Week 10 – Flaws Build Character, Character Builds Environment

Reflection

I have finally given up on getting all of the models I need for the game, I decided enough was enough and told all of my animators to work solely on the pathogens, getting interesting looking enemies. I have made the Immune Cells, they will all be slight variations on a squishy looking human model, with a shader to give them some more squishiness.

In line with things not being complete on time, my tutorial is still yet to be finished, I need to fix up dialogue for the Birth level, add more dialogue for the rest of the levels and introduce upgrading and creating Killer T-Cells, B-Cells and Focused Killer T-Cells. There is also a major bug I still need to fix, which is that all of the units still cost 1 energy each, where they should cost much more.

Research

For this research week, I will be doing some narrative design for a game I hope to one day make, it is a technical fantasy game, based around a hard magic system being present within all walks of life, similar to how technology has permeated into our present day lives.

Apologies for the large amounts of text, I am hoping to get these characters drawn up at some point, but this is what I have for now.

Backstory

In this world, there is an age by which you must have chosen your Foundations, this is basically a ceremony at the end of your schooling which allows you to determine how you begin to use magic. This ceremony acts as a coming of age, graduation ritual, celebrating the new adults joining the community. After the ceremony, the new adults gain an occupation name and decide on a career path, some abilities suite themselves to certain career paths. Emphasis is placed on the desires of the individual over their aptitude, as the ability to learn skill required is far easier than learning to enjoy an occupation. However in some cases there are unique abilities or needs of the community which make the first choice unattainable for some, in which their occupation is chosen by the council instead. Everyone is needed in this dangerous world, but sometimes what is needed is more important than what is desired.

This world is not safe for the humans living in it, despite many existing with powerful magic, powerful monsters also exist, so numerous that hordes have known to develop rapidly and overwhelm growing cities. Any large population of people is a dangerous draw, the energy given off by people living together can act as a beacon for hungry monsters of all types.

The world is made up of walled villages, protected from the dangerous creatures by those on watch, keeping a vigil every night, raising alarms or dealing with monster threats as they arise. The main City we will be focusing on for this story is the city of Gar Fallun, in the Plains of Gar Bel.

There are 7 trials that can be attempted upon reaching graduation age: Absorption, Circulation, Distinction, Expulsion, Manipulation, Imbuement and Observation. You may attempt up to 3 that you are deemed ready for, this allows you to start developing abilities in the trials fields. Absorption allows you to take in energy from the environment. Circulation allows you to use energy to enhance your body. Distinction is all about using the mind, it allows for memorisation and understanding and imparting of complex concepts. Expulsion allows for casting energy into the environment from your body, similar to the typical mage concept of casting spells. Manipulation is the ability to control the energy around you, in the environment, including energy you have cast and those of others. Imbuement is the process of imparting energy onto an external body, be that a physical object, another person or a construct. Finally Observation is the ability to take in the small fluctuations of energy to act as another sense, similar to sight, sound or another type of sense, depending on the strength of the ability, adepts are known to walk around with blindfolds on to heighten their abilities.

Characters

The main characters are a group of four young students, preparing to attend their graduation ceremony, soon to be new adults in Gar Fallun. Hellas, Garbel, Jallos and Trianthe have been friends since their childhood, dreaming of joining the Wolves, a local militia dedicated to the cities defence and hunting the dangerous creatures that force the main populace to hide behind the city walls. Hellas, Garbel and Jallos have grown together in the Commune and Trianthe joined them after they began their studies at the Academy.

Hellas has been apprenticed to Marcus Flamesmith, one of the Mystic Weapon Crafters, able to make weapons out of thin air, or fire in this case. Hellas has been allowed to complete the trials of Imbuement, Distinction and Expulsion, allowing her to not just create defined forms out of energy, but also imbue them with power. Through her academy and apprenticeship, she has learnt to visualise all kinds of weapons to create as she needs them and once she undergoes the imbuement trials, she will be able to maintain their existence for a more significant period, allowing her to arm her friends as she needs to.

Garbel has been working towards completing the trials of Distinction and Observation, hoping to make a career in the mercantile trade, assisting the wolves in their trading and sensing as opposed to front line fighting. Despite this, he has keen eyes and uses a Rapier with precision, rather than brute force to cripple his enemies. Garbel is quick witted and able to defeat any in the group with his verbal banter, despite being the weaker of the four.

Jallos sports a large build and is often the first seen of the four, standing out in many ways. He is working towards completing the Absorption, Circulation and Expulsion trials, able to take many hits easily in the defence of his friends, and dish out a surprising amount of spells, though mostly defensive in nature. He is loathe to attack head on and prefers to wait for the opponent to exhaust themselves, before offering to assist them to the healers for their trouble.

