Year 2: Wednesday lesson: Contextual studies: lecture 1#

In this lecture we were told the areas that we will be covering in this terms contextual studies brief. For example here is the actual project brief for contextual studies.

For the first part this project we've been tasked with doing some research into maps and how they have had a historical influence and also an influence on the game world.  So in a separate post I’m going to do thorough research into maps historical references and how they have now become an essential part of the game or aesthetic part of a game.

Year 2: Tuesday lesson: Game Jam part 2

We began the second part of the day by watching a lecture about a game design and called Brenda Brathwaite. We looked at her take on games and wafts influence her design of the board game she would make. Though she was making board games are not digital games you could tell that the similar design principles were still there. We first lock that’s FS design for a game which was about Ireland and Ireland being invaded she then walked us through the design process that she went through to create the board by herself about how each part of the board meant something to her or a family as she had descended from Ireland. But I feel personally the video really start to pick up when she talked about her most recent game which was called train. The way train was constructed it had three train tracks set along a window with broken glass here is example image.

The way the game is played is that three players each take a train car and put the yellow figures inside. They then take turns to pick up cards which may have certain disasters on them and then at the end of the game they are told the name of a concentration camp and is at this moment that the fall message of the game is revealed that is about the Holocaust. I think is a message this game is absolutely brilliant and has such a strong keep acting message that can vary from person to person the committee think a lot about the past and about how you read managed to experience a certain emotion in a certain way.

After watching the lecture we were asked to come up with a game idea involving a certain subject matter that was shown up on the board many were deep social issues and philosophical issues also.

The issue I started off originally looking at was a religious issue between three of the main religions Christianity Judaism and Islam. My original game idea was to have three players each taking on the role of the religion what they have no idea that they had these rules they were then in some way had to overcome obstacles together but then near towards the end of the game they would have to do work individually and try to actively work against their comrade’s.

What after having a talk of Mike shooter Mark Wickham he advised me on not such a complex gameplay method is why a lot more into just human behaviour on to make a game that would allow people to if they wanted to work against their peers but also depend on them at the same time.

Personal notes:

Found this to be probably the most enjoyable part of the day as a really grounded games and our work in the real world. I also really enjoyed listening to other people’s ideas and thinking of ways that I could even improve them but also listen to people’s feedback on my ideas. One concern that I do have about this is that how this is going to affect my prototype game for the submission of this unit because I always value gameplay in a game almost as important as the game’s message

but when one is compromised in one to suit the other that is when I see flaws within a game. I’m just worried that this may happen within my game prototype but hopefully as the point of this unit is to refine an idea this will be eradicated from the production process as I go forward.

As for Brenda Brathwaite game found this to be an absolutely amazing concept and just at the sheer emotions it can produce within people is a very powerful game and I could even say that most high production of high-quality digital games there are on the market today and I think that’s a real shame that train will only be shown as a board game and the message will be shown to the digital game audience but as Brenda said with an air lecture it would dissolve the message of the game it was to be brought into a digital world and I think I agree with her and I think that train is definitely a milestone within games that should be well considered and studied. I hope that I’ll be able to look at her work again in the future to draw inspiration as I think the messages in her games could be a key to a very interesting storytelling.

Year 2: Tuesday lesson: Game Jam part 1

On the Tuesday we started off our first proper lesson with George beard one of our tutors. He starred was off with a game jam session in the morning where we were passed certain phrases or titles on cards and we had 10 minutes to come up with a game design and then picture it’s to the rest of the class of 30 seconds.

The first card I was given was called Bertha new day I decided to go with a universal simulator for an iPhone where the main objective was to keep your solar system alive. These the notes that I wrote about my game idea.

Birth of a new day

Phones only

Age 8+

Solar system maker

It will be played as micro managed game with touch screen layout

The selling point is that you can make your own races on each plant and change how they live

The game will have 1000 year per sec time witch is changeable

You must protect the solar system from universal hazers like solar wind black holes

The second card that I was given was called the milk spoiler which I decided to write an idea about someone with lactose intolerance to milk which was further iPhone and PC. Here was the notes on maths game idea.

Milk spoiler

Pc and phone

Strategy and 2d

Age10+

You are an extreme lactose intolerance activist

Who must destroy the world supplies of milk

3 locations milk bottle plant, tea room and a cow farm you must destroy random bottle of milk in each the long the milk is left the close to will come to dyeing from milk intolerance by destroying the cows in the farm u will reduce the overall content of milk in the game but these will spawn the fastest

for the last game idea we were each handed a piece of paper and asked to write down an emotion, an object or creature and then a time period or location then we would hang these back to the shooter then he would give them out in a random order to the rest of the class. The one that I was given was called the hungry jellybean in space this game would be similar to a game like space invaders reached to swipe across the screen to collect objects moving towards them here the notes I took down for the game idea.

Hungry Jelly Bean in space

Pc

Age 8+

Side scroller 2D

You were sent off in space capsule and after millions of years you have become a living jelly bean and you’re hungry. You must grow in size to take on the universe you start will small rocks and dust to grow in size to the point you can eat plants as the might galactic jelly bean. you can if needs be fire up things you have eating to destroy target cannot yet eat.

Falling in to a black hole result in game over.

Unique point is that the scale the game will go to from specks of dust to supernovas with numbers that at improved the more you consume 

Overall I really enjoyed the first part of Tuesday lesson as it was an easy exercise to spit out quick game ideas so that may be fine and perfect similar to our unit goal in BA4.  fun it really good though to see how just from little information could build up a whole idea around it and then begin to refine and affect the idea when telling it to other people seem different floors or even advantages that your idea may have a rules. May use a similar method later on in the course to come up with  some new ideas.

Year 2: Monday lecture 06/10/14

The first day we came back to university we had our first lecture taken by one of our tutors George Beard. In this lecture we learnt about our first studio project for BA4 creating a game prototype and going through design processes to improve the final design.

At the start of the lecture talked about the GGD (game design document) and what information is shown within this document.  We then went over the different categories inside against design documents such as narrative, characters, art style, sound effects and game play mechanics.

We then looked at different ways that this can be visually shown to the viewer of against design document. Such as character designs could be shown as a mood board or layout for game levels could be blocked out in 3-D software. This is a good way to explain visually your ideas without having to for the viewer with so much text which would put them off from reading the documents as after all game design documents are often used to picture game idea to a company or investor.

.  Another part of the games design document that we look at was the design of levels and how they are produced. That often in a early concept art they are shown similar to real-world maps both taken from a bird’s eye view and often not showing any detail of buildings only the structure of the player path

To get about a better look at real games design document we looked at the one created for naughty dogs game uncharted two. Though being many hundreds of pages long it was mostly made up of images either of concept art or visual interpretations of important points like environment, level construction and characters.After this we looked into mock-up images these would-be the images created by the Art team of the games company to show certain key aspects of the game that they wish to create to give our rough visual interpretation of what areas characters or game play mechanics may look like in the game.

We then finished up the lecture with talking about the overall content of against design documents and different visual and text based ways that we can show the information to the viewer.

After this we finished up with questions about certain aspects of the game document and then ended the lecture.

Personally I found this lecture to be very enjoyable as I have construct to the game design document in the past but would like to take further steps in refining and polishing games design document it was also interesting to see how real games companies would construct and convey their game design is in a short documents such as a game document I feel that on this first assignment it’s going to be very enjoyable as I have some experience and also I find it very interesting in compressing down an idea to show to someone.

Year 2: First project 06/10/14