Game Design Document

Story: 
The story of this game is the character was lost in an unknown island and his only way out is to find items to build his escape. These items consist of a boat parts. So the purpose is to find those parts to complete each levels.

Find items before the time runs out. The setting will set on a small island fill with trees, mountains, river, difficulties and hidden items/objects around the island.  After collecting all the items the player then pass to the next level. Each levels has a certain time for the player to collect the items.

Character:

The character will be third person. I much prefer to do it on third person more than first person player. I feel like the game play will be more enjoyable as this and personally i like to play third person character. The character costume will be just a plain white t-shirt fill with holes as the character has been lost for a certain time now and with blue shorts. The character will not have any shoes this will also make his movements slower as well but there are shoes on every levels that the character can find to increase the character's movement.

Environment/Level

The environment would be during the day time. The reason i choose day time is because during night time it would be very difficult for the player to find the items and will be already difficult during day time. As for levels, each level will have about 3-4 items to find within the given time. The duration will change depending on the levels.

Gameplay:

Example of gameplay: for the first level, the character will be placed in the middle of the island. The character will be surrounded by mountains terrain, river and grassland. Once  the character is on the map the time will automatically starting to countdown. As for first level i think the duration of the time would be around 3-5 minutes long to find the items. I also wanted to add shoes for the character to run faster as well as extend in time such as adding 30 seconds more. 

Art Description:

The game color will be mostly green as it is an island and unknown. The game will have mountains with flowing rivers, fill with forest and high grass. I also wanted to add sandy beaches and sea with blue sky.

Sound:

For sound, i want to add exciting music, sound effects as the character is searching for the boat's items. Few seconds before the time run out i also wanted to make the music more intense with the countdown clock example: 3, 2, 1...!

Link to my Dundoc: https://www.dundoc.com/project/4790/game-design

Escape from bug island
My inspired idea

Unity Tutorial 05

For Dynamic Hub tutorial I was able to learn new things in unity. I was very interested in making text and adding text to the game. I think it helps to identified objects easier. Being able to edit different cursor is very fun to do too. 

I ran into a problem with the C# scripts, i was able to do all the coding  but i could not find how i went wrong. The image there showing the "PlayerCasting" it does not exist in the context.

Problem with C#

As for making weapon. I was very excited to watch the this tutorial. Adding the axe to the first person character was kind of tricky as my axe was not shown when pressing play mode. I got all the animation working but it is just shown on the screen. Being able to animation the axe is very cool. I had no idea you can do animation on unity. Also on this tutorial i got to learn how to add object such as fences and add component such as box collider so player can not walk pass through. 

Animation of Axe

Game GDD

From reading the article, what i think game design document is that a game design document is a highly descriptive living design document of the design for a video game. A GDD is created and edited by the development team and it is used in the video game industry to organize efforts within a development team.These documents are created by the development teams such as artists, designers and programmers to guide throughout the game process.

As reading through, made me realised how much components can have huge affect towards the player and the game. An example of this was " Imagine playing Chess with flat, cardboard counters. It's still the same game but would it be as enjoyable an experience?". The components consists of making the tiles smaller than the spaces they're placed upon. This means that they can be slightly bumped and moved without disturbing all the others. Use highly contrasting/distinguishable colours for player pieces.

The box. 
I think most first impressions of a game come from the box. It does not matter if the game is good to play but if the box does not look attracted then there will be no one to buy it. There are many ways to get people's attention through the box.
Examples :

List the name of the game on the side of the box.
Make sure any "back of the box" photo shows a legal game position. 
Print opposite sides of the box horizontally and vertically.

Game rules are very important to the game design too. Stating your rules to the game  it's a very difficult procedure and one of the hardest things to get right.
There are an amazing number of very common questions that many games fail to answer
Examples:

When exactly does the game end? 
When do you reshuffle cards? 
Is a player allowed to bid more money than she has?
What happens if a player runs out of money during the game? 

There are tips to that a game designer can do to improve a game that does involve spending a money such as support your game online, make replace parts available and include extra components as replacements.

