Games Development - Lectures & Exercises

Week 01 - Week 14

Ahmad Firas Bin Ahmad Fisal | 0345121

Games Development | Bachelor of Design (Hons) in Creative Media

Lectures & Exercises

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INSTRUCTIONS

Games. Dev (Overview of the module)

- Playable Characters and Enemies (Playable experience is the end goal of this module)

- *Optional to find downloadable artwork (copywriter free) to import in the game making.

- Games UI (Are needed for design students to create themselves)

- One completed level with enough components is okay but the optimal is to have 3 levels (tutorial, gameplay, and boss fight/climax)

- Sound effects/ visual effects we don't need to create but we can use AI such as Eleven Lab or download online sound effect packs to use.

- Side-scrolling game.

Software: 

- Codeium is an extension tool to be added to Visual Code to help us with coding as it is an AI tool.

- Foocus is a software that we could use to create artwork to be imported into our Unity game development.

Task 02:

- Sketching of the intended game development but not necessary to have it fully completed. Sketching with minimal character movement to showcase the idea of the game 

Task 03:

- To have a list of your MVP of the game so that we have a direction for our project

- to ensure that the coding processes are indeed checked before moving on to the prototyping stage for the final project.

- Coding includes; Movement/actions, obstacles and enemy interactions, and game levels (if any)

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PRACTICALS

Week 01: Elements of Game Design (Analysis)

Reaper Test

Figure 1.0 - Reaper Test by Sam Mun Hoe

- The control is a little too fast so it's quite difficult to control the games but I am not sure if that's intentional or unintentional.

- The obstacles are also too difficult making progress really slow and frustrating for players. However, if that is the intended goal by the game designer they excel at making it so.

- The game concept (environment) of the game depicts horror and 'reaper' which is great and although it has a darker colour palette, it doesn't obstruct the view of the other elements of the HUDs.

Dream Cream

Figure 2.0 - Dream Cream by Yasmin

- The movement control of the game is too fast, making the player of the game always slip from the ground and fall into traps or fall down and have to restart the game all over again.

- After finally reaching the final level of the game, it feels incomplete where no attacks can be made to the 'giant mixer'. I felt clueless as the player as to what the objectives for the final round were. Tried shooting the mixer but nothing seems to happen. 

- The objective of collecting the ingredients is also unclear, what I managed to find was the ingredients can be turned into ammo for the character to shoot obstacles that are attacking you.

- The colour palette is great and cheerful. It wasn't too distracting to the players and it was pleasing to the eye of the players trying to find ingredients and going through obstacles of the game to reach the end.

- The animation of the figure running forward and backward seems awkward because the anatomy doesn't depict it moving faster than just walking. For example, running forward would require the character to be leaning slightly forward to depict running.

Week 02: SCAMPER (Group In-Class Activity)

Week 03: Player Experience

The Sims 4

What do I like about this game? 

- The freedom of choosing the actions of the sim brings excitement like with most other simulation games.

- Being able to express our creativity by building houses and also designing the interior design of the area that you've built so that your sim can live in the house of your dreams.

- The ability to narrate the stories of your sims and also create drama, memories, new skills, new partners, and families are things that add to the list of why I like this game. 

- Coming from someone who started playing The Sims from the 1st generation up to the 4th, I like how familiar the HUD looks throughout the generations. It can feel confusing at first but it is relatively easy to pick up things at first play. 

- The lore and history of the neighbours have a backstory to them. With every expansion that you buy, you can learn new things about the lore.

- It is also a classic game that you could play for 3 days straight and take a break from it for months and when you start playing it back, it feels the same. 

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LECTURES

Week 01: Games Development Components

Game Design

Designing the content and rules of the game in the pre-production stage and design of gameplay, environment, storyline, and characters.

Story:

The story is the main component of game creation. It needs to have a narrative and what is happening, and what is at stake so that it can expand to the creation of obstacles such as enemies, physical limitations, etc. These determine what sort of problems will the protagonist have to deal with at the end of the day.

How and what happens - How can it affect someone - How does the main character pursue to achieve the difficult goal - How does he or she change the player's narrative.

Story Spine/Spline/Arc is important to project making, regardless of whether it is a game, movie, advertisement, etc.

Exposition - Conflict - Climax - Resolution

Exposition: Introduction of the character and premise, goals and objectives

Conflict: The obstacle that the main character is facing

Climax: Final boss level
Resolution: The conclusion of the game or any possible twists introduced at the end of the game.

Gameplay, Game Art, and Game Technology: 

Challenges

- An element that will make it difficult for the player to achieve the game objectives.

