Reflections

Week 1

In this week, I started creating my presentation to come up with some ideas and eventually end on one. I decided to just come up with lost of ideas so I could then take my three best ideas and research them further. I put all of these ideas into one big mind map and added to each idea. I wanted to develop each idea a bit so that I could choose my three best and research them. After that, I can choose my best idea that way I can look into lots of ideas to make sure I have a good idea that I’m happy with.

I feel like this went well and will be useful to me, later on, to have some ideas already developed. This was a little more time consuming than I first thought it would be. So I will have a little less time than I would have wanted to add some extra things to my presentation.

I managed to finish off my main mind map so next week I can start to research these ideas further. As I have said this was more time consuming than I thought but will be worth it later on.

Week 2

In this week, I chose my three main ideas and I researched them further. I did this by starting to create another mind map and a mood board for each of my ideas. This allowed me to fully develop these ideas and get a good idea of what I would do for each one of these ideas. I also managed to do some market research for each of my ideas. For this, I found some games similar to my idea I showed the awards the won, there average players and some more information on the game. I added this to show how other games similar to mine have performed and to see if that idea would be successful if ever released.

I found it quite easy to pick out my three best ideas as my other ideas could be too tough for me to do or just too simple and boring. This section took the most time out of my presentation as I did a mind map, mood board, and market research for each of my ideas. Although I think it will work well to show what I want to do. I am still on time in my project but I did spend quite some time doing it.

Next week I will add some finishing touches to my presentation and then I will present it. I will also have some spare time in the week to start some other work.

Week 3

In this week, I added a couple of finishing touches to my presentation like an explanation of what each of my ideas is after my mind maps. This Just allows me to make it clear what my idea is in a couple of bullet points. Now That I had most of my presentation done I made my presentation look good by adding some extra images and changing some things. I then had to present my PowerPoint and show what I had done. I got some feedback on my idea and they suggested that I spend more time developing my idea before going on to research. They also suggested that I come up with a prototype for my game to show that I can actually do it.

Making my presentation look good was quite simple to do and I think it improved it. I also think my presentation went well overall because they gave me lots of helpful feedback and told me what I should do next. I didn’t have too many problems this week other than trying to get gifs to work on my PowerPoint but I managed to sort it out.

Next week I’ll work on creating a simple prototype of my game that I can use later. I will just get the basic functionality of my game so that I can just keep adding to it later.

Week 4

In this week, I started work on a simple prototype this will allow me to show off some mechanics of my game without having to fully start my game. This allows me to change some things if I find that I can’t do them in unity.  But because of my research into my game in my presentation, I have plenty of tutorials to help me create some of the mechanics for my game.

Making my prototype was relatively easy as at the moment. I have some very simple mechanics but as I research more I will be able to add some more things to it. The first thing I added was some basic movement and double jump. I could then some more mechanics that I could test like spikes and platforms that you can jump through. I wanted to test these mechanics before I start to make levels around them. So far this went well as most of the mechanics work how I want them to.

Next week I will do some research on my game by looking at some games similar to mine. I will also keep adding bits to my prototype while doing my research.

Week 5

In this week, I did some research for my game and added to my prototype. Doing research for my game is very important as I need to look into every aspect of my game to make sure it will be successful. It also allows me to come up with more idea for my game further improving the quality of it. I had some things from my presentation to help me look into some areas of my research.

I first started by creating a survey asking people questions about what I should add to my game. But I did find that the questions that I initially asked weren’t detailed enough so I had to change some of my questions so I could get some better and more helpful results. I then got the results and used that to help me decide on what I should or change to my game. I then added some interesting mechanics like platforms that the player can jump through. This went well as I didn’t have any problems adding this to my game. It was also quite a good mechanic to add and I think it will work well with my game.

Next week I will continue to research the different aspects of my game like the art style and some character research.

Week 6

In this week, I continued my research into my game by looking at different art styles that I would add to my game. I also started researching some things about my character like backstory, abilities, and design. This will help me later on when I’m making my character because I can just go straight to designing so it will save me some time. Looking at different art styles also helps me later on in the project as I can start creating art right away.

I first started by looking at some different art styles that I could do and I compared them to each other to see which one I would do. I ended up choosing a pixel art style because it would be easiest for me to do in the time I have. I also think that it would work well with the game that I’ve decided to do. I did struggle with coming up with some ideas for my character but in the end, I’m happy with what I came up with.

Next week I will look at some games similar to mine to get some more ideas for what I could do for my project.

Week 7 

In this week, I finished off the rest of my research and started doing some design work. I looked at some games that are similar to mine level layouts to get some inspiration for levels in my game. I also did some asset research so that I could have some help when creating my assets. Once I had finished all of my research I then started drawing up some levels for my game. I also did some work on my prototype by adding a health system to my character which is a key mechanic.