Interested links : 
Design Considerations
https://www.flickr.com/photos/bochalla/5248915179
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_design_document

The image on the game box can attract many buyers.
The design of the box has nothing to do with how the game plays.

Game Vision Statement

3D Runner-Vision Statement

For my vision towards my game is the game will be one player game. 

3D Runner is adventure, simulation and strategy game set on the lost island with lots of adventures and obstacles you will be facing.

Game play is similar to Temple run or other types of running games, with the added twist, interest and excitement of treasure hunting game.

Full 3D game, with 3/4 view camera.

Very fast paced running, with lots of action such as jumping or roll under.

You play as a strong central character who grows, with light RPG elements including: character levels, experience points, stats, and skills.

Collecting items to clear the level, in order to gain access to new area.

link for source used : https://boardgamegeek.com/geeklist/69514/top-10-treasure-hunting-games

Treasre hinting game

Unity Tutorial 03

As for tutorial 03 I thought it was going to be working on making the game from recent tutorial. But this tutorial will teach us how to make animated clock using unity engine game.

Making an animated clock is very interesting and fun to do so. I find it much easier now from before such as using game object tools, making parent child or using the transform but still having trouble with viewing different kind of position on the scene panel. 

The tutorial thought me a lot more in coding. i was having trouble with the time such as coding hours, minutes, seconds and making it to rotate. The code that I work with the clock is much different from previous tutorials. It has more commands to it.

During making this project i got confused on adding object into parent child but once i read over and went over my work carefully i was able to figure it out. The lesson that i learned from this is that you must pay attention to even a small detail which can make a huge difference in your project.

What I'm looking forward to next tutorials is to work with more coding as i want to be able to have more practice in coding and to learn more in unity. I can't wait on what i will be doing next!

My Project- Clock

Games MDA

   What i have understand from reading and watching the link that was provided for us on cdmonline is in game design the Mechanics-Dynamics-Aesthetics framework is a tool used to analyze games.

 It formalizes the consumption of games by breaking them down into three components: Mechanics, Dynamics and Aesthetics. These three words have been used informally for many years to describe various aspects of games, but the MDA framework provides precise definitions for these terms and seeks to explain how they relate to each other and influence the player's experience.

-   Mechanics are the base components of the game - its rules, every basic action the player can take in the game, the algorithms and data structures in the game engine etc.

-   Dynamics are the run-time behavior of the mechanics acting on player input and "cooperating" with other mechanics.

-   Aesthetics are the emotional responses evoked in the player.

There are eight type of Aesthetics as stated by Hunicke, LeBlanc and Zubek:

1. Sensation (Game as sense-pleasure): Player experiences something completely unfamiliar.

2. Fantasy (Game as make-believe): Imaginary world.

3. Narrative (Game as drama): A story that drives the player to keep coming back

4. Challenge (Game as obstacle course): Urge to master something. Boosts a game's replayability.

5. Fellowship (Game as social framework): A community where the player is an active part of it. Almost exclusive for multiplayer games.

6. Discovery (Game as uncharted territory): Urge to explore game world.

7. Expression (Game as self-discovery): Own creativity. For example, creating character resembling player's own avatar.

8. Submission (Game as pastime): Connection to the game, as a whole, despite of constraints.

Condra Game

Example is Condra Game. X has some data like a position and actions such as jumping. Since his piece of data its a Mechanic and since jumping is an action is also a mechanic.

This image contains numbers of mechanics. Firstly you can see some data. X himself has a position and as well as the enemies. When x touches the enemies he takes the damage.

link informations:

http://acmlm.kafuka.org/board/thread.php?id=8460

http://www.cs.northwestern.edu/~hunicke/MDA.pdf

http://gamedevelopertips.com/mechanics-dynamics-aesthetics-game-design-theory-behind-games/

Feedback Strategies

Feedback Strategies

Feedback is about giving information in a way that encourages the recipient to accept it, reflect on it, learn from it, and hopefully make changes for the better. Being able to give feedback is a skill that is useful in your personal and professional lives. 