Trianthe is far less known to the three others, having joined their group during their academy days, she has a slight figure and joined the others when Jallos defended her against a group of rude nobles during the opening week of the academy. Trianthe is studying to complete her Manipulation and Observation trials, fighting with a pair of Chakrams she has had since they all met, with observation being vitally critical to her, having been blind since a very young age, it has become one of her primary senses.

Hellas, like many other commoners was brought up in a communal household, one of many in the city, hierarchical family ties being seen as an unnecessary burden to those who need to remain working, her only family has been her many siblings. Growing up in and around the smithy has lead her to gain many fierce and competitive traits, allowing her to keep up with people much larger than her.

Garbel was once a nobles child, having known parents, before they were disgraced and he was forced to join the commoners communal households while his parents fought to reclaim their heritage. Despite having grown in amongst the commoners Garbel clings to his nobility, putting airs to being far better spoken and dressed than his siblings care to. He seeks to reattain the nobility that was lost to him, but has recently been disillusioned to the role the nobles are supposed to play in the society, since being a commoner, he has gained a different perspective on life. His parents have since reattained their nobility and while they had offered to bring him back in, he has a desire to prove himself, both that he is worthy of the ‘Noblese Oblige’ and that the noble rank is worthy of obtaining in the first place.

Jallos is a fierce defender of peace and quiet, as much of a contradiction that can be. He grew up under the protection of many older members of the commune, watching his older siblings graduate, leave and never return from the outside where they fought for the people within. He understands, better than the others in the group, how cold and unforgiving life can be and wishes to be the defender now, protecting them from the dangers outside. Jallos is not a silent defender though, well willing to lay out flaws in some of the ridiculous plans they come up with to sneak extra food or have some fun after curfew.

Trianthe is somewhat of a mystery, having been blind for a long time, she barely remembers what anything looks like. She is reluctant to talk about her past and thankfully her friends have been fine to let her keep her scars hidden, although the most visible ones, across her face, are some of the hardest to hide. One of the things she knows now is how her new friends feel to her senses, warm, beacons of hope for her, so full of energy in a city full of lights, dim as they tend to be, seem to shine brighter when they enter rooms. Jallos; feeling like a pillar of stone, unmoving, unflinching to the strongest of gusts, Garbel; a warm breeze, moving with purpose and grace, and Hellas; a fire, whipping about, stoked in turn by her friends and pushing them ever higher with her blazing energy.

Character Goals

Hellas – Become a Flamesmith, providing weapons on the battlefield with her friends, she also wants to discover who made Trianthes Chakrams, as they are a weapon she hadn’t seen before they met.

Garbel – Become worthy of being called a noble once more and raise nobles back to their rightful positions of helping those they are in a position to, rather than lording in their positions.

Jallos – Become a protector of his friends, make sure they all return safely, find out who caused Trianthe such pain in her past, punish them appropriately.

Trianthe – Trianthe herself doesn’t know all her goals yet, but she has a great desire to make a new life with her friends and to never go back to the master she escaped from to get here.

Plan

This next week, there are quite a few things I need to do to have the game complete and tested. for the major part, testing is something that I have been lacking, and I am slowly running out of time needed to fix issues testing will show me. I need to have the game as complete as it can be and show it to as many people as I can, this is week 11 coming up, I need the game to be tested through this week and spend week 12 fixing any issues and adding the rest of the animations and audio that needs to be completed.

• Finish implementing animations and Audio
• Have game at a point it can be tested for some time
• Have the game tested by different types of people
• Finish tutorial sections

Evidence

Here are the animations and models I have implemented, they just need sound effects and some more animations for the B-Cells (they need a ranged attack, where all they have at the moment is punching).

Week 9 – Test, Test, Test

Reflection

Game loop is technically complete, there is a basic tutorial for both the main character menu screen and the first level of the game. I need to complete the tutorial mechanics (making some units free for some amount of time) and fix the dialogue. At the moment, the game is technically as complete as I originally wanted it to be (on paper, when I first started), which means there is still much to do to make the game interesting, fun and actually playable.

I am still having difficulty keeping on going, but I am trying, one of the hardest aspects of this project has been trying to stay active and interested after spending so long on one thing. I am trying to branch out and do more different tasks, but there is only so much I can focus on, before I realise it’s still the same project, and just different flavours of the same soup.

