Unity
Unity allows the user to quickly and efficiently create 2D worlds with Unity’s square, hexagonal and isometric tilemaps, improve the artists and designers workflow while reducing the number of objects on screen having great performance on mobile without problem due to constraints. The tiles can be animated or automatically display the right sprite based on surrounding tiles.
This massively cuts the amount of time to make a game, as the game designer has more time to focus on other thing rather than the specific animation of tiles or in the case without 2D tilemaps sections that may be hard to access without tiles.
First 3D Game 11th September 2019
Starting off in Unity I created a basic scene with the game objects and tried to pull together a jumping puzzle I achieved this by using 3D game objects such as the cube or the plane object. And shaped them the way I want using the move tool and the resize tool until I got my desired result.
In unity I created a scene and started off by creating our own basic level that tried to involve jumps and intricate sort of areas that we could then interact with by traversing with our fps camera.
Next I used the ‘RigidBody’ to add physics and give my levels more interesting dynamics so that the player would feel more immersed and become more interested in the game.
Lighting within Unity 17th September 2019
There are a few different types of lighting objects you can use within unity those being:
- Point lights – A point light is a local source of light in a scene where the source gives off light in all directions equally.
- Spot lights – A light source that has a specified location in the game it has a range in which the light fades out. It is confined to an angle resulting in a cone-shape region of illumination. Because of this it is good for day to day light sources such as car headlights or street lamps etc.
- Directional lights – Unity gives you a directional light when opening a new scene and acts like the sun it usually covers the full scene and can be changed for the time of day you want within your level. Because of the behavior it casts shadows over your level.
- Area lights – Area light is light that is emitted across the surface of an Area Light producing a diffuse light with soft shadowing
- Emissive materials – Emissive materials are materials that give off light from within they are good for objects that have light that is a neon sort of colour such as back light of a keyboard etc.
- Ambient light – Is light that is present all around the scene and not in certain areas within the scene. It is useful if you need to increase the overall brightness of a scene without adjusting individual lights.
In Unity I began adding lighting within my scene to create atmosphere and tension to my game I did this by using the ‘Game Object’ tab going to the subcategory ‘Light’ and then added a variation of different light sources.
To create multiple light sources in my scene that co exist you can mess around with light intensity and colour, but also the size of the light to give your game multiple moods around different points of your level.
A way to completely change the colour of my level is using directional light. ‘Directional Light’ is a light source that’s pretty similar to the sun meaning all of my level is covered by this and gives it it’s shadows. This can however be changed to alter my scene so I gave my scene a dark effect due to the position of the x-axis you can make it look as if the sun is setting or has actually set to give your scene some different moods.
To give a 3D object a tint of colour until I properly texture it I can go to the assets tab at the bottom and add a new material and change the ‘Albedo’ of the material to give it a colour.
Unity C# Scripts 18th September 2019
In unity I began to give my scene a script using c# to do this you add a c# asset script to your assets folder and then name it what you want in my case I named it scenechanger. Then my script is going to change scene when the player collides with an object it looked like this-
After this I needed to make sure that my fps controller is tagged as a ‘player’.
Once these steps are complete I needed to make an object that would become a trigger, this would be what I had my character traverse too, this can be like mario pipe. It will then change the scene so that it looks like its changing the level.
For this to work inside of an object I can set mesh render to unticked this will make it invisible and allow you to place it wherever you like it for example in a golf game a hole can be your trigger. This would mean that the player collider in the scenario would be the ball.
I then added a new scene to add various level to my game this is the next ‘level’ in my game.
Unity Prefabs and Animation 24th September 2019
In unity I created something called a prefab a prefab system allows you to create, configure, and store a GameObject complete with all its components and property values as a reusable asset. The Prefab Asset acts as a template from which you can create new prefab instances in the Scene.
Prefabs are helpful when needing the same asset in my level multiple times, this allows me to create the same object and alter all the child objects under it this makes it easier to edit and change similar things quickly.
In unity I created an animation fly through this was to show off my level by using a camera to fly through the level, highlighting what I want the viewers of my level to see for example a well made area of the map. Do do this you create key frames and move your camera in between these frames and then update the frame unity uses inbetweens to create the transition in between frames and looks like the camera is flying through the level.
Integrated Development Environments 9th October 2019
IDE is a software suit that allows the use to test software, executable and to debug a piece of code or whatever the user is doing as common practice for a software suit will contain things like text editors, code libraries, compilers and test platforms. A game engine is a piece of software that allows a programmer to visualize a software suit or more simply allows the user to actually see what the IDE is doing in there game.
An IDE has benefits of improved developer productivity. IDE’s boost productivity by reducing setup time, increasing the speed of development tasks, keeping developers up to date and standardizing the development process. An example of an IDE are: Eclipse – Java / NetBeans – Java / Microsoft Visual Studio – C#, C++, Visual Basic .NET, J# / Atom – Node.js.
Space Jam 23rd October 2019
Game Back story
Player is making his way home from exploration and is running low on fuel as a result of the long haul of this, to ensure the player gets to his destination he lands on worlds that have been seeded by the players kind. Player will have to traverse a series of obstacles to acquire fuel and navigational data.
