Tuesday, 22 March 2016

Task 1 Unreal Tournament Research

Unreal Tournament The 'X'

The X of unreal can be viewed differently for what iv seen through my research as many different people just hope to achieve different things in the game. These are things like just winning this can be done by becoming to of the leader board, or being the best in a match, other people just want the highest score so they will just try and achieve a high score in the game with winning being something they don't particularly need to do aslong as their score is high whereas others just seem to class not dying as being an X because its something that happens very often in the unreal tournament series. 

From my own personal view of trying the game out my self iv came up with what I believe the X of the game is and that is to 


  • Complete the objective.
  • Score points.
  • Win the game.


Unreal Tournament The Ascetics

Through out the entirety of unreal's life it has always had an scifi theme behind all of its ascetics, in the current iteration people have said that the theme has changed due to the amount of varying styles of maps created by people but I don't believe this is the case because the maps are made by the public and all the key assets used in the maps remain scifi in theme and true to the unreal product.

Unreal Tournament The Mechanics 

The base mechanics of the unreal game is that of a fps it consists of moving around a map while shooting, unlike more modern shooters you may have seen it allows for a second fire button for alternative attacks with weapons rather than a aiming system (its entirely hip firing) it also uses power ups which either affect the power of the player or the navigation in the map.
The latest iteration of the game introduces wall running and jumping in an effort to try and keep up with modern games.

Unreal Tournament The Game Modes 
(As Referenced From https://liandri.beyondunreal.com/Unreal_Tournament)

  • Deathmatch
  • Team Deathmatch
  • Capture The Flag
  • Assault
  • Domination
  • Last Man Standing

Deathmatch is a game type, in which the point is to either reach a certain number of frags (or kills), or to highest number of frags at the time limit for the match. This game type also has 2 similar counter-parts, Team Deathmatch and Last Man Standing(in Unreal: Return to Na Pali, there are also Gravity Match, Dark Match and Terran Weapon Match). Deathmatch is a difficult game type, that requires a lot of training, if one is playing against other players that is. Deathmatch may be played against a mix of human or computer ('Bot') opponents.
Team Deathmatch, or TDM, is a gametype which is exactly the same as Deathmatch except that players are on a team (usually Blue vs. Red). This concept of a team, combined with the rules of deathmatch, are the core of all other gametypes; the difference being added objectives like "Capture the Flag" or "Destroy the Power Core." Team Deathmatch, like Deathmatch itself, has been with the UT series since the beginning, and is likely to remain in any future versions of the game.
In TDM, the primary objective is to amass more frags than the opposing team. To determine the winning team, the total frags (kills minus suicides) of each player on a team are added together and compared to the other team's frags; the team with the higher fragcount wins. This method means that a single awesome player can often carry a team, or conversely if teams are fairly even, a single weak player can drag the rest down.

Capture the Flag (or CTF as it's known) is a gametype found in all Unreal Tournament games. The objective of each team is to capture the other team's flag and return it to one's own flag. A flag cannot be returned if one's own flag is stolen. If the flag carrier dies or translocates, the flag is dropped. Dropped flags can be picked up by the team of the opposite color, and they are reset if touched by the team of the same color as the flag or if left untouched for 15 seconds.
Variations include Vehicle Capture the Flag (vCTF) and Instagib Capture the Flag (iCTF). For a list of maps, see UT - Maps,UT2003 Maps, and UT2004 - Maps.

Assault is an objective-oriented gametype in Unreal Tournament and Unreal Tournament 2004 in which one team attacks the objectives (usually one at a time in a specific order) while another defends. Often, attackers will be rewarded for completing an objective by being allowed to spawn closer to the next objective. If the attacking team completes the final objective within the allowed time, the teams switch roles and another round on the same map begins. If not, the original attackers lose. If a second round begins and the new attackers complete the final objective in less time than the first attackers, they win; if not, they lose.

Domination is a game mode in which each team must locate and capture certain points in a Domination map. The more locations a team controls, the faster their score increases.

Last Man Standing (also known as LMS) is a gametype, introduced in Unreal Tournament. All players start the game with the same number of lives, all weapons with maximum ammo, and 100 armor. When a player dies he loses one life. Once all lives are lost, the player is "out" and may only watch others fight. After all players but one lose all their lives, the match ends and the last man standing - that is, the only one with lives left - is proclaimed the winner. This gametype plays similar to its DeathMatch counterpart except map control is nonexistent.

