At the beginning of this unit, we were given the brief that informed us of the exhilarating task we had. We found that we either had to create a game or animation that expresses the theme that was assigned. This theme was called London: Then And Now. The purpose of this theme was to generate an outcome that portrays how London has progressed from how it used to be. The topic we focus on relating to London was completely up to us and there were endless ways we could interpret it. The entire project was set to last 17 weeks (including holidays in between).
When first told this theme, I was extremely intrigued. Mostly due to the fact that in high school, I did Graphic Design for GCSE where one of the topics we did was about London which I enjoyed back then. So, some form of nostalgia came to me and boosted my interest in the theme. I really did like the idea of showing people something about real life, while at the same time, captivating them with fun-filled gameplay.
Ultimately, my chosen path was a game. I made this decision because; 1)I really enjoy the process of coding with how it consists of risk and reward with constantly trying to cod for things to happen, them not working and creating many issues, and then eventually solving them and feeling triumphant for it. 2) A game lets people learn through interaction, becoming a part of whatever the game is trying to portray to the player, while an animation only lets them watch. 3) I really wanted to develop my coding ability more, as in units 5,6 and 7, I learned more about Construct and I hoped to go further with it. It's also something that I wish to make a hobby out of in the future.
I chose for my target audience to be any age but most people close to mines i,e 15-20. I wanted something that can have a wide audience and not be limited by age ratings or non-suitable content. But I wanted more of people my age as I can relate to them more thus it would be clearer what may suit them.
Initial Ideas
My first idea was to make a game where a school student who lives far in the future, uses a virtual reality simulator, along with his friends, to go back in time in London's past as an assignment. This leads to them getting stuck inside and they must explore all of London's past to get out. What gave me this idea was the Japanese animated show Sword Art Online which is about kids who get stuck in a virtual game. With this idea, the purpose was to show many different factors of London, such as how the streets and buildings looked. I thought that this plot would be enthralling to my audience as not only would I have been able to embed different interpretations of London based on different times, but also, they would get to play as a character who is close to their age. Making them more able to relate to the characters and the plot in general. This was the only Idea I had at the time.
Sometime after, I did some Player Acting to get more ideas. I played 2 games, one of them was called Civilization V. This game was about building a civilisation and maintaining your own kingdom. My experience with it didn't give me more game ideas but did enhance the time travel concept I had at the time. Because Civilization V allows the player to learn about a various thing while simultaneously entertaining them with enjoyable gameplay, this made the think it could be useful to add mini-games that relate to whatever topic the character is learning about. Such as a mini-game where you have to dress up in clothing appropriate for the era they are in to not draw suspicion. This would give the player something fun to do, while also learning about the kind of things people wore then.
Eventually, I started doing some Contextual Analysis of many different games related to London. Each gave me different ideas, however, they overall showed me that the game doesn't have to be set at London at all and can just include semiotics.
Later on, we all started primary research as we visited the Museum Of London. I took a look at many of the exhibits that talked about London's history. The 3 that attracted my attention were the ones titled; Warm/Cold Adapted Humans, Roman Coins and Roman Sickness And Health. This trip gave me a plethora amount of ideas.
The Warm/Cold Adapted Humans described London and humans in the very early stages before there were even buildings and when humans were built differently. This made me think how interesting it could be If I made a game that explores a world that is completely built with nature but also drawing some subtle comparisons to London as you play as one of the early humans described. However, I didn't use this one as I wasn't sure what I could make out of the plot.
Similar to Civilization V, the Roman Coins didn't give me a plot idea but did give me a feature I believe I should add in whatever game I make which is a currency mechanic. Allowing the player to deal with currency in the game would not only give them more incentive to play but also allow me to show how money looks like in old London. This again is a tactic of making the player learn something while enjoying the game. So, I decided that it was one of the considered propositions.