Starting off we split our team of 5 into different groups and semi-job role.
Evolution of Games Design over time 5th November 2019
Grand Theft Auto 21 October 1997
Grand Theft Auto is an action-adventure video game series created by David Jones and Mike Dailly.
The most notable developers from the franchise has to be”Rockstar” with their initial release of ‘Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories’ all the way up to the extremity popular and engaging game Grand Theft Auto 5 and its addition of the first online experience of a GTA game.
Rockstar Games, Inc. is an American video game publisher based in New York City. The company was established in December 1998 as a subsidiary of Take-Two Interactive, and as successor to BMG Interactive, a dormant video game publisher of which Take-Two had previously acquired the assets. Founding members of the company were Sam and Dan Houser, Terry Donovan and Jamie King, who worked for Take-Two at the time, and of which the Houser brothers were previously executives at BMG Interactive. Co-founders Sam and Dan Houser head the studio as president and vice-president for creative, respectively.
Grand Theft Auto 21 October 1997
The first game encompassed three fictional cities, while subsequent titles tend to emphasizes a single setting. Game play focuses on an open world where the player can choose missions to progress an overall story, as well as engaging in side activities, all consisting of action-adventure, driving, third-person shooting, carjacking, occasional role-playing, stealth and racing elements.
The games audience back in 1997 was the stereotypical gamer, that being a male and even though an age rating of at least M wasn’t given to the franchise until years later most people playing this game were likely teens to adults. The audience location would be quite global as a target but due to the sheer love for action and violence (within video games) a huge portion of the demographic was American based. People who bought this game would have most likely went on to play similar games or even went on to play more of the GTA franchise as games were released. People who bought the game were one of three types of people at the time: PS1, WindowsMS-DOS, GBC this limited the player base as a lot of people at the time would’t have any of these devices as they were still relatively new and ‘gaming’ was not the biggest thing to people yet. And to top it off GTA was controversial from the very first incarnation of the series. Grand Theft Auto was condemned in Britain, Germany, and France due to its “extreme violence”, and Brazil banned it outright. However publicist Max Clifford planted sensational stories in tabloids in order to help sell the first game.
In 1997 these are the main technologies that helped the developers of GTA tailor there game to their audience.
- Wi-Fi is released
- DirectX 5.0 is released
- Intel introduces MMX chips
- First DVDs are sold
- Intel 233 MHz processor is introduced
Due to these advancements game development changed at this time as with the release of Wi-Fi it allowed developers to start a more wide access to their games, as they allowed developers to create online multiplayer games obviously with the restraint of how bad and ineffective the Wi-Fi may have been. Although Wi-Fi may not have been the greatest it still allowed developers to start creating games with the knowledge that game play where you can interact with another player was becoming a possibility.
A huge limitation to the original GTA is the lack of a 3d element 1997 was a huge year for games it seen the release of favorites such as fallout and final fantasy and many more, with the release of a lot of these games was a 3D perspective on the world, a lot of games adopted the central character in a 3d world that you could explore. Such as the release of Crash Bandicoot 2: Cortex Strikes Back. These games allowed you to feel more involved and immersed in the game and by doing so encouraged more people to play for longer and more people to enjoy the feeling of getting out of the real world. The problem was that there were still many 2d scrolling games like GTA getting released and without adopting the new 3d setting GTA couldn’t get the audience of everyone as to put it simply some people just don’t like 2D games.
Grand Theft Auto V 17 September 2013
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Grand Theft Auto V is an action-adventure game played from either a third-person or first-person perspective. Players complete missions—linear scenarios with set objectives—to progress through the story. Outside of the missions, players may freely roam the open world.
Grand Theft Auto V is an action-adventure video game developed by Rockstar North and published by Rockstar Games. It was released in September 2013 for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, in November 2014 for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, and in April 2015 for Microsoft Windows.
By the release of GTAV there had already been 13 variations of the GTA franchise and so there was a rather large fan base at launch anyway due to players playing their previous games such as Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas and a lot of these players wanted more and continued on through the franchise up until the launch of GTA. But due to the culture of the world a lot of people who were now playing these games weren’t just adults anymore quite a few kids from as low a 7+ were playing these games which was massively looked down on by the media and parents pretty much worldwide. However these were the player base of GTA by this time.
Rockstar knew that it had a younger audience but could not take these violence heavy games and turn them into a younger and legal game for kids as the majority of their player base were 18+ so Rockstar made a game that they knew could be played by whoever as at the end of the day they couldn’t stop parents from buying their kids their game. In 2013 the multiplayer player base was huge and Rockstar took advantage of this by creating the first online experience I think GTAV was so successful due to it’s degree of freedom which the game offers the players. You see, people need a break from reality. Everyone does. And that’s exactly what the gaming industry targets. They give us an alternate dimension so that we can exist there with a degree of freedom unlike reality.
GTA had some limitations at launch which effected the player base as it could have been even larger as GTA was released simultaneously on both consoles on the 18th of November 2014 however the PC version wasn’t released until April 14th 2015 meaning there was a time where those PC master race players had no access to the game due to what the developers called an extra development time for “polish”. Although many people will argue that GTA is much better on the console due to its seamless controls and recurring console fan base.
