ExPlay (2/5/2014)

During last night's ExPlay, I had the chance to talk to Richard Weeks from the games' company 'Total Monkery'. The same man who came in and did a talk for us a while back.

Asking him a bunch of questions, I was able to get the following feedback...

• Release games! Even if you have to work in a job you don't like and live with your parents, try and earn the money to make and release your own games. Thus people will recognise you as a games' developer and that reputation will help you get your 'foot in the door'.
• Even if you fail at a Kick Starter, a games' company may still back up and support your game if you had an idea that they liked.
• Don't be afraid to show off your games at ExPlay. Get the word out and make contacts with people there.
• When making a game decide if it's based on story or mechanics. Mechanics will mean that the game will need to be fun and possibly include something unique. Whereas, story will require high quality narrative and characters. 
• Since I am doing a story based game for my third year project, Richard recommended that I make a large spider diagram showing how all the characters relate to each scene in the game and to one another. Do they agree with what is going on or not? Also, write down the who, what, why and how for each character, so as to make them fully fleshed out. 

Richard was also kind enough to offer me and my friends the chance of visiting his games' company 'Total Monkery' so as to learn what the industry is like and get help and advice with our own games since Richard is keen on making Plymouth a real gaming scene. Thus I made sure to email him this morning, fingers crossed I get a response saying I can come over soon.

Play Testing (21/2/2014)

* Over reading week I was able to play test Remode's upcoming game 'Campy Command' which tries to get across the importance of cooking food correctly. Playing as a germ (Campylobacter jejuni) you start in a chicken before going into a slice of cooking ham and then into a person's digestive system all ending in some funny, yet gross toilet humour.

You can see my notes on my first play through below.

Positives: 

• Awesome music, reminds me of Spyro.
• Being able to upload a photo for your avatar was a cool idea. I also never expected it to turn out to be the person you had given food poisoning to by the the end, thus, although it was a fun idea, my robots body didn't suit the posted person's face. Still, at least I know for next time.
• Well animated - graphics and animation reminded me of the video 'Dumb ways to Die' which was their inspiration. Really liked how videos blended into the corner without interrupting the game's flow.
• Good and well informed tutorial that included all the controls and enemy types in advance. 
• Good tight controls.

 Negatives:

• Despite enemy slowly fading into the scene, I still felt that they would appear and kill my character out of nowhere. Thus a clearer health bar and damage indication would be appreciated.
• Having to repeat cut scenes and the tutorial every time you play the game is a bit of a pain, but I suppose it is a necessary one in order to get across its message. 

I then tried to break the game and got the following results...

• I couldn't get the sprite to go entirely off screen despite rubbing across the boundaries or trying to spin into one from an angle. However, I could get half of its body off screen if I was fast enough on the first level. This isn't game breaking in anyway however, and therefore should be ok. 
• I couldn't break the controls trying to go in the completely opposite direction or going forward and turning as the controls were just that tight. However, if you pushed forward and backwards at the same time it made the sprite face the opposite way and go backwards super fast instead of slowly. 

Thanks to the above I have not only seen what play testing is like having only heard mixed responses about the career, but I will now be able to include play testing in my CV.

Play testing itself was a lot of fun as the game was enjoyable and so was the company. Granted, I only spent a short amount of time on it and it was a contained experience. The real job I hear can be quite lonely and tedious. Therefore, despite having had fun today, I doubt I will try and pursue the career.

Summer Project - Sci-fi RPG (27/7/2013)

Being a huge fan of RPG's (Role Playing Games) such as 'Dungeons and Dragons' and having a long three month holiday I decided to create my own system. I wanted to do this because I have always loved writing stories and characters, but, I have never had a system or game of my own to put them into. I also genuinely wanted the experience of making my own system for a game as many video game companies start their RPG's as table top games in order to make sure the system works before spending more time on programing, as was the case for 'Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic'.

The system itself is for a Sci-fi setting which I have still not named even though I worked on it for three weeks! I decided, since it was my own system that I would take the rules and game play from 'Dungeons and Dragons 4th Edition' whilst using some of the 'Star Wars RPG' rules for future currency, weaponry and vehicles.
Whilst being a fun project it also proved to be a difficult one as adapting the main system (D&D) whose genre is fantasy to Sci-fi was quite a complex task e.g. turning wizards into psychics and warriors into mech using combatants. 

