Unit 8 FMP
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Everything new is in pink
also check my practical
Midpoint Review
Description
Planning:
I need to have a lot of reference images and inspiration to help my production
Following my project timeline I am on track but I have missed a couple of things. This is giving the narrator a voice. This can be done easily but jut forgot. I also don't have a Layout reference drawing yet. I have been using reference images but to a layout image. This has made my game go slower as I don't know how my room should look.
Pre Production:
All my research is on point and I am following everything from it and not getting more off the internet and not including it.
Production:
I have made a working main menu, pause menu, fully watchable intro animation with textures, Game company Logo, first room layout with lighting. I also have the camera tweaked to look like a old digital cam to help the eerie vibe.
I have also modelled: walls, carpet, floor, pillar, desk, monitor, book and a celling design thing? Most of these are textured and are in my game ready.
Feelings
Right now I am happy with what I have. Except with what I've done and how I got there I could redo it all and have significant improvement and speed increase of development. I am extremely happy with how my main menu has turned out since I made it less serious and less professional. Throughout my production I have learned a lot and am happy with it but it's a shame I can't go back since I'm too far to redo some stuff. I am also excited to use an AI Enemy that hides from you if you look at it and some other AI stuff.
Evaluation
Upon reflection on what I've done I could have done better but only from the knowledge I gathered doing what I've done.
Conclusion
If I focus throughout my holiday I could gain a lot of progress and potentially release a demo/alpha soon on itch.
Overall I'm happy with the progress I've made the only thing I would change is the genera and mindset. I when in hoping to make a serious game like a professional game but it didn't go well. As soon as I went less professional it managed to get a lot done.
Action
If i manage to focus throughout my easter holiday i could fix some small issues, give my narrator a couple voice lines, a skip button for my intro, a fully enclosed level (rooms with walls and ceiling and lighting) hopefully with some narration, every widget with text to have a smooth intro animation on screen and redesign the game logo, add the stalker AI and hopefully make a fully enclosed room/level. Then I would be even more happy. And could possibly release it on Itch.io as an alpha/demo for free. This seems like a big list but it wont take too long to do all of this.
The last thing I worked Successfully on was the automatic door closing. This was too easy and it works well.
The last thing I did in my game that didn't work was a self learning AI with advanced Path finding. This took me like 4 hours with multiple videos but it didn't work. I'm also not re doing it. Also at the end i realised I didn't gather any evidence for my failure. Not happy.
The main part of the game's level is less than half done. There are only 2 rooms with 2 hallways with unfinished rooms.
My plan was about a liminal room with multiple room choices. This game is a book/story read aloud as the narrator. The whole game is based on the game stanley parable.
The plan makes total sense, but I hate it. It sucks.
Nothing is causing problems but there are a lot of broken mechanics in my game. I have left a lot of code in my game just in case I may try again but I don't plan to finish it soon.
Almost an impressive amount that should be credited in my wix but i keep forgetting to evidence it. Hours of work down the drain.
Yes,I do have a lot to do. I need to get more rooms done and give the narrator a voice so the story can be developed more. Improve my wall texture in substance and increase the lighting for low quality presets. This last thing may be very difficult.
Adding more walls to make a longer level with lights, Fix lighting on low quality settings and add a voice to the narrator. These need to be done asap.
There's a lot to finish which I won't be able to finish by the end of my deadline but the goal will still be achieved.
I will cut down on the narrator's body and texture because theres not enough time. The quality of my assets will now be poor since something has gone wrong during modelling and haven't fixed it yet but I need my rooms to be longer.
Final Evaluation
Planning
Description:
In the first week, I mainly focused on planning the main idea for my game. You play as Harold in a library and one day all the books go missing. It is your mission to find them and put them back. This game takes place in a liminal library with a 70s aesthetic. The idea for my game came quite quickly because at that time I was watching and playing a lot of liminal style media, which inspired the majority of my games idea. Planning was quick, but at the end of the first week I no longer liked the idea. I was no longer interested in the liminal theme, but I had done too much to redo it all again so I stuck with it.
Feelings:
Even though I managed to get my game where I liked it, 3min of solid gameplay, I’m not fully happy with the result. I didn't plan things very well, and because I started to dislike my original idea, I kept changing small parts as I went along. This made the whole project feel messy and inconsistent. Now that I've gained a significant amount of knowledge and experience since the start, I can clearly see what I could have done to improve or done better. For example, what I showed in my last video is something I could now remake in 5 weeks, and with much better quality.
Evaluation:
The good part of the experience was the planning and research since I already had inspiration from films and games I liked, so I didn't have to waste time finding examples and then consuming the media. The film Toys (1992) stood out as a hidden gem in movies especially in a liminal point of view so this became the main influence even though it was found by accident. The bad part was feeling stuck with this idea since I no longer liked it which heavily affected motivation.
Research
Research:
For the Research stage, I mainly used media I have previously watched or played since this was fresh in my mind, especially media which were liminal, surreal and eerie. Since I had just researched this type of media before this project I didn't need to find new sources for my idea. A key part of Research i was the game The Stanley Parable, which i have played for 8 horses before so i knew my way around the game and how it stood out to me for my research.
Feelings:
I felt good as I was flying through this week/section as I didn't need to watch/play these media since I had done so before. I also felt a bit better about my game's idea as I wasn't stuck on anything and the game was going smoothly. I guess the only downside was i didn't look for any new media to help my research, so i did miss out on some good ideas and more.
Evaluation:
Overall I thought it went well as I had a head start on this page and was pleased with how it came out.
Research
Description:
During this week, I built my main level, main menu, pause menu, interactions, flash light and optimization and much much more. I also spent time coding using blueprints to get the menu widgets to function properly. My end goal was to create a solid 3 min of game play with working menu and interactions so my game had something interesting to do.
Feelings:
This was my favourite part, i absolutely love working in Unreal Engine.I loved the feeling of using my assets to build my level and then see my library start to take shape. There were some bumps along the way such as redoing the main menu 4 times and one of them having a full animation/cutscene to introduce you to the game.
Evaluation:
I am more then happy with my outcome as i have achieved what id said i would so i cant complain too much there.
Conclusion (Final Thoughts)
I learned too much to put in my evaluation so ill only mention the most useful. I Learned how to properly use the leve; sequencer and use the camera for animation, How to properly level stream to make my game run smoother, a massive amount of hot keys to make my development quicker and better, tips and tricks to help model in blender and texture properly, optimises lighting within a room/level and last but not least to plan my idea better at the start as this will be the foundation for my game.
What would I do differently?
Apart from changing the entire idea I would focus more time on perfecting my modular assets and give them better detail. I would have liked to have the camera as a fixed camera for each room to make the game feel more unique. I would also like to have shifted my main focus from a playable demo to a feature rich block out as this would require more research and much more coding.