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.
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!
Post Christmas Catch Up
I guess I should do a bit of a catchup, as I have not posted for over a month. Last time you saw me I was preparing my prototype and poster for my Christmas presentation. Well that was all done and dusted on the 11th Dec, and I think it all went rather well. I'm still waiting for official feedback, but on the day I think everyone was impressed with the things I thought full. It was good to get everyone playing the game as well.
Since them Ive been finishing other coursework and having 3 weeks of to enjoy the snow and chill out a little. But now its official term time again Ive started working again. This morning I came up with what I hope will be the final design for my game, which is in much a similar to style to the prototype.
I really like it at the moment. It use's 3 photos taken by me (sky, background mountin and the bridge) one I found from stock.xchng, and one form a google image search I'm going to have to find again to reference properly. I guess I need to layout some plans for the next 2 weeks before lessons start again.
The rest of this week:
- Get feedback from a few people on this design (in the comments please)
- Start working out which sources of CO2 I want to use in the game.
- Find decent images for these sources, or get out and take some photos of them.
- design what the fog objects are going to look like
The week after:
- Get back into flash and get re-aquainted with my code
- plug in the new design elements
- Work out what is left to be done
- start doing it!
Ill hopefully be blogging weekly now so you can see my progress, I'm also going to start working on my report soon, so that should be a barrel of laughs.
Cheers.
Progress Review 2 – Friday 13th November
Work Completed So Far
We’ve now had two tutorials with Ben from Thought Den at the Pervasive Media Studio, and so far they are going great. Ben is really helping to shape my ideas, and fill some holes in the project which is great. I’ve got a lot of new ideas, and think I have finally decided on some of the details for my project, which I’ll save for another blog post. I’ve also started prating around with flash, the products of which can be seen in previous blog posts.
Evaluation of Work So Far
So far I feel my work is going pretty well. I am pleased with my progress in most areas, but can see that maybe I’m lacking in a few more. My poster presentation is less than a month away, and in reality I haven’t got to far with my prototype. Hopefully that will change in the next few weeks now I’ve started working on it.
Unfortunately my research has gone a little slower than I like in the last two weeks as I have been concentrating on other modules due to deadlines, etc. I hopefully with have the time this week to improve on that. I feel I’ve made more progress in the last two weeks than I have in the previous month, which is a nice feeling, but still feel I haven’t done another. An odd situation to be in.
Action Plan
I think my action plan ideas have mostly come out of today’s tutorial with Ben and Dan. Id like to do some primary research in the form of a focus group to bounce around some ideas about my project. Once I’ve done that, id like to use the information and ideas to re-define my project, along with the ideas I’ve already developed in today’s tutorial.
Id also like to continue with my flash development, working on getting towards my prototype plan from a few posts ago. And finally Id like to start creating some deliverables for my poster presentation and progress report due in December. These could include wireframes, mood boards, user journeys etc etc.
Progress Review 1 – Friday 30th October
I thought it was about time that I started doing regular progress reviews. This is where I take some time to sit back from my work a little and review what I have done so far. Look at whats gone well, what hasn't, how I can improve my work and action tasks for the next couple of weeks. I expect these to come once every couple of weeks, but that may change dependent on the project. I will also try and develop a framework for these posts, though dependent on tutor feedback that may also change a little.
Work Completed So Far
I've completed a fair amount of work so far. This included the Project Proposal, some Initial Research into data visualisation and interaction, and some initial concepts for the artistic direction of the project. All my work has been well documented both in paper form in a DMP Folder, and here on the blog.
Evaluation of Work So Far
So far I'm pretty happy with the work Ive completed. I think I've got some good ideas about the project, and my research has been helping me clarify those ideas into usable action points for the project. I think Ive had a pretty strong idea in my head from the start about how I want my project to look, but feel I need to do some more work into final designs for this.
Action Plan
There are definitely some areas I want to start focusing on now we have reached the end of October. I want to continue and finish most of my secondary research in the next few weeks, and go about starting some Primary Research in the form of interviews with professionals and users alike. Id also like to go to some Visual motion displays though I'm not sure I'll get the chance to in the near future.
I also need to start working on a Prototype Animation soon. We are expected to show a version during the December poster presentation, and so far I've not thought much about the actual technology of project. I guess Ive been waiting for tutor groups to be organised before really thinking about this, and concentrating on the research aspect of my project.