Contextual Studies, Games as Simulations Task.

What are the basic assumptions behind your indie dev video game? What world view does it suggest?

My indie dev video game is basically about a Detective called 'Logan' who is sick and tired of dealing with bad people because of what happened to him in his past with his wife being murdered. He has to solve the case of a missing woman called 'Evelyn'. The game is a 3D exploring game that has narrative and a sense of thriller added to it. What world view does this suggest? I think it is a typical crime/murder mystery story that is similar in movies to some TV shows.

How would you subvert or pastiche a famous strategy/sim game? 

I would pastiche the 1997 game 'Theme hospital'. The player must build a the hospital with limited money and treat patients correctly with the right medical equipment or medicines but doing so costs more money in each patient you treat if done wrong it will have consequences. The player must find a way to balance the costs by negotiate with government parties. As the player you will have to make some bad and good decisions to progress.

Weekly Summary

This week for my first lecture we where presented with a lecture on 'Sell Sheets' in this lecture we where shown some good and bad examples of some sell sheets. The lecture gave us some good advise on how to layout our sell sheets and give us pointers on fonts, colors  etc..., it was a very useful lecture.

In Z brush session this week we were told to carry on with our own project. I have now started to edit the body of my Troll character (Top half so far) and make it more detailed. I will need to look at some reference images on how to create a body for my Troll, as mine is not correct in proportions and muscle locations etc... I still have a long way to go with this model.

In contextual studies this week we looked at Games as simulations. We were told a little on the history of games as simulations, H.G Wells, played at war simulation game in 1913. The game was called "Little Wars". This was played by using models of buildings and figures to reenact a war scene. We were also shown how these simulation changed the way how people emotions could change while playing, it could show a player being selfless or even selfish while playing the game.

In anatomy this week we looked at the face and neck, I found this to be the most interesting of all the sessions so far. It was good to see how a the muscle in the face change when a person makes an expression.

In the UE4 session this week, we were told to carry on with our games, and had help if need be. This was a useful session as I was able to talk to a tutor about my sell sheet.

Game progress

This week I have decided to add a few more rooms to my game as I felt the game was quite short when I played through it fully. I'm glad I added the other rooms as it makes the location feel more like a real home and it gave me the opportunity to add more detail to the game. I have also started to add sound cues to the game to give the player a more immersive playing experience, as well as music that plays in the background that also changes when you hit a certain spot in the game, this gives the player more emotion when playing the story. As well as doing this I have finished making the game visuals, there maybe one or two things that I may change later but for now I am happy with what the game looks like and it's effect. Also the spawning of the keys when you collect all of the evidence was a problem I had trouble getting it to work and getting my head around it so I found a video on Youtube on how to do it another way. It wasn't my ideal way for the key to spawn but it works. The keys will spawn after sometime has past, instead of when you collect all the evidence. The keys will spawn in different locations each time you play, (4/5 in total).

This image shows a scene in my game and a sound cue near the sink area, and a object to collect on the bath, with added decal (Blood effect), doing this creates more atmosphere.

 This is an extra room I created now finished.

 Added Kitchen area, with interaction on some objects within this room.

 This image shows sounds cues that I have used, and lighting.

 This image just shows some of sounds cues used for the doors and keys that spawn.

 This is the blueprints for the music for my game.

 This image just  shows some of the assets that I used for my game, most were downloaded off websites.

This image shows some of the sounds effects that I used for my game. I did go into some of the sound cues and use a modulator to change some of the pitch effects and speed of the cue to fit my preference, Some of the sounds within my game is of a male voice this is your characters voice "Inspector Logan", I added them because I believe it gives the effect of the character interacting with the environment. These effects where download off Free sound and some other websites.

 The two above images show the key spawn and then it will disappear when the player walks into it.

 This is the spawn key blueprint.

Contextual Studies, Games as toys, task.

How would you make your indie game design open-ended?

I could make my game have more levels or end the game on a cliff hanger, maybe the search for the missing woman in my game could not been found so the game will continue until you find her by using more levels added clues etc...

Think of a way of incorporating a physical object into your game design – could AR or NFC allow for meaningful interaction?

I believe AR would work well with my game. In my game you are a detective who needs to find the pieces of evidence in the suspect home and find the missing woman, AR would work with this as the evidence you collect could hold a QA code and when you use your phone camera and put it to the QA code it will show the evidence you have collect, you would then be able to look more in depth with that piece of evidence look for clues,prints for example.

 

Weekly Summary

This week we first started with a recap lecture then after that we looked at 'Flow' in games. This means how a player can stay focused on the game play at hand, if a player isn't interested on the task in the game they will not continue to play it. A player needs to be engrossed in a game for it to be successful.

