ZoSister

Looking back on the experience of making our game, I would have researched the physics engine to make sure we could actually produce the game we wanted to, as the physics engine in GDevelop is judgemental and can be hard to handle. Combining both the platformer behaviour and the physics behaviour just didn’t work well and was hard to handle sometimes. The ragdoll was made by joints holding them together and was a hassle to put together, all the points were individually placed onto the objects.

I would have made an easier version, but still showing that the main character was the weapon. We barely got the game finished, and just got the playtesting done, even though there were tones of lag and the game froze.

The original concept for the game was to create two levels with three different puzzles in total. Level 1 was going to be two puzzles;

Puzzle 1 requires the Adventurer and the Barbarian. The player will have to use the Adventurer to dash over a small cliff then cut a rope, dropping a rock. The player will then use the Barbarian to push the rock over a gap. Then the player moves on to the next puzzle.

Puzzle 2 requires the Barbarian, the Adventurer and the Rat. The Barbarian pushes a rock away from a hole. The player then changes to the Rat to scurry into the hole to get the key. Then going back to change into the Adventurer to dash over the hole to unlock the door.

The third puzzle was going to be for the second level;

Puzzle 3 starts as the Adventurer and uses all hosts. This room contains three tiers of platforms one above the other. The Barbarian stays on the bottom level and needs to push a rock to the end of his platform, to allow the Adventurer to climb up to the next platform, which is where you can take over him. The Adventurer then heads to the end of his platform, dashing across a gap, to pull a lever. The Rat then climbs up the wall to cut a rope on the third platform to allow the drawbridge to drop. The Rat has to go back to the Adventurer to then climb down and escape over the drawbridge.

Because our group was having issues with getting the first two puzzles finished we decided to not include the third puzzle. We also changed both of the first two puzzles;

Puzzle 1 requires the Adventurer and the Barbarian. Oh no! This room is trapped with a tripwire leading to a boulder. The barbarian is locked behind a door the adventurer has to trigger with a floor button to open. The trap is tripped when the player triggers the tripwire and the adventurer has to dash to avoid getting hit by the boulder(dashing backwards). But there is a gap in the floor where the adventurer can't cross and has to use the Barbarian to push the newly dropped boulder into the gap. So The player can get across.

Puzzle 2 requires the Rat. The exit is at the end of the room but it’s locked! The button to unlock the door is hidden under the tunnel. However, the tunnel has so many poisonous substances that are fatal to human beings. Luckily we have the Rat! The Rat can dive to the tunnel and find the button and press that to activate the platform that then unlocks the door. They must then platform their way out of the tunnel to reach the door.

The abilities changed for the hosts as well they were;

The Adventurer has a short directional dash, a spinning attack that deals damage and pushes enemies back around the player, and the weapon turns into a sword.

The Barbarian has a stampede ability that pushes large objects with him, a smash attack that when hits the ground dealing damage and destroys some objects, and the weapon turns into an axe.

The Rat has a tunnelling ability that allows him to move through small spaces, a bite attack that hits the target then launches the player in the opposite direction and the weapon changes into a collar that the rat wears.

They now all have the same attack and the weapons are the same;

The Adventurer has a short directional dash and a medium jump.

The Barbarian has a stampede ability that pushes large objects with him.

When playtesting the game we had a script that was read to players before playing the game.

You play as the weapon, changing between hosts to progress through the levels and make your way back to your original body. When near a new host use its motion controls to possess it. Left Click is to attack with the weapons

The Barbarian: A & D is to move the barbarian Left and Right and has a larger attack, can push heavy objects such as boulders

The Rat: J & L is to move the rat Left and Right and T is to open Rat tunnels whilst playing as the rat

The Adventurer: Left & Right buttons are to move the adventurer Left and Right, z is to dash to the left, x is to dash to the right.

I had two people playtest our game: Bella (My little sister) and Jesse (My Partner).

Jesse’s Notes:

He solved puzzle 1 with ease.

Tiny chest stops the barbarian from going right and he didn't want to go back to get the adventurer.

He killed the skeleton with ease

Easy to move the adventurer with a dash instead of normal controls

5 frames hurt the game

He didn't get to use the rat as the game froze before he could

Bella’s Notes:

She skipped Barbarian and the first puzzle.

She got killed by the boulder multiple times and got killed by spikes but carried on to skip the puzzle

The movement is a bit slow.

Always jumping is really cool.

Our group formed on the thought of how we could pick the idea for the game. One of our team members used a “Game Jam Theme Generator” and generated three phrases we could use:

“You are the weapon”: A platformer where the player would be the weapon dragging the adventurer around.