Research

This week I have had to put together a set of testing requirements, there are 3 types of testing I will be doing; Functionality Testing, Gameplay Testing and Player Response Testing. Functionality Testing is all about making sure the game does what it is supposed to do. For this I’m focusing on using the people in the class, as they have a basic idea of what the game is meant to be doing and have an idea of why it isn’t when they see what the game is doing. I won’t be taking detailed notes for this, these are rapid fire tests, asking if they can break it and then how it was broken, I have and will be mostly used my Trello board to take these notes with a simple, understandable sentence of Fix X or Add Y, or Implement Walls etc. normal things.

Gameplay Testing is a little more involved, but there are fewer questions, this one boils down to; “Was this fun? What do you think the major issues with the game were?”. This testing I will be using people who have played lot’s of games, but not people who have been working around me recently, lecturers and other game students are my first priority with this testing, for the reliable feedback and honest opinions. I will be taking some notes for this, some will end up on the Trello board like the lack of camera zooming that is really more of a quality of life feature than a real functionality issue, but is still a whole feature. The other issues will be added to a balancing and bug list, as that is most of what these will boil down to if they are not a full feature.

Finally, Player Response Testing is the most difficult set, with one main goal being does the game do what I, ultimately, want it to do? Does it make the player feel/learn the things I want them to feel/learn? This will be a more complicated set of tests with much greater room for false positives. The players may be already feeling that way, or may not generally get to that point, or I may end up preaching to a metaphorical choir. The first issue is really nailing how I want to make the player feel, something that is hard to define when I mostly want to get ideas across and have players learn something, rather than experience something. I mostly want players coming out of the game to feel more appreciation for their bodies and how hard they work for us and I would like for them to gain an appreciation for the benefits of vaccinations. I mostly want them to learn, generally, how the Immune System works, as a basic understanding of these things would benefit everybody, a higher level of scientific literacy towards these things would help with at least some of the misinformation that is out there now.

These final testing will be done with Google Surveys and the results will be added to the GDD under the Testing Section, which will be posted here along with the game, once it is complete.

Plan

I need to get the tutorial complete, testing will require players who can’t sit and ask me questions, nor will I be able to sit behind them with helpful hints. The tutorial needs to be much more in depth or the game needs to be more intuitive, at the moment it is confusing as to why you would do certain things, or even that these things are possible.

One major frustration/concern is my animators; I am having difficulty getting them to get animations to me, none of them have sent me any complete works yet and I am starting to get worried. If they take too much longer I may need to make some animations myself, and I really don’t have time for that. I am going to approach them this week, give them a final deadline on certain things and try to get them to actually finish something.

• Finish Tutorial
• Get in touch with animators
• Fix the bugs I have been finding

Evidence

There isn’t much to show at this point, just incremental progress, things don’t look too different and there aren’t any major additions. At this point, I need to keep pushing through, so that is what I will be doing.

Week 8 – How do I play this thing?

Reflection

This week, after the study break, I have been focusing on finishing the final plans for the game. I needed to make sure I knew how each of the mechanics for the viruses and bacteria needed to be, and how they would interact with the immune cells, before I could start programming. I have completed the research into the pathogens, minus Ebola, which is proving difficult figuring out how to simulate, I have thought about cutting out Ebola entirely, after all, I cut out all late adult life to scale down the game scope, it wouldn’t be that much more to cut, and I really don’t know how I would balance it.

I have much of the functionality of the pathogens complete now, just trying to iron out the bugs and wrinkles before testing is to commence. To that end I will also need to make up a testing sheet of questions for people, but I need to finish the tutorial before all that is done, more and more things to do. I am feeling very disenchanted with the project, this is the first real decent length project we have to do and I am getting sick of finding more and more aspects to add that will make it more feature complete. Not so much feature creep, more like things that just need to be in the game for quality of life aspects so it is not so frustrating to try and play.

Research

Tutorials are a difficult mess of boredom, learning and scripted events, here is how I hope to make mine interesting. I am going to have a continuous communication with a character I call the ‘Helper’, meant to represent a helper T-Cell, assisting in controlling the units and explaining what is going on. The whole game is meant to be a tutorial really, developing more components as it goes, allowing you an easier time at the start to be able to solve problems with general units, and introducing specific enemies you need to combat with more advanced units and mechanics later.

School of Game Design, a website full of useful lectures and information about game development, goes into tutorials in some depth, both in things to think about while making tutorials, and about the purpose and meaning behind the tutorial for your game. The tutorial should not be something you have in the game simply to explain the controls or what the player is there to do, these are necessary, of course, but your tutorial should be much more than just that. The tutorial is another opportunity to impart meaning and story into the game, whether it is through narrative elements; dialogue or explanations, or building a depth for the player, in learning how to use features, you can impart actual mechanical growth for the player to feel more a part of the game.

