404 error beta not found

Hi, and welcome back to Im freaking out about Unity.
this week we look at how my ENTIRE game has been deleted. So, I've had to start from scratch.
I am at about the same stage as two weeks ago with terrain and buildings. Which is just great.

Sorry for no progress

Signing off
-Ak

game testing

Image from here
This weeks reading was all about learning how to give useful criticism.
When it comes to criticism within design or business, it is good to get feedback that is unbiased and not opinionated.

The article is by The Closet Entrepreneur, here’s the link. (i hope it works)

Sometimes giving criticism can lead to disputes or arguments if it is not given correctly. A lot of the time people may say ‘ I like it’ or ‘ I don’t like it’ and huge very opinionated feedback about their feelings towards the piece of work. This is not helpful as each person is going to have a different view on the piece.
Constructive criticism is when the viewer gives honest feedback that is backed up by information so for example when it comes to colour theory, 10% of males are red green colour blind so using those colours in a logo is potentially losing customers, the same with suggesting a more suitable font type for a business.

When given correctly, constructive criticism can be extremely useful and may be the one thing missing from a piece of work.

Signing off

AK

Hero’s and Stories

Stories are something that we’ve learnt about in college from day one. Because of our course content, it is our job to tell a story through several means, graphic design, film, photography and especially games.

The readings this week helped to refresh our knowledge on classic story structure, as well as the hero’s journey, why they are predictable and why we still use them.

In John Sutherlands article about stories in games, he takes us back through the classical story structure. It is made up of three acts.
In the beginning our hero has a normal life. This is then disrupted by the inciting insistent which throws their life out of the norm. Following this the hero is faced with their first obstacle which they must overcome, followed by a second which is slightly more difficult and then by a third which is the toughest of them all, which then will usually bring back their normal life. Most games are a comic structure, meaning that the player can complete the game and have a ‘happier ending’ although their are stories, take Shakespeares King Lear, where the ordinary life is not obtainable at the end and the story ultimately has a sad ending, these are known as tragedies. Most games will follow this three act structure, but you can build more obstacles into the game to make it longer.

The second article by Bob Bates, talks about the hero’s journey and how it is used in most stories and particularly those in games. This stems from the use of parable and stories passed down from clans and tribes. These stories usually have some sort of message that teaches the listener or reader a life lesson, Bates uses The Good Samaritan as an example ‘love they neighbour’ and all that jazz. Bates talks about how, yes their is evolution in terms of survival of the the fittest but there is also survival of the smartest. This is due to ancestors passing down stories and knowledge about how the hunt, where to hunt and where not to hunt. This meant that these tribes and clans lived longer then those who didn’t share these stories and kept the information to themselves.
The hero’s journey follows a very similar path to that in the three act structure
We establish the hero’s world, there is a call to adventure, be that of curiosity or due to bad circumstances, entering the world, the trials they must face, meeting ‘the Evil One’, gaining the prize and then returning to their people.

Signing off
-AK

Week 9 Progress

Image found here 

Am I happy with my progress for this module so far this semester?
Not as happy as I could be.

I have gotten really bummed down about this module a couple of times due to laptop malfunctions, forgetting assignments are due and from being physically ill as well. Sadly I have not been able to make as much progress on this module as I would have originally hoped to. From the beginning of this semester to now, it’s been a like climbing a mountain range, going up for a little while and then back down again but I think I’m on a steep climb upwards at the moment. I’ve started to become more positive and just try and do my very best with this module rather than push myself too much.

As I have said in the past two posts, most of my blog posts and work are done either on the bus on the way home from college ( like this one here, gotta make use of those four hours) or in the evening after I’ve done a lot and I just want to go to bed. The latter is probably not the healthiest way to do this module and may be a contributing factor as to why I slipped a lot where I didn’t want to. I definitely could be doing better and getting things done on time to allow myself more time for actually working on the game itself rather then getting so worked up about the tutorials and commenting. I really do enjoy this module, even if it is most likely not going to be the area that I will hopefully go into after college. But you never know that could all change in the next two years.

