Game GDD

Source

This weeks reading was "Design Considerations" by Greg Aleknevcius. In this reading, he discusses how a game can be a lot more appealing and enjoyable to someone when a lot of thought is put into the games components, rules and design of its box. He gives some suggestions to what you might want to consider when designing your own game. I thought some of the points were very interesting as I wouldn't have really thought about those things if I hadn't read this article.

An example of some points I found helpful were to use high contrasting colours for different player pieces but to carefully think through the colours you want to use to make sure people who are colourblind can still distinguish the player pieces. Along with using different colours, you can use different shapes to differentiate the pieces too. A game can run a lot more smoothly and be a lot more enjoyable if different functions had different design components.

The article says that first impressions of a game come from its box which is very true meaning a lot of thought has to be put into the box design too and not just the game itself. Make sure to have the games name on the side of the box and think through how you want to print your game info so that consumers have choice in how they store the game.

After reading this, writing the rules of a game sounds a lot more difficult than expected. Some things the articles says you can do to avoid or minimise difficulties is to avoid writing very vague rules so that players can "decide for themselves how to play", it might come off as if the game isn't fully finished and another point was to give examples of where those rules apply to guide players and give a better understanding.

This article was very helpful and gave some good advice on how to design your game so that its a lot more enjoyable for players.

Game Vision Statement

Introduction:

The game I will be creating is a mystery game. The player is a detective who has just been assigned a case and has to solve it by collecting clues from various locations until they have gathered all or enough to find the criminal. I've yet to come up with a name for the game and what the case will be about.

Genre:
The genre of the game will be mystery and kind of adventure.

Gameplay:
As mentioned before the player is a detective, assigned a case. They will have to go to multiple scenes,investigate them and collect clues that will lead them to find the culprit. A timer will be added in the locations where the player has to search for clues. The clues found will be stored in an inventory. The character will be controlled using the arrow keys.

Resources Required:
To create the game, I plan on using Unity on a PC. I will be following Youtube Unity tutorials to help create the game as I'm still new to using Unity and haven't fully gotten the hang of it yet.

Inspiration:
My game is inspired by games such as "The Wolf Among Us" and the "Danganronpa" game series, mainly in the sense that these games are mystery, detective-type games and require you to go around investigating different environments to collect things/clues that help you later on in the game. However, my game won't have any/much dialogue and won't have a really long and detailed storyline like the 2 games mentioned.

Source

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Game Elements

(Source of image)

This reading discussed a lot of different aspects in games that need to be considered when creating a game and when critiquing it.This reading really helped me understand better the things I'll need to think about when I will be creating my own game. Implementing the things mentioned in the reading will definitely make the game a lot more enjoyable when played.

One of the main things I realised I will have to focus on to make the game enjoyable is the rules and objectives of the game. The player needs to understand what they are doing or what they need to do to fully enjoy their experience. If they are aimlessly wandering around trying to figure everything out by themselves, they'll lose interest in the game pretty quickly,which is something I want to avoid. I'm obviously going to consider the other elements that make up a game too but those 2 are the main things I'd like to concentrate on.

Another thing that stood out to me in the reading was games as systems, which basically says that changing one element of the game can actually have a much bigger effect on other elements as they are all connected to one another. I didn't really think making a few minor adjustments could make such a difference so now I know when I'm making a change(s) in my game, I'll really have to think about the possible effects it might have on the other aspects and carefully think through what things I want to correct.

In the article by Doug Church, he states that people lack in design vocabulary which affects how we critique people's games. People usually just state whether a game is "fun" or "not fun" and leave it at that, but that's not very helpful. Game designers would want a more in-depth analysis of their games so they can understand better what they did well and what they need to improve on. However, they can't really get that type of critique if no one knows "the language of game design" so finding a way to word feedback is something people would need to work on.

Feedback Thoughts

(Source:Feedback)

While reading these articles, I related to them a lot as I criticize myself,my work or ideas a lot and never feel confident in sharing anything I come up with because I instantly assume that its not good enough or not as good as someone else's.
The first article states to focus more on the positives of feedback rather than the negatives. Whenever getting feedback on something, you could get loads of positive things said about it but the one negative is what always sticks and puts you down. This article tells you to seek for the positives, take it in, understand it and believe that you did well in whatever it is you are doing. Rather than putting yourself down or minimizing what you did well, you embrace it and believe the good things that have been said about your work/ideas/etc. are true.
The second article gives 7 steps to follow to help overcome self-doubt. I really liked this article, it tells you to stop comparing yourself to others and seeing them as competition,to avoid trying to be "perfect",not to be afraid to be yourself, accept mistakes and failure as a part of the journey to improvement and to have faith in yourself and what you do.
I feel like its always easier said than done but taking some of the tips given in these articles and trying to follow them a little everyday, you'll eventually overcome self-doubt and stop seeing feedback as a bad thing.

The 2 articles I read were:
Silence the critical voices in your head
https://hbr.org/2016/12/silence-the-critical-voices-in-your-head
Seven Ways to Crush Self-Doubt
http://www.spencerauthor.com/seven-ways-to-crush-self-doubt/

Game Brainstorm

I haven't played many games so coming up with ideas was a little difficult but based off some games I know or have played,some game ideas I had are:

Survival Horror:
A survival horror game sounds like it would be an interesting game to create. When I think of a survival horror, I think of Corpse Party. I really like the style of the game and would attempt to create something with a similar style to it. The idea I had was to have character(s) trapped in an abandoned house that turns out to be haunted and they would have to collect items and/or hints to help escape while they try avoid/fight off ghosts or some other supernatural creatures in the house. There would be multiple rooms to explore to find whatever the character(s) is searching for.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OzwdgrxYViQ

Jimmy Vegas has a series on how to create a survival horror in Unity which I could follow as a guide to help me create my own.

Platformer:
The main platformer game I'm familiar with and everyone else is too is Mario. Mario is one of the main games I enjoyed playing growing up so I feel like I'd really enjoy actually creating a platformer game. The idea was that the character would be a student and each level could have a different goal like trying to skip class or they're late and try to sneak into class without getting in trouble and the "goombas" of this game would be school staff, the goal being to successfully achieve whatever the quest of the level is without getting caught and avoiding the staff e.g. a teacher.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=on9nwbZngyw&t=302s

Puzzle Game?:

I'm not really sure which genre of game this falls under but here's another game idea:

I find things to do with mystery and crime really interesting so creating a game based off those would be really cool. The game could be based around a detective trying to solve a case and he would have to go to crime scenes and other places to collect clues and evidence that eventually leads him to the criminal who committed the crime. The goal of the game would be to solve the case with the evidence you gather throughout the game.

Unity Tutorial 01

(Source:Unity logo)

I have never used any sort of game development tools before so I was completely clueless going into these tutorials. I was expecting to find it a lot harder trying to understand what the tutorials were explaining since I've never done anything like this before but watching these Unity tutorials was very helpful.

I learned quite a lot from just a few videos, even if its just the basics. Jimmy Vegas does a really good job at explaining everything and guiding you through everything step by step. Instead of just listening to what he says and ending up forgetting it, I found having Unity open and following the steps as you watch a very good way to learn everything much quicker. There were parts I struggled understanding but hopefully with some practice I will manage to get the hang of them eventually.

This is all still very new and I've still lots to learn but I look forward to learning more about Unity and game design, I think so far its been really interesting seeing all the things you can create with just the basic tools.