One of the key aspects in tutorial design is making sure the information is drip fed at an appropriate rate, front loading information means the player will never remember any of it, while taking too long to explain will cause even the most interested players searching for a skip button. My game will, hopefully, keep it’s tutorial minimal, the first set explaining the basic game mechanics and UI elements/controls (being able to click on units to see descriptions, how to move about the map etc.) and only as you need to learn about further mechanics will it teach you about them (being able to upgrade the base and deploy more complicated units).

Cupp, J. (2016). An Intro to Video Game Tutorials – Top Shelf Gaming. Retrieved from http://topshelfgaming.net/left-click-to-read-an-introduction-to-video-game-tutorials/

Plan

For next week, I really need the game testable, I need a complete game loop (still), and to have the tutorial complete, at this point, it doesn’t make much sense to play really.

• Have complete game loop
• Have basic tutorial ready for presenting to players for testing

Evidence

Please see the build in the google drive, I will be uploading it to itch at the end of the project, but for now that is where it will be.

Week 6 – Preparation vaccinates against chaos

Reflection

This week I have been focusing on completing my research, I wanted a complete list of pathogens, and I now have 16, 9 viruses and 7 bacteria, to chose from for each level. Each will be used in specific situations and more will be added as the game progresses, meaning the levels become more complex and confusing as the game gets more difficult. My goals with these at the moment are getting a list of mechanics I will have to make to simulate the interaction between the immune system and the pathogens.

My Immune Cells are looking good, they all have their functionality and while some bugs are apparent, it will simply take time and effort to get them ironed out. Each of the cells have their own uses and pro’s and con’s of use, meaning the player will have to decide on the best way to proceed.

Otherwise, this week has been fairly slow, as any week feels when focusing on research. I am looking forward to getting all of the mechanics finalised and to start on testing after we come back from the break.

Research

I have been looking into UI design for the game, how I need to bring the design concept back to the original purpose and theme, and I have been trying to find ways of doing this. My purpose, of course, is to be a learning environment, I want people to play the game and come away, at least conceptually, knowing more about how their body and immune system works than they did before. To that end, there are 2 main elements of UI that need to be addressed: in game UI, focusing on letting the player know, at a glance, what is going on, and teaching them about the immune concepts, and out of game UI, menu systems and interface for the bulk of the information outside of play, this is where the player really learns about the specifics of each pathogen, there will be a section detailing each of the available pathogens, what they do and how your body reacts to them.

Josh Bycer, writer for GamaSutra describes one of the most important aspects of Strategy UI to be the command system, making sure there is a balance between visual and non-visual commands. He describes how important hotkeys are, but for a learning point of view, there will always need to be the visual command buttons, along with making sure the player knows what they do, or at least, be easily reversible to be able to undo the action if required. This is relevant to any game mechanic really, how much agency does the player have if they don’t know what consequences their actions will have? You need to make sure all decisions are conscious, not accidents, and winning and losing are on the players actions or inaction’s, not their mistakes and lucky guesses.

Another aspect Bycer touches on is ‘Educational UI’, allowing the player to learn about the game and its mechanics through the controls. Basically if the player wants to see how much health, damage, etc. each unit does, this will only be able to help them plan their strategies. I might abstract this somewhat, as there are not many units, and instead use words to describe how the unit moves, or how powerful they are. This will allow for more representation of the units and how they function within your body, while still letting you know that a Neutrophil is what you send when you need something to slow down the enemy, but a Killer T-Cell is what you send when you want the enemies gone.

Bycer, J. (2015). UI Strategy Game Design Dos and Don’ts. Retrieved from https://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/JoshBycer/20150324/239608/UI_Strategy_Game_Design_Dos_and_Donts.php

Plan

Next week is study break, I am hoping to get more functionality complete and planning done, specifically figuring out exactly what all my pathogens will be doing, now that I have the list complete.

• Fill out list of pathogens with mechanics
• Start creating pathogen mechanics
• start working on UI elements and Tutorial
• Get full game loop finished

Evidence

Here is the ‘Complete’ GDD, it has been uploaded onto the drive as well, but this version will be here for perusal as well. There are definitely more aspects I need to add to it, more research and development of the RTS game type, and how the game will look upon completion.

Week 5 – Alpha to Zelda of Game Design

Reflection

This week has given me some more to think about, I began to panic somewhat about the amount of work I had yet to do, especially without a proper alpha complete yet, however I still believe I can get everything done with minimal delays. This week I have completed the documentation, sans core research section for the learning aspect of the serious game. My game loop is finally closed, it’s not the prettiest thing, but it has a start menu, begins the main game, and you can win and lose, so that’s a good thing at least. I have had another meeting with the animators and a quick meeting with my Audio Guy, those went well, I have managed to impart the importance of claiming the assets they want to make, assigning their names to the pieces in question and answered more questions on what they needed to make. All in all, on the way to being totally deliverable, just need to get some more forwards momentum.

