Unit 78 - Digital Graphics for Computer Games - Own Brief

Unit 78 - Digital Graphics for Computer Games
Start Date: 03/11/15
End Date: 10/11/15
Tutor: Josh Rai
Name: Wyatt Chapman
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Client Brief

The game needs a protagonist, with a number of enemies.
A background
Import audio into the game for the character, enemies etc.
Needs 5 or more levels.
Must be a 2D platformer.

Own Brief

Plot - Within this game the character sets out to defend his self employed business (BOB's GOB) against demolition workers. Along the way you must equip yourself with the latest technology in cooking equipment and defeat the almighty boss, Jeff.

Development
Name of the game.
Art Style: Cel Shaded merged with an exaggerated side theme, to distort portions of the characters body. (give more creativity to the player)
Create characters, walls and enemy sprites with a pixel value of 32 by 32.
Create a background using Adobe Photoshop, illustrator, or within the game engine.
Make up to 5 levels/rooms. (each room gradually getting harder as the player advances)
Game should be made for PC and mobile devices in mind. (wider audience range)
Create several sounds for when the character dies, collects currency, lands etc.
Games Dimension will be 2D.
The genre of the game will be an action-adventure

Customer
The target audience of the game will be intended for a male audience, aged 14-16 because of a more mature form of humour.
Price of the game. (whether it should be for free or not)

Legal and Ethical Consideration
Copyright/Trade Mark. Make sure to copyright the products title, logo, sounds/music, characters etc.
Make sure that the game is not sexist (treating the female characters with respect and not putting profound clothing on them)

Ideas for the game:

Game Name: Bob's Job
Character Name: Bob Goblineo
About the Character: Bob, aged 44, with a height of 6ft, is a self employed man that works hard to supply for his family. He's been running BOB's GOB (a fast food restaurant, which mainly only sells kebabs) for 20 years and has only started to progress 3 years ago, yet only slightly.
For one of the levels bob's family could be kidnapped, causing him to take a slight detour.

Unit 73 - Sound for Computer Games

L3 Extended Diploma Games Development
Unit 73 - Sound for Computer games
Tutor: Josh, Rai
Name: Wyatt, Chapman
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5 Different Gaming Songs that add emotion:

Last Of Us - All Gone (No Escape)  - The aim for this song is to make the mood feel as though all hope is gone, that all the main character can do is give up. This could invoke the player to feel sad. I would say that given the atmosphere and scenery within the game, this music would suit it well within a distressing part of the story.

Outlast - Male Ward Chase - The game mainly focuses on tense moments and hiding. The music is clearly meant to spark the event that you are in the worst situation. Being chased by an asylum patient that wants to become your friend, with a cleaver in his hand, is obviously not the best situation. Of-course being a smart person, you (the player) decide that it would be best to run. to help assist your brain in realizing that you should run, this tense music suddenly kicks in to help you panic, as you drastically press every object in hope that you can hide within it.

What the developer is trying to create in short is that you have just entered an event where you must run for you life to survive, making the player panic, causing them to struggle to think about how to get away.

SlenderMan - Concealed - SlenderMan is a purely atmospheric game, that relies on eerie music, making you wonder what might be lurking in the depths of the forest. This is just one of the soundtracks from SlenderMan The Arrival. This song would make you think that you had been spotted by SlenderMan, causing you to perhaps panic. Trying to run away, when in actuality you're running towards him.

I would say that the music does achieve it's goal in creating a situation where the player starts to panic, making them paranoid.

Halo 3 - One Final Effort - Near the end of halo 3 there is a moment when you would assume that it's going to be the end, that there was nothing Master Chief could have done. Yet suddenly, this music kicks in as Master Chief thinks of an amazing way to save Cortana and everyone else.

In my opinion the maker of the soundtrack did an excellent job at conveying emotions of hope, bravery and makes the player feel pretty awesome.

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt - Eredin, King of the Hunt - This soundtrack creates a very sinister feeling toward the enemy. That he is the heart of evil, that even Geralt of Rivia struggles to challenge. The king of the hunt. Eredin.

The intent behind the music is to make the player feel as though maybe he should be wary of the hunt, because of their cold hearted nature, followed by their powers.

Why is Music important within game development

Music and sound FX are so important within a game or film. They are used to fully create the atmosphere. Using spine chilling music, you can create a game with low graphics, yet still setup a good scene. SlenderMan for example is mainly thriller based. Nothing really happens but it builds up the music as you go longer throughout the game, to put you off of the objective and more focused on running away. Music can also assist in making the player feel more emotionally attached to a character. The Last Of Us does this exceptionally well. It's a game that is solely focused on character attachments to increase the emotional trauma of the game's story/plot.

Keywords for Sounds:

• Wavelength - the distance between crests of sound waves.
• Amplitude - Refers to the intensity of sound.
• Frequency - 
• Pitch - How high or low a tone is.
• Hertz - The unit for frequency.
• Decibel - The unit used to measure the intensity of sound.

Foley - Creating artificial sounds for films or games. an example of this would be if they had a scene where a character slapped another, then they would probably use a slab of meat and hit it with a rolling pin to create the illusion of the person being slapped.

Timbre - The quality of musical sound or voices, from the pitch to the intensity.

3 Games that use sound as information/speech:

Outlast - In outlast there are tons of chase events, the developers used music to indicate that you are being chased. They used intense fast paste music and heavy breathing. When you find a place to hide and sit there for awhile as the enemy starts to lose interest in searching for you, the music slowly starts to die down, acting as a means to let you know that it's more secure to leave your hiding spot.