- Punishments introduced are also an example of a form of a challenge to further make it harder for the players. (and it can be too excessive, or if the game's intention is to make players frustrated. Emotions are also important)

Strategy

- Player should be able to think and generation of strategy would be a way to let the players navigate through difficult situations presented in a game. The obstacle should be the same and not randomise it all the time so players could strategise their way to reach the end goal

Chance

- This balances the game, its function is to help prolong the player after going through multiple challenges.

Example of chances;

- Bonus life points

- Health bar replenish

- Game time increase

- Periodic invincibility

- Super bomb

- Special weapon

- Speed booster

Choice

- Most commonly used in RPG games where the choices that you make will have a different outcome.

Luck

- It is the same as chance, where it gives you positive ability. However, you can't plan the positive outcome because it is randomised. However, we can program the loophole to appear in certain circumstances.

Week 02: Game Ideation

Method 1: Brainstorming

- Versatile method where every opinions and choices matter. Finding unity is key here.

Method 2: Brainwriting 6-3-5

- Rebuilding of ideas after one another in a group setting

Method 3: Scamper

- Substitute, Combine, Adapt, Modify, Put to another use, Eliminate, Reverse

- This method can be done alone. It forces us to reflect on an existing digital product for us to SCAMPER.

Example: Mario

Substitute: a character with different abilities and narrative to the game

Combine: We take several external features to be incorporated into Mario's original gameplay.

Adapt: To adapt other games' functions into the new game you are proposing.

Modify: Changing the game properties of an element. Maybe making an existing game property harder or changing the way it functions in this new game that you are proposing under the SCAMPER method.

Eliminate: To remove elements to simplify the game or challenge the game's norms.

Reverse: To flip the roles of a hunter and prey of a surviving game. Eg: the game starts with a player as a Prey, and evolves into a hunter through game objectives.

Method 4: 3(I)

(I)ncorporate/include

(I)improve

(I)nverse/Invert

Week 03: Game Design

- User-centred design is fundamental to game design.

- Interaction with game objects and perform various actions.

- Gameplay is created when the player interacts with the game and with other players.

Mechanics: are the game objects and actions that the player interacts with 

Player Experience: is the player's subjective experience of gameplay.

- Why do you like the game that you play?

- Ask ourselves what specifically do we find enjoyable about it? what do we hate about it?

Bartle's Model (1996) diagram of the four character types:

Bartle's Model

Gamer Motivation Profiles

- Action Aspects

- Social Aspects

- Mastery Aspects

- Achievement Aspects

- Immersion Aspects

- Creativity Aspects

This leads to:

Gamer Motivation Model Chart

When all of these are determined, Game Concept would be the next thing that developers would dive into. Description of why is it fun, how you play it, what it looks like, and for what kind of player it is going to be a great experience.

Vision is the game that you want to make and the presentation of it is the game concept. What should you have in a Game Concept Document? 

- Introduction (sometimes called a hook or elevator pitch - 30 seconds)

- Description/Game Overview (Gameplay, Game story, Game Mechanics, Mode and Settings, Information of the game world)

- Key Features (Unique Selling Points USPs, Game Modes, Battle Systems, Playable Characters, Progression Systems, Multiplayer Guild Systems)

- Game Genre

- Platform

- Target Audience

- Audio

Linear and Non-Linear Games:

Gameplay Flow

Week 10

Week 10, it was one of our final sessions of lectures before changing the class approach to a consultation based on the final project. However, in this particular week, we were tasked to re-do a tutorial he had given back in week 05 to see that we were ready to actually kickstart our final project.

What did we do?

- Code to move our capsule (player)

- Code to make our capsule jump

- Code to ensure that we could tweak our jump force and gravity

- Code to ensure that we prevent players from double-jumping

- Code to update to ensure that we could double jump only after the player has jumped once

Validating double jump only after jumping once

- Steps to integrate the 2D Camera of our player to ensure that it could follow the player with the usage of Cinemachine.

Cinemachine Settings

- Added coins in and the relevant code to ensure that it's interactable with the player (destroyed and give value)

Coin interaction

To add the feature where the value is now added every time a coin is destroyed, it is to add (PlayerController.mycoins += 1;) We are essentially calling the logic of adding the amount back in our Player Controller script.

Referencing the code back to PlayerController

We are creating a conditional interaction where the wall that we have put in would be destroyed if the player has 3 coins.

Steps;

1. Create a wall that is blocking the way for the player to pass through

2. Open a WallTrigger script

3. Call a new public GameObject theWall;

4. Ensure that there is a private void OnTriggerEnter2D function called that is also referencing a specific function that if the collision is with the player's game object name, and also that the particular player has 3 coins too, 

5. Then and only then, Destroy(theWall);

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