Games MDA

 Understanding Games

This weeks reading was on MDA which stands for Mechanics, Dynamics and Aesthetics. These three components when combined together make up a great portion of a video game. A designer must be conscious of how the three work in tangent with one another and design the game on how they work off one another. 

The Mechanics are the base component, this involves what the player is able to do in terms of gameplay. The game might have multiple mechanics such as walking, running then sprinting to name a few, the mechanics have to make sense in order for the dynamics of the game to make sense. 

The Dynamics of the game are what the player is going to experience when playing, for example the PC game Escape from Tarkov is an open world survival shooting game, it involves the player having to battle it out with other players to attain resources in order to complete quest and earn money so they can purchase better equipment. Having this objective style gameplay makes sense with the mechanics such as shooting and running.

The Aesthetics are what is going to evoke an emotional response from the user, if it is a horror game it would make sense for it to not have a lot of bright colours but instead be very dark and give the user a sense of not knowing where they are going.

In my opinion, even though the Mechanics and the Dynamics have to have a close relationship to one another I can settle for a game giving me any sort of dynamics, Ultimately for me it comes down to the actual mechanics of a video game that entices me to buy it. I want to see games that have challenging mechanics and ones that a person has to put time into in order to get better at the game, but that's just me.

Here are some articles I have read to help get a better all round understanding of the subject.

This Article by Mike Stout talks about the problems that developers face when making a game and some of the ways he goes about improving them for the user. you can read the article HERE!   

This one by Marco give a more short and sweet version of what MDA is and what it entails. You can read it HERE!

This Article talks further and a little more in dept as to what MDA is. You can read it HERE! 

Game Vision Statement

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 The Game (Space Ranger)

This side scrolling games called Space Escape is to be an exciting, edge of you seat , keep you on your toes action flying game where the user will try to achieve as high a score as possible in order to be named "The Best". It is an arcade style game that will have the user flying a space ship in a never ending map avoiding obstacles and shooting in order to progress. The game will feature a metre counter that will track the users play as he/she goes through the level. Upon a game over , the user will be given there score and will have to restart from the beginning and go again.

Starting off, you the player will start at a given speed, something easy to get you started. You will then have to begin traversing the level avoiding obstacles that are in your way, these obstacles will be stationary and you must control your ship and decide whether to go over or under them or even through them. There will be pickups that you will be able to get should you fly into them and these will grant you abilities such as slow the ship down(to make the game easier), pick up ammo for your ship that will allow you to destroy objects in your way and there will be pickups that have a negative effect on you too such as one that will speed your ship up(to make the game harder). The game itself is never ending, the only way it ends is if you hit one of the obstacles, resulting in a game over. You will keep going, all the while your distance is being tracked,, so If you want to get first place on the leader board, don't crash! The game will also feature nice visuals in terms of level design, it will not have to be too dynamic as the map is going to go on forever or at least until the player gets a game over, so the level itself can have maybe two or three different scenario's that can be repeated as the user goes forward. It will also have audio ques such as gun sounds, exploding sounds and a simple background tune that will play, It will also have a generic game over sound accompanied with a crash sound for when the user hits an object. 

To give you a better visual understanding of what it is I am looking to achieve, here are some images of who I see as our competitors. The first Image is of a game called Copter and the second one is of a game called Tiny Plane. In essence, the game I am looking to create is going to be a hybrid of these two games. Both game are incredibly fun and slightly addictive especially Copter which I have found myself playing numerous times over and over.

This game is classed as a side scrolling shooter/ flying game/ racing game and will be available to play on pc or laptop using a mouse and keyboard, It will primarily be a single player game but include a leader board where players can upload their final distance scores to compare against each other. It will have some simple mechanics at its core but promises to be a very fun and enjoyable experience, and one that the user can repeat over and over in order to beat their personal best.

 

some of the key features are listed here for you, I will try and explain them as best as I can and seeing that the game is still in early development, know that some of them may be subject to change.   

•  Rise and Fall - The user will be in a constant state of descending, unless the left mouse button is pressed and held which will give the ship the ability to ascend.
• Shooting - You will be in control of a spaceship that is capable of destroying objects that are in your way.
• Race - You are going to be racing against your own distance covered and other peoples distances, to see who is the best at the game.

Pickups - As you play through the level you will be able to collect certain powerups that will have a positive and negative effect on you, the positive ones will help you and the negative ones must be avoided or you will experience a negative effect.

To conclude, I am hoping to create this game to the best of my skills and provide people with a fun to play game that will keep them coming back for more and depending on the success of the game I would love to continue to add to it further down the line.

Unity Tutorial 03

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 More Unity

This weeks Unity tutorial was to learn more ways to code in order to get the game I was making to function. The tutorials were really good and very simple to follow along with , I had no Issues completing it except for one problem near the end where my code would not run and after about 20 minuets I figured out that I was using a lower case v instead of a capitol V.

This week though I learned some new methods in C# and how they function. I am really enjoying learning how to programme but I feel that I still need much more practice if I am ever to make a game for myself. I have been watching YouTube tutorials on basic C# to get a better understanding for things such as Arrays and Strings, and how to implement them in my code. I think that trying to think logically about what it is I need to do has been a bit of a challenge and takes some time to wrap my head around what the code is actually doing and why but also not knowing all the ways that code can be written is somewhat frustrating.

Overall though I am enjoying using Unity and I am looking forward to continuing my journey learning to programme.   

Feedback Strategies

 Feedback

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For this post I will be discussing Feedback, and they ways in which it can be given and received. I began my research into ways to approach giving feedback be it positive or negative by reading an article titled How to give feedback without sounding like a jerk. This article was very informative and explained some of the psychology that is involved when it comes to giving someone feedback, it explains that the vocabulary a person uses can come across in a negative way even though a person may not notice that they are being negative. Instead when it is worded a different way a persons feedback can come across as constructive and the person receiving it will be more inclined to be open minded about receiving it. 

The next article I read was Why do so many managers avoid giving praise  . I could relate to this article the most as I have experienced some of the dilemmas in it first hand both at a job and in my time playing sports. Thinking about what the article discussed I have to agree with what the majority of it says in terms of people who are seen as leaders not being able to give positive feedback for reasons such as, If a manager of a company gives an employer positive feedback that the employer would become complacent and begin to slack. While this is certainly not always the case, I can say that I have seen this happen and understand why some managers shy away from it. I have learned much from this article about how someone can be perceived after they give feedback be it positive or negative.

I find it interesting about how the article discussed how managers did not give feedback for various personal reasons but I can help but think that this is a sign of someone who is not intended to lead, surely if you are to give someone feedback be it positive or negative it can only improve that person but the person in power may be worried about how they are viewed afterwards. In my opinion, someone who can give feedback without coming across as rude or belittling is someone who I would rather have as my boss.     

Game Idea Research

 My Idea

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When thinking about what game I was going to make I initially thought of a type of time trial game where the user has to complete some sort of race and achieve their best finish time. I want my game to be able to be played over and over and have the user wanting to better their score every time. I remember playing the last mission on a call of duty game more than 100 times because there was an achievement for completing the level in a certain time limit and no matter how much I hated that I couldn't achieve it I kept playing it, if you want an insight as to what I am talking about you can watch the quick video clip here. 

My point is that this kind of gameplay kept me coming back to better my time and I feel like it is a good hook that I can add to my game. I am going to create a side scrolling game where the user controls some sort of vehicle be it a plane or a car and has to traverse a course filled with obstacles in order to reach the finish line and be given a high score.

 1. The first game mechanic I research is going to be a Rising and Falling mechanic, you can read some more about it in the link provided. This mechanic will work for the player when they are trying to avoid obstacles on the course.

2. My second mechanic will be a timing mechanic. I plan on having the player be able to hit a powerup marker that will give a brief boost to their speed and help them finish faster, only if the hit it though.

3. For my third mechanic I would like to put in a resizing mechanic where the player would have to trigger something in order to resize the vehicle in order to fit through a part of the course, if the player does not get this "item" then it will result in a game over as they will not be able to progress further. I found this article that talks about my 2nd and 3rd game mechanic ideas to give you some insight as to what they are about and how they operate.

Game Elements

 Game Elements

This weeks reading was all about getting a better grasp of the thought process that goes into making a video game and to understand the component parts and how they combine to form an end product for a consumer.

The first article "What are the qualities of games" was a very interesting read and I found it to be really informative about the components that have to fit together from the beginning of the design process in order to have a functioning game that makes sense and is fun to play. Once the designer has these components in place and is happy with how the game is going to be played it is important for then to be able to carry out a critical analysis of the game to understand what it is that is making the game an enjoyable experience for the user and what can be added or removed in order to improve it. The article gives an insight into what sort of questions a designer should ask themselves in order to analyse the game as a whole and I found it very informative as I would not have thought about asking some of the questions that is stated in it, so I will use this information going forward with my own project.

