Letter
Dear Professors Patrick Crandley and Mikiya Okada
After creating and working on two game projects in video game design I have learned many new concepts about video games and how they can be consider video games. Something very important for me in these two project was learning different concepts about our games in prototyping. Whenever we first tried thinking of a game idea we thought mostly of what I would say simple ideas or in other words ideas for a game that wouldn’t really put the unique factor in our game and instead would cause it just to be another rehash or generic game idea. However as time went on this began to change and we began to think of different ideas to implement into our game to truly make it unique. I feel like when going through this process it would also help me understand what exactly a game production’s process would be like and in general how creating a game would be like. I can say now that it a lot more different than what I originally thought however still just as complicated as I first though. Now something I thought was also very useful was actually getting better at getting and using professional feedback. It would help alot when we were in the process of creating our game and we would get a lot of professional feedback that at first I thought that some of it was kinda of the same however a lot of the feedback was very helpful and I would use it to improve my game. This not only helped with my game but also helped my skill of professional and constructive critiques in general and this is very helpful for many other activities. Over all in the entire process of creating and working on our game in two projects there was much that I learned and much that I realized is much more different than what I originally thought and more importantly I was able to finally understand how core aesthetics help create what a game really is. |
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Designer Biography
Angel Torres
Name of Game: Gates of Darkness
Areas of Game Design you have focused in this course
Main coding, created some design for the game such as Ui
How you have innovated or been stretched.
In the process of creating our game I can say that I have been innovated in the process of how the game works it self. This would happen during times of critiques when people would give us ideas that would completely change the view I had of my own game.
Credit to important team members and their contribution to your game designs.
Marquis:Main design of the game and would help with the code when they had the chance
Name of Game: Gates of Darkness
Areas of Game Design you have focused in this course
Main coding, created some design for the game such as Ui
How you have innovated or been stretched.
In the process of creating our game I can say that I have been innovated in the process of how the game works it self. This would happen during times of critiques when people would give us ideas that would completely change the view I had of my own game.
Credit to important team members and their contribution to your game designs.
Marquis:Main design of the game and would help with the code when they had the chance
Game Design Learning Objectives
Brainstorming: When it came to brainstorming for our game idea I originally had suggest a much different idea for a action platformer game while my teammate wanted to go towards a RPG type of game and even though originally I tried to sway them towards my idea we ended up going to the idea of a RPG instead. This change of what I wanted to create was due to being told that a platformer the hardest part about trying to create one would actually be the most important part of a platformer which was jumping. At first I still felt that we could still pull it through however I also thought that it would be our first time creating a game so if a platformer would be hard to create it my be best that we would stray away from the idea to create something that would be easier for us to work with due to it being our first go at game.
Story boarding: For story boarding I feel that it was one of the most important process for my and my team member to do because it allowed us to get an idea of how we wanted our game to be like and give it a unique feeling. This process also allowed us to get an outline for our story even if it was more of a rough draft for it but basically the story would consistence of our main character going to retrieve what was stolen from him and his village. Of course this was not the only thing we were able to do when story boarding as we were also able to plan out just how the game would look like from it's start screen to its game play screen. Also during the story boarding of our game we really got to see just how exactly we were going to make our idea into this game and I felt that it would really help me and my partner out a lot with this process of how exactly it would work as a game. Overall the story boarding was able to help us by a lot and i'm glad that it did help as much as it did.
Creating a Unique User Experience:
So when me and my teammate were told about try and think of making something unique to our game play we were a bit stumped on what to do to try and make our rpg game a different and unique experience to players. Soon I though of idea where we could implement some sort of timing system to keep the player focused on the game.I though of this Idea because I know how in a turn based rpg the player really only moves a button around very little during combat such as moving through the combat menu and that all really do and then you wait for the animation to play out.So I thought with having a timing system when performing your attack it would mean you would have to be paying attention or be punished for not paying attention to the timing.
Defining meaningful rules
When it comes to creating rules to a game creator has to think about it a lot because each rule could be what makes the difference of a hey that a really fun game from wow this game really stinks. Knowing this when thinking of some of the first rules for our rpg game I though that the biggest rule of the game would have to do with the timing in attacks because this means someone would have to get use to a system that my seem strange to them. So one of the things we have to think about is how could we make this system to where we know someone could easily enjoy this system and not say its broken or not. Doing this is just one of rules sure meaning even when we have this at a good point we still would have to make sure the rest of our rules would still let the player have fun with the game.
Creating and designing Game Levels
For our game we don't really plan to create true levels such as something like 1-1 instead since we are creating our game to be a turn based rpg we really only plan to have a open map that you can explore in and of course like a normal turn based rpg enemy's that you can randomly run into and then get into battle with. Of course we do have a design for this first area you will be in and that will most likely consist of a grassy area because it can be used to show the player at that time that there nothing to hard in that area and everything is more easy to deal with in that area.
Changes in the original plan
Recently we had another round of critiques with our game and there was one critiques that one of our fellow classmates gave us that I felt could really change how how game would play like. This change was basically to change how our games system of progress changed so instead of having a more traditional main map like a normal rpg but instead to have enemy's you you then progress to another set of enemies and you would keep progressing like this until you would find the boss of that area and then you would progress to another area and do the same but of course with more difficulty in the enemies and the bosses.
Creating Limited Resources
When creating our our game limited resources was something that we did have since the begging of our game concept because although we didn't realize it at first having health would be probably one of the biggest limited resources we would have in our game. However this isn't the only type of limited resources that our game contains because we also late into our game wanted to create a magic system where it would be a use once type of move that would not comeback until that firs enemy wave is beaten and then the second enemy wave comeback and this would be due to have the magic attack do more damage than a normal attack. Another limited resources that we have recently thought of adding would be having the player have a set amount of potions for health and maybe even some to bring back the magic attack for when you need multiple strong attacks on one enemy to defeat them.
