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.