The Fundementals Of Game Design

We successfully submitted today! Overall the assignment came together well. There were a few bumps throughout the assignment but the team handled them well, worked hard, and overcame them.

Here is a link to our final demo for the ‘Child of the Forest’ Platformer.

https://youtu.be/E1ntRY5W-sY

I have really enjoyed doing this subject this year.

What’s one thing you’d change about how you developed the prototype?

I personally believe we did quite well with our prototype and the process to complete it. The only thing I would have liked to change was the amount of time that I could spend developing it. Unfortunately with the pressures of other subjects, jobs, and general life, I wasn’t able to work on it as much as I would have like. This impacted the overall quality of the game, it’s features, and design eg. The tutorial and platform design. In saying this, we were able to create enough of a game to successfully play test moultiple times and develop it off those results.

What’s one thing you’d change about the design of the prototype?

As seen in the previous post on Playtesting, we have compiled a list of points to improve based off the play testing.

The majority of the feedback was regarding mechanical issues such as

when falling off the map, death isn’t triggered

The confusion with which vines can be climbed

Lack of information in controls and context

We began playtesting today.

As I have been doing quite a bit more work on creating the game to play test, the others were leading the play testing. Tyra and Isabella took turns at leading while I was taking notes throughout the session.

The play test went smoothly and we were able to get helpful and important information back from the testers.

The main comments are seen in the table below. In the far right Collum, we have added in ways to fix the issues that arose in the Playtest.

Reflecting on the progress we have made so far.

When creating the time line for this project, we didn’t condsider the impact of other subjects enough. Despite that, we have manage to build one level for the play testing so far.

The level has a small introduction to direct the player in the right direction. Following that, the player can interact with platforms, demon, collectables, and vines to climb.

The image below is a screen capture of the game.

In the tutorial today we were asked to present our idea for a game. There were two other individuals who were interested in working on my game with me.

The final team of people working on Child Of the Forest are:

Gemma Nyssen (Me)

Isabella Baker

Tyra Vink

Hannah Wanstall

After creating our group, I explained my ideas for the game, we discussed what we wanted to add/ change, and allocated roles to each group member.

Some of the ideas discussed were

The addition of a weapon and how that evolves throughout the levels

The collectables and how can be improved

The possible addition of an intro cut Scene at the beginning of the game to create context for the player

Musical tracks to be created

The images below is our time line and Task Allocations.

Seen below are my final One Page and Sell Sheet.

I think I managed to get across the aesthetic and vibe of the game across well and enough information that people would understand what it’s about and begin to build.

Sell Sheet

One Page

What’s one thing you’d change about how you developed the prototype?

I believe that I spent too much time trying to customise the aesthetics and images during this build. This made it confusing when building the game and the mechanics. The end result was a underdeveloped game. I think next time, I should first focus on creating the mechanics before changing the aesthetics.

What’s one thing you’d change about the design of the prototype?

For my assignment 2, I decided to work on my platform game idea. The name of the game is Child of the Forest.

To begin the process, I am writing all the needed information into a word document which I will get my tutor to review in the next tutorial.

Below is all the information I have written so far:

Sell Sheet

Title of Game: Child of the Forest

X statement

This Single player 16-bit game will follow an elf child that gets lost in a forest. With the help of a star spirit and friends you met along the way, you must find your way home. 

Defining details:

Number of players (note for this project: single player)

Single player game

Genre

Fantasy

Platform

Platform Adventure game

Any specific requirements: special controllers, etc.

W up, A left, S crouch, D right, space bar to jump and right click to interact with NPC’s.

1-2 paragraph description of the game

The inspiration of this game is from two different games which are Ori and The Blind Forest and Stardew Valley with some fantasy inspiration from Lord of the Rings.

This 16-bit game will follow an elf child that gets lost in a forest. With the help of a star spirit and friends, you must find your way home.

Your character can make friends throughout the game and complete adventures with them. In turn, these friends will help you either by lending a hand or gifting you with items.

As you make your way through the game, you can collect items Eg certain types of plants. These can be exchanged, with the star spirit or your new friends, for different items. In the first exchange, you can trade 4 different plants for a backpack with the star spirit. This will begin with common items and slowly get more difficult as you progress.