Moving forward I want to get the weeks posts done earlier and not leave them until last minute. I definitely want to leave more time for the project so that I can genuinely feel like I have made progress and I’ve actually putting my skills to use. I’m determined to not leave everything until last minute, starting with this post being a day early and I plan on doing my feedback and commenting later this evening, leaving time for my project ( and maybe some fun extra credit as well!).

TIME TO DO SOME COMMENTING
signing off
-AK

review week comments and feedback

Speech bubble art found here 

Feedback is something that we are getting a lot of this year. In comparison to last year, there is constant feedback and always someone suggesting something new of a different way to approach the project, not only in this module but in all of them. We have had several sessions, both in person and online or through audio files where lecturers have given us our feedback on our projects.
I think feedback is one of the most important aspects to our college course, especially when a lot of our work is done outside lab and lecture time and all uploaded online. The fact that the lectures and other students are interested in what you are doing really inspires me to work harder for the grades and final result that I want, be that from game design or graphic design or even film.

The feedback that I found most useful so far this year has been the people asking 'WHY' or 'HOW'.
These types of feedback really made me think about certain areas of my game ideas that i may have glazed over or just avoided altogether. One week in particular that the feedback was very helpful was the week we designed our GDD. the feedback from other students really helped to to go back and edit the work  i had done or fill in gaps that were missing.

As regards to the feedback that I am giving out, it really depends on what time of the day it is when I am giving the feedback. I’ve really enjoyed reading other people’s blogs and came documents. When giving the feedback I was trying to be as honest as I possible could while trying to give helpful comments and feedback. I think it’s always helpful to give someone your opinion because it can give them another point of view for their project, especially when it comes to our games.


From commenting on other people’s blogs I have learnt a lot more about the people in my year. By the end of last year I believed that I knew my year pretty well but there is even some new things that I learnt about my close friends through their game design thoughts or through their introduction. I’ve also learnt a lot about each persons style of design from the way they are designing their game or by the way that they have designed their blog.  I really enjoyed reading people introduction posts because I have learnt a lot about their personal lives outside of college that we haven’t been able to see due to our huge work load. From people’s work and career to their everyday interest and even their hobbies like performing, sports, art and even using their skills they are learning in college and putting them to use in the real world. It’s very inspiring and it makes me want to do more outside of college and my regular hobbies like art and ballet.

I think moving forward I would like to give more detailed feedback for people’s games. Most of the time when I have been giving feedback it has been late at night after I’ve completed maybe three other assignments so I feel I could do much more on that front.

I think that’s enough blabbering from me for one day
Signing off
-AK

Week 9 reading and writing

the readings have been a time for me. Most of the time I would actually do the reading on the busses to and from college, because you know, don’t want to waste those 4 hours hours by doing nothing p. If I’m not doing assignments then I’m catching up on sleep or the other way around.

Not going to lie there has been a couple of times where I will wake with a start and think “THE READINGS”. But I think they have been beneficial. Coming into this module I hadn’t really thought about how much thought and prep goes into games, or how many different elements there is to consider. I suppose it’s just something I took for granted.

In the beginning they seemed like a bit of a chore but after the second week I really started to enjoy them. I think my favorite reading so far has been, week 6`s Game GDD. That week we really looked into the different game pieces and how the aesthetics of games effect the players overall experience. Like I mentioned earlier,this really seemed to be something that i have overlooked when playing games,even with my art background.even though i would look at a deck of cards and think , woah this deck is so pretty, I would ever consider, well why is it that you like it so much?
Learning about the way that color, shape and size DO matter when it comes to game design opened my eyes for my own assignment.

From doing these readings I’ve found that I absorb readings better in the morning and then writer better when I sit down at night after a day of college. I think this is due to me being more open and honest the more tired I get. This is something I’ve noticed even in my other college work as well as my own art pieces. I may feel like an old person who can’t stay up past 10pm but you’ve got to do what you’ve got to do I suppose.