The two article that i want to write about are:

Be a mirror and Five Reasons to Stop Saying "Good Job"

Be a mirror

I like the phrase "Be a mirror" as i think it is very catchy phrase. I think being a mirror to someone is to understand and gain their importation information. After knowing their information we then can give feedback on our thoughts about their information or share our own experience. We are not meant to judge them as the mirror job is to reflect back. 

one of the quality feedback is to focus on the process and the work on the reader put in. When we focus on the process. We can show their effort on the work and it is valued and important.

Giving feedback can make plenty of changes in their work such as improving or understanding more of the concept.

Five Reasons to Stop Saying "Good Job"

From reading the article there are topics that i liked reading and want to talk about them.

Losing Interest:

For example of this is when a kid is doing something as painting or drawing.  Stop saying "Good Job" and say "Good painting!" may get children to keep painting for as long as we keep watching and praising. It encourage the children to do well  and to complete on their drawings. 

It is said by Lilian Katz, one of the country’s leading authorities on early childhood education, "once attention is withdrawn, many kids won’t touch the activity again." Indeed, an impressive body of scientific research has shown that the more we reward people for doing something, the more they tend to lose interest in whatever they had to do to get the reward. 

Now the point isn’t to draw, to read, to think, to create – the point is to get the goody, whether it’s an ice cream, a sticker, or a "Good job!"

Be a mirror

The mirror is reflecting/ showing the care to safety path.

Game Idea Research

Game Idea

From last week ideas i did not realised that the project that we are making was meant to be 3D game. But that did not mean i cant use those idea into making a 3D game.

My idea is now 3D runner.

The purpose of this game to find items such as gem before the time runs out. after collecting all the items the player then pass to the next level. Each levels has a certain time for the player to collect the items. The items would be hidden around the objects on the map.

Three possible mechanics 

Collectibles

Clear goals get the player to keep going, feeling completion. 

Clearing each levels might get the player to keep playing till the end.

Collecting all the items to clear the stage/ level.

Challenge

Being pushed to the edge of activity you reach the state of flow. You work to peak of ability nothing more engaging.

Going through obstacles can be challenging as well as race against the duration of time.

Items are tricky to find as they are all hidden all over the surrounding areas such as behind the trees, mountains or houses.

Exploration

Feeling of freedom and adventure.

I think  humans have a curious mind-set, and as such, we have a general tendency to explore the environment around us. This tendency has led us to discover and invent great things which has resulted in the overall development of mankind. 

In a similar way, exploration in games can be an extremely rewarding experience, both for the player and the developer alike.

Inspiring link

Exploring Game

Unity Tutorial 02

Unity Tutorial

C# Coding

At the beginning of this tutorial i was stuck on importing standard assets. It took me a day to figure it out.

As for this part of tutorial what I've learnt was making a first person character, learn how to make trees/ grass. Being able to edit their movements such as speed.

I enjoyed making the gem a lot, adding sound makes the object more interesting. Using visual studio to do the coding was very tricky as you have to get all the codes right. I had a little problem with adding the C# to the gem folder as the script was unable to add to unity.

Editing a Gem

Graphics

For this part of tutorial I've learned how to make an object into things such walls, stones and  water to the scene and edit them as i like. The process doing so was at a very slow pace. I had a problem with adding water and dropping down a slope. I've tried to hold shift and click but nothing happened.

Changing the bumpiness on the wall gives it a more realistic look.

What I'm looking forward to the next tutorial is adding more scenes, making new things and how can i improve on myself.

Game Elements

Formal abstract Design Tools

What reading the article I've learned what is a modern computer game made of. The disciplines that are involved are design, art, code, audio and levels, this disciplines work together to achieve synthesis.

The industry is involving with more powerful screens have better resolution and more colors, paints and modeling tools, audio processing is faster and sound cards are more capable. 