One Page

Gameplay design illustration (focal point)

Sidebar explaining features

How does the camera work: The camera follows the character

How many hit points/ Health: The character has a total health bar of 100 – the respawn point will be at the start of each level – if you die you return to the start of that level

The levels will end when you meet up with the star spirit – and trade goods – or meet with new friends at the end of the platform

How many levels: 10 level game

What is the scoring system?

The goal is to make it too the end of the level – no point-based scoring. Though you can get points by killing demons. These points will allow you to get items such as plants or wood

List of things you interact with

Different plants – bushes, flowers, fruits

Trees – hitting a tree with a hammer will give you wood

Enemies – demon spirits – by killing them

Characters and Star Spirit – talking to them and exchange items

Description explaining the X statement 

The 16-bit aesthetic was chosen to create a retro and nostalgic look and feel to a more modern, fantasy theme. In addition, because the main character is a young elf, the 16-bit style creates a more childlike feel.

Progression mechanics

As the levels continue, the item collections will be more difficult – rarer items or you need a larger number of them

The enemies will also get stronger, harder to kill, and more frequent as the levels progress

The character can over come this by trading items – such as plans for stronger weapons

First things you do in level one

The first section of level one will be an introductory section where the idea of the game (that you are a lost elf trying to get home) is introduced and you meet the star spirit who says they will guide you home. The spirit will then go on to teach you the basic game mechanics Eg Controls, interacting and collecting items

The racing game has been the most difficult to create so far.

The things I need to work on before the post mortem are:

Object collision mechanic

Path or “road” image

What’s one thing you’d change about how you developed the prototype?

For the process of creating it I did follow the tutorial initially but I think it would’ve been nice branch out and make the game in a slightly different layout. Making it a side scrolling asteroid game would have made it more interesting and allowed me to be a bit more creative with it.

What’s one thing you’d change about the design of the prototype?

What’s one thing you’d change about how you developed the prototype?

For this prototype, only ended up using characters and image provided, which was not the aesthetic or theme that I had outlined in my elevator pitch. I think next time, while not completely focusing on it, I should find images earlier on to use. This way it will be more inline with the elevator pitch proposed. I will add that using the given images from the tutorial did make it easier to understand how to use GDevelop as it was my first time using the software

What’s one thing you’d change about the design of the prototype?

Durning the last tutorial we moved onto Racing games!

Since the beginning of the semester, I think I have improved a bit when writing an elevator pitch.

Racing Game Elevator Pitch

Title of Game: Dragon Rider

Elevator Pitch: 

This game takes inspiration from the fantasy novel Dragon Rider.

You begin the game creating a friendship with a dragon. Your goal is to help the dragon make it to a dragon safe haven called the Rim of Heaven. 

Each level of the game is set in a different terrain. 

To process to the next level, you must fly for a certain amount of time to reach your destination, which may be a cave to sleep in or a city. As game progresses, the levels will get faster and more difficult.

Controls:  For this game you will be using the left and right keys to move

3 Selling Points:

1. Bringing another twist the Dragon Rider World

2. Get a chance to explore all different places within the story

Since I first came up with the design for the asteroid game, There were a few things I needed to work on:

The images I had chosen for the asteroid were good but they had some see through parts. I changed this by editing the image and tried to create a more cohesive colour palette 

Another thing I had to work on was the collision mechanism between the asteroids and the shooter.

There were the main problems.

This week we began to create a new game!

We had to create a asteroid game.

The name of the astroid game I am creating is Sugar Rush.

This game is a lolies themed astroid game where you play as a fresh strawberry figting against the lollies. 

Your goal is to destroy as many of the lolly astroids as possible to get out of candy land and make it back home to the strawberry

This is a screen shot of the game so far.

The three unique selling points for this game is the:

Characters and colour theme

Small strawberry bullets

In the tutorial we had the chance to continue to work on our game before moving on to peer reviews.

In the first half of the tutorial, I worked on 

Making my character respawn 

Adding a coin system to the game and displaying the amount of money collected 

Creating jump through platforms 

After this I had two people play test my game. Here are the take away, and likes.

Take always

Need To double check and review all block heights to ensure they are all able to be reached - can add some where you must use the slime to jump higher - make them respawn if you do that

Make the clouds jump through

Change the money text to an image of the coin

Add some coins to the secret path

Add some more enemies such as a flying one or some spikes

Add a check point after the tutorial- or at the end of the platform

Likes

Like the respawning

Like the money counter

The jump was nice and smooth

Since the first tutorial, I have worked on the plaform game.

As seen in the picture below: