To Game or Not to Game

I made over 30 walk cycles for my second games project that I have memorized walk poses. I no longer need to look a references for a basic walk cycle in 3D animation because I have made so many 2D ones. I learned a lot about Photoshop too because of it. I improved this skill because of the amount of repetition I had done. Working on a team really helped me devolp my storytelling. Working so closely with Cameron and Jack on the second project to create a linear tale was one of my favorite parts of the semester. They made me better storytellers and taught me interesting ways to tell stories in games. I also learned alot about UI/UX elements from my first and last projects. We did a lot of research in it to make it work properly and I feel like I have a strong foundation in it now.

Innovation is game design is so important. It’s great how greating even the most simple mechanic can create a slew of really fun and interesting games. I believe game’s mechanics and designs should absolutely be protected by patents, though perhaps not for 14 years, perhaps just a year or less. The creators deserve to reap the fortunes of their creation. At the same time, games is such a quickly developing field that relies of people constantly making breakthroughs and building off one another. Perhaps even a patent isn’t the right legal system. There should be some way for the designers to be able to sell their idea for that first year if others want to create something using their mechanic or designs. What happened to the people who mades Threes! Is awful and they deserve not only credit for their work, but the money that have come with it. At the same time same time we shouldn’t be limiting designers in this fast paced constantly building field. I think there should be patents for the first year of creation and a way for game designers to sell or approve use of their design or mechanic for the first year. There needs to be some system in place. The things designers make are their intellectual property and it should be protected. 

Kyoguku is a woman who worked on a lot of important games for Nintendo, like Animal Crossing: New Leaf and Twilight Princess. She is a successful game designer who is creating a gateway for woman in the game industry by promoting diversity.

Kan Gao is the founder and director of Freebird Game. He is currently a 27 seven year old graduate from the University of Western Ontario. He was born in China and moved to Canada when he was 11. He is the creator the the cult indie game To the Moon, one of my favorite games of all time. He was the writer, developer, composer, and director of the game. Gao never set out of be a game developer. He isn’t even strong programmer. He has created a lot of games around interactive fiction like Quintessence, the Mirror Lied, and Bird Story. A lot of his games focus around the music, since he’s a composer. and storytelling. To the Moon is such an important and powerful games with themes in mental illness, death, and regret. I chose Kan Gao because I love To the Moon more than I love most games. It tells such an important story and does it through beautiful music and visuals. Kan Gao more of less developed the game entirely on his own. He wrote a story about his own struggles with his grandfather’s death and the longing one may have at the end of their lives to change things. I too am not a strong coder, but I love storytelling, and I love games as a platform for storytelling. Gao has achieved such success by following his passion for storytelling, and I hope one day I can achieve something similar. Gao created a incredibly popular indie game that has a cult-like following. Despite his lacking background in game development, he has achieved tremendous success and continues creating games centered around storytelling and music.

The gaming community’s attitude towards women is absolutely disgusting. They have chased women out of their homes, sending death threats or worse. There are a disproportionate gender lines in the gaming world, and it’s not a wonder why. It saddens me truly. I remember walking into games class the first day and thinking I was the only girl in the class. My professor had said we were waiting on one more person before we started class. I looked around the room. I was the only girl. I turned to tell my friends. They hadn’t even noticed. I was slightly terrified at the prospect of being the girl in a class. I was so aware of it. Thank goodness my friend Claire walked in. She was the last person but still, isn’t that sad. In a class of 14, there were 2 girls and 12 boys who wanted to learn about games. The gaming industry does not seem like the safest place to be a female and it’s scary. It really is.

After reading, “Puzzle Document,” I was very confused as to how this was a game. It just seemed like a lot of text. One Wikipedia article later, I get it. The Puzzle Document is explaining how the player would solve puzzles in the game.  I really love at the beginning of the game,  how the game makes everything go wrong for the main character. You are doing everything you are suppose to do to progress through the game as the player, but luck is still not on your side. I love how the puzzles enforce the narrative of game rather than acting as a separate thing. The puzzles bring the cut scenes together. The entire piece almosts reads as fiction. It is a story. The player just has to figure out the narrative you created through exploration and talking to characters. How are we going to fit Glottis in the car? We have to get working papers to cut off the roof.  It’s very cool how the player discovers the narrative.

This project was exhausting. It took an excessively long time to create and it was very stressful for all four members of the team. There was too much to incorporate and not enough time. If I could change anything I’d want to clean up the animation cycles a bit. AHAB’s movement was supposed to be a bit robotic but I still think it could use a bit more smoothness to it. The guard could also use some cleaning up. There were just so many sprites to make and story elements to develop that quantity became more important than quality. I’d also like to be more fair to the player and allow them to get off the “death” route if they stop killing guards midway through. They are currently trapped into that ending if they kill even one guard. In our defense, killing one person in reality does say a lot about one’s morality. However, I don’t believe this project will be continued. It exhausted everyone involved and it’s time to move on from it.  

If I were to add anything to the game, I think that’s where I would want to start. I want to make the level design more intriguing for the players, to make it more fun and challenging. I also wanted to have a particle system trailing behind the player which I think would add a nice aesthetic. I also wanted to create “enemies” of some sort that could effect the ‘aura’ of the player if the player touched the enemies. This would add another level of difficulty to the game. I wanted to change the “timer” system the game runs on so depending on the time in which the player finishes, a different end screen would appear directly telling you your fortune. The question you originally asked would be present on this screen too. I had figured out a system to store the “question” as an asset of the player but it never got implemented because I could not figure out how to work the timer. I also wanted to create a way to make sure the player asked a question before entering the game,  but alas “wants” are not “needs” and the game works fairly well regardless. I’m fairly proud of what I created and I hope you enjoy Luminista’s Fortunes.