Roman Sickness And Health described how people in the Roman era treated the ill and how they cleaned themselves. I found this quite interesting as seeing the creativity and thought the process of people having to manage with much fewer resources and knowledge is somewhat enlightening. I thought a game that explores the lives of Roman people who are suffering from many different illnesses that we would recognize today but then the player gets to see how they dealt with each. I considered this idea too.
I saw more and more of many different but fascinating topics that I thought all were good and all could make game material. So, I decided to think of how I could use multiple of them in one. My final idea was to have a game where time gets perturbed which causes many objects/ people from different eras to appear in the wrong time period. Each of them would have to find an artefact in order to go back to their correct times while also coping being in a very different society. This would be a good way of mixing the different eras as not only would the semiotics of the design of the locations and character tell a lot about the eras, but also doing research in the personality and mannerisms of the different characters would help with how I would make them react. This would teach the player how society changed and progressed. However, I believe that this would be overly complicated and require a lot of research so I decided to shy away from this one despite how interesting the idea is.
What Inspired The Idea Of The Final Concept
On the 5th or March, I went on a trip around London. Taking a look at many areas like Trafalgar Square and Piccadilly Circus. Then I also saw areas like Brick Lane.
When comparing central London to the East End of London areas like Brick Lane, you can see there is a huge comparison between them. With Central have very luxurious buildings and decadent architectures like stature and fountains, and Brick Lane having very unfastidious streets with graffiti everywhere.
I also saw a lot of homeless men on the streets and benches (a lot more than I normally do). But then I encountered one who was washing his clothes in the fountain which was a surprise but that sparked another epiphany.
Seeing all the homeless men and the poor state of Brick Lane juxtaposed with the upmarket and sophisticated architectures of Central London sprung up the thought of the topic of "Class". As people, today are divided on their class in society, with homeless people being lower and the majority of people being in the middle. But this divide was tremendously more significant before the industrial revolution started to develop in the 1900s.
Using that, I thought I could use a narrative that explores the division of the different classes. Mainly comparing it to how it used to be and how it is now, making the statement of how things have drastically developed but also how certain things haven't changed, such as people being in poverty.
I eventually did research on social class in the Victorian era in which I learned quite a few facts that helped me come up with my chosen plot. I also added in my idea of adding currency in the game as well.
This is how I came up with the plot I made for the game.
Audience Correspondence
As I previously stated, I wanted my audience to be any age, but most people close to mine. but as I made my plot and saw that my game will explore the themes of death, discrimination and dysfunctional relationships, I decided that there should be some sort of age rating. Using the BBFC’s guidelines, a PG rating was the best option as the narrative didn't include violence, nudity, drugs or ext.
I eventually made a survey asking questions about the theme of my game, and what people want in a game in general.
With the results I got, I saw how many liked the idea of playing educational games that teach history is what the game is about. Most liked the art style and claimed they found the appearances of the characters to be "classy" and "aesthetic" which was the point as I wanted a unique style that captivated the player due to how different it is.
A lot of them said they prefer side scroller type of games, but the majority said they favour platformers. Platformer games generally have features that incest the player to continue for achievements. Such as currency, receiving new things in the game and so on. This is one of the main reasons I added a currency feature in my game and planned on adding mini-games where you earn them as it would be able to attract the majority of my age demographic who like the feeling to achievement in games.
After doing QA testing, I got positive feedback with the design and theme of the game. Complimenting the dark and gritty art style that fits with the narrative.
This unit has allowed me to learn and develop more on my existing skills. Mainly of my software skills from extra use of them.
For Photoshop, I learned more about the brushes and how each has many different shapes and are more useful for different tasks. The one that I mostly used through the project was very useful for shading. I also learned how to animate in Photoshop as I had to make animations for Abigail. This, however, was a bad experience. As I had to endure its limited animating features due to it not being a program for animating, and also because of the fact that what you do to a layer in a canvas, effects it the same on the other.