Demographics 

http://www.bigfishgames.com/blog/2015-global-video-game-stats-whos-playing-what-and-why/

Demographics are who and where the game or product is targeted to sell to and they will make the game with this in mind to help sell the game because in the end most games are made with the end goal of money and this just helps that goal.

Over 59% of Americans play games
That means that in America alone, over 150 million people play games. 150 million people spread over a vast variety of backgrounds, ages, genders, socio-economic statuses. All of us are jumping into stories, swapping gummies, fighting foes, traveling through time, and finding hidden objects.

Average age of the gamer is 31
This is up from 30 years old last year. Is it safe to assume that as video gaming aged another year, so did all of its gamers? Or is a safer theory that, even as the younger generation grows into gaming, more of the older generation begins embracing it as well?

Task 3 Unreal Forum

I have submitted my map design to the unreal forums to get some feedback from people to see if my idea could get any traction, to date I have not had any feedback so far and I am still waiting hopefully I can update this soon.

Monday, 21 March 2016

Task 2 Trello

In the industry time management is essential and agile scrum is used by everybody so for one of the tasks we had to create our own agile scrum sheet which show all tasks that need to be done inside of a team. This was simple considering most of the unit was based solely in research so I decided to add a little from the development process of my map to try and pad it out more.

Task 2 Game Idea Presentation

Today I started to create my presentation for task 2 bearing in mind to follow the brief that was agreed upon as a class in which we listed everything we need in our presentations for the dragons den like presentation and then feed back, my overall power point lacked a lot of depth in terms of information on the pages it was used more as a visual cue to talk against, the seemed to get some good feedback from the class which I will discuss shortly, but I personally felt that the power point was okay at best and I really could of made more of an effort to really sell my "X".

I was given feedback by my peers to help increase the quality of my actual presentation,

Something that was frequently fed back to me was that I needed to improve upon my map layout in terms of making things clear on it and to clearly get across what my "X" was which is something i had already noted.

After my presentation I came up with 3 questions to give to my peers to try and improve my idea in which I didn't feel was quite there just yet so i used this opportunity wisely.


1. How can i address the issue of lack of cover in my level.
2. In terms of pickups how can i maintain the flow of my map using these.
3. How would you improve upon my level (all suggestions welcome)
I had some good feedback on this for things to take forward into my idea and change

This gave me some insight on what to do in terms of cover in my map considering unreal is a very small fast arena shooter and doesn't do well in the large open areas like other shooters. I will try and implement this into my further map development.

I have now since this went back and using my feedback added in extra slide to compensate for the lack of information people feedback to me so the feedback was extremely useful in helping me create an even better presentation which i can take to the forums if my map gets any traction in terms of positive feedback.

Sunday, 6 March 2016

Task 1 Level Idea

I have made a mood board on that you can check that out here https://uk.pinterest.com/harleypendleton/unit-75-game-level-idea/ based on my level idea for the next unit, its inspired by alien invasions, or scifi wars like war of the worlds. it will be set on earth but with alien tech around from the hostile invading forces which gives reason for the weapons and jumpads etc. it will be based in central park at the site of a crash of a huge alien ship that the death match will be based around. Around the outside of said ship will be scattered weapons and creates and over things to be used as cover which will have fallen and scatter when the ship crashed. one of the biggest issues with this idea is making sure that the openness of central park doesn't make for boring gameplay so i must use cover and weapons placements/breadcrumbs very effectively.

The reason i went for this map is that it made sense thematically with the assets provided in unreal, and as well as this Scifi seems to work well but iv found a gap because all the Scifi maps on unreal at the minute are all based on different planets and such whereas mine will be on earth which should give it distinct difference of theme.




I have now created a map design layout to go along with my mood board it shows a top down view of my crater idea and shows some basic rock formations just for an idea and the ship crashed aswell as a few of the pick ups although all these will be changed and are just to show the idea and not the definitive gameplay options that will be finalized in the final map creation.

Task 3 Time Sheet Document



To help complete this unit and make sure i can design the level i want i have created a time sheet to help me keep working when out of lesson so i stay on track.



To be honest this time sheet isn't exactly the most fancy looking thing around but it gets the job done of showing me when i should be doing what, i may update this later when units for Chris have changed so i can allocate more time to this unit.