Going forward it is important to begin a prototype of your game and get a feel for how it plays. The video(Which can be found here!) talks about how it is one thing to have your game idea on paper but if you really want to see if it is going in the right direction, make a prototype! Here you can get answers to some of the questions you may have as a designer such as " do the game mechanics make sense" and " do the components of the game fit together". If the answer is yes then its all well and good but if it is a no then changes can be made, I get the feeling that it is a fail forward kind of approach, which I think is a good way to create something that works.

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Unity Tutorial 02

 More Unity

I had returned to Unity this week to complete the challenge 1 task. For this task I was to programme a plane to be able to fly in a forward direction and have the user be able to control it by moving it up and down in order for it to be able to traverse the course.

To start with, I think I made the mistake of thinking that it would be as easy as the first task which was getting the car to move but I couldn't have been more wrong. My skills as a person who is new to programming were severely put to the test with this task, as were my nerves. After about an hour of tinkering with my code and getting nowhere with it I resorted to going to the hint section which did help me significantly, god bless the hint section! 

Overall I would say that this task did help me in some ways of thinking about what the code is doing and why but after completing this task I feel that I need to do much more learning in order to fully understand by myself the what and the why when it comes to adding code.

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Feedback Thoughts

Penny For Your Thoughts

 For this post I will be talking about feedback thoughts and how I relate to it. The two articles I will be talking about are seven ways to crush self doubt and how to get past negativity bias. 

When I read the first article about crushing self doubt the first thought that came into my head was "Remember when I didn't want to go to college", like I said in my Introduction post, I didn't want to go to college because I was unsure about what it is that I wanted to do and I was also self doubting myself whether or not I would be cut out for it or not. I had constant negative thoughts if I should do it or not until one day I just went for it. There is a very good Ted talk in the article about shame and vulnerability and I can definitely relate to it when I think about my first college experience, I felt that I would not be good enough and that others would cast judgment on someone who is twenty seven returning to education and as Brene Brown talks about in the video, I felt extremely vulnerable about the whole situation. As time went on though it got better, needless to say I made a whole bunch of mistakes at the start but looking back now I can say that I learned from them. I found this article to be a very good read and would recommend you to watch the Ted talk by Brown.

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The second article talks about getting past negativity bias and this was another article that I found relates to me. It talk about the role the human brain has to play when it comes to development and gives tips on how to wire or rewire a persons thoughts for the better. It talks about how people are reluctant to focus on positive things that they do and scrutinise themselves over something negative that may have done. I can relate to what is being said in this article to a part of my life, that part being the sport I play. When I first started to play football(Soccer) at the age of 11 there was a football match where I had scored a goal to tie the game at 2-2, I had a chance to score the winning goal near the end of the game and completely skied the ball, I'm not even joking when I say that it was harder to miss than to score. The game finished 2-2 and even though I had scored to make it a draw, that miss was the only thing I could think about for days. After the game my manager could see that the miss had affected me and he said " A good striker doesn't think about a miss, he just thinks  about the next goal" and that stuck with me for life when it came to playing football. Every footballer misses chances to get goals, its part of the game and when it happens to me I do just that- think about my next goal. I can honestly say that it has helped me when I am in a game because I can have seen what it can do to some people who don't think that way about it, iv seen players curl up after missing a chance to score a goal and their confidence get depleted. I can safely say that I have dealt with my thoughts on the matter and trust me Iv missed many chances since but scored 10 times as many.   

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Game Brainstorm

 Calm Before The Brainstorm

Knowing that I am going to be making a game in Unity this semester was a shock to the system. Never had I imagined that I would be making a game on this course but I am actually looking forward to doing it and get some insight into the creative process that comes with it. Being a fan of video games for many years now I am hoping that my excessive up till all hours gaming sessions will have not been in vain and I can take some of what I think I know to be a good game into this task. In this post I will be talking about four games that I like and draw inspiration from when the time comes to make my own. I'm a huge fan of  sci-fi games and first person shooters but I don't think that I will be able to make a game of that magnitude just yet. I have a 10 year old nephew who is forever on his tablet playing video games that are of a much simpler concept such as temple run which I find oddly addictive, so I will be aiming to maybe make a game along those lines for my project. Anyway, here are my four games that I will be looking to for inspiration.

1. Copter

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Copter is a free to play arcade game that anyone can pick up and play. The concept is simple, get the helicopter as far as you can without it crashing. There is no end game to this as it just keeps going and going. The aim is for the user to try and set a high score then try to beat it again. The score is measured by the distance that you travel and as you can see from the picture it has a simple scoreboard, on the left it tells you how far you have gone in your current game while on the right it tells you your best all-time score. The controls could not be more easy to use, with the mechanics of the game constantly having the helicopter going down(crashing) and the only way to send it back up and keep it airborne is by left clicking and holding while letting go sends it back down, also there is no control over whether or not the user goes backwards or forward as the game is designed to only have the helicopter going in one direction. There are simple obstacles along the way that the user must avoid hitting or this will result in a game over. The level design and the object design in the game is fairly simple and looks like something that could be achievable with the skills I am learning in Unity.  