“Keep Growing”: Sword changes its shape when a different host interacts with it.

“Side effects”: The different hosts have different abilities.

In the development of the prototype, we first figured out a storyline for the game;

One day, a cursed and sealed sword was liberated from an ancient kingdom somehow. It then attaches to its first host, who is an adventurer trying to explore the kingdom. The adventurer and the sword can only work together and go deep into this place to find out how to break the bonding between them. However, many challenges are coming towards them while they embark on this perilous journey, like the sword’s power is too strong and it will harm its host once in a while. The more they are killed, the stronger the sword will be.

From the storyline of the game, we came with a Minimal Viable Product (MVP) Description;

A single-player 2D platformer game with puzzle elements and the setting for the game is in a forgotten kingdom. The enemy the player fights is a skeleton. They will move back and forth on platform sections then attack players within a certain range. The MVP will showcase two levels at the end of the first act as the player is escaping from the ancient kingdom. The Player is a sentient weapon, connected to a ‘host’. The player (the sentient weapon) moves, jumps and attacks, whilst the host ragdolls behind.

The prototype will focus on switching character systems as the selling point, If a host hasn’t been interacted with before it will animate and stand up. When the player swaps between hosts the previous host fall to the floor and stays there. Each host has their own health bar that decreases when they take damage from enemies and the player uses the unique movement or attack mechanic. Being attacked by enemies depletes this faster. The game is over when the host the player is currently inhabiting runs out.

The Adventurer has a short directional dash, a spinning attack that deals damage and pushes enemies back around the player, and the weapon turns into a sword.

The Barbarian has a stampede ability that pushes large objects with him, a smash attack that when hits the ground dealing damage and destroys some objects, and the weapon turns into an axe.

The Rat has a tunnelling ability that allows him to move through small spaces, a bite attack that hits the target then launches the player in the opposite direction and the weapon changes into a collar that the rat wears.

There will be three puzzles of increasing difficulty as the player learns about the new mechanic from the latest host. I will discuss them in the coming posts.

And finally, the games elevator pitch is;

"You play as a long-forgotten sentient weapon, freshly reawakened by a naïve adventurer, whose body is now yours to puppet. On your journey back to your original body, a dragon slumbering atop the volcano takes over all manner of living hosts, changing your form and abilities as you battle undead and platform through ancient kingdoms. Be wary however, using your power injures these frail hosts and a dead host can't carry you anywhere… The Dragon’s Host is rated for PG audiences."

Thinking about the racing game from last week, I wanted to make a game that a player of racing games would like to play and the flow of the game to be a casual racing game. My partner plays a lot of racing games and I got his input on how the game should be. Fullerton says,

“If your game is geared to a particular audience, you should do some target player research by watching their interactions with other games and each other. This is not the same as a focus group; it is closer to market research but a bit more fun.”

What I would have changed in the development of the game, I would have researched more about the pathfinding in GDevelop before attempting to make an AI in my prototype. When designing my game I would have chosen an easier version, as the AI I implemented barely worked. I would have gone with the top down left to right, instead of making a whole racetrack.

Here is the final design for my Sell-Sheet & One-Page:

For my Sell-Sheet and One-Page, I used the game from my asteroids prototype. I didn’t get to prototype upgrading my ship, so for this design, I got to implement the upgrade ship screen. I also added the number of materials the player needs to collect to proceed to the next level.

This week I’ve been working on trying to implement an AI driver you can race against in GDevelop. There were several ways to implement this but I chose to use pathfinding as the easiest way. As described on the GDevelop Wiki it says,

“Pathfinding behavior allows us to move objects to a selected destination as well as to flag items as obstacles. Objects that are flagged as obstacles will be avoided by the moving objects.”

All I needed to do is map out the course for the pathfinding behaviour to use to get around the map using coordinates and inputs of where to go.

As I didn’t get it ready for playtesting I decided to use an exercise from Fullerton;

“Describe in detail what goes through your head as you play the game. Start a playtesting notebook in which you record all of the feedback you get from yourself and other testers.”

It was fun to drive around the track and see the AI driver driving beside me. I didn’t get the boost working and so I couldn’t beat the AI driver but I could drive around the track.

The game I chose to do the One-Sheet and One-Page on was my asteroids game “Rock Hunt Rocket”.

I made a note board to figure out what I needed on each page,

Sell-Sheet:

One-Page:

Another exercise from Fullerton helped me figure out how to write my razor statement and slogan.