My goal was to make a fun and exciting RPG which was meant to make the players feel powerful and the fights chaotic whilst being awesome due to the scope of the weapons you could get and use.
Although a story and character writer at heart, I chose to focus on the game play more than anything as I wanted to make sure the mechanics worked first before coming up with the 'fluff' as it is known (aka the story, setting etc).

The starting classes which were meant to be based on the stereotypes/archetypes of sci-fi all included cool starting gear and bonuses for using them depending on which class you played as.
The classes themselves included the following.

• Captain: General talking class and buffer (stat increaser), who starts with their own space ship similar to the Millenium Falcon from 'Star Wars' in order to get from planet to planet.
• Combatant: As the name suggests, the Combatant is the warrior of the group who deals the most damage with weapons and even starts with their own personal mech in order to destroy bases qucikly.
• Scout: A mix of Rogues and Rangers from D&D, these guys are great for stealth missions and taking out targets from a far. They start with either a car or bike in order to get them to locations quickly. 
• Tech Master: Perfect at hacking into things and taking control of them. They start with with a jump pack to reach higher locals and can deploy automated turrets and minefields. 
• Psychic: The final class was meant to be the 'Jedi' of my sci-fi universe. Being able to read minds and manipulate them as well as objects is all good, but I wanted to make sure they weren't as over powered as Jedi. Therefore I made it so at earlier levels whenever they touched electronics their 'psychic interference' would mess them up depending on the GM's (Game Master's) say. This was to make them balanced, as the only way to get super powers of any form in my game is through being a Psychic.

I am lucky enough to have two regular gaming groups which I go to since I have been playing table top RPG's for nearly four years now, therefore I was able to test my system with them.

Overall they enjoyed playing the game which was great to hear considering it was my first ever RPG. Unfortunately, whilst the players said they had fun, I did get the following feedback.

• Liked the character sheet as it was well displayed and unique to them. However, it needed other inclusions such as equipment. And, since I'm so used to writing down all my equipment on a separate page due to how much you can get in a RPG I decided to originally not include it. 

 

• The Tech Master seemed the most balanced class, but this was due to not having any big starting equipment such as a space ship or mech. 

 

• Some of the Knowledge checks weren't clear enough to the players. Therefore maybe change Knowledge: Space to Knowledge: Astrology for when players want to know about the position of planets and what they are. And Knowledge: Power to Knowledge: Psychic or Knowledge:Psychic Powers as players mistook Power for military power even though Knowledge Military was a separate check.

 

• Although I had good intentions for the Psychic and thought the only way to balance it would be through given them a flaw (touching electronics make them overload etc), the players thought that they were in fact under powered and needed some sort of bonus to give the Psychic at level 1, otherwise his/her curse wasn’t going to work. Also, they said, since the Psychic can later overcome their weakness at higher levels then why wouldn't a player just wait until the party reaches that level and one of the players decided to retire their character in order to be that class which no longer has a weakness. 

 

• Although I hadn't come up with a universe/background for my game I never wanted to give my psychics guns and have their powers be their sole resource. Therefore, when the player playing as one demanded they had a pistol which used bullets, which I said didn't exist in my world and everything was electrical, I was forced to make one for them. This was a shame as I only wanted to focus on the mechanics of the game with the things I had. Overall though, I may need to make some sort of gun that they can use. Possibly even special gloves which they also complained about as they said lead ones would surely insulate their psychic interference.

• Physic interference should possibly be just as the name says e.g they get interference on electronics instead of not being able to interact with them. Otherwise they should possibly start with a -10 or -15 to Mechanics and Use Computers in order to discourage that class from using such devices. 

 

• Perhaps start level 1’s with less powers to avoid over complicating them with so many powers and abilities as I did for my play testers.

 

• Rather than wanting my characters to be powerful and the game play chaotic and awesome, I was advised instead to perhaps make them heroic and not powerful. In this way the characters would show signs of humanity and weakness before they become more powerful. As a story telling stand point I totally get this, but, depending on the type of game play I really want in the end, I may just stick with powerful characters that just end up becoming even more god like and therefore fighting against bigger and badder bad asses.

 

• Need to give the world a history/life. Otherwise it’s hard to get attached to it. It also helps explain the psychic nature of the world. Though, I only wanted to work on mechanics for now I kind of agree with this.   

