MD2Final GDD

Over the past week I have been working on some characters and background pieces that will be going into the game. I made some farm animals including a horse, donkey, chicken, hen, a sheep dog and a bulldog. I also created some housing for the animals including a chicken coop, dog house and a horse and donkey stable, I created a tractor as well that will be used for multiple games the tractors can be changed in colour and size too. It took me a good amount of time to create all these characters. I did some research into the style of artwork we liked which was leapfrog and animal crossing, in these games the characters all have a round appearance they don’t have any sharp edges or a stroke so we decided the characters should go with this style of illustration. 

My illustrations made on adobe Illustrator

I did some more research into what the levels will be like in terms of difficulty

The game levels will progressively get harder each time the player passes a level. The first level will be simple adding just to see what the learning capability is of the player and give them a feel for the game it’ll be really easy and fun it’ll make the player want to learn more

The next level will bring in subtraction, the level will be a touch harder than the first and will get the player used to adding and subtracting but in a fun and creative way.

Level 3 is going to include both adding and subtracting it will get the player used to using both of them and will be a vital stepping stone in their maths skill level.

The next levels will start adding simple multiplication and a touch of division. This will cater more to the players who want to be challenged more and become more comfortable with maths.


Over the next few weeks we will keep on working and collaborating for the project each week we will make sure to meet on the Wednesday and the Thursday to discuss our progress, we also have a group chat which is where we mostly make our decisions and talk about what work we are doing and how we are getting on. 

We will be working more on our game and how we want it to to turn out as a whole.

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Alpha

This week I worked on getting my game ready to be tested and played. My game is far from perfect at the moment but I am happy with the progress I have made with it at the moment. 

Some of my scripting I am having issues with I had to delete my main menu from the start as it kept glitching my game for some reason my laptop just didn't agree with it for some reason. My gem is kind of working at the moment unity has been crashing a bit lately on me again but some elements of it still works. The gem is how I want it to look at it rotates and everything its just my character won't take it, I have to keep going back to my script and see why but the problem is hard to figure out.

I am happy with how my character jumps onto the vinyls, I spaced them out evenly so that when the character jumps it is less likely to fall off or miss it. My vinyls are more dome shaped then I would've liked but I think they give the game more depth instead of having them really flat, I just think at this stage if my vinyls where how I originally wanted them the game would appear really dull and boring not as good as it appears now.

I am very happy with how my game looks on screen and when being played, Its how I kind of imagined it obviously its not my exact vision from the start but thats ok because I was way too ambitious, I got a little bit carried away with all the features I wanted to add in.

At the moment I am liking how my game is and hopefully others will too, It matches my vision that I had from the start when I came up with this idea. I would like to keep working on it and constantly progress my work and the mechanics because mechanics are where I struggle.

                                                                   

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Unity Free Tutorials

This week we got to look at tutorials that we would find useful for our games.  I find these really useful because its nice to be able to add our own ideas and do some research of our own into tutorials and find ones that will work and maybe not.

I found a tutorial by jimmy Vegas on how to make a credit screen for the end of you game. I found this tutorial really useful because it is something I would like to add into my game at one point. The tutorial was really easy to follow and understand. You had to add a UI Raw image into the game and then choose a background colour and anchor it to stretch you can then just play around with the positions to get to what you want it to look like. The part that was grand and simple was putting the text you would like to be displayed at the end of your game. I liked this tutorial and found it helpful and will be implementing it not my game.

The next tutorial I found was to do with putting an almost firework effect into your game. I found this tutorial at parts hard to follow but I really like the effect it displays. I think this tutorial may have been a little too advanced for my skill level for now. I did enjoy giving it a try though and giving my best to get it to work but it just wouldn't. The tutorial wasn't great to follow as I found it would skip over parts at times or I couldn't keep up.  For now this probably something I will not be adding into my game but it was good practice and hopefully something in the future I will look more into.

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Games Stories

The readings for this week where all about stories and games the fist article read was "Level 8 Games and Art".  This article talks about the question "Can Games be Art", its an argument that has been going on for a long time and why waste time retreading old ground the article delves further into why we should.

1. Fun is not the only purpose of a game, games can be successful without their main objective being fun.

2. It needs to be discussed more and not just between experienced game designers bit novices as well.

3. A lot of art games are small and simple in scope, so this gives designers a wonderful opportunity to establish themselves as game designers.

4. Know about the art history.
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The next article I read was "Into the woods: A practical Guide to the Hero's Journey".  The article goes on to talk about why the hero story is important and why bother with it, its important because myths are important they convey the values of society and teach each other who we are and how we should behave.

Myths give us a sense of personal identity, they make sense of community, they lie underneath our moral views, myths are our way of dealing with inscrutable mystery of death and creation. Storytelling is a way to make sense of the world its wired into our brains like spinning a web is wired into a spider. Without myths to guide our lives we are lost. To write stories you need to understand how myths are put together and communicated, that is why a hers journey is so important!

A professor Joseph Campbell analysed thousands and myths and found that some common elements kept popping up.

• Establishing the heroes world
• The call to adventure 
• Entering the Mythological woods
• Trail of trial
• Encountering the evil one
• Gaining the hero's prize
• Returning the prize to the community 

The article talks about how to use the hero journey to build your stories 

1. Pick your premise
2. Create your hero
3. Create a great villain

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The next article I read was "What Every Game Developer Needs to know about story. The article talks about how important a story truly is to a game and how at the moment its a really hot topic in the industry. There are common misconceptions where people think story doesn't matter and story is dialog. The main thing is that Story is CONFLICT. The article goes son about story in general and what will work.

There is a classical story structure that follows

• First theres a protagonist e.g. Hero
• There world is thrown out of order by an inciting incident 
• Gap opens between hero and orderly life
• Hero tries the normal life and fails
• Hero has to overcome a risk
• Then there is a reversal
• Hero has to overcome a greater risk to get over second gap
• Overcoming second gap means a third gap opens 
• Third gap is the greatest risk to overcome and is the object of desire

The article talks about why character is crucial to a game and needs to be well thought out. We then learn the importance of reversals in a story, and how a story forms before a game. there are different types of conflict in stories e.g. inner conflict. The article then goes on to talk about the story and the writer and how to have good ending to your story.

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