2. Geometry Wars Evolved

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Geometry Wars is a top down multi-directional shooter game made by a company called Bizarre Creations. It was originally a mini game that a person could play in the car game known as Project Gotham Racing 2 before becoming its own fully fledged franchise. I first played this game on my Xbox 360 and spent hours upon hours trying to beat my high score, also on the 360 you can earn achievement's by completing in game objectives and there is one in this game that still bugs me to this day that I was unable to complete. The game itself has a very simple concept with the user taking control of a small ship that is shaped like the letter c as you can see in the photo and survive for as long as possible while building up there score at the same time. The controls again are fairly simple to use with the left thumbstick the user can navigate around the rectangular map while using the right thumbstick to shoot the enemies. The game starts of at a small pace but it does not take long until you are bombarded with enemies on the screen and are left wondering how on earth am I going to beat all of these things. The user starts off with five lives and three map wiping bombs that will clear the map and give the user a chance to breath as getting touched by one of the enemies will result in you loosing a life. The game overall looks like one that I could possibly recreate using unity as it has a simple level design and mechanics.

3. Stuntman

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I would love to be able to make a car game, they provide a felling of their own when it comes to video games and always keep you on the edge of your seat. Stuntman is a car game that is not like any other car game, yeah sure you drive a car very fast in it but there are other elements to its also. The user plays as a stuntman and has to complete various objectives on each level in order to be awarded a gold, silver or bronze medal at the end. The reason I loved this game so much in the past is because it didn't just test you to see if you could finish in first place, you had to learn how to be fineness with the vehicle you were using. Depending on the movie you could be driving a regular car, a monster truck or a motorbike. The scenarios that the game put you in were fun to play for example one of the missions you are on the movie set of a spy film, its like a car scene from a James Bond movie. You get to control a car that can fire missiles and shoot machine guns which was incredibly fun. While I don't think I will be able to make this game giving my limited skillset it would be cool to make some sort of racing game. 

4. FIFA  

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FIFA is one of if not the number one most played sports game across all platforms these days. Being a massive football fan I would love to know how a game like this is made one day, just so that I would never loose at it and avoid the countless times this game would break my heart by conceding a 90th minute winner. But being serious , FIFA has come on leaps and bounds since I first started playing it back in the day. It has had huge success over the years with the game building on itself year on year. The great thing about this game I feel anyway as a fan is that you know what you are getting when you buy it, there is usually only one drastic change to the game every year and that is the gameplay mechanics. The concept of this game is not hard to grasp and I don't think there is a person alive who doesn't know what the objective is in football. While I get that I will not be able to make a game of this stature with my current skills , It would be nice to maybe create a simpler version of a football game using Unity.       

Helpful for getting started

I did some research into what would be helpful to get me started in using Unity and came across a helpful article that you may also like, you can find it here.

  

Unity tutorial 01

 My First Unity Project

This week I had to learn how to make a simple functioning game using the game developer engine known as Unity. After downloading everything that was needed, I was on my way to making my first ever game. Along with Unity I downloaded a code editor called Visual Studio, this would be where I would write my code that would make my game function. To make things function for the game I was using a programming language called C#. The programming that was necessary for this project seemed simple enough but I imagine that it can get very complicated for much bigger projects such as a triple A game title. The tutorials for this project were very helpful and easy to follow along with, the instructor is very clear in what he wants you to do and how to do it, which is a massive positive giving how daunting it was when I first learned that we would be making a game and having to use a programming language. I will end this post by talking about another fear I had at the beginning which was the user interface, I had pictured in my head that the UI for a game engine would be extremely complicated and take a lot of time to get the grip of but I could not have been more wrong. The UI, while I have only explored a small amount of it seems to be very user friendly and easy to navigate. The instructor of the course guides you through it and puts your mind at ease which in turn gave me confidence going forward with the project. I look forward to using and creating more games with Unity in the future. 