“Try to capture what makes it interesting to you and how the basic gameplay will work. …. For example, the razor for the original Medal of Honor was “GoldenEye set in WWII on a PlayStation.” Entis felt this was a great razor because it allowed the team to decide what features the game absolutely needed. It was not a great slogan, however. The slogan that went on the box was, “Prepare for your finest hour.”

The first razor statement idea I came up with was,

“Asteroids but with upgrades!”

But then it got upgraded too,

“Play as an ace pilot where you shoot meteors, Collect materials & Upgrade your ship!”

The Slogan that I came up with for this game is,

“Try to get the best upgrades and the most materials!”

I’ll show the final design in the next post!

victrisgames. (2021). Pathfinding [GDevelop Wiki]. GDevelop Wiki. http://wiki.compilgames.net/doku.php/gdevelop5/behaviors/pathfinding#pathfinding

From the last couple of posts, I’ve been using an exercise from Fullerton to figure out what I need to prototype in each game;

“What Do You Need to Prototype? What concerns do you have about the gameplay, aesthetics, kinesthetics, or technology in your original concept? Of these concerns, which is the highest priority? Which will kill the game if they do not work? Depending on your answer, decide where to focus your efforts for your first digital prototype.”

This quote helped me figure out what was actually needed to be included in the prototype, and what I needed to focus on. While I was making “Rock Hunt Rocket” I changed the design completely. Instead of making an asteroids game that had levels at certain collection amounts to upgrade your ship, I gave it replayability where the player just needs to stay alive. I would love to change the graphics and put a realistic touch on the design.

This week is about making a Racing Game:

I took a quote from Fullerton this week is coming up with game ideas;

“A favorite technique is writing on a whiteboard or on large pieces of paper taped to the walls... Writing on a whiteboard lends itself to big ideas, sketches, and side notes.”

So instead of using a whiteboard, I used a google drawing and produced this mind map with 4 designs.

The 4 designs I came up with are:

Post-Apocalyptic Top-Down Racer where you drive to survive and get to a checkpoint.

Go-Karting game where you race around a track for the best time

A Car chase game where you have AI following you to a checkpoint to move onto a new level, dodging traffic and other hazards

F1 Racer where you race around tracks based on real tracks in F1 and have a boost (ERS) and DRS with cars in front.

I chose the F1 racer as my game to use for the prototype, as my boyfriend and I have watched nearly all of the Grand Prix's of this season.

F1 Racer 1v1 is a racing game where you race around tracks based on real tracks in F1 and have a boost (ERS) and DRS with cars in front. This arcade-style racing game uses basic controls to steer and accelerate the car, there is also a boost button and a slipstream button to activate when behind the AI car the player is racing. This game is for casual racing fans of F1 and has a G rating.

This week I found out about loopholes in Fullerton’s book;

“A loophole can be defined as a flaw in the system that users can exploit to gain an unfair or unintended advantage.”

I found out that the original Atari game had a loophole in the game. A Wikipedia article explains more about it;

“In the original game design, saucers were supposed to begin shooting as soon as they appeared, but this was changed. Additionally, saucers can only aim at the player's ship on-screen; they are not capable of aiming across a screen boundary. These behaviors allow a "lurking" strategy, in which the player stays near the edge of the screen opposite the saucer. By keeping just one or two rocks in play, a player can shoot across the boundary and destroy saucers to accumulate points indefinitely with little risk of being destroyed.”

So when I started developing my asteroids game, I had to figure out what I needed to develop in the prototype of my game. So I used the exercise in my last post;

“Exercise 8.1: What Do You Need to Prototype? What concerns do you have about the gameplay, aesthetics, kinesthetics, or technology in your original concept? Of these concerns, which is the highest priority? Which will kill the game if they do not work? Depending on your answer, decide where to focus your efforts for your first digital prototype.”

I knew if I didn’t get the shooting down then the game would kill my game, and the concerns I had about the gameplay was levelling up the ship and also filling the ship with materials. I couldn’t implement the levelling up system, but I made sure you could pick up materials dropped by asteroids.

So what I have been trying to achieve is the above top priority, which is to collect minerals dropped. I also learnt about global variables and buttons in GDevelop. I figured out how to show the total materials on the end screen, and make buttons to be able to play again and quit the game.

Here is the final game that was produced:

Once I finished the prototype, I asked people on my social media accounts to play my game and I got one response.

Was there anything you found frustrating?

