Weekly Summary: 03

Pitch Document Lecture: 

Going into this lecture I had a few ideas on how I was going to make and present my pitch document, in my head it was still fresh, very basic and probably wasn't what the tutors were looking for. This is a bit of a conclusion I gathered from my notes.

Last year I created a GDD (Game design document) entailing mass amounts of detail to do with my game idea, and although I received a very high mark for it (90%) I now understand how dated and unused that style of game design is. Initially I thought to recreate the document and WOW people with the detail, now I see that the document (if it even is a document, it could preferably be a wiki) needs room to breathe, it needs to be living, changing form as it progresses, which in honesty is a new and great concept for me to take in. 

A Design document can't possibly breathe when it's meaning is to set the design of the game in stone, this has resulted in the death of the GDD, you can't live if you can't breathe, which brings me to my next point: death by boredom. Most importantly it doesn't allow for failure, and failure is necessary for growth.

In reality nobody is going to sit and read through a 50+ page document and LOVE it, it's just not feasible, in fact it's just plain boring. I need to make my pitch document clear and concise, while also making it very pretty (to cater to the 90% of us that are attracted to shiny things, which includes me). I have exactly 10 pages to do this in, so now I need to devise a structure for the document to ensure I get all necessary things in there.

Idea Generation: 

This week I set my mind to finalising on an idea to work with. Within the space of a few days I bounced through a few dozen small sparks to conclude on a game about a serious topic that I care a lot about, but before I go into it I'll throw a few ideas at you that came before, to show how these initial ideas inspired the game I concluded with (obviously it has a lot of room to grow still).

I created a game level last year in CryEngine, so initially I knew not to set my scope too wide. that means no RPG's, MMORPG's or complicated mechanics, I need something simple that will boast 2-3 polished basic mechanics that are coherent with the games functional design.

(Game I made during second year at Confetti)

I sat down with the intent of coming up with some game ideas, trying to make them as out there as possible, here's just a few - 

• Game about making music with star signs - actually pretty interesting.
• Game about helping disabled people increase hand dexterity - topic I'm very interested in, would require much research and iteration.
• Sim Game about growing an ant colony in different types of areas, have to do things such as get rid of large objects to clear paths, kind of like a CIV for ants.
• Trippy game based on Ludic dreaming, mechanics revolve around controlling dreams.
• Thriller game about discovering a civilisation of dead fairies in a forest.
• Arty deep game about a river that i famous for suicides.
• Game about a presentation room, you must make sure everything goes smoothly by juggling lighting, changing slides and various other presentation things.

the list goes on...

So my first idea was a game about an octopus in the ocean, the idea of the game was that you had to find something to latch on to and kind of just move it across the ocean to reach the shore. The game was supposed to be very arty with a deeper meaning, but it didn't get very far until I realised that I would have to delve into fluid dynamics and heavy math to make it work, and I kind of wanted something with a bit of gameplay for my first game.

My second idea was to take my game I already made and turn it into a 2.5d sidescroller, but I quickly shut this down after talking to a few people and realising that I should make something different and broaden my horizon.

My third (and final) idea is a therapy game about an orb that represents anxiety, you must collect lights to make the world brighter. I thought about the idea and expanded on it by creating a mood board.

The purpose of this research was to generate ideas about the colour, shape and mood that I wanted the character to express. I created some concept art for the main character just to help visualise my thoughts from picking apart the mood board.

This helped me think about what I want to express through the main character, I came to the conclusion that it needs to come across as soft and shy, so anything that looked energetic or aggressive just wouldn't cut it. I concluded that the top middle image would act as placeholder for the character.

UE4:

I've noticed this week I've spent most of my time in the Engine trying to solve simple issues that someone adept with the engine would know, but that's the thing with this type of software, there's a million and one little tips, tricks and conventions that you have to learn by trial and error.

I have managed to practise and play with the existing blueprint levels to create simple movement in characters. Here is a concept of my idea.

the player can move left and right, and I resolved a tricky issue where the camera zooms when the player goes behind geometry by removing collision testing in Spring Arms settings. This will prevent any camera clipping when geometry is in the way of viewing the player character.

This single creation has given me a few ideas about where I want to go next with the game. I will update next week on where I am with the prototype.