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Game Design (reading, week 3)

 Game Design & Idea Generation

Having read the articles for this weeks task I have learned a great deal about how an idea for a game can be brought about. For someone who is not in this line of work I would imagine that the task itself would seem tedious and one that would prove to be quite the challenge. On the other hand ,game designers who have a passion for making games and coming up with fresh new ideas thrive in this environment and have a plethora of ways to get from point a to b. I have learned that there is not really a wrong way to go about getting the creative juices flowing , just that some ways may be better than others. Game designers have both formal and informal ways of coming up with ideas but the study suggests that many of their initial thoughts for a concept come from life experiences be that a tv show, movie or even a game that they have played in the past . There are quite a few techniques that designers can apply in order to further an idea for creation. For example some people work best when they are in large groups bouncing ideas off one another and brainstorming ideas. Some people prefer a more informal approach by doing things such as changing their working environment from time to time or even just taking a walk to get a fresh perspective on things. There are also game designers that believe that the main element of the game should be the mechanics and I would have to agree with that, being a fan of video games for many years I have come to understand that a game can be a 10/10 visually but if the mechanics of the game are boring or feel like they don't belong then the game can be a complete failure. Some designers like to come up with new mechanics for games or improve on already existing mechanics before they delve into coming up with what the game's story is going to be or how the game will look. When all of this is brought together and the concept is finalised some things may change along the way in order to improve it, these can be drastic changes such as the core mechanics of the game or somewhat smaller changes such as visuals. Overall the generating of ideas and the creation of a game is a process that takes time and effort but in the end the juice is worth the squeeze and we are blessed with something that will entertain us for hours upon hours.  

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Assignments

 Assignments

Our assignments this year consist of writing our own blog to document what we are learning throughout the semester. I think it's a nice way to express my opinion on some of the topics we are covering.

We are also tasked with maintaining an online presence on Twitter to help each other out in terms of discovering content that may be beneficial to one another.

In the coming weeks we as a class will be starting to use the game engine known as Unity  to develop our own 2D or 3D game. Having never done anything like this before, I'm sure it will be a challenge but one that I look forward to.

  

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Technology

 Tools of the trade

There are many online tools available to use during this semester that will help further develop the skillset required. I have only used Twitter on a couple of occasions and that was many years ago, it is just not an app that I was drawn towards, However it is a great place to keep up to date on how things may be evolving giving the persons chosen line of work. It is also a relatively easy to use app with an quite simple learning curve. I will be using Twitter this year to help connect myself with like minded people to get an insight into how they are developing creatively while also developing myself so others can look to me for inspiration and information.

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Another tool that I will be learning to use as part of this semester is a game engine called Unity. Unity is a cross platform game engine that lets people create 2D and 3D games. I enjoy a good video game as much as the next person but never have I imagined learning how to make one, it is something that I look forward to doing and I am excited to see what I will come up with and make.

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Time Strategies

 Staying on track

Keeping up to date with assignments and deadlines is something that I have always tried to adhere to. whilst nothing can be done if something in your life happens unexpectedly it helps that if you have yourself in order with your work should the problem arise. I like to keep a personal calendar at home with dates marked accordingly, this not only helps me know when something is due but for me it has a slight feel good factor knowing that I have completed something and can move onto the next task. There are many online tools and apps that you can avail of for time management and keeping yourself on track to complete a task. I found one app that is called Forrest, I thought this app had an interesting concept on trying to keep a person focused. The user when starting a task has to plant a tree and in order to get that tree to grow he/she must stay concentrated on the task they are doing. It might seem like a strange way to get someone to keep focused by challenging them to keep the tree growing but I guess some people may find they have an obligation or even an emotional connection to the tree so they will stay focused in order to achieve this, and when all your task have been completed you have a cool forest to look at and be proud of.   

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 Growth Mindset 

Fail forward / Fail

Students

There are two mindsets when it comes to the term Growth mindset. It is a term coined up by a Dr.Carol Dweck who is a professor of psychology at Stanford University in America. Dweck's work involved her studying her students to see what their reaction would be to failure and how they would cope with and deal with it. Those with the growth mindset had a much more positive reaction to failure. Studies have show that people who have a growth mindset are much more open to criticism and see failure as something that can be learned from. while on the other hand those who have a fixed mindset can have a negative response to failure resulting in them having self doubt thoughts and struggling to complete the task at hand and ultimately end up quitting.

Workplace

The workplace can be a place where it is altered in a person. Companies that promote and reward risk taking and learning from mistakes have show that the people working there are those with the growth mindset and while those who work in a fixed mindset company are more likely to engage in cheating and deception in order to get ahead in there respected field.

Everyone has both

Studies have shown that everyone has both the growth mindset and the fixed mindset, and both develop over time with experience. To continue to develop a growth mindset it is critical to reward learning and progress and to capitalise on setbacks in order to move forward. Everyone has also got fixed mindset characteristics and must avoid setting off triggers in order to try remain in the growth mindset