Am I happy with my own game project so far? I’m not going to lie, I’m actually a little disappointed in the lack of progress I’ve made so far. I had hoped to have a lot more completed by now but due to personal health issues and computer technical issues,that hasn’t been the case.

Art of witch found here 

This is probably my favorite image that I have found for this module. The image actually gave me the original idea for tomb town, the sort of soft spooky feeling, the softness being trough the use of low-poly assets.

I think i need to start doing the reading assignments earlier. Doing them on the Monday rather than an  hour before the deadline like tonight. Doing this may encourage me to spend more time worrying about my actual project and may even leave some time for some extra credit assignments (which i could really do with completing...).

That’s enough blabbering on from me for one night i think,
Signing Off
-AK

First playable scene

As per usual this weeks project seems to be causing me quite a bit of trouble. Aside from my software being extremely slow and trying to take 36 minutes to bake the scene, I have also managed to forget a lot of what we have learnt in previous tutorials so I have been going back and looking over those.

Before my software crashed on me several times to the point of suffocating my laptop and completely restarting it, again.... I managed to create the scene for ‘main street’ and the players home. Although you can not access the shops at the moment, this may be something I need to rethink when going at the game again within the next week. I have re thought the designs and I am considering having the NPCs outside their respective shops rather than inside (for time management reasons).
Here is a screen shot from during the development of the town.

Notice the baking ETA

It started on 1 hour 30 mins......



Although I would have originally liked to have a third person point of view, I am currently working with first person views and focusing on object collections and monsters.
Although there are no monsters in this scene I have to start collecting the assets for the next scene which is the forest scene where most of the battling will happen.

I am also trying to get the right skybox and lighting into my scene, using point lights around the houses and shops.

All in all, the game still needs a lot of work but I’ve gotten more done then I thought I would at the beginning

Signing off
-AK

Unity FREE Tutorials! what is relevent to tomb town

 Logo from here

This week our task was to find unity tutorials that suited our own games, something that tackled the right area of game we want to create and videos that will help us do what we want to do.

I first started searching for videos on monster design as well as character design and I came across a set of tutorials based around character movement and graphics. the tutorials are being created by a team of people, Brackeys and Sebastian Lagu. They are working together to teach users how to easily create functional characters. I took a look at the intro video and then the first tutorial, and I really didn't realise how easy making a character was. This has been the main thing that I have been mostly worried about when it comes to making my game.

 Brackeys first video on character movement

Another good thing about these videos is that all the source code is available on Github. 

I also started searching for more tutorials on how to implamnt a task bar, but i have not been able to ind a suitable one just yet. While looking for this video i came across a video about creating an inventory. I started watching it and realised that is was also made by Brackeys. I find his videos easy enough to follow and I don't end up losing interest half way through.

  This is the first video,this focuses on graphics with a 

really easy to follow way of teaching.

This is the second video, teaching you ho to code

the inventory to work within your game.

After watching and working with these tutorials, I am much more confident that between these codes and the assets in the unity store i will be able to make a gam that looks good, but also works.

Signing off

-AK

Game Fun

Image found on Pinterest from tumblr 

This week our readings were all about the types of people that play games and also why we find games fun!

In the first article, we learnt about why we enjoy playing games and how it has been passed down over thousands of years.
Our ancestors from over 30,000 years ago would have used games as a way of developing their hunting skills in a safe environment out of harms way.
There are usually three types of people when it comes to this sort of thinking and the article uses hunter gathers as an explanation.
Type A- those who go and hunt and then once they have caught some food and returned it to their family, will go back out to hunt for even more food. This puts them in danger even when they don’t need to be.
Type B- those who go out and hunt, bring back food and then go straight to relaxing. This may give them more energy for the next hunt but it does not build their skills or develop their fitness.
Type C- those who once they have caught food and returned it to their family, will spend time in a safe environment practicing their skills and building strength by playing games by for example trying to knock over stacked rocks.

The article refers to these as ‘natural funativity’ this being a mixture of natural selection and game funativity.