The design is most important in a game without it would just be a CD full of data but no fun or interest experience. The game creation actualizes the vision, put in art, code, levels and sound together into what player experience minute to minute

https://learn.canvas.net/courses/3/pages/level-3-introduction-and-readings?module_item_id=44527

http://www.gamasutra.com/features

http://gameofdesign.blogspot.com/2011/10/fadt-formal-abstract-design-tools.html

PS4 Controller

Feedback Thoughts

My feedback thoughts

Why rejection hurts so much

From my opinion rejection is reality. 

Everyone has been through this stage in life or still going through it right now. Each day there are countless rejections that you get but you don't noticed it such as getting rejected from your Mom just by asking if she can drop you to college today and she replies "No".

 Most of our failures are nothing more than a form of rejection and knowing how to deal with rejection will help you lessen pain and bounce back to your normal emotional state.

I believe the most common rejection is through relationship.

The suffering that comes with this type of rejection is considerably harder than in most other types. Interestingly, many people tend to love and desire those who aren’t as passionate about them. It seems like being rejected or merely fear of being rejected makes us more passionate about what we can’t have, making us suffer even more. Everyone has been through this as for myself. There are many ways to get over rejection. 

These are my ways:

Tell yourself it will go-

 because it really will. Keep reminding yourself that this is only temporary and you may be even thankful for this experience in the future.

Travel-

 New places are always fun to explore and new places will distract our attention from negative thoughts and add excitement to your life.

Learn something new-

Learning a new skill can be challenging; in addition to obvious benefits, it helps us heal by keeping us busy and focused. To make things even better, learning a new skill may help discover new opportunities or meet new people.

Seven ways to crush self-doubt.

From reading the article it made me reflect a lot about my self-doubt in the past.

Every one of us has weaknesses, and so do I, quite many. I believe my greatest fear is thinking i could not do this or i can't do that. There many things i could not do but once i tried and kept going through them, it all seems to be easier. 

Don't compare yourself with others. i was once that guy who compare themselves to other. An example of this is during high-school. There are always going to be people that does something better than you. I compared my grades with other and honestly it made me feel bad about myself and self-defeat. i was feeling down for the rest of the day until i had a new thought in my mind.

Instead of feeling this way, why not try to improve yourself better and do the best you can do and no matter what the results is you can be proud by the effort and work you have put in.

Game Brainstorm

4 Possible Game Ideas

1. 2D Runner

The game would be on mobile devices such as Android or IOS. 

What i like most about this game is the way the game will be design to be endless. What i meant by that is the main subject itself would be travelling in a horizontal line collecting coins or can even power-ups by going through  special items. Going horizontal line and collecting items sounds very easy so to make the game more challenging is to create obstacles. Endless missions: Create missions using 14 types of unique goals and make them repeatable with increasing difficulty.

For this idea I got my inspiration from this game called flappy bird, subway surfer and temple run.

https://www.crazygames.com/t/running

2. A Memory Game Using Images and Artwork

The game type is going to be a puzzle game. This game is one player game. The player will start of with 4 images and have limited time to look at those images. After the time ran out the images will be turned another and it will start to shuffle. The player will have to pick the image and match with chosen image. 

The player will only have 2-3 chances to choose if choose wrong then the player will only have 2 more chances to complete the puzzle. 

Once all the images are matched, the player will get a reward such as coins, tokens or diamonds. Those coins then can buy special items, which will give the player more advantage in the game such as extend chances to play or can peek through one image.

As the player continued to play the level will increase with difficulty. This will include more images, images with trap or images that will not match with others at all ( fake image ).

For this game idea is from 4 words game.
Matching images game

3. Rock-Paper-Scissor

The game will be multiplayer with changeable avatars and custom moves.  It will run on mobile devices. The layout would be both player gets to pick either rock, paper or scissor. After the player have chosen the screen then will switch to another player and it will reset the selection so the player will not know what the previous player have chosen.

This is fun and exciting game for friends/ family. 

Rock-Paper-Scissor source link

4. Tic-Tac-Toe

Tic-tac-toe is a paper-and-pencil game for two players, X and O, who take turns marking the spaces in a 3×3 grid. The player who succeeds in placing three of their marks in a horizontal, vertical, or diagonal row wins the game.

