BGIE Blog

Currently, my team and I are working on an exploratory game inspired by a few of Olafur Eliasson's artworks. The brief is liked to GOMA and presents opportunities to be displayed. Currently, the game is on the tail end of development. The environment almost finished, with minimal narrative assets being the only major environmental change to be made. Other changes include, editing UI, NPC interactions, additional sfx, and the end scene.

What I'm working on right now:

-Start button delay -Intro scene (npc goal explain) -Butterfly and fishing sfx -Narrative assets -Settings UI -Clean up files Currently the game is in playtesting phase. Below is the link to the current itch.io build as well as google form for playtesting: Itch.io:

Based on the data provided to our team via play testing, it was clear some changes had to be made. After modifying the game to fit these needs these were some things that were done well within our game:

✯Having a main menu that displayed a storyline prior to our game beginning. This allowed of a more purposeful gameplay and may contribute into giving a player motivation to continue playing. ✯Creating barriers on each edge of the screen to prevent player sprite from disappearing out of view. ✯Modifying the asteroid spawn location so that they spawn from the right and move towards the player ship. ✯Allowing for players to auto-fire bullets when holding down right-click, due to players deeming it unnecessary to repeatedly click when it's almost constant. ✯Increased the variety within the game, both in sprites and contrasting features. Alien enemies were added that were contrasting colours and speeds to make defeating these characters challenging and feel more rewarding.

While a great deal was improved after play testing feedback, further changes could have done our game good and would have been needed. These changes included were: ✯The addition of a high score tracker that remembers a players score every time. This allows a player to be self motivated to beat their own goals and continue playing for longer to do so. ✯Including more challenges would increase playtime. Other challenges could consist of increasing speed until the game becomes too difficult for the player to continue, the addition of more enemies some even with attack mechanisms, or potentially upgrades that advance a players ship (an improvement we intended to include but ran short of time)

After conducting a round of play testing these were the results found collectively. (Low severity means issue was discussed but of low demand to be fixed, medium is a higher demand issue and high means it needs to be fixed to be enjoyable.)

Based on the play testing demonstrating Nebula Navigators high need for variety and new enemies to prevent boredom, I drew 3 alien sprites to utilise to create some diversity within the game. The pixel-art sprites are shown below:

Playtesting is a vital process within game development and can be similarly linked to a section in Fullerton's Textbook that goes over 'Clear Goals and Feedback'. By conducting a round of testing, we are able to see what goals are strikingly clear to a first-time player, and receive immediate feedback based on their gameplay. A round of playtesting where players were asked for their feedback on these 8 ideas: ✯Music ✯Sprite Designs ✯Game Variety ✯Storyline ✯Gameplay ✯Entertainment ✯Progression ✯Game Visuals Data was collected based on this, and the results showed that: ✯The highest priority needed to be adding features that would increase the games fun factor (Add upgrade system, high score tracker, new enemies etc) ✯The game currently doesn't give the player much motivation to continue playing (Create a system that saves highscore to motivate player to beat their own goal?) ✯The game lacks variety and makes it boring to look at and repetitive (Add contrast within games visuals, colours?)

After team discussion of my idea for assignment 2, these were the modifications we were wanting to incorporate in order to make the game purposeful and more exciting:

✯Ship speed changes as game progresses to increase difficulty ✯Side-scroller background ✯Asteroids that spawn from the right ✯Scoring system ✯Potential upgrades to advance player?

Nebula Navigator takes an alternate approach on the arcade game, ‘asteroids’. Due to the similarities between this game and the one my team and I aim to create, changes were needed to be made visually as well as mechanically. Based on my skillset, I was able to illustrate a new ship sprite that we were able to use to replace the current minimalistic sprite. A teammate was able to resize and create a simple animation to demonstrate a slight movement in the ship as the game progresses (the blue area within the back of the ship). The design is shown below (Based on the file size, the image might display slightly blurry):

Unfortunately, the development of this racing game was put on hold due to the introduction of assignment 2/3 and our focuses having to be switched to that. Because of this, I didn't get a great deal completed for the racing inspired game. Continuing on ideas from chapter 11 relating to fun, I found an asset online that I intended to use as an enemy sprite:

Based on my lack of understanding (I know, by now you would think I'd be able to correctly utilise skills learnt), this is a video I intended to use. I watched the video and saved the link, had I gotten the chance or chosen to further this idea into upcoming assignments. The video walkthroughs how to create an enemy sprite that follows the path of a player sprite until it finally collides.

In my head this is how I feel would be the best method to creating a car chase, considering my skill set. I feel that this game out of the 3 I have experimented with, has the most potential to be fun, while still being an idea that is realistic to complete using GDevelop, and not too far fetched for me personally to execute had I had had more time.

Fullerton, T. (2018). Game Design Workshop: A Playcentric Approach to Creating Innovative Games. ProQuest Ebook. Retrieved from: https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/qut/reader.action?docID=5477698

The development of this game was one that was difficult. Not because the game elements themselves were hard to execute, but because I had so many ideas, and ended up trying to include too many. Because with developing Nebula Navigator, I struggled most with how to create a simplistic game that was still considerably fun, I wanted to create a racing game that was a fun as I possibly could make it. Fun factors are one of the sole topics discussed within chapter 11. The chapter highlights that because games are voluntary activities, a game must have some kind of entertaining aspect of it otherwise there won't be anything motivating a player to continue the game.