The second article talks about the different kinds of people who interact with games, particularly MMOs.
They refer to this set as diamonds, spades, hearts and clubs.
Each of these types of people play games differently and receive a different experience from them

Diamonds- these are the achievers, they want to collect and achieve as much as they can in the game.
Spades- these are the explorers, they want to learn as much as they can about the world and gain as much information as they can.
Hearts- these are the people that empathise with others.
And finally
Clubs- they intend to cause harm to other players. They hit people over the head with their clubs.


Signing off
-AK

Actually building tomb town! The beginnings of a prototype

So this week I started to actually build my own game!

Let me tell you, these past couple days have been a whirlwind, from laptops crashing to having to factory reset, but we got there in the end! 
Due to all of these happening, I am further behind on this part of this project then I would have hoped, but i took the time while waiting for my computer, to draw out some maps of how I want different scenes of my game to roughly look!

Going through each part of the game, I've realised i want to create roughly 5-6 main scenes, as well as the inside of buildings and such. Although this sounds ambitious, i really want to test my self.

Sketches of level designs by me 

This week i spent my time going back through the unity tutorials from previous weeks on how to set up and going back over terrain. The terrain of my game really will be one of the most important things for me, as two of the scenes are forest based, that's a lot of trees!

 screenshot of the basic terrain without trees for the first forest scene

 I have not gotten to adding in elements like houses or objects just yet and I do still need to thrall through the asset store for a while, but I think once i really get stuck in with this game building, it will be up from there(until we get a bug I suppose) .

signing off 
-AK

Unity Tutorial 06

Logo from here 

So, this week on unity tutorials we looked at skyboxes, wind, fade screens, bug fixes and adding different asserts into the game.

I really enjoyed this weeks tutorials because they are definitely something that I have been thinking about a lot the past few weeks. Especially when it came to creating my GDD and thinking about how I wanted the aesthetics of my game to look.

The skybox part of the tutorial was actually a lot easier then I thought it would be. For my own game I’m looking into a darker scene, due to it being based in a spooky town, so having just the default blue sky was not going to work for me. I did try a couple of the different options that were available while watching the tutorial and then followed along with it so I didn’t get lost. I know I can definitely find what I am looking for in there.

When it came to wind, I actually hadn’t really thought about it up until this point. Although I do know that a scene in my game will be set in a forest this was something I had forgotten to think about. Changing the different intensities of the wind and learning that we can use a radius to effect the things around our character actually gave me more plot ideas! This was something that I did originally find hard to find the complete right intensity.

Learning how to the bug fixes really helped me because I had noticed some issues and I was starting to freak out thinking I had done something wrong or I hadn’t placed my assets in the right well, place.
It is good to know that all the bugs can be fixed and I’m sure there is also plenty of forums to help if there is any problems in the future

The tutorials of making the environment look better really brought into focus the different assets that are available to us to use in our games.
When Jimmy Vegas used the old house I was immediately dragged back into the video because that is something I really have to think about. I did how ever find the use of the normal maps difficult and this is something I have struggled with before in previous tutorials so I will have to go back and watch that video a couple of times to get it right.

All in all this weeks tutorials really surrounded all the questions I had been asking myself about my game design!

Signing off
-AK

Game Decisions

Woah okay so this weeks reading took a WHILE.
It was really interesting though  had absolutely no idea that so much thought and process has to go into making MMOs.
Although, with trying to create our own games, I have come to realise, that game development and design definitely are not my strong suit, That being said, I am enjoying making this game and doing all the reading on the different ways different types of games are made.

This week our reading (linked here)was based around creating MMO (Massively Multiplayer Online) games.
Although we are not making these games ourselves, this reading has helped.

The first thing the article talks about is "Borrowing from social psychology".
The article talks about the different ways that game makers build their games, as to make the players as close to each other as they possibly can, in reference to the game.
- Friendship
The single bond between two people. This is the essential part of the bond that is needed for the players to work together through the game.
-Dunbar's Layers
This is the research on the structural distribution of relationship bonds. This states that a humans can only have up to 150 friends, and the closer those friends are, the less there is.
-Social groups
Multiple individuals with similar interests.