Task 1 Game Development Group Task

In groups, we have been tasked with categorizing 23 key processes in computer game development, the categories these are to fall into are Pre-Production, Production and Post-Production.

The list was as follows;
- Analysis of the Brief
- Maintenance
- Research
- Concepts
- Map Development
- Intro/End/Cut Scenes
- Sketched Level Design
- Marketing
- Prototyping
- Scale and Proportion
- Texturing
- Lighting
- Rules and Limitations
- Game Rigging
- Animation
- Artificial Intelligence
- Menus/HUD
- Blocking out the Level
- Testing
- Outsourcing
- Brainstorming
- Localisation
- High Concept


Pre-Production:
Analysis of the Brief, Research, Concepts, Sketched Level Design, Marketing, Prototyping, Rules and Limitations, Menus/HUD, Blocking out the Level,Outsourcing and Brainstorming.

Production:
Map Development, Intro/End/Cut Scenes, Marketing, Scale and Proportion, Texturing, Lighting, Game Rigging, Animation, Artificial Intelligence, Menus/HUD, Blocking out the Level, Testing, Outsourcing, Localisation and High Concept.

Post-Production:
Maintenance, Marketing, Testing, Outsourcing, Localisation, High Concept.

Task 1 Skills Of A Good Game Designer

Skills I believe are important to a game designer

Creativity

Creativity is key is a well known saying for many reason but namely one, we wouldn't be where we are without some creative individuals over the years. But with creativity comes a big caveat because its different for everyone but this also adds something unique and this can be used to add your own flare to a project which in some cases can be a saving grace and in others a loaded gun, that's the problematic yet defining and desirable trait that makes creativity an important tool to being a game designer (or pretty much anything)

Motivation

Motivation is important as it helps to keep the person concentrating and willing to work without it you get laziness which can happen to the best of us, so its good to have it towards a project whether that be in the games industry or any other. When you work in an industry such as the games industry people will enjoy the work they do and self create motivation to do the work for more enjoyment which will then push their limits and become better and better through practice. 

Time management

Time management is crucial to the games industry because of things like deadline dates and games getting pushed back and pressures from publishers so making sure to allocate your time well to get task done on time is a very valuable skill to have as a game designer. The importance of time management in my opinion is PRETTY DAMN IMPORTANT.

Research

Research, without it you may not know what your doing, with it you are tooled and geared ready to take on the world of game designing, whether it be to research a genre, weapon, other games or to just find out whats the new crazes or wants of today are research is easily one of the biggest aspects a designer must use. this can help in way like not upsetting a religion or race by including them in your game yet getting every bit of their heritage and customs wrong could cause some serious backlash so its important for game designers to do there homework.

Communication

Communication is key (or is it creativity) is a very popular saying due to the fact that with out it your practically dead in the water, this skill is vital for just simple things like collaborating with the rest of the other people in your team to make sure your project assets are all gonna fit the same look or constraints. This also comes into affect when looking at the brief of the project your designing you must listen to what the big guys upstairs want because there the ones paying for it, you must also listen to your consumers for things like feedback so you know what to change to fit the wants of the people who are gonna buy you game because you cannot design to please yourself, you must Communicate.

Those are just some of the many skills a designer must posses. 

Introduction



In this new unit iv been tasked with looking through and analysing/researching every technical and game play structure set up in unreal tournament in regards to making a level of my own further down the line for this I will also have to look at the skills required and needed to create good game developers for studios.

I will also have to plan and research my own level design in conjunction with unreal tournaments defining key features and elements which will be crucial for creating a good experience on my map.


From here we will have to submit our ma idea to the unreal forums to get feedback from the community and we will have to show the feedback given be it negative or positive in our blogs.

Assignment Brief

Task 1: (LO 1 and M1, D2) Research Game Design and then focus on Brief

·         Market Research – Game play design of Unreal, Pinterest boards, mind maps, SWOT Analysis.
·         Thumbnail sketches top down map design.
·         Moodboard conclusions
·         Blog

Task 2: (LO 2 and M2, D2) Propose a map design “which will we take forwards”

·         Design Proposal – Slideshow Presentation or Storyboard (on-line gameplay, style, rules, etc.) You’re Map Concept.
·         Dragons Den Forum “Peer Feed Back”
·         Blog

Task 3: (LO 3 and M3, D3) Team set up and work collaboration


·         Subscribe to - Unreal Tournament
·         Team set up for “production” use of Scrum
·         Project plan
·         Blog