The game is multiplayer. The skills required Strategy, tactics, observation.

On the start menu, the player have a choice to choose between single player or multiplayer.
If the player choose single player. The player will go up against a computer. The difficult would be normal as all levels are the same so each time the player plays the game both the player and computer have the chance to win.

Multiplayer mode: Player one will get to pick whether to be "X" or an "O". The game will design that player one always get to have first turn then after that will be player two. 

The player can draw in the shape of X or an O. The game will notice the shape and it will automatically mark as X or O symbol.

Inspiration link
                                                      

Unity Tutorial 01

Unity Engine Game

Unity Game

As for myself i love to play games whenever I am bored. Video games actually thought me a lot of things in life.

First look on the unity, what i thought about it without looking at the tutorial is that its very complicated. There are so many functions and it is very confusing. The layout can be easily identified such timeline, work space or editing panel.

After watching the tutorials I've learned a few things for gaming a game such as basics of coding, what you can do with things when u click on them, editing different parts of the objects and once you look through carefully the tools are not to difficult to learn.

What is find difficult is using the tools and getting to work as i desired as well as getting the object in the right position or using colors. Navigating through the object can be tricky, with little more practice I'm sure it will be easier.

What I'm looking forward to in Unity Engine Game is getting to create game for others, being able to use the unity to the endless possibility creating creative, interesting content. I want to make a game of IOS, Windows, Android or even bigger platform Ps4 and Xbox.

Game Design

Overview

Why is game important

Games and sports are a necessary part of our life. They are to the body what education is to the mind. But, no. they are an integral part of education itself.

Those who have not played any games in life should consider their education incomplete. Gandhi greatly lamented for not having given proper attention to games during his formative years.

Games provide the best physical exer­cise to a child. They improve our digestive system and make us strong and smart. In the modern world which is full of struggle, it is very necessary to have a strong body. One, who is physically weak, is prone to many diseases.

After a day’s hard work at school or college, a student can get rid of boredom on the play-ground. Work alone is not enough. That is why it is said: “All work and no play, makes Jack a dull boy”. Moreover, games make our minds fresh and strong.

Game Design

i think game design is a subset of the field of video game development. Game design is a field with a broad focus. As such, the skills of a game designer are drawn from the fields of computer science and programming, creative writing and graphic design. 

Game designers take the creative lead in imagining and bringing to life video game stories, characters, gameplay, rules, interfaces, dialogue and environments. 

From my opinion a game designer is a cross between a writer, artist and programmer. It is an individual who presents a comprehensive artistic vision, while also possessing the technical skill to oversee and contribute to programming, image rendering, level design, digital editing and other construction aspects of game design.

Pixabay

Games

These are the link to my favourite games:

-    Mobile Legends

-    PLAYERUNKNOWN'S BATTLEGROUND

-    Clash of Clans

Assignments

Premiere Pro

The assignment that i'm most intrigued about is Digital Video Techniques. 

For this modules we used an Adobe software called Adobe Premiere Pro cc 2018.
Adobe Premiere is a video editing software package suitable for both amateur enthusiasts and professionals. It can be purchased and used alone, or alongside other applications such as Adobe Photoshop, After Effects, etc.

Our first lab was learning how to use the premiere pro. we get to try out different kinds of  features, experimenting on what does it do when you apply it to the video clips.

Digital video surveillance systems have many advantages over analog systems. They are easier to use with far superior image quality and ease of installation. They are more sophisticated, have a multitude of capabilities, can easily grow with your needs, and are remotely accessible from anywhere.

I think the premiere is a powerful editing tool, capable of producing broadcast-quality and high-definition video. It is a very popular package amongst video enthusiasts and professionals, although other packages are usually preferred for the very top level of television production.

The reason why i find this module interesting is that premiere can do many things such as:

• Import video, audio and graphics in a wide variety of formats.

• Edit, manipulate and arrange these elements in a visual timeline.

• Add effects, filters, titles, etc.

• Export your edited video in a variety of formats, including video tape recordings, DV, DVD, and common Internet video formats.

Premiere Pro