Friendships develop due to several factors
Proximity- being close to one another for long periods of time
Similarity- similar interests
Reciprocity- engaging in escalating back-and-forth interactions
Disclosure - safe sharing of weakness

These are key in the way that interaction is designed within games
opening- opportunity for player 1  to ask a questions, etc.
opportunity- allows player 2 to answer
response- acknowledges player1 and answers
acknowledgement- player 1 acknowledges player 2's response
the loop is complete

This way of communication really allows the players to get to know each other, therefore building the bond that they need in order to continue through the game and so on

signing off
-AK

Game design Document

Okay so this module is probably the one that I find the hardest. With this Game Design Document I have really had to think and rack my brain for the content of this game.

This document was so scary to look at and there is definitely a look of work that needs to n=be done on it still, ill have to come back to it over the next couple of days.

The GDD made me really think about how the story of the game is going to work, the characters, the music and the theme of the game.
With the game being RPG based, there is  lot that can be done.

The main theme of the game is based around the aesthetic of Halloween. I would have liked the game to have a slightly softer spooky look to it but with the aesthetics of unity and my very, very limited knowledge of games, let alone game design, we'll have to work with what we've got.

Here is a link to the GDD which will be edited over time

I really hope that I can do this idea justice, but it really will need more work, a lot more.

signing off
-AK

Image of town found on tumblr

Game Idea research

A representation of my emotions going through the thinking process

Carrying on from last weeks post about some game idea brainstorms, this week I have whittled the ideas down to just one that I will work on for the coming weeks. This took a lot of thought, research and consistently annoying friends and family over the past week, trying to get them to read my ideas and get some feedback, or figure out which one they like best.

I've decided to go with the game idea called Tomb Town. This idea was the most popular;lar when it came to asking friends and family, many people loved the idea of traveling around the tow and forest as well as all the collectable items.  Honestly I'm not too sure if this idea was also popular because everyone is in a spooky mood due to halloween being literally around the corner. Either way,  I'm happy with my choice ( wether I will be able to say that in a couple of weeks, is something we will have to wait and see)

This week, I was trying to come up with different game mechanics and three ways that the game could work.


Basic RPG

The first idea that I came up with was a basic RPG structure. This is the structure I suggested in my brainstorming post, and also what is scribbled about in my design notebook... it's everywhere!
For this idea, the players character would travel throughout the town, collecting items that they can trade for coins or use in future quests. There would be tasks that NPCs can give the character, in order to move through the town or area. Some NPCs would be more difficult to find then others. 
Throughout the town there are houses, shops and other buildings you can explore, learning the lore of the town and about the final skeleton wizard.

A tutorial by jimmy vegas that I think would be useful!

Level based 

This would be similar enough to the RPG, with collectable coins and items, there would be certain tasks that have to be able to move on to the next playable level. Certain tasks would also lead to side quest levels, levels that aren't essentially but do increase your knowledge or are just for fun!

Achievement based

For this idea, there would be a set amount of tasks that have to be completed before the player can move on. Each task would add more to a fillable task bar, which when full, adds an extra area on the map. 
With this, there would also be a set amount of items that have to be collected and also if a task is not completed correctly, the player would have to repeat the task.

Out of all of these ideas, I think I would be able to flesh out the RPG idea more then the rest, including elements of the level and achievement based game.

signing off
-AK

Image:
found on boredart.com

Games GDD

This week we learnt some more about how to design rules, along with other components of board games.

When it comes to board games or card games there is a lot more to think about then what you would first, well, think. I for one was shocked at the amount of detail. Having been selling lots of card games and board games, it is a real eye opener to red about the design process that goes into everything from the game pieces to the way that the games name is displayed on all sides of the box.

Components

    Components are those things that make games much more enjoyable for the player. This includes everything from

• the height of the pieces,
• size of the playing pieces on the board
• to the shape and colour

that makes each piece distinguishable from each other.