In my Z brush session this week we had another go at creating the goblet,urn like objects. I had a problem with mine as the program was crashing a few times while trying to do this so I continued with my own project of mine the Troll head. In the session I was able to create a rough body for my Troll using the Z sphere tool.

Later in the week we had a Contextual studies session in which we were presented with a lecture on Performing worlds: Games as toys. We looked at games as objects for example in the lecture we looked at how video games company's such as Nintendo are using toy like models of game characters called "Amiibo" thus making something physical then seeing that in a virtual world, with this you can then play as that chosen character in the game. The next day we also spoke about the contextual studies lecture in my group in our seminar. The same day we also had a anatomy session which we looked at the abdomen and the chest area, this was a very interesting session as it will help with my Z brush model (The Troll) it has given me some tips on how I could correctly create the top half of the body, I will give this ago in my next Z brush session.

Later in the week in my UE4 session we looked at how to create checkpoints and a title start screen in which you have a background with 3 buttons: Start, Controls and Exit buttons. This will be very handy for my game project as I will be planning on putting a start menu within my game that can show controls on the menu and start play and exit my game.

Game progress

This as been another busy week with my game but I am glad as I believe I am on track. This week with my game I have added a title screen with added control window so the player will know the keys, also added to the title screen is a play button and exit button. I learnt how to add this to my game through a UE4 session this week. I have one problem with the title screen I notice I have to double click the buttons to play or exit the game, I do not understand why this happens but it doesn't seem to be to much of a problem. Also this week with my game I have nearly finished the layout of the rooms with assets and decor so the rooms are looking a lot more interact able. I have added a end game screen, when you get to the end of the game the game will end with a ending screen shot. I have added a door open and close system, I did have some trouble with some doors not opening so I did give it ago to fix it but some doors still didn't open. I decided to add one door to open and close and the others are fixed opened unfortunately.  I am also starting to build a spawn key system too so you can open locked doors. I have had problems with the key not spawning when collecting all the collectable objects so I will have another go at this but if it does not work I will have to find another way to spawn keys, I'm sure I will find a way.

This is a area of my game were you can see a interacting object that you can inspect and another object in this game that you can collect as evidence.

This image shows a scene in my game where I have added photographs of "Evelyn" this is a important location. Also here you can see a yellow note on the wall, if you get closer to the note (That seems to glow) the player will see text that they can read, it is similar to the other note in this game but you can not pick this note up but it gives the player a better understanding of the characters and story.

This is a image of the title screen of my game, it shows here movement keys, the interaction keys, title and buttons. The drawing in the middle is the inspector that you play as called "Logan" and this is the scene of the game where you find the photographs of "Evelyn".

 These two images above show the blueprints for the main title screen.

 This is the title screen main image that I drew.

 The above two images of the door show it opened and closed. Also some of the doors have sound effects to them (locked and open).

 The three images above show the open door blueprints by pressing the "C" key.

 This is the end game title screen.


This image shows the end game title screen blueprints.

This image shows the end of game trigger box, when the player walks into this green box you will be greeted with the end game title screen and the game will then end.

Seminar Task 3.

Bogost, Ian, ‘Video Games Are Better Without Characters,’ The Atlantic, March13,2015[http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2015/03/video-games-are-better-without-characters/387556/]

1.What does the author think that games are for, or how they should function?

2.Why do you think they claim this?

3.Who might think differently and why?

4.How persuasive do you find the author’s argument?

What does the author think that games are for, or how they should function?

The author thinks that you do not need characters in a game such as ‘Sim City’. The game got us players to think about the relationship. You immerse yourself within the game. The sims for example is a great example of this. 

Why do they claim this?

I believe the author thinks that players want to escape into a virtual world as some would like to escape their own reality even if it is for a short time. People feel more powerful in a video game as you can build a character that represents you, but you are freely able to accustom that character to your own liking, and in doing so you feel you have achieved something in the real world.

Who might think differently and why? 

I think a person who feels like their life is exciting enough or does not have the time or money would not feel or know the need to escape through a video game.

How persuasive do you find the author’s argument?

I agree in what the author is saying, I believe that the study of 11 to 18 year old that where surveyed that less than 40% boys preferred to play as male characters where 60% of girls who play games play as a female character. I can see how this is correct. It shows that these girls and boys play as their own sex maybe because they feel more immersed in the game they are playing so to them it maybe more believable that it could represent them. I personally play games to let myself immerse into a game to kill time or relax. As I am a female gamer when I play as a character in a video game I usually play as a male character depending on the game. I feel like some of the games I play such as ‘Dragon age’ a male character seems more fitting and I also like to play as a male character because it is something different from reality.