Beat Saber 2018
With ar and vr technology some of the coolest tech for gamers and enthusiasts everywhere, came a game called Beat Saber.
Beat Saber is a virtual reality rhythm game developed and published by Beat Games. The game features the player slicing blocks representing musical beats with a pair of red and blue light sabers and takes place in a surrealistic neon noir environment. The game had been in early access for the HTC Vive, Oculus Rift, Solstice, Windows Mixed Reality on Microsoft Windows PCs since May 2018, and was fully released in May 2019. A first PlayStation VR version was released in November 2018. The game was also a launch title for the Oculus Quest, released in May 2019.
Virtual Reality bridges the gap between gaming and real life currently the best there has ever been it takes a user into another world. Virtual reality is a completely computer generated simulation, where your entire view is virtual. This means that developers can manipulate this virtual world to whatever we would like it to be, and produce some really amazing things.
Beat Saber is a great game not just because of technological advancements but the sheer amount of user who can benefit from the game in more ways than one. The number one reason people play games is to have fun as a fundamental concept, however beat saber goes above and beyond. The type of people buying this game are people who played games such as guitar hero rhythm gamers. But the audience dosent stop there this game due to the objective of the game swinging your motion controls either standing or sitting (depending on how you want to play ) encourages fitness in a small way. https://vrhealth.institute/portfolio/beat-saber/ states “Beat Saber is a very viable option for a cardiovascular workout.” meaning the target audience for the game has expanded greatly not only to gamers but to people wanting to improve their health in a more relaxed and entertaining way.
Hardware: there is basically no hardware disadvantage to the game itself as there have been many VR headsets and motion controls made at this point it is the ability to access these things that limit beat saber. A headset and controls can go anywhere from £100 to £699 and upwards! On top of the device that you would need to play it being a PS4 or PC makes games like this unreachable for some. This limits the market massively as you have to also buy the game itself. It is a lot of money if you only want to buy that one VR game.
Personally I think that beat saber is a very well made game hit registration doesn’t seem to be a problem most of the time,
Game Design Documents 4th December 2019
A game design document (often abbreviated GDD) is a highly descriptive living software design document of the design for a video game. A GDD is created and edited by the development team and it is primarily used in the video game industry to organize efforts within a development team. The document is created by the development team as result of collaboration between their designers, artists and programmers as a guiding vision which is used throughout the game development process. When a game is commissioned by a game publisher to the development team, the document must be created by the development team and it is often attached to the agreement between publisher and developer; the developer has to adhere to the GDD during game development process.
One Page Documents- A One Pager is simple one page document that gives a high-level overview of a product, service, or business. They are great for promoting your business location, or giving a synopsis or a product to the person in charge of purchasing.
Live Prototyping- A Live Prototype is one of the most powerful ways to test your solution in the marketplace. Until now, your prototypes have been rough, and they’ve done only enough to convey the idea you wanted to test. A Live Prototype, however, gives you a chance to stress test your solution in real-world conditions. It can run from a few days to a few weeks, and is a chance to learn how your solution works in practice. Live Prototypes are all about understanding the feasibility and viability of your idea.
Storefronts 10th December 2019
A digital storefront is a website that offers goods and/or services for sale, and which the customers or ‘window shoppers’ can visit at any time and from anywhere.
Examples of digital storefronts: gog.com, Steam, Origin, Play Store, Epic Games Store, Humble Store, Itch.IO, Discord and much more.
Games across multiple storefronts:
When looking at the same game over multiple storefronts, you start noticing a change from store to store, as you can see with the ‘Humble’ store it is quite heavily focused on showing the game through a visual stand point it is art heavy and / or game play heavy there is not much writing from the get go. Whereas the PS4 and Steam store’s are more general they do still have alot of art but at the same time have a quick brief overview of the game, and Steam even has small review section.
Each store gives a different vibe and attitude to try and attract the consumer to buy the game on their store, some may attract their consumer based on the audience for example the game “Dead By Daylight” attracts an audience of a horror genre and so they style there storfront to look scary and mysterious whereas if you look at a “Mario Kart” or similar audience game that aims to please alot of the younger generation there colours and style will be vibrant and enticing.
As a developer you can learn the idea of target audience and necessary and unnecessary information. You should sculpt your game towards the audience and try to include the most relevant images and text that you can. Typically a short description of the game, its features and play ability such as the console, multiplayer features and or system requirements are the only thing a consumer is interested in is, if the game looks good has a overall good idea (story) and whether they can actually play it or not, long details on story or character lore etc is not needed as they can always find out themselves or quite often you may have a page online dedicated for your game where you can put all the other stuff if need be.
3 Games that grab my attention are: Dead By Daylight, GTFO, and Hollow Knight. This is because of their attractive store fronts and well presented pages. GTFO is also massively advertised it is in the best selling list of Steam and has good reviews from Steam’s handy review section. Dead By Daylight has a massive amount of reviews
jaketang 