    From board games to card games, these, although are not 'essential', make the players experience much easier and lot more enjoyable. In an article by Greg Aleknevicus, which you can read here, Aleknevicus make reference to a game called, 'Schotten-Totten' , each card has the same image on it but the suits are distinguished by colour. This is a poor design, due to a lot of the population dealing with some way, shape, or form of colour blindness, so all the cards begin to look the same colour. It is also harder for the regular player to quickly distinguish the suit.

Another point that Aleknevicus make in his article is about indices and icons on game pieces.

These are used in a lot of different games such as Darkon, where there are vortex pieces and also gold pieces. In this game Darkon, these two pieces look very similar so it is very common that a player will pick up one piece thinking it is another.

This can be avoided by making pieces different sizes, having very different colours or very distinguishable designs.

The Box

This part of the article was very interesting to me, having spent the past 11 months of my career trying to display different boxes, from Lego, to board games like chess and monopoly and also many, MANY, decks of cards.

Listing the name of the game on the side of the box is essential. This catches the consumers eye as they are walking towards or by, drawing them to pickup the box and investigate. This also helps the retailer to have a display of these boxes, especially around Christmas time. Having the name displayed on the side allows us to stack up these games in piles and they are still recognisable.

Back of the box pictures are also important. This is what the player will go to when trying to learn how to play the game, usually without reading the rules first. This photo should always be of actual events from the game as well as enticing, so the player will want to well, play the game.

Rules

This is one of thee most important parts to designing any game. The rules from your game must be stated clearly and easy for all players to understand. They should state what can happen in any situation, like what to do in the event of  tie, what to do if a player runs out of money or cards or when the cards should be reshuffled.

Using examples is always an effective way to explain a rule hat may otherwise be hard to understand.

***

Other things to include in your game are, a list of all components - including all game pieces. This allows the player to easily determine what pieces they may be missing-, some extra pieces if possible or a service where the player may be able to buy extras, such as counters or refile sheets.

It is also a good idea to support your game online, with a FAQ page for players to find out information, if they do come across a situation that they are not sure how to play. Although most board games do not have official FQA pages, there are many forums and blogs, like this Monopoly FAQ page for example.

I really enjoyed learning about this type of game development this week, I has changed how I will look at board games for the foreseeable future.

Signing off

-AK

images

Monopoly cat found on pinterest

Side view of game boxes found on pinterest

Unty Tutorial 02

This week's tutorials (By Jimmy Vegas) focused mainly on refining certain parts of our graphics and placing a cursor on the gameplay canvas.

I really enjoyed watching the tutorials, because it really showed how easy it can be to create a good looking game, with just some other basic knowledge of code and adding textures
The first tutorial helped with making collection graphics and adding audio and script. I found this really interesting because I plan on using a lot of item collections within my own game that I will be making.
I also like that he taught us the code on how to make the objects rotate, giving the game that next layer of detail.

I did however find the coding difficult to understand at first. Although I have some experience with coding for websites, so HTML and CSS, C# was something that I haven't even heard about before I started watching these tutorials. I find that the layout of this code is slightly similar to CSS coding layout, so it took me a little while to switch my brain over to learning this new code.

Learning to add water and walls was also something I really enjoyed learning about. Again like the gem, I found it good to see objects and pieces of terrain that I want to use in my own game, being explained simply. The fact that you can change the way the wall looks and even the length of your shadows is really helpful.

The second video was about raycast and cursor. I will definitely have to go back over this Video because i didn't really understand the purpose of the ray cast, but being able to place the cursor on the gameplay was very helpful even from a game developer point of view. This made it much easier to be able to tell what way you were going to move and ill really improve the UI of the game.

Signing off
-AK

photo found on pinterest

Game Elements: what they are made off!

   

Games are made up of many different things, but the key elements to a game are the formal elements that build up the skeleton framework of gameplay.
These formal elements include things like;

• Players
• Objectives
• Rules
• Resources and resource management
• Game state
• Information
• Sequencing
• Player information
• Theme, narrative, backstory, setting
• Games as systems

    This week I will discuss three of these elements that I have learnt about, that I did not already know, or ever really think about.

Players

    Players are a very big part of gameplay. Designers and developers must always take the player into consideration.

