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.
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.
First Tutor Meeting Write Up
Last Friday I had my first tutor meeting with Dan at the Pervasive Media Studio. Here we where introduced to Ben, who's going to be helping tutor us with our projects. I'm quite excited to be working with someone with a lot of flash experience from the industry, as this type of learning was a highlight of working with Beef last year on placement.
During the meeting there was lots of discussion about how we where getting on so far, what the groups projects where and next action steps. We learnt about what was needed to be done by our Poster Session, and the other hand in's needed to be completed for December. I also got to chat to Dan in detail about my project and plans for my prototype, and in what direction I'm going with it. Ill keep the details of that for a separate post (once I've done some work!).
We have also aranged the next set of tutorial sessions from now untill our Poster Presentation, and I am looking forward to cracking on with finishing up my research, and cracking on with building my prototype. Overall a very positive meeting.