Development Blog Week 5

This week I created some more prototype designs for my game's levels and HUD on paper, as well as a flowchart showing the structure of a typical multiplayer game.

First was my mock gameplay screenshot, which will be useful to be put inside both my pitch and games design document showcasing what the general layout of the game would be while it's played. I tried to follow a good guidelines of semiotics with this image, using pre-established symbols used throughout various games that I then twisted to fit into the style of the game; like using a heart to represent health and controller buttons for abilities, but they're designed in a way so they're twisted to the style of the game, while still being easily identified by the player. I posted for feedback on Facebook about my gameplay HUD and mock screenshot. This is what my fellow students had to say:

Gus: "Think it looks good. use a photoshop filter for the background.  use the  filter tool or cut out or something else to try to cartoon it maybe not sure if it will work for it though."

Ben D: "It's good for what you're trying to do but the background doesn't exactly fit, make it more water-coloured."

Clare: "Very cheerful and lots of colours, maybe bit too much with the background too. fade the background a little? and add a light strip to go behind the icons to make them easier to see? Just like framing the picture... make the hud stand out a bit more."

Tom: "All my criticisms are the same as everyone else - background could be more fitting, make HUD stand out a bit more (perhaps use a more cartoony set of images for the abilities HUD at the top right?) - otherwise, it works, ahaha. DEFINITELY go with Gus' idea for filtered backgrounds though. They look faaaaaaab~!"

Here's a finished image of this draft design, which takes on board the feedback offered. A big piece of criticism was the realistic background, so using a stylised filter in Photoshop I gave the woodland forest a much more cartoony feel. Likewise, I added black borders around the HUD icons following Clare's advice to make them stand out more:

Also, even though I'd thought I'd finished my design document, I made some amendments following some feedback from both Clare and Gus. In my GDD I further talked about the rules, design (using my level design draft, HUD draft and flowchart), following feedback from Sue I also expanded on my asset list and I reorganised my GDD further, splitting up various points into subsections to be read and found much more easily. This is especially important who may want to reference a specific point in the design document, but don't want to read through one huge main 'gameplay' section to find it. Instead the gameplay section is split up into multiple parts (like AI, controls, etc), so this way everything's just much more organised and people can cut directly to the information they need.

Gus also suggested that I expand out my asset list into more detail (listing exact characters and abilities), rather than me just saying there are 16 characters for example, which will be very useful if the project gets developed as an easy guide for every asset in the game that needs to be made. Likewise, Clare suggested that I space out my synopsis at the start to cover the full page, so instead of having two big, blocked paragraphs they're spaced out into one or two sentence sections, which is much more digestible for the reader.

I made a flowchart for the game as a draft design to show the flow of the gameplay in a typical online match. As the player’s character spawns, proceeds forward, kills/gets killed and finally reach the game’s objective point. It really helps present a visual representation of my game’s base structure, and also promotes a good flow channel: since there’s always something going on to keep the player occupied!

I made a pitch for the game concept, and also a video trailer to go in said pitch to help engage the audience further. The video essentially explains the basic premise of the game in a quirky manner, with subtitles to go along with the audio I order to make the experience enjoyable by everyone in the class. With it I utilised various assets I'd produced for my game over time (like the aforementioned gameplay and HUD screenshot), and also with a video created in Sony Vegas to briefly showcase and explain what the game's about. I tried to make the pitch upbeat and lighthearted to match the theme of the game, while also having more serious sections to why people should invest into the game and why it's a feasible idea to produce. I feel it’s a very engaging pitch, and with me also not putting huge blocks of text into the slides with them being supplemented by images, means that the audience is a lot more focused on the pitch, which is a good example of a professional practise.