They must also think about how many players the game supports; single player, multiplayer, teams , 1v1, team v team (v team).

Things like this contribute to the way that the game is payed, how many rounds and turns on each round, is it turn based or is everyone playing at the same time?

Sequencing

    Depending on how many players there are in a game, sequence can then be decided. A lot of games, like your classic board games are turn based. This is usually in a clockwise fashion but this has developed a lot over the years. Some games take turned based on who is winning  or skipping the first player to eliminate the 'first player advantage'.

Other games are turn based but the players draw at the same time and often write things like actions down or turn action cards and the like.

Games as systems

    Changing even just one of the many formal elements in a game can change the game entirely. They greatly influence user experience.

Although this is turn, systems can sometimes change as new information is obtained, but changing one formal element has an effect on all other elements of the game.

    Due to the game working this way, you can describe it as a system, everything effects everything else, and some elements are not possible without other elements.

    -signing off

      Ak

image found on pineterest

Feedback Thoughts

   

The first article I read this week was about 'Silencing the critical voices in your head' by Sabina Nawaz.
    I really enjoyed reading this article for many reasons. The first being, Nawaz talks about how we can get very bogged down in our thoughts and the negative comments we receive on our work. Recently I have found myself doing this more and more, zooming in on the bad things, rather then focusing on the compliments that we receive on our work, the praise for a job well done.
    Sabina Nawaz's writes ' we need five good voices for every one bad voice'. I found this very heart hitting. I felt like I had just been slapped in the face with realisation. Studies show that negative comments stick in our brain much longer and stronger then positive comments do.
   Nawaz's plan for overcoming these critical voices is a very practical one and something that, after some thought, I have seen in my everyday life from the people that I look up to and aspire to be like. These people range from lectures, who will ask you what you found helpful in an assignment, workshop or lecture, to my manager in work, who asked what really helped when I was being rained in, some that she could apply this to the future when she has to train in new staff.


    The second article I read this week was called 'Seven ways to crush self-doubt in creative work' by John Spencer
   
    Self doubt is definitely something I have struggled with my entire school career, having never been very good at taking tests, I began to doubt that I could every actually do the work, because all of the grades I came out with at the end of learning were not usually on the upper side of the scale. I doubted that I actually understood what was going on, and I began to doubt my ability to learn.

    I have noticed that this has carried over into my college education, when I sit down to do assignments and start to believe that I will not be able to finish them, even though the point is to learn as we progress through these assignments.

    Spencer addresses almost all of these points in his article, writing about how to avoid falling into this pit of self doubt. The first way is to stop comparing yourself to others. This is definitely something I have found myself doing. I can clearly remember spending an entire morning for a pitch just the other day, wondering if my pitch was as good as others, if the way I was presenting it was the same or up to scratch in comparison to others. Now that I am aware of this, it is something I can work on in the future and hopefully try and avoid.

    Another point John Spencer makes in his article is about avoiding perfectionism. Perfectionism ha always been my downfall. Although, having studied art for 5 years, I understand the process of creating things with mistakes so you can improve and make the final piece better, I still end up trying to perfect things as I go along. Even as I write this post, I am thinking about another assignment and shooting down ideas because they aren't perfect, even though they aren't supposed to be! forgetting about making things absolutely perfect is definitely going to be something I am going to have to work very hard on.


    I have always enjoyed receiving feedback but I always find myself fishing for the negative things, rather then what I've done right, and what I should be doing the next time round. I hope that having learned these new techniques, I will be able to believe in my work more ad understand that the feedback is to help me, not put me down!

    Signing off
    -Ak

image found on pinterest

Game Brainstorm

   

    You have no idea how hard coming up with some game ideas was.
I didn't realise it before but I honestly do not play enough games. I will certainly have to fix that at some point.
I've come up with four game ideas, somethings that I may possibly make using unity over the next coming weeks.

Game idea 1: Tomb Town

    Your character is a witch/wizard, who has recently moved to tomb town, home to witches, wizards, ghosts, ghouls and all the ghastly creatures you can recall from your childhood scary stories.