 

• Make level 1 enemies more powerful as they were FAR too weak for the session. Thus players defeated them in seconds and ended up splitting up from one another as they didn’t fear anything, including the threat of the boss himself! This is obviously a bad thing as players need to feel powerful, but it is a group based game for a reason. The players have to use each others abilities and powers in order to overcome the things they can't deal with themselves. And, if your party is splitting up then something is VERY wrong. 

 

• Make more clear which defenses defend against what e.g. reflex for traps and AC for regular attacks as, at the moment it seems to be a mix of both depending on the circumstance.

 

• Perhaps look up the system 'D20 Light' to help figure out a easier system to adapt as I have tried to adapt two more complex systems into my own. And, considering the main one is a fantasy setting and mine is Sci-fi, it proved to be difficult when trying to convert them to more futuristic things.   

 

• Finally, a good first attempt, I just need to try and iron out some of the 'creases' as it were. Otherwise recreate it or simply remove the aspects which don't work all together.  

I know nothing is perfect straight away and you have to work at things in order to get better, but, in truth I have to admit I took some of the criticism to heart. Granted I was playing with experienced players, but even I took offence at some of their comments. However, the only way I can improve upon my games is by learning from my mistakes and from learning from other systems. In the future I can learn how to write not only the rules of games more appropriately, but also how to work out their 'fluff' and make them part of the universe.

Overall, will I continue this Sci-fi RPG? Perhaps, I like the concept, but I personally feel that another genre other than far distant Sci-fi would make more sense for a rookie like me to make. Otherwise I'm trying to make a system which works for not only ground combat, but also space combat. And, then of course vehicles end up being far too powerful and too much for players to handle and thus more problems arise. I have enjoyed making this game a lot, but, I feel as if I should take the experience I have gained and learnt in order to make a simpler one. Maybe even try to make one completely of my own invention as long as a novice player, such as myself (even after all these years) can work out the rules and play the game then I am sure I can make a more approachable system (hopefully).  

Finishing Deadlines (20/3/2013)

Since our lecturer recognised that we needed to finish our work in time for deadlines I spent the whole of this session working on my Harvard Referencing. 

Finishing my evaluation (13/3/2013)

Since I finished my 3D Demo yesterday I decided to work on my evaluation today. I also made sure that all my work was on my memory stick and ready to give in next week.

For the evaluation I decided to get some extra notes on what to write in it which included the following.

• What I liked and didn't like?
• What I could have improved upon?
• Did I make any changes to the original design?  

Whereas for the GDD I was told that I could add the following. 

• Player feedback from playing my demo (which I got that day).
• Drawings of my characters and enemies in the game.

Game Project Part 6 (6/3/2013)

First of all I decided to add some roofing to some of the buildings in order to make them more varied. Rather than have all of them flat, I was able to add roofing by taking pieces of roofs and then rotating them in order to fit into the scene.

I then worked on the bar and added walls, ceiling, tables, bar area and used miniature barrels to represent drinks as no glasses were available in UDK.

However, I was unable to enter the bar as every time I went done the stairs the game froze. Luckily I found out from my lecturer having tried again and again to run it that I needed to reduce my 'Kill Z'. The 'Kill Z' is the level / Z axis at which your character should die as that point is where falling from that height would kill you. Therefore in order to get into the bar you had to go down stairs which went beyond the Z axis that stated death. Thus by lowering the line I was at last able to play in my environment.

Pub Quiz and talking with Remode Studios (7/3/2013)

After enjoying a fun pub quiz at the 'Voodoo Lounge' with Jim Scull, Bonnie Simpson, Jon Foster, Adam Forster and Ryan Dear. Jon, Adam, Ryan and me were able to talk to the team of 'Remode Studios' who were also there.
Talking with them we found them to be really friendly, approachable and honest developers who didn't mind me taking notes of the conversation. (The fact I was even able to make notes, talk and drink as well was pretty remarkable).
You can read these notes below.

