The role of a designer - 26/3/2015

So with all of this group stuff going on, recently I've started to wonder about what my role would be on an actual team. I know it involves theorising ideas, putting things together and roles like that, but if I were to join an actual team, what would I be tasked with, and more importantly, which roles would I prefer to do?

I personally feel like I really understand people. I understand what people want, and I've always been good at critically analysing why people like games and why they don't. Even before I considered games design or programming, I always felt like I had a deeper understanding of my fellow gamer's mindsets.

As far as scripting goes, I have a lot to learn but I essentially "get it". If I need to do something, I can learn how, and once I've done it once I never have to learn it again because I keep all of my scripts. But for this project we have 2 programmers, so that's not really an issue.

As far as art goes, not really my forte but I am going to be teaching myself 3DS Max in my spare time to compensate, and I'm also learning Gimp and Photoshop more and more every day.

Another thing I feel I am good at is setting out a level. With assets available to me I feel I am quite good at putting a level together and making it feel like a real game, which is good I suppose. 

Audio wise, I usually head to royalty free music/sound effect sites and grab from there or I contact artists directly and ask if I have permission to use their material in my games. That being said, I actually used to play piano so if I got my hands on a keyboard and was able to export music from the keyboard to my computer I feel I could actually put together a few simple tracks for a game. So the potential is there.

The only real thing I would have an issue with design wise is art, but like I mentioned I am totally willing to learn how to put models and art together. I suppose animation ties in with this but I am yet to actually try my hand at animation. Perhaps I'll give it a go this weekend. 

That being said, I am having trouble finding motivation on the weekends, usually I have the most motivation during weeknights from Tuesday to Thursday. I believe this is because I get home from class feeling pumped up with an idea or something.

Anyway, just felt like venting, hence the during-the-week blog rather than the usual weekend blog.

Thanks for reading, sorry for the lack of humour.

Knock knock.

My game idea was inspired by a magpie in a tree, you heard me - 22/3/15

It's not funny, I'm serious.

So there I was, hopelessly waiting for some epiphany-like game idea to reveal itself to me, but nothing came to mind. How do I think of a game that implements trust in an interesting way as well as being inspiring for me personally to make? Lots of ideas came to my head, but none that were at all relevant to the term trust.

"God damn it." I thought, "Why is trust such a complicated thing to put in a game?

"Well," my creepy split-personality other half retorted, "it wouldn't be much of a degree if you didn't actually have to think outside the box."

"Good point," I said, "but shut up."

After continuing like this for a good 15 minutes, I eventually retired to my trampoline where I'd spend the next hour staring at the trees and the sky above me. After some more questionable and irrelevant ideas, I eventually allowed my mind to wander. My eyes wandered across the nearest tree. I noticed a magpie had landed on a branch and had started to make a nest.

"I wish I were a bird so that I could just fly away.. but.. perhaps that's not something you'd even want if you were a bird.." I remember thinking.

5 birds sitting on a tree branch.

Retrieved from:

http://everythingbirdsonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/birds-of-paradise.jpg

"I suppose you'd have a mate? I don't imagine you'd want to leave him behind." I thought again, rudely assuming that the magpie was a woman.

Boom

"There's my idea!" I thought aloud. Diving off the trampoline and tripping over on the way to my room, within 30 seconds I had already began writing down my idea for the game which turned out to be the game I now call Birdlife. I will write a blog about what the game is about in the future but for now, all you need to know is that it is a survival game that involves finding a mate and protecting your kids in a 3D, third person environment.

So in essence, my idea came from staring at a magpie and wondering about whether or not it would want to fly away into the distance. To me, that's a pretty cool way to find inspiration and this is definitely the idea I've had this term that I am happiest with. I really hope the game turns out well.

A literal angry bird.

Retrieved from:

http://www.amusingtime.com/images/03/funny-face-of-a-bird-4.jpg

Thanks for reading and I hope you can appreciate the humorous overtone of the blog. If not, please forward your complaint to: jacksoncoll@live.com and I will respond to you there with a sarcastic remark and a picture of my cat.

Also, here's a video of a Magpie making R2D2 noises:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o0T_4MO_v0o

Brainstorming and how to find inspiration - 28/2/15

So for the most recent game we've been tasked with creating, we are supposed to guide a player through an emotional journey, from one emotion to another. I've finally settled on an idea and I feel like it's the best one I've had in a while largely because of the inspiration behind it. Originally I was thinking far too literal in regards to the emotions rather than thinking of something I could use my own experiences and feelings to create.

The original idea was to create a game where the player would jog along a field in a race. The player would be very slow whilst the NPC characters also in the race would pass him. This would cause the player to feel frustrated, which was the idea for the first emotion. Towards the end of the game as the player warmed up their character, they would eventually gain up enough speed to sprint back past all of the people who had earlier caused frustration, which would hopefully have the player feeling satisfied.

After the realisation that this idea is probably the worst idea ever proposed in the history of games design, (literally ever,) I decided to throw it off the table and think of something new. After around 30 minutes of painful brainstorming, I started to get frustrated that I couldn't think of an idea. Ironically, being frustrated was the thing that inspired the new idea for my game. I'm proud of this fact because I used my own feelings as inspiration for something creative. It's a nice feeling.

Emotional Rollercoaster. 

Retrieved from:

http://journeyofadreamer.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/emotionalrollercoaster.jpg

Essentially, in the ideal final version of my game I hope to have a small emotional experience that guides a player through the feelings of happiness, motivation and serenity all the way through to sadness, depression and morbidity. The overall gameplay involved is a character walking along a white passageway through his or her life. As the character walks, they are asked questions about their character and are given options about what the character should do in certain situations. Somewhat like that of Fallout's early game, where you are given a quiz that will help define what kind of player you are. The difference being that this is largely the core mechanic in this game.

Fallout 3 Gameplay

Retrieved from: Unknown

The goal is the player feeling an emotional attachment to their character and that they are leading their character down the right path in their life. It should feel like they are building up to something greater. Unfortunately, there is a catch, once you get to the end of the game, the character dies and the screen abruptly turns black. That is not to say the game ends, it just enters what I'm going to refer to as a state of limbo; an everlasting black screen and the player must exit the whole window to exit the game. I can't think of any examples of this happening in games so I am hopeful that this will have some sort of effect on the player. Time will tell.

This "state of limbo" is being implemented to be compliment the idea that every decision they have made during the game is completely irrelevant, and in turn, so is life. Not to say this is what I personally believe, but it is what I wish to represent in my game. Maybe I'm not the nicest developer for attempting to inflict depression on my participants, but I think I'll get over it, besides, the idea is more for them to feel the way their character would, rather than think about their own eminent death.

Anyway, that's all I have to say this week. Cheers cobba.