Week 10 - Almost there ...

Getting closer and closer to the finale, finishing up our ideas and making them more appealing to a third person (or in this case fourth) this blog is getting harder and harder to keep up with.

Not saying this in any bad way, but in the most truthful. We have out game, called "Aras", as solid as a game not yet in development, can be. To summaries, we have decided that it is an overhead perspective, slightly pixelated (yet detailed), a fitting story told through notes and artifacts, interesting fighting mechanics and a focus on base building.

My personal opinion is that this is a truly ambitious idea, which frankly was even more complex in the start. This does not mean that I don't believe in it, quite the opposite. I trust that the higher you shoot the greater the result, but it is a dawning task to overcome hurdles we were bound to come across. Thankfully, as I previously mentioned, the other two team mates I have the pleasure of working with, had a constant flow of incredible ideas. What was interesting throughout this journey is that every idea was fitting. Most were better than others, but all we had in mind could be used in the future in a different project if you will.

To expand on the last weeks post, we had our specific work loads on the Design Document. We decided if we write about the jobs we had taken up earlier, it would be most understandable as this is what we are good at. Thankfully, there is no need for me to specify the details here as the document is going to be submitted soon and all is going to be revealed.

However I can mention this much. It is turning out much longer than expected.

Week 9 - Starting up our design document and continuing our initial jobs

Now that we are not going through lectures we are free to focus solely on our project. So this is what we shall do!

My personal opinion is that we have our game idea nailed down, and if I can say so myself the team seems pretty proud of the progress.

Not sure if it was mentioned before but we are working on specific aspects of the document individually. We decided splitting the work and allocating it to the right person would be the best bet as, for example, I was focusing on the game artwork and should write about the art (all relative aspects of the world). This way practically everyone has his sphere of knowledge that he is competent and comfortable with. Of course every week we come in with our work so far and evaluate it, throw it in briefly and make sure it fits in the grand spec.
Gladly we were documenting all our previous brainstorm sessions, discarded ideas, flashy implementations in the future and so on, so the patching up work on the final document seems like a piece of cake. Having the references of the initial ideas that you can still build up on is invaluable in a case such as this.



Teamwork is amazing ...

Week 8 - Is it Fun ?!

is for Fun !







But what is fun ? Hard question to think about and even harder to explain. 
However, this is what I am going to do, throw my interpretation on the big pile of "Um ... because its fun ?"







Alright to start this thing off I'd say that Fun is something that an individual would prefer sticking to over other choices he/she has. It brings joy, excitement and pleasure that are coincidentally the foundations of happiness ... So Yes, I am saying Fun is closely related to Happiness. 
Lets say you have the choice right now to either go out with a bunch of friends for a night at the club or you can stay home, make a meal and watch a movie. As people are different so do their perspective on Fun. 
So you chose to do the one that would be more fun at the moment. 

In such cases I have had the chance to evaluate my decision and as you do it hits you how hard it is to explain your decision. And you truly can't. But to make it slightly easier on the mind (or harder) your idea of fun changes quite rapidly. What you found fun last week might not be fun today and might be fun again in a month. 

The lecture did a great job in explaining more scientifically why Fun can't really be determined. Just as a quick preview a recurring point was that creating a fun game can be hard, as you can't define what is fun. Gladly it is not a set state by some government or an ultimate overlord ... yet! 
Back to reality skimming through the lecture materials again I noticed some points that truly reveal the spectrum of "unknown" behind the term. A few people who think they nailed down the meaning were Hunicke, LeBlanc and Zubek, having listed 8 types of fun: Sensation, Fantasy, Narrative, Challenge, Fellowship, Discovery, Expression and Submission. Another person who did their best to define the undefinable is Gerneau who also tried to limit it to a few simple words, at least 14 this time. I don't meant to rule these off, they do make sense, however my stand on this question is quite simple. Fun is like Love, simple yet unexplainable, complicated but basic enough for every human to experience. So emotions such as these are natural and hardwired in us since birth. 
There could be a combination of facts such as "it looks good", "it makes me think" and so on. But is this enough to make it certain? Not at all!

At this point even I was thinking of how this relates to the subject we are learning about currently, but it is quite simple. You do not know how your game is going to do, unless you see it being experienced by people. You will always have the group that is going to enjoy it and also the group that doesn't. It is just a game of numbers from here on.

Understanding that the gaming industry is on its way to a full fleshed business and this module focuses a big part on that aspect I can say that it helps me direct my focus. Previously I have decided that I want to be on the development side of the games creation process, but going through Games Design helps me understand that there is much more busyness involved than one would think. The way I enjoy games (and I think this is what could help you decide on what would be your passion to work on) is like a piece of art. I love to see how a game looks, how it sounds and mostly how it feels. And this is why I am more interested in the development role. 

To finish this segment off Raph Koster said "Games are fun because they teach us interesting things and they do it in a way that our brains prefer - through systems and puzzles" 
This is probably the closest definition I can accept as in my opinion humans are created to improve and improvement is accomplished by learning. 

Well that was a lengthy and complex analysis or a truly existential matter, but every little bit helps understand life and humans work.

Aside from the psychological focus of this week, we were assigned our pitch date and times. A briefing of how it is going to work and the main details. What is interesting but still understandable is that we are not going to deliver the pitch in front of the rest of the class but in front of a simulation of possible investors. This is perfectly fine because in the case of pitching a game concept you do it in front of selected people and not your fans ... usually.
From the heart, I am positive that this aspect of Games Design is not my cup of tea, as what is truly enjoyable to me is the hands on design and development. Mostly the visual games design, world and character modeling and animation. Needless to say despite my different goals this perspective makes it quite interesting to look into as it is practically the opposite of the predecessor to development.

Further more we started putting together our final design document. Gladly we were intuitive enough to start writing down all the ideas, discarded or seemingly final, making our document more manageable and natural. 

As of myself, I continued doing some more concept art for the combat aspects and the final character we have planned.

Knight concept art and character skills mechanics and visual representation:

Knight skills and perks

Hunter skills and perks