Research

I have never been that good with imparting interesting stories into my games, nor making people feel a certain way about the things I do, I’m all about finding the fun and enjoying life. However, this game needs to be all about meaningful decisions and cohesive feedback on those decisions. I need to tell a story, something I haven’t really done in a long time. I’m not very good at getting people invested in things like characters and events in the usual ways, I have had to take a more foundational approach to getting someone interested in the character.

While I am not good at these things, I do understand how people usually accomplish them, as Alexander Freed, a designer and writer for Gamasutra explains in their article on meaningful characters. Having a defining introduction, laying out the characters core elements (what makes them, them). Cause the character to go through change and show how they react to that, trying to make the player engage with a growing, learning, character in a way that makes the player sympathetic or recognise something in the character. Revealing flaws, or some aspect of their inner workings to be able to relate to them or serve as a concrete basis for understanding their decisions. (Freed, 2013)

I’m not a good story teller, but one of the things I remember most from my childhood, was Choose Your Own Adventure books. These may not be the most in depth in terms of character design and truly meaningful decision-making, but one thing they did, was put you in a protagonists shoes really well, it’s not you reading about someones great heroic deeds, these are your decisions, even if they don’t really mean much, you are the one doing these things. So I based my core narrative element on a series of questions, these questions are asked of you, the player, not the character for you to watch them make decisions. I believe this is one of the real things games can do that no other medium has access to.

Although Netflix has started to blurr the gaps with the development of Black Mirrors: Bandersnatch, a choose your own adventure styled episode of the popular TV series Black Mirror. This adds a certain element of uncertainty, the idea that this is a story about your decisions, rather than a story telling you what the right decisions are. The meaning in the story is not driven by what has been told, but by how it has been told. The emotions much deeper as you are a participant, rather than a passenger.

This is similar to how I feel games should convey meaning, not as they seem to be now, something fun trying to be a story, an attempt to recreate the success of books, film, television, but as they could be, their own way of being meaningful. My narrative pits the player as you, moving from Birth to Death (whenever that may be), these are the highlights of your life, from a sickness point of view, that time you got bitten by a dog and had a rabies injection, the 16th birthday party where you caught chicken pox, all these things told through simple decisions, do you sit on the left side of the class, or right? You may not know what will happen, but a decision needs to be made, none the less.

Freed, A. (2013). Developing Meaningful Player Character Arcs in Branching Narrative. Retrieved from http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/188950/developing_meaningful_player_.php?page=3

Slade, D. (2018). Black Mirror: Bandersnatch [Video]. United Kingdom: Netflix.

Plan

I need to complete more research, I need to finalise exactly what pathogens I need to make mechanics for, and which I can get away with simplifying. I need to find out what kind of decisions the player will need to make, and how to make them seem interesting.

• Complete research
• Complete planning for narrative elements
• Implement the rest of the Immunity Cells
• Have a full list of Pathogens to make

Evidence

There has not been much additional creation this week, mostly filling in sections that need completion, this means there is not all that much to show. There is a discord group for the game now, with all the individuals who are helping me on it, feel free to check it out on the class discord (19T1 GDS220 Immunisation ). Otherwise, next week I will be submitting a ‘complete’ GDD, then we have study break, where I can, hopefully, catch up on anything I needed to do.

Week 4 – Not enough labour on labour day

Reflection

This week has been a tricky one, had no access to computer between end of class Friday and Monday night, causing work to slow down, still within the amount of time I set out for fixing mistakes and catching up. It has left me stressed out after losing so much time unexpectedly, which has made my further progress less efficient.

My goals from last week have partly been met; I have 4 people working on my game, 3 animators and 1 sound engineer. My mood boards are more complete, I will probably add more when I meet with the animators and audio student next week. Finally the prototype is on its way, but not quite complete yet, a few bugs and the lost weekend are to thank for that at the moment.

Research

I have run out of time for personal research this week, but I will make sure I have something more interesting with substance next week. This can be a small extension of my reflection, I have been prioritizing getting the game to a presentable degree as opposed to doing additional research at the moment.

Plan

I have made some progress on the overall product, but my next major needs are completing the documentation to a much higher standard and making sure the game loop is properly implemented.

• Finish Documentation
• Complete Game Loop
• Meet with team to discuss assets

Evidence