• It's business, not a game. If you are not earning money then how do you expect to continue?
• Just make a game! Honestly, sometimes the best thing to do in order to get noticed is to just make a game and get feedback from people. If they like it great! If they don't then you can learn from your mistakes. 
• Make a prototype any way so you can see if it works e.g. similar to what I have been doing in my course already with my UDK demo and board games. Most RPG games even start off as board games similar to 'Dungeon and Dragons' in order to see if their mechanics work.
• Don't pitch stories, pitch mechanics! I personally want to go into stories and characters, but apparently they said that this part of the process comes last. Also if asked at a conference for a game idea then game developers will be more interested in hearing the mechanics. This was demonstrated by one of 'Remode Studios' employees as she explained her idea for mechanics and therefore was able to speak to a 'big shot', thus gaining herself a place in the industry. 
• Be critical of other peoples ideas. After all, without honest advice a game can fall apart completely. 
• Try to get into a company with people you know you will be able to work well with such as friends.
• Go to Animex! Its crucial if you want to get into the games' industry as its a games' convention where you can hangout with others in the industry and get to know them more casually over drinks etc.  
• Put 3-4 flow dialogues in your game documents as they help show the mechanics of the game otherwise known as the 'loop' e.g. in a shooter do you kill the enemy? Yes or no? Yes means you live and continue forward. No means you die and re-spawn, thus starting the process again. 
• Look at existing games and try to analyse the 'loop' if you can e.g. what makes it fun to begin with as you can learn how to make your game engaging and not repetitive this way.
• If you want to tell a story / envoke an emotion then think how it suits the game better than say a movie e.g. is it interactive? 'Journey' worked as it had no story, but the player made up the narrative in their own head. 
• When coming up with stories what emotions do you want the player to feel? Happiness? Anger? Sadness? Knowing this can help you come up with ideas more easily.
• Great quote: "If you're not in a box then how do you expect to break out of it?"
• Different game developers in different countries often have differing views on what they believe they should give the players. For example, Western developers believe in giving the player visuals, whereas Eastern developers concentrate on feelings and emotions. This is perhaps something I should look up for myself. 
• Always believe in yourself! This will give both you and the people you work with confidence in your abilities.
• CV's only give you a 10-12% chance of getting into the industry. Therefore branch out and get your name out there! Keep in touch emailing developers or go to places like Animex in order to get to know them in person. You will be surprised by the results.
• The UK's games industry is tiny! Therefore it is likely that you will get to know nearly everyone involved withing a very short time.
• If you don't get an internship then don't just sit around doing nothing! Make a game and get some experience from doing so.
• When sharing your Twitter account for business purposes make sure the image you use shows your face. Otherwise how will potential employers identify you?
• Make sure you are both likeable and approachable within the industry. After all, people want to work with those they know they will get on with.
• Have passion! Live it, breath it, eat it! Love your job and what you do! It will keep you going and inspired.
• Get to know journalists as well since they can help get your games noticed either with previews or reviews. 
• Don't be fair when coming up with decisions. You need to make final decisions based on yes or no answers as trying to be fair can lead to trying to please too many people in your team or even other players. Thus you need to focus and make sure your game appeals to smaller audiences as trying too much can stretch your resources into mediocre additions instead of focusing on the original mechanics of the game e.g. including weak multi-player nobody may want or plays.

Three great things that should be included in a game doc include...

• Executive Summary: Genre, demographic, platform, visual style.
• Key Features: What is the game?
• Design Pillars: What the game is? Does it really need certain features included or do they get in the way of the game? This section will make you focus on what's most important.

Being asked by Remode Studios themselves to join them afterwards we jumpeed at the opportunity and went to 'Poppers' where we met with Ben Reynhart from 'Mutantlabs'. Hearing about our course and what we were planning to do with our group project he offered us all the opportunity to work with him on Fridays. Shocked and thrilled by this we of course all said yes and hope in the future to have some work experience with him. This would be a great opportunity to learn how the industry works first hand and also be something useful to add to our CV's.

You can check out the sites of the people we met and their recomendations below:

• Unknown (Unknown) Remode Studios. Available at: http://www.remodestudios.com/ (Accessed on: 8/3/2013).
• Unknown (Unknown) elixel. Available at: http://www.elixel.co.uk/ (Accessed on: 8/3/2013).
• Unknown (Unknown) Mutant Labs. Available at: http://www.mutantlabs.com/ (Accessed on: 8/3/2013).
• Unknown (Unknown) animex. Available at: http://animex.tees.ac.uk/ (Accessed on: 8/3/2013).