Rocks can spawn very close to the rocket

Did the game drag at any point? If yes please elaborate if possible

No

Were there particular aspects that you found satisfying? If yes please elaborate if possible

I like the design, and the movement mechanics feel pretty cool

How did the controls feel?

Smooth

If I was going to keep developing the game I would make sure the asteroids don’t spawn close to the rocket.

Fullerton, T. (2018). Game design workshop : A playcentric approach to creating innovative games, fourth edition. ProQuest Ebook Central https://ebookcentral.proquest.com

Looking back at designing and making the platformer last week, it really helped to make a mind map to get all of my ideas down and visualize each idea. Once I picked the idea that I would try and make, I just went for it and picked assets that worked for the game idea, and coded the basic mechanics for the game.

If I was going to do this again, I would focus on what needs to be prototyped,

Fullerton said “Exercise 8.1: What Do You Need to Prototype? What concerns do you have about the gameplay, aesthetics, kinesthetics, or technology in your original concept? Of these concerns, which is the highest priority? Which will kill the game if they do not work? Depending on your answer, decide where to focus your efforts for your first digital prototype.”

I talked about in my last post, that I would start to include enemies and make the levels a bit harder, as the player would just need to collect bones and get to the end of the level. There was a concept for the game that I didn’t know how to represent, which was going to be the player grabbing the tennis ball and bringing it back to the start of the level, and the tennis ball starting in different locations. But I had issues bringing the ball back to the player and starting the tennis ball in different places in GDevelop.

This week is about Asteroids games!

What exactly is an asteroid game?

A Wikipedia article suggests that “Asteroids is a space-themed multidirectional shooter arcade game designed by Lyle Rains and Ed Logg released in November 1979 by Atari, Inc.”

So taking that in mind, I made another mind map to get down all my ideas.

Explanation of each game idea:

Simple Asteroids game: Shoots down anything that comes in the player's way

Zombie Horde game: Where you fortify a house and shoot the zombies as they come

Babies dinner time: The player is a baby who is dodging vegetables, and is spitting the vegetables down

Miner Ship: Mining ship that is mining the asteroids to gain materials, to be able to upgrade items on the ship. The enemy ships are pirates, who want to shoot you down and steal your materials

I thought the Miner Ship idea was the best to make it different from a regular game of asteroids, as you could upgrade your ship and collect minerals from the asteroids.

Game Pitch:

Rock Hunt Rocket is a top-down space shooter where you fly around in a spaceship shooting down asteroids and collecting the minerals they drop for a high score. You control the ship with your mouse and left click to fire, this game is made for 7 and above. Some selling points for the game are the movement controls are smooth, it keeps the attention of the player and can be played over and over again.

Asteroids (video game). (2021). Asteroids (video game). Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asteroids_(video_game)

So after taking inspiration from other platformer games, I decided to create some obstacles for the player and collectables too. As shown below:

The counter in the top left counts the bones you collect and on the right, you can see the tennis ball that the player needs to collect at the end of the level. I learnt how to make a counter and a win screen for this simple prototype, and I had to figure out the control scheme for this game.

Fullerton (2018, p.255) has an exercise about control schemes for original games “Exercise 8.2: Original Game Controls. Define a control scheme for your original game. For example, if your game is intended for a game console, such as the Xbox, make sure to label every button on the controller. If a button has no function, then label it as non-functional. If the control involves the motion sensors, describe the controller movement for each game action in the button column.”

My game was simple as a platformer can be played using a keyboard, so the arrow keys became which way the character was moving and the space became the way for the player to jump.

After I had finished designing my prototype level for the game, I had my partner playtest the game for me, as he is over the age of 3 and has played a ton of games in the past, he picked up the game quite quickly and sped through the level collecting all of the bones.

Fullerton (2018, p.271-304) has some example playtesting questions, and goes into categories, “In-Game Questions, Postgame questions, General questions, Formal questions, Dramatic elements, procedures, rules, interface and controls and end of session”

I chose some of these questions that were relevant to my game and asked my partner.

General Questions:

Q: What was your first impression?

A: Thought the art style was cute

Q: Were there particular aspects you found satisfying?

A: Collecting the bones

Formal elements:

Q: Describe the objective of the game:

A: To collect the tennis ball while collecting bones

Q: Was the objective clear at all times?

A: No

Q: What choices did you make during the game?

A: To get the bonus bone

Q: Did you find any loopholes?

A: A bug with collision detection on floating platforms

Dramatic Elements:

Q: Is this game appropriate for the target audience?

A: Yes, including the difficulty

Procedures, Rules, Interface and Controls:

Q: Could you find the information you needed on the interface?

