Nearing the end.
Its been a roller coaster of a ride, but I am now nearing the end of my Digital Media Project. I have less than 2 weeks to hand in my finished game and final report. As you can imagine, I'm in writing hell.
Its been a fun 6 months, but this will most likley be my second to last post. Development on my game has finished, and Ive written the first 500 or so words of the report.
I will be updating this site on the 25th March with the final version of my game, updating the project page, and closing the comments on all posts. The blog will remain online however, as tutors will be looking at it to mark, and also just for history's sake. No doubt I will come back here in a few years and wonder how i wrote such rubbish.
But thank you for joining me on this journey. I hope you have enjoyed reading this as much as I have enjoyed writting about and creating my game.
Have fun,
Liam.
Masive Progress Update!
Suffice to say I'm feeling rather chuffed with myself. After looking at how far my tutor group had come with their projects, I decided to sit down and get on with mine, with a little help from a flash developer friend who pointed me in the right direction, gave me some general flash advice and helped out with my syntax issues. But Enough of that go and play the bugger!
http://serve.discoliam.com/prototype/prototype4/
Ive made loads off updates since the last one, so I thought I'd run though a quick list of whats new:
- Now uses mouse movement rather than webcam (for development purposes only)
- Fog objects appear one at a time
- They appear out of the factory
- They change size as they come out
- They have random movement
- Percentage counter now counts them properly
- Colour changes between 1 and 10 on the percentage counter (in the final version this will be between 1 - 100)
- Animals have some shadows on them
- that backwards cow now comes in from the right side
Code wise there has been a lot of tidying up, with me moving all my code into functions and calling them in the appropriate places etc. This makes it a lot easier to navigate and find things, though I'm still working on tidying bits up.
I think I've reached my target of getting all my Must Haves for the project complete. I'm going to start working on adding new features after my tutorial on Friday, and I really need to get on writing the report for it as well. Its only 4000 words, but its still work that needs to be done!
Tutorial Catch Up
This was a rather unproductive tutorial for me this week as due to various incidents including a trip to Bournemouth, a busy weekend, virgins poor Internet service and a rabbit chewing though power cables, I didn't get much (read: any) work done on my project. However, seeing the progress of others work has given me an almighty kick of the backside, and I'm now panicking somewhat. There are a few notes from my discussion with Ben that I want to share though.
Looking over Rich's answers, it was clear that I needed to put a bit more effort into making the game fun. Ben pointed out that this could me find the bit of tension for the game. The point where the player who thinks there in control, realises they aren't in control. This is show on my graph here. At the beginning of the game its easy to keep the fog off the screen, but as the rate that fog objects appear on screen increases, the user starts to loose control. This is where the tension in the game comes from, and hopefully, ultimately, makes it fun.
It was also discussed that we should start aiming to close the loops of our development, and get a complete version of the our projects working. I think this means for me getting the jog objects looking good, and getting the fog floating on by itself, increasing as the game goes on, and getting the object counter working properly, knowing when objects are on and off the screen.
Response from Aardman Digital
I’ve been lucky enough to get some questions answered by Richard Davey the senior developer at Aardman Digital. Aardman have made some amazing games over the past couple of years. I decided I would briefly go though some of the interesting bits I got from Rich’s answers, and ponder how they will reflect on my project, be it now, or more on my evaluation and recommendations for continued work.
I asked Rich about the user input for games aimed at younger players, as mine uses’s a webcam as opposed to the usual keyboard and mouse. Rich noted that all games produced so far relied on keyboard and mouse input mostly because “it’s really hard to make a fun game using a microphone or webcam”. He also noted that at the intended age range, they focus on elements that will entertain the player (animation, sound effects) and making sure instructions are clear and easy to read.
This is an interesting one for me. The aim is clearly trying to make the game fun to play. I think I can achieve that, by using similar motions and ideas as the Eye Toy did for the Playstation, and the Wii has done in a similar age range to myself. Clearly there is a lot of emphases on the design factor and player rewards, which I don’t have time to include in my project, can write about extensively and research in my report.
I asked about libraries for developing games to speed up production. He mentioned there are a few AS3 libraries aimed at games, but they didn’t suit the type of games they make. They do use 3rd party libraries that perform specific tasks like TweenMax, the Adobe Corelibs and Box2D.
This is great news for me as it is exactly how I am developing my game, even down to using the TweenMax library. Excellent. Imight even loook into Box2d to improve my fog actions. Hmmm.
When I asked about a methodology for building their games, Rich noted that though there games have the same key features (tracking, highscores, site integration, mute buttons, etc), but each game is so different the main body is custom code, though they do rely on a standard framework to speed things up a little.
This doesn’t effect my game development, as I ‘ve been writing it all from scratch, though it is interesting to learn and will feature in my report.
Finally, I asked about the project cycle of game development. Without going into to much detail the rough cycle was:
- Brainstorming – idea/concepts
- If there is time we build a prototype, to check the concept works.
- Designers/Developers work in tandem until game reaches beta level.
- Internal testing until the game reaches alpha. During this period changes of often introduced.
- Bug testing forms part of the playtest stage.
This is pretty much (by chance more than anything) the development process I have followed with my game, though mostly because I am one man so have been working on design and development at the same time. Ofcorse my game wont even reach a beta stage, but that’s where il be heading by the time this project ends.
I must say a massive thank you to Rich for taking some time to answer my questions. He's been a real star.