Customise your character and make your way around the town, collecting items, coins, learning spells and gaining XP by completing tasks and quests  to help your fellow town members.

Level up and complete more difficult tasks and quests as you gain more XP.

    The final boss of the game is the 'Skelezard', an undead wizard straight out of the towns dusty old book of legends. Along with the help of your friends and fellow towns people, use your items and spells to make your way into the skelecave,(which turns out to be a huge underground castle, with an undead army) battle the final boss, and bring as much peace and tranquillity as there can ever be in a town full of spooks.

    The game is a basic RPG with the main character able to explore the town and the different terrains surrounding the town like caves and shops. The final boss is a skeleton wizard and there are other main NPCs such as witch shop owners, a man with a pumpkin head named Jack and a ghost who doesn't know what doors are.

    The main tutorials I'll be following for most of this game would be Jimmy Vegas' 'how to make an RPG' videos.

Game idea 2: Tree house climber

    Playable character is a forest elf who has lived on the forest floor his whole life. He decides he wants a better life and begins to work really hard to help people and earn money so that he can live higher up in the tree.

    The main goal of this game is to reach the top layer or the tree community. the game is based on a platformer game but with elements of RPG. There are plenty of NPCs to get to know and complete tasks for and then once the player has enough coins, they can move up the tree but through a platform based section of the game. There are different obstacles during these levels that the player must overcome.

    Different NCPs with different levels of importance. some are more difficult to find then others. Talk to these characters to complete task and increase player level with coins.

    The tutorials I would use are 'How to create a platformer game in unity' by Jimmy Vegas and also the video mentioned in game idea 1

Game idea 3: Rumour or Truth

    The main playable character is  a detective just starting out in the force. They are given different statements by their superior officer and must investigate then. the goal is to figure out if the statement is a rumour or true.

    By going out into the playable world, talking to the city people and collecting the relevant evidence and information the character builds up the needed knowledge to be able to decide if the statement is correct.

    They then must return to the superior and decide if it is rumour or truth. the correct answer earns them XP and they can level up, the wrong answer docks XP points and the player must complete the task correctly before moving on to the next statement.

    The game is a puzzle of sorts but works based on RPG.
I would use the same tutorials as stated above.

Game idea 4: Art Shop Mayhem  

    You start as a Christmas temp in an art store, thrown in the middle of the Christmas present rush! you must quickly learn the skills and techniques of the different art materials, such as the arts, clay, paper-crafts and more, to be able to provide the correct information to the customers.

each customer you help earns you XP points, and each customer that buys something brings money into the shop.

    As you progress up the levels from Christmas temp all the way up to managers positions, you build up your XP.

each satisfied customer gives XP each unhappy one removes XP.

    Some customer tasks will require the player to find the right co workers to speak to, to ask for help and to bring in the coins for the shop.

    Like the previous games it will be RPG based and follow the Jimmy Vegas tutorials.

Signing off

-AK

Art found on Pinterest

Brainstorming images by me

What is a Game??

   

A game by definition is some with 'play activity, formal rules and conflict'. From this there are many other definitions and not every single one is right but they are also, not wrong.

    Games are made up of the several principles:

-It is separate, set in space and time but separate from our world,

-Voluntary, The player chooses to play the game,

- Harmless, the user does not come into actual harms way,

-Unproductive, the payer does not earn wealth nor lose it,

-Closed formal system,

-Has an end and a means

-Representation or simulation of events,

-Decision making and

-Uncertain outcomes

    The games themselves present with these properties and are completely voluntary to play, the player does not gain wealth nor lose it in the process, all decision making is voluntary and the outcome is unknown to the player while it is effected by how they choose to play the game.

    There are still questions in relation to this though, as to whether or not puzzles, such as the Rubik's cube is a game, or role-playing games, both with multiple endings or outcomes.

    An important aspect of a game is the formal rules that they have. These make order for the game and how it should be played, stopping users from playing all actions at once and winning the game without any real effort.

Signing off

-AK

images:

Dice images found on pinterest