Within the game, this player asset was used from online.

The player sprite was intentionally kept simplistic to not draw attention away from more important features that required additional focus such as oncoming traffic, obstacles and other road blocks. Road blocks included int his game were traffic cones to prevent players from merging into particular lanes, oil spills on the road, and nails. To increase the games fun factors, I think it would be fun to include a feature that allowed a police car to follow the player car after a certain action is done, meaning player is challenged to not have to stop frequently or risk getting caught. Originally it was a concern to me that this game would end up resembling frogger or popular game 'crossy roads' and I'd face the same originality issues that I did with NN, hence why I believe it would be cool to add a little car chase theme, almost giving off a (2D extremely low budget) GTA theme.

The racing game, inspired by the arcade game 'Frogger', is a game that's aim is to race through traffic without being hit by oncoming traffic. While the game shares similarities, here are some elements that separate this game from others:

✯Main car sprite moves forward constantly and a button has to be held to stop the car

✯The speed of passing cars varies

✯Power-ups that allow player to complete various tasks (more durable car, higher speed etc)

✯Countless different race related roadblocks

Here is a sketch of a potential plan for the racing inspired game:

When developing beyond the deadline, I aimed to utilise skills discussed within Fullerton's textbook (Chapter 1) that mentioned creators having to think like players in order to create effective games. By thinking like a player I was able to highlight where the issues would be within my game and personally play test it myself. The one dilemma I couldn't seem to solve within gameplay was that I couldn't quite gather why the player would be motivated to save the character in distress. I couldn't depict whether or not moral compass would be enough or if I just felt no motivation to save the character because I had personally created them. I think if I had had more time, I'd want to delve further into a storyline that give the additional character a meaningful relationship with the player and gives them further motivation to be saved, above the player just being a 'hero'. Despite this, if I had to change/ add something to my game, I'd like to research more into developing using enemy attack mechanics. Currently, my enemy just holds the distress character hostage, and 'kills' the player when they collide. I think it would be more effective for gameplay with the player had to defeat this 'kidnapper' enemy, but unfortunately my time-frame and skill-set didn't allow me to do so just yet.

Within the creation of Nebula Navigation, I aimed to focus on creating a game that has a clear objective without having to specifically show it. This was a concept mentioned within chapter 3 of Tracey Fullerton's Textbook. Things I focused on to highlight the objective of the game were: ✯Having asteroids that spawned from the right , moving towards the player. By keeping the asteroid sprite as the moving obstacle, the objective is self explanatory, move away from the big rocks flying towards your character. Asteroids naturally act as a threat in a real life sense therefore they are the perfect asset. ✯Using brightly coloured ship sprite to easily depict character player that contrasts with the rest of the scene. ✯Having star collectables that 'glow' to highlight that they are special items. By having them have a glowing effect, it draws additional attention to them and provokes a player into collecting them. Personally, I found the hardest part within creating this game idea, was developing something that didn't replicate the original asteroids game too much. Currently, it's quite similar to this and I'd like to do more to expand on this idea as I feel there is a broad range of things that can be included to further this idea and make it more unique.

Below are some of the assets used within the game, utilised from online sites as placeholders.

Within the development of this game, I tried to focus on player interaction with the game as mentioned in Fullerton's textbook. I wanted to focus particularly the emotive response to the game, and was hoping to achieve creating a connection between player and character in distress. Unfortunately what I later learned was what was and wasn't realistic based on my lack of experience with GDevelop currently. It took me a while to wrap my head around how the 'coding' part of GDevelop works, however my skills are becoming better with practice. In order to better player and character connection, I'm wanting to find an audio to give the character some kind of voice to call out to the player as they progress. Assuming that this just involves downloading the file + editing it, I don't think it will be unrealistic.

Navigate through the milkyway and dodge deadly asteroids in 'Nebula Navigator'! Blast your way through space debris and defeat galactic enemies in order to cross the galaxy within the time limit. The asteroids inspired game depicts the player as an astronaut venturing through space, the up and down arrows are used to navigate the ship and manoeuvre around asteroids that can't be blasted in time. In later versions of the game, aliens and other space related obstacles can be added to enhance gameplay, but currently based on skill and time, the first prototype will include:

✯A player that is able to move up and down as well as shoot

✯Multiple sizes of asteroids that harm a player

✯Background that moves to give the game a moving forward feel

✯A potential animation that makes the player 'explode' when colliding with obstacle

This is my current plan for the game outline:

In the week 5 lecture, we discussed the difference between one-page and one-sheet documents. It will be vital to know what separates these two from each other for a later assignment. Below is the main factors for each... One-Page: ✯Condensed game design document ✯Similar to an architectural blueprint ✯A3 ✯Focused on a main illustration of the moment-to-moment (M2M) gameplay (Link on the week 5 PPT for One-Page outline)