MoSCoW Requirments
As I said in my last blog post I was going to try and work out some Requirements, and brake them down into MoSCoW or Must Have, Should Have, Could Have, Would Have. Heres a first go at breaking them down, and no doubt I will refine them as time goes on.
Must Have
- Motion Tracking With Webcam
- User/Fog Collision detection and reaction
- Timer
- Percentage Counter
- Basic Visual Design
Should Have
- Start/Finish Pages
- Decent Looking Visual Design
- CO2 increase based on real Stats
Could Have
- Accurate Reactions on fog object collision (force you hit object informs how fast it travels away)
- Factory/Animal Animations
Would Have
I think for this project I'm only going to aim to get the Must Haves done. If only got 6 or so weeks left I I've not even started writing the report for it. This leaves me with two tasks left to complete. Getting the fog objects to float on randomly and the percentage counter working accurately.
Tutorial Catchup
Yesterday we had our first tutorial after the Christmas break. It was good to catch up with Dan and Ben again, and talk though the progress I have made on my DMP project. I'm going to use this blog post to quickly run though what was said during the meeting, and my action plan based on its outcomes.
Me spent a lot of the beginning of the meeting talking though what was needed for the report, which is really good because I had no idea. The crux of it is that we will get more tailored guides as to what is needed, as well of a check list of things to include in about 2 weeks. Because of this I'm going to spend the next couple of weeks working on the more technical side of my project.
Speaking about my porject, it was important to work out MoSCoW, or in lamens terms:
- Must Have
- Should Have
- Could Have
- Would Have
This is in reference to my requirements. I'm going to work on a detailed list for the next post, but the two major must haves I havn't done yet are getting the counter working accuretly, and knowing when something is knocked off the screen, and getting the fog objects floating on during game play.
One of the other things I needed to look at was the marker for tracking the user. Currently its just a red circle, and the group suggested I look into using an image, or using the camera to put a shadow of the user back in. Id quite like to do some research into this area, so we shall see how that goes.
Another idea that came across was making the game both Usable and Delightful. This was about putting more effort into the visual design of the game, and the user thinking. Making it fun for the user to play, and working out the game rewards. I thinking when I work out my requirements a lot of this will fall to the wayside, but I would like to write up these ideas into my report.
That was about it I think. For the Next two weeks I'm going to work on getting those last two Must have requirements working, and them from their start writing my report, and see what time allows whilst working out my finished project.
Poster Presentation Mark
Just got my poster presentation mark back. Got a 70, which is just the right side of the border for a 1st. So happy with that. I think I'm going to give up on flash development for the rest of the week. Going to wait to show of my Christmas work to the tutors, and talk to my flash developer friend about how to go about the next stage of the project (working out when a fog object is off the screen).
So until then I'm going to try and crack on with other uni work, as their is a fair bit to do. Also going to start prepping the final report for DMP. Going to try and work out what needs to go in it, then show this to Dan on Friday and get feedback. Then spend the weekend hopefully trying to have a bit of fun, as well as getting on with starting the report proper.
Progress Review 4 – Sunday 24th January
Now I'm officially back at uni, I figured I better get on with a Progress Review. Its been a while since my last progress review (11th Jan) and even longer since my last real Progress Review (November! oops!). Lets see how I've been getting on.
Work Completed so Far
I'm getting on quite well with work at the moment. My prototype is now up to version 3. Ive added loads of features such as the timer and percentage counter, that basically work. Ive also got pretty close to my final design, which I'm pretty happy with considering my design skills are pretty poor. That's a lot of pretty.
Ive also started a lot more user thinking. I've started researching other games, and have been using this to develop my games Ive also written some questions for the guys and gals at Aardman Digital to answer about designing games for children, so that should help me out a lot. Overall, I'm happy for now.
Evaluation of Work so Far
Not bad I reckon. I know my code is pretty poor, but for now it works. My aim is to get it working alright, then try and refine certain bits to get those technical marks up. The same really applies to my final design. Its good enough, but I would like to look better. Oh well.
I'm a little worried that I've not started writting my Final report for this project yet, and we've not had much input from the tutors about it. Hence why I've been keeping a fairly heavy deauty blog about all my work, so hopefully I can copy/paste/rewrite a lot of my ideas.
Action Plan
The next stage of development is one I have been putting off, which is working out when a blob has been knocked of screen. I think I'm going to have a chat with a Professional Flash developer friend of mine and get some advice on how to do it.
I also need to continue with research and user thinking, and start writting my final report. Lots to do so little time. Eek!
Prototype 3 – now with percentage’s (Sort Off)
Ive been working away on version 3 of the prototype, which has all the bits I've mentioned already. There are a few changes in this one compare to version 2.
Firstly, the timer has been added. Its currently red but I'm going to change this soon. Its also in a digital font on my machine, but I'll embed it soon so it looks better.
Secondly, you'll notice the percentage counter. This is a bit of a proof of concept more than anything as it just takes the number of blobs, and adds "0%" to the end to give you a percentage out of a hundred. It also changes colour depending how many blobs are on screen, as I detailed in an earlier post.
Thirdly, but not least, is that every time you load the flash it creates a random number of blobs between 1 and 10. This is in reality to show off the percentage counter working.
Anyway that's enough talking. Go play! There should also be an animation coming soon for none web types showing the random positioned blobs and the percentage counter.
Prototype Animation
Ive put together an animation of my prototype (without the fog, that's coming) for people who don't have web cams. Take a look:
http://serve.discoliam.com/prototype/animation/
That progress review is coming. I started, just didn't finish.