Creating Core Aesthetics
So when it comes to creating our game Gates of Darkness Aesthetics without a doubt are something that we have to pay attention to. We do this because sometimes we have to remember that we got to not only have the mechanics of our game be our priority but we also have to remember the style of our game the looks the theming of it all. At first i'm not gonna lie I felt that if we spent time on anything other then a games mechanics everything would just end up working with each other well. However I have realized this is not true or at the very least not usually true because if you were to spend all your time simply on mechanics and nothing else your game may not fit well with you mechanics or your aesthetics may not fit in with your mechanics. That why now I feel that me any my partner are gonna have to spend even more time to think how to balance making mechanics while also trying to keep it with our aesthetics of our game so we can then have something great.
Creating and mixing ideas
Recently we have been watching many videos about different games and with seeing all these different types of games and how each one functions. This has now made me think how I could possibly try and mix in some different types of mechanics from different games and blend them in with our game to make these different types of game mechanics and maybe even different types of theming blend together in our game. Of course this doesn't mean that for sure I would be able to add all these different types of mechanics in together cause I imagine that would be hard to do without obvious errors. I would say that I do still want to go with this idea because it could lead to a unique experience of a game one that hopefully people remember fully due to how it gets executed.
Story boarding: For story boarding I feel that it was one of the most important process for my and my team member to do because it allowed us to get an idea of how we wanted our game to be like and give it a unique feeling. This process also allowed us to get an outline for our story even if it was more of a rough draft for it but basically the story would consistence of our main character going to retrieve what was stolen from him and his village. Of course this was not the only thing we were able to do when story boarding as we were also able to plan out just how the game would look like from it's start screen to its game play screen. Also during the story boarding of our game we really got to see just how exactly we were going to make our idea into this game and I felt that it would really help me and my partner out a lot with this process of how exactly it would work as a game. Overall the story boarding was able to help us by a lot and i'm glad that it did help as much as it did.
Creating a Unique User Experience:
So when me and my teammate were told about try and think of making something unique to our game play we were a bit stumped on what to do to try and make our rpg game a different and unique experience to players. Soon I though of idea where we could implement some sort of timing system to keep the player focused on the game.I though of this Idea because I know how in a turn based rpg the player really only moves a button around very little during combat such as moving through the combat menu and that all really do and then you wait for the animation to play out.So I thought with having a timing system when performing your attack it would mean you would have to be paying attention or be punished for not paying attention to the timing.
Defining meaningful rules
When it comes to creating rules to a game creator has to think about it a lot because each rule could be what makes the difference of a hey that a really fun game from wow this game really stinks. Knowing this when thinking of some of the first rules for our rpg game I though that the biggest rule of the game would have to do with the timing in attacks because this means someone would have to get use to a system that my seem strange to them. So one of the things we have to think about is how could we make this system to where we know someone could easily enjoy this system and not say its broken or not. Doing this is just one of rules sure meaning even when we have this at a good point we still would have to make sure the rest of our rules would still let the player have fun with the game.
Creating and designing Game Levels
For our game we don't really plan to create true levels such as something like 1-1 instead since we are creating our game to be a turn based rpg we really only plan to have a open map that you can explore in and of course like a normal turn based rpg enemy's that you can randomly run into and then get into battle with. Of course we do have a design for this first area you will be in and that will most likely consist of a grassy area because it can be used to show the player at that time that there nothing to hard in that area and everything is more easy to deal with in that area.
Changes in the original plan
Recently we had another round of critiques with our game and there was one critiques that one of our fellow classmates gave us that I felt could really change how how game would play like. This change was basically to change how our games system of progress changed so instead of having a more traditional main map like a normal rpg but instead to have enemy's you you then progress to another set of enemies and you would keep progressing like this until you would find the boss of that area and then you would progress to another area and do the same but of course with more difficulty in the enemies and the bosses.
Creating Limited Resources
When creating our our game limited resources was something that we did have since the begging of our game concept because although we didn't realize it at first having health would be probably one of the biggest limited resources we would have in our game. However this isn't the only type of limited resources that our game contains because we also late into our game wanted to create a magic system where it would be a use once type of move that would not comeback until that firs enemy wave is beaten and then the second enemy wave comeback and this would be due to have the magic attack do more damage than a normal attack. Another limited resources that we have recently thought of adding would be having the player have a set amount of potions for health and maybe even some to bring back the magic attack for when you need multiple strong attacks on one enemy to defeat them.
Creating Core Aesthetics
So when it comes to creating our game Gates of Darkness Aesthetics without a doubt are something that we have to pay attention to. We do this because sometimes we have to remember that we got to not only have the mechanics of our game be our priority but we also have to remember the style of our game the looks the theming of it all. At first i'm not gonna lie I felt that if we spent time on anything other then a games mechanics everything would just end up working with each other well. However I have realized this is not true or at the very least not usually true because if you were to spend all your time simply on mechanics and nothing else your game may not fit well with you mechanics or your aesthetics may not fit in with your mechanics. That why now I feel that me any my partner are gonna have to spend even more time to think how to balance making mechanics while also trying to keep it with our aesthetics of our game so we can then have something great.
Creating and mixing ideas
Recently we have been watching many videos about different games and with seeing all these different types of games and how each one functions. This has now made me think how I could possibly try and mix in some different types of mechanics from different games and blend them in with our game to make these different types of game mechanics and maybe even different types of theming blend together in our game. Of course this doesn't mean that for sure I would be able to add all these different types of mechanics in together cause I imagine that would be hard to do without obvious errors. I would say that I do still want to go with this idea because it could lead to a unique experience of a game one that hopefully people remember fully due to how it gets executed.