and predictable but still deadly if you get too close.

The walking dead (game, comic and TV)

The walking dead has 3 different forms of media, a game that currently has 3 seasons, a TV series and a comic series. The zombies in the walking dead world are not called as such but they have a variety.

Walkers, Roamers, Swimmers, Empties, Herd, Lurkers, Geeks, Lame-Brains, Biters, Floaters, Meat puppets, Monsters, Deadies, Creepers, Dead ones, Ghouls, Eaters, Psychos, Wanderers, Abominations, Creepy Crawlies, Goons, Decay's, Walking Bodies, Walking Corpses, Skin-eaters, Swarms, The infected, Stinkers, Cow-Catchers, Deadheads, Wendigos, Rotters, Cold bodies, Skin bags, Groaners, Lab rats, Muertos, The dead and the wasted.

The zombies are usually in large groups and are very hostile. The zombies have dirty clothing and blood/rot on the skin. They move very slowly but have been shown to block attacks with their arms. They aren’t smart and are seen to continue walking into danger without thought of themselves. They bite and grab as attacks but as long as they can wound you then they can kill you due to infection or blood loss. 

Beaumont, SB, (17/05/17) Drawing Legendary Monsters, a step-by-step guide to drawing mythological creatures, 1st addition, London, Bermondsey Street, Arcturus, pages 120-125 

CJake3, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L7MCGRHSiic [Date accessed 06/06/17]

GameNewsOfficial, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Ab6cnVQi_c [Date accessed 31/05/17] 

Leader Altair, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0iosMYH_TSU [Date accessed 31/05/17]

LEMMiNO, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1G3jChi69Nw [Date accessed 06/06/17]

Rogers, SR, (01/01/14) Level up- the guide to great video game design, 2nd edition, Chichester, west Sussex, John Wiley & sons, page 71.

Trismack, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=noMXamTQjaA [Date accessed 22/03/17]

I made a questionnaire and got my class mates to play my game and fill said questionnaire out. I will be analyzing the results to see where things work and where things don’t work.

My first question was to see if my enemies all shoot to make sure there isn’t a bug preventing them from doing so. Everybody said that all enemies were shooting so I have successfully coded that aspect of them.

This question was aimed at getting player feedback on the speed of the enemies shooting. Most thought it to be great and not needing change but a couple of people wanted it to be a little faster which is something i can do so it’s only a little faster. 

I wanted to see if players could figure out the buttons, they did but a few struggled and one person said “You need to tell the player the buttons” So i think an instructions page will be helpful. 

This question was to see if i needed to make the buildings at the bottom more transparent. 1 Person didn't put an answer down which i assume to mean they didn’t try, 1 person couldn’t see through it, 3 person could and 3 struggled to see through it so i need to make it more opaque so the player can see through it. 

I wanted to see if the health bar worked every single time and as everyone answered yes I can be confident that it works. 

I asked this question to see if the health bar functioned properly as a health bar and as can be seen it does. 

Finally on health bars i wanted to see if when health runs out if the game restarts or not, it does. I now know that my health bar works and is fully functional. 

This last question was to get feedback and improvements from the players. The most common thing that was said is to add another level, which I’m planning to do, and add a death screen which i could do as it is kind of story based. The first person said that another type of enemy could be added which is what i’m planning for future levels with the addition of zombies. One person said to make the enemies move and shoot towards the player which is something i wanted to do in planing but in practice it too beyond my skill set to accomplish. Another person said to add a cool down to shooting and limit movement more, I’m planning, as the characters health deteriorates that he gets slower and less able to move over terrain. As for the cool down i was planning to have that kind of thing for a special attack i haven’t put in yet where energy builds up slowly but you can get more energy from electrical boxes to charge an attack. That brings me to one persons suggestion of pick ups and upgrades, i plan to have health packs, ammo boxes and electrical boxes, adding to the cool down of gun with ammo, but they haven’t been added yet. 1 person said that they didn’t like you could only move in one direction at a time but i have not learnt how to code a diagonal movement yet so again, beyond my skill set. Someone said to increase speed of enemies and the character which i was planning to do with the enemies but i could also speed up the character which might solve the bug someone pointed out where if you shoot multiple times in one direction and one of those hits an enemy then all the bullets going that direction disappear which is down to the coding currently in place. I’m not how to fix it but i will try my options. 

So today I focused on coding my enemies and making sure both them and the main character can attack. I started by making my projectiles which are bullets, and making them face different directions. I then had to make my army guy face different directions and they are all labeled for the direction they are facing. 

My test room is set up to test any code i put onto an object or any new object.

I also made my first level map that includes a see through tile for the buildings in the front so you can see when the character walks through it so now all i need to do is code health parks, electricity boxes and ammo boxes, add the enemy where i need them and add a heath bar to the main character and a couple more attack options and this room will be done.

I got a lot done and I've ran into a few problems like how to get the enemies to shoot different directions which i fixed so i have different facing army guys that shoot in one direction, so 1 right, 1 left ect, and i will place them as an inconvenience to the player. I also had a problem with how to make a block see through but figured out you could see the opacity of the eraser tool and make it see through.  

Overall I have made good progress in this lesson and I’ve learnt how to do more things in game maker like opacity and pasting things from a file which is what I did for my background with the pathways and road. 

Today we talked about politics and where political parties stand in terms of left and right and authoritarianism and libertarian.   

I took a test online to see where i am on the grid and this was the result. 

We played dark souls on Friday to look at game play, art style and themes. Dark souls is a game known to be really hard to play and the boss battles are known to be difficult and intense. You play a class of character and you have to fight different bosses and creatures. The theme of the game is dark fantasy and it sticks to the theme well. We played dark souls 3 and the first and only boss we saw was Iudex Gundyr who you need to fight in order to get access to the firelink shrine. You have to trigger the fight by pulling the sword out of his chest. If you die after triggering the fight you wont need to trigger it again. 

I have made my character sprites and made them objects. They move and are animated to look like walking. I have 5 stages for the 5 levels where the infection gets worse as the levels go on. The 4th and 5th stage character are slower then the other character stages as they are when the infection is at its worst. 

I feel a little better about timing now that have made a start in making the game. Next Rachel lesson i plan to have at least 1 map made and maybe some more coding put in. I have my pick ups made, animated and made into objects but i need to make them interactive to the player.