For Construct 2, I learned more and more about coding within it and I managed to learn about all behaviours. I found out about features like Global layers that allows me to copy layers to other layouts, how to make loading screens and making custom cursors. They were all quite easy to learn and I didn't have any problems when practising them.
How Was My Experience With The Project/How I Feel About The Outcome
Overall, I'm not happy with how my game turned out. While the story is somewhat like how I originally planned, it still has many, many flaws that I can't look past.
1) Object Scaling
As I decided on my window size for my game. I started drawing the background on photoshop on causes if the same size. However, I never took into account how my character would scale within the background which caused many sections to appeared very huge compared to Abigail.
2) Animations
For Abigail animation, I had to rush due to my fear of not being able to complete the narrative of my game. Resulting it looking quite odd from my perspective along with the idle.
Also due to loss of time. I never got to animate any of the N.P.Cs and the Start screen. This I believe really make the world of my game seem null and really takes away from the art style.
3) Cut Content
As I stated, there was a point where I had to rush things as the deadline was approaching, also causing me having to cut many parts of the game. Such as the mini-games and all the optional events that I was going to implement. This to me really subtracts to my main goal for this game, which was to create a realistic world that felt alive with a story that took its time to illustrate the sad life of Abigail. But the result was a game that I feel rushes through all the events and has a hard time presenting the point of the narrative.
However, upon taking long and deep self-reflection and reviewing my progress through the project, I have realised the flaws and mistakes I made through that resulted in the crunch that caused me to rush and cut content.
Planning
Planning is very important when working on a project. It helps with your decision making and manages your time.
I believe I made the same mistake that I made in the last unit, where I make plans of what I'll be doing through the project at the start, but end up diverting from it and never updating it.
This is normally due to the fact that when unplanned events happen through the work, it results in me having to either improvise or completing things in different orders. This can be because some assets took longer to complete, having to alter the narrative in any way or when I implement new ideas I didn't have before. When this happens, I end up forgetting to update and alter the existing and deciding what to do on the day.
I believe this is one of the things that affected me, as I only realised that I had to cut out content in order to complete the game near the end of the project. If I kept updating it and stuck to it, I would have been more organised even more productive each day. This would have allowed me to know exactly what I had to do from the beginning of each day and be able to track my progression to determine if I was objectively working at a good pace rather than just judging it from a limited perspective.
If I did the project again, I would have taken the plan more seriously and taken my time with much more detail on what I would do exactly on each week. Then I would have printed it off as a checklist and ticked each task as I go along. This would have been much more of a constructive way of maintaining the progression of my work and allow me to know if I need to make any narrative changes earlier.
Prioritisation
Knowing what is the most important assets it complete or in other words, what your main priority should be, is important when working on a game when you have limited time. It allows you to make sure that all things the game needs are worked on and gives you more room to work on the optional additions.
When I started working on the game, one of the ways I began was to complete the save/load system as I believed that because It was such a big system, it would have been beneficial to get it out of the way. I also didn't make time for making asset like the start menu, to which I had a large amount of ambition for the design.
I spent a lot of my time working in this unit. I came in on my days off and stayed long after working days. This made me disappointed and confused about how I didn't manage to complete all assets. But then I realised, it's not about how long or how much work you do, but how to manage and prioritise the work otherwise you end up not giving enough attention to the assets that build the game.
If I did the project again, I'll make sure my plan compensates on what is most needed and important. I would have left the save/load system at the end and focus just on the events and the visuals of the game. This would have given me a better chance to work on the parts that I didn't get to add in and would have allowed me to work on animations without having to rush. I also would have made decisions on how long I would spend on each task and make that the maximum, allowing me to make a balance between all of them and prevent me using too much time one bugs where it could be used for completing the story.
Overall, I'm not happy with the outcome and it doesn't fully line up to how I envisioned it. However, it has become an eye opener and has shown me the flaws of the way I progressed with my work and now has given me much more pointers on how to improve for future projects.
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