I first started by finding some games similar to mine so that I could look at the types of levels they use. This allows me to look at what may be successful and interesting levels in my game. I then moved on to doing some asset research so that I could have a list of all the assets I needed to do and I could get some ideas for my assets. Finally, I started doing some design work. I started by doing some drawing my levels this allows me to change my designs while I still can. I think this went well as I didn’t have too many problems with it. But I did have an issue with finding some reference images as my game is quite unique so it is hard to find things similar to it. I finally added a health system to my player by using hearts that the player loses when entering an area. I did this temporarily just to test if this would work.

Next week I will continue to work on some of my designs like my assets and levels.

Week 8 

In this week, I worked on creating some asset and level designs. I also went back to my prototype to add a couple of things to it and to fix some issues I had with it. For my design research, I drew up a few basic levels using my research. This could help me get some ideas about what my levels would look like and how they would play. I went back to my prototype because in my research I looked Into lots more mechanics so I wanted to see I could actually add them.

I first started by drawing up some level designs for a few different levels in my game. I think this went pretty well as it was quite easy to do and helped me get a good idea of how the game would play. I also drew up some character and enemy concepts so I could get some good ideas of what they would look like as they are a big part of my game. This didn’t go quite as I planned as it was quite hard to accurately show what I wanted. So I decided to draw much simpler concepts and then build off them later. Finally, I fixed some issues I had with the health system because my player wouldn’t take any damage. I fixed this by making the collision is trigger instead. This did take me a little longer than I expected to fix this issue but now that it is fixed I can move on to more complicated mechanics.

Next week I will continue to work on my asset and level designs but I may also work on my prototype if I have some spare time.

Week 9

 

 

In this week, I continued to work on creating some level and asset designs. I also added some other mechanics to my prototype. I really liked the level concepts I came up with last week so I made sure to continue adding and improving them this week. I also wanted to keep adding to my prototype as I haven’t got as many mechanics as I would have wanted into it.

In the previous week, I had done the drawings for my assets and levels. So now I just had to write about what I did and why I had added it to my levels. This was relatively simple for me to do as I had already come up with the designs. I made a lot of progress on my prototype this week as I managed to add some of my more important mechanics to my game. I added a shooting mechanic that damages and kills basic enemies. I didn’t have too many problems when implementing this mechanic as I had some good tutorials to help me with it.

Next week I will continue adding to my designs and working on my prototype. So I can get all of my mechanics in the game.

Week 10

In this week I continued to add to my design work and added more to my prototype. I have most of my design work done but I want to keep adding to it and show my progress. My prototype almost has all of its main mechanics in it so I can test some things and fix some bugs before I start to fully work on my game.

So this week I created some flowcharts to show how some things in my game will work. I found this quite easy to do as I had plenty of ideas for what I could show how it works in my game. I also created and showed some UI designs I have made to help me later on. I did have some problems with this as originally I wanted to have a more interesting UI but I struggled to come up with some. In the end, I decided to just have some simple UI designs but I could spend more time making them look better. I also fixed a couple of bugs I was having with my main mechanics like my player wouldn’t be able to double jump off of a platform. I did manage to fix this issue by adding a line of code that would reset the jump on platforms.

In the next week, I will work on some sound design and continue to fix some bugs in my prototype.

Week 11

In this week I showed some sounds that I could use for my game and fixed some issues I had with my game. I realised that I needed to show some sounds that I could use for my game. This way I had time later on in the project to look back and find some sound effects like them to use in my game. I then fixed some of the bugs that I was really struggling with before I moved on and added more to the game.

I finished off the sound section of my game by showing some sounds that I could use from other games in the same genre as mine. This allowed me to see what worked well for other game like mine so I could use something like that for mine. This was quite easy for me as there is plenty of other 2D platformers that I can look at. I also added some more enemy types to my game so I could test out what would work. I added a patrolling enemy and a flying enemy. I then moved on to fixing some bugs I found in my game while testing it. The flying enemy could shoot through anything at the player so I needed to fix that by making the projectile delete when it hits the ground.

Next week I’ll finish off all of my design work and start working on my game fully.

Week 12

This week I started fully working on my game as I’ve fully finished my research and design sections. I decided to continue adding and improving some of my main mechanics first as well as some level planning. I want to get these key features done as I’ve finished most of my mechanics.

I first started working on improving some of my main mechanics like the jumping of my main character. I made the player be able to jump a bit higher and I made the speed of my character just right so this improves the overall gameplay. I then moved on to creating my first level using my research I made some assets and put them together in unity. I did have a couple of problems with scaling my assets up properly as when I put them into unity they were very small. I managed to fix this by getting the right scale and making them prefabs. I also made some level designs that I could follow along with later on in my project. This will be very useful to me later on but I don’t think I’ll follow them exactly as some things might not work how I want them too in the game. In this week I feel like I’m on time at this point in the project.