A: Partly. Bones collected shown on UI, tennis ball not accounted for in the interface

End of Session:

Q: What was missing from the game?

A: A fail state. There was no challenge where you could lose.

Q: Who do you think is the target audience for this game?

A: Small children

Takeaway notes:

As the objective was not clear all the time, I would add a way for the player to find the tennis ball either by placing an arrow pointing to it or maybe a button to press to get a hint of where the ball is. With the loophole found I would look at the collision mask for the player and see where it could be changed. I’m happy with the difficulty for the first level, but I would make the level harder as the game went on and introduce enemies for the player to react to.

If you would like to see me continue to develop this game further, or play it yourself, comment down below.

Next week is about platformer post-mortem and Asteroids game pitch!

An elevator pitch is where in 3 sentences you pitch your idea, this week is about platformers. So I thought of using one of the brainstorming techniques by Fullerton (2018, p.173) he said “Put It on the Wall: It is important to get visual with your ideas. A favourite technique is writing on a whiteboard or on large pieces of paper taped to the walls.”

So using this technique I made a brainstorming board and put every idea I could come up with on it, as shown below:

I chose the idea of the dog searching for a ball all over a town and then tried to create that idea in GDevelop. I tried to find some sprites that would suit the theme and found some free sprites of a dog then found some scene sprites to get the correct environment, the link to the sprites is down below.

Here are some examples of the sprites I found:

I arranged them on a new scene in GDevelop and this is what I first came up with.

I then made sure the dog would walk, jump and stand idle. I found the tennis ball in GDevelop’s free library, and placed it in the scene and made sure it had gravity. This would be a very easy level as all the player would do is run forward and would find the ball.

So my elevator pitch for this game is:

This game called, A Dog’s Journey, is a 2D platformer where a dog is searching for a ball and can collect treats along the way. The dog runs and jumps around the park to reach the ball and complete the level. This game is for children aged 3 and above.

See you next week for the development of the game and playtesting!

Fullerton, T. (2018). Game design workshop : A playcentric approach to creating innovative games, fourth edition. ProQuest Ebook Central https://ebookcentral.proquest.com

Game Art 2D. (2021). CAT & DOG - FREE SPRITES. Game Art 2D. https://www.gameart2d.com/cat-and-dog-free-sprites.html

Welcome to a 13-week blog about Game Design and how to design better games.

A little background on me…

My name is Zoe Cox (n10091521) and I’m in my last semester of my Bachelor of IT at QUT.

I loved learning about designing for users and I love playing games, so I decided to combine my two favourite things together!

I would love to learn about designing a game that could be played by streamers and be better at designing for users!

This week I looked at DOA (Dead On Arrival) games as part of an exercise from “Game Design Workshop : A Playcentric Approach to Creating Innovative Games”.

The exercise was “Exercise 1.2: D.O.A. Take one game that you’ve played that was D.O.A. By D.O.A., I mean “dead on arrival” (i.e., a game that’s no fun to play). Write down what you don’t like about it. What did the designers miss? How could the game be improved?”

I found out about a game called Brink. It is an immersive first-person shooter with objectives and an enhanced movement system around a dynamic battlefield. But when the game was released a lot was missing from what the trailer said it was going to be able to do.

The Escapist made a video critiquing Brink called “BRINK (Zero Punctuation)” [https://youtu.be/35p4wyuzNY0] and the points made in the video were that there was not enough initial variety between classes, the UI is also cluttered and disorganized, and for a game about movement, the system rewards players for staying still and guarding other players. Also, the battlefields are too cramped for a movement-based game to be able to work well.

The designers of this game missed a lot of things and could have easily made this game better. There is a game that shows a good example of what this game could have been, which is Titanfall 2.

Titanfall 2 is a first-person shooter with the enhanced movement system that actually helped the player to get around the battlefield and doesn’t have any objectives to make the player stay still for any amount of time. They just have to hold the objective area but don’t need to stay still to do it.

See you next week for platform games, conceptualization and prototyping!

Fullerton, T. (2018). Game design workshop : A playcentric approach to creating innovative games, fourth edition. ProQuest Ebook Central https://ebookcentral.proquest.com

The Escapist (2011, November 26). BRINK (Zero Punctuation) [Video]. YouTube. https://youtu.be/35p4wyuzNY0

Precarious Ootheca 

The latest planet I have drawn from VAST:

Mindworld!

The planet from the 4th Tales From Vast episode.

If you look closely at the pink, you can see the Minds on the planet.