Next week I’ll work on fixing bugs and creating some assets for my game.

Week 13

 

 

This week I started by fixing some bugs I was having and started to create some art assets for my game. In the previous weeks, I had created most of the main mechanics that will go into my game. So I wanted the game art in next as this is one of the most time-consuming things to put into the game.

I first started by fixing the main bugs I had with my game before moving on to my art. I fixed a bug that I had where none of my menu buttons would work. this issue caused me a lot of problems as it made it hard to test my game. So I managed to fix this by deleting and putting the buttons back in the game. I then created some assets for my enemies and started creating my player sprite so that I could have all of my main art done before moving on to creating some more levels for my game. I did have a couple of problems with this as it was hard to get the right look for my assets. But using some of the research I had done I came up with some good ideas for assets and I managed to make them look good. I think I’m a bit ahead of where I would like to be but I still have some more art stuff to finish off.

Next week I’ll work on getting all the assets I have created into my game.

Week 14

This week I put all the assets I created last week into my game and make some small improvements to my game. Getting all the assets in the game is the next most important step for my game. As then I just need to put in the rest of my levels and add some finishing touches to my game. I made some adjustments to my game by adding a wall jump mechanic to my game. This was a much-needed part of my game as in some of my later levels I want this to be a key feature.

I first started by putting most of the assets in the game by just dragging the Photoshop files into my unity project. I just then had to rescale my assets to make them fit with the correct size. I did have a couple of problems with this as I struggled to get the size right compared to my player size. With some extra time on this, I managed to do the correct size for my game. I added the enemy and player assets into my game and made my ground and wall assets prefabs. this will save me time when creating my levels. I then added the wall jump mechanic to my game so I could improve some of my later levels. I did this by making tagging my walls as the ground so the player can infinitely jump on walls. This was a simple solution to this problem and it seems to work well for my game. At this point in my project, I think I’m just on time with this project as I think I’ll be able to get my levels done quite quickly.

Next week I’ll start creating some levels for my game and make some more improvements to it.

Week 15

Now that I had got that right I started creating my first level with my new assets and I added in an ability for my character.  I just had to replace my temporary assets so I didn’t have too many problems with this. It was the next thing I needed to do for my game as after I make each of my levels.  The sun ability for my character was quite hard and time-consuming to implement into my game though.

I first started by using my prefabs and my Photoshop level designs to help me create my first level. this was a relatively simple process as all I had to do was follow my designs using my assets. I did have a problem with lining up some of my ground assets but I managed to resolve this by getting a section lined up then I copy and pasted it. I did change some things about my design as when putting enemies into the level some of them didn’t work too well in certain positions. This worked really well and I managed to finish my first level, to a good standard. I had problems with making the stun ability for my character because it was a quite complex code to do. But I think it worked out really well and looks really good in the game. At this point, I would like to be a little further on in my project but I think ill be able to make some more time up later.

Next week I will finish off my other two levels and continue to make some improvements to my game.

Week 16

 

In this week I finished off my other two levels and created a level selector. These are key parts to my game and they both didn’t take too much work to put in the game. The level selector was quite an art based and then I just had to put buttons over the top of it.

Already have a large part of my first level done meant that I could copy and past some sections of it over to speed things up. So all I had to was follow my earlier designs. But I did have to move some of my enemy placements around as I found they didn’t work quite well. I then moved on to making a level selector for my game which is a key part of my game. This was quite an easy part to make as I have had experience with menus and buttons. But actually creating the art for the level selector was difficult as I wanted it to be kind of realistic but not be too much. So I ended up spending a little more time than I would have wanted but I’m happy with the result. I have caught up a bit in my project but I would still like to have some more polishing done on my game. 

Next week I’ll add in my boss, polish off my game and do my final evaluation.

Week 17

In this week I finished off my boss level and did my final evaluation. Creating my boss level was very important to me as I wanted to have a fun but challenging ending to my game. It is important to have a good ending to my game as its what the game has been leading up to so it needs to be entertaining and meet the player’s expectations.

My boss level was again really easy to complete as I just wanted a simple path to a large area. I made sure to have a small drop into my boss area so that my boss wouldn’t try to attack the player straight away. I also made the boss actually fight the player back.  I did this by splitting my boss into three different parts. The two side parts of boss spawns some flying enemies and they have their own health bars so that the player can kill the side parts to stop them from spawning enemies or they could just focus the main part of the boss. The main part of the boss occasionally spawns projectiles but has a lot more health. After its death, the player just needs to grab the orb and they win the game. In this week I didn’t get to polish my game as much as I wanted but I’m still happy with what I did.