Zelda - when you find a treasure chest with a new item, a small tune is activated, to inform you that you have have found an important piece of equipment.

Metal Gear Sold V: The Phantom Pain -  When sneaking around a stronghold in MGS V: TPP and become spotted by an enemy, a high pitched alerting sound will be played to inform you that the enemy is aware of your presence.

Game Evaluation (ShapeMan)

ShapeMan Evaluation

Game Rules:

• Don't touch an enemy shape that isn't the same shape as the player.
• Collect all orbs in order to gain points.
• Kill all enemy shapes to be able to pass onto the next level.
• Co-ordinate through the level to change shapes.

Bug Report:

• When changing to a circle the player can kill any enemy.
• Whether the player changes to the same shape as the enemy, the player can still die, even though they shouldn't.
• When dying the player would not spawn back to the set spot, but would instead vanish off of the map.

Shapeman Bug Report and showing off how the game works.

My friend playing my game.

Friends opinion:
Morten thought that the game was quite challenging, since i had alot of sprites (enemies) crossing each others paths. although he did enjoy the sprite design because of the simplicity.

Sprites:

All of my sprites were regular 2D shapes, such as the player, enemies and collectibles, although some of them add some patterns within them, accompanied by animations. The animations were fairly simple, they mainly just spin, fade and squish.

Spr_Heart:

This heart is an image i created to be used as a symbol for the life system, since i thought it would look better than having numbers count down. The sprite itself has no coding in it because all the coding for the life system is on a different sprite. 

Spr_Collectible:

This is one out of the two ways to gain points. Throughout the map these orbs are scattered about and can be collected. This sprite also has no code because the code is located in another place.

Spr_Me/Obj_Me:

This sprite/object is the play. This is where most of the code is kept. As you can see underneath, this is the Object version of the sprite (the player), showing all the collision events, keyboard commands and coding.

ObjEnemy Kill Code:

the code was one of the hardest pieces of work and is still currently being fixed, since there are a lot of bugs, but me and my friends are working hard to improve it.

The code has been designed to kill the enemy when the player is the same shape as the enemy, but if the player is a different shape from the enemy then the player will be killed and you will lose one heart.

We also decided to put part of the life system coding in the same execution sheet as the kill code, since we thought it would be easier to handle or more efficient.

Map Layout:

Your character is the square located in the center, next to the pentagon, the other squares are enemy versions. If you look towards each of the corners, you can see that there are different shapes, you can touch these shapes to transform into them.

"Next Change" stands for when the enemy shapes will change into one of the 5 other shapes, the countdown starts at 20 seconds. the longer you survive and get through the levels the faster they will start to change shape.

Controller:

The controller, as the name implies, controls most of the game. It's where the globalvar code is put. In-case you didn't know a globalvar is a set of code that allows all sprites to access it.

The code will usually hold key aspects of the game, such as; the amount of lives you have, how many ticks it takes before the enemy changes shape.

Assignment 1: Key Aspects for a Games Development

Course: BTEC L3 Games Development

Start Date: 10/09/15

End Date: 29/10/15

Tutor: James, Tedder

Name: Wyatt, Chapman
Assignment 1 - Key Aspects for a Games development

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Software

Unity Engine – Unity is a games development kit that is used to make 3D and 2D games. This can also be used to build up a business or create good content.

Minimum requirements:

Game requirements

Desktop:

·         OS: Windows XP+, Mac OS X 10.7+, Ubuntu 12.04+, SteamOS+ - £7.99 for windows XP

·         Graphics card: DX9 (shader model 2.0) capabilities; generally everything made since 2004 should work. - £21.90 - £96.62

·         CPU: SSE2 instruction set support.

·         Web player supports IE, Chrome, Firefox, Safari and others.

·         IOS: requires iOS 6.0 or later.

·         Android: OS 2.3.1 or later; ARMv7 (Cortex) CPU or Atom CPU; OpenGL ES 2.0 or later.

      Developing the game requirements

·         OS: Windows XP SP2+, 7 SP1+, 8, 10; Mac OS X 10.8+.

·         GPU: Graphics card with DX9 (shader model 2.0) capabilities. Anything made since 2004 should work.

Cost – The Unity kit costs £75 a month if you have the professional edition, but there is a personal edition, which is free.

UDK (Unreal Development Kit) – The Unreal Engine 3 is a free game making software, which remains available for people still doing projects on UE3.

Minimum requirements for UDK:

·         Windows XP SP2, Windows Vista, or Windows 7

·         2.0+ GHz processor

·         2 GB system RAM

·         SM3-compatible video card

·         3 GB free hard drive space

Recommended for Content Development:

·         Windows 7 64-bit

·         2.0+ GHz multi-core processor

·         8 GB System RAM

·         NVIDIA 8000 series or higher graphics card

·         Plenty of HDD space

Cost – UDK is a free development kit, which anyone can access.

Game Maker – This development kit allows new and professional game developers to create cross platform games and publish them, either over the google app store or some other means.

Minimum requirements for Game Maker:

GameMaker: Studio (Program)

Windows XP or above

 512MB RAM

128MB graphics

Screen resolution of 1024×60   

 Internet connection for some features

Windows XP, Vista, 7 or 8

·         512MB RAM

·         128MB graphics

Cost – Game-Maker Studio is free, but there are other versions such as Game-Maker Professional which costs £149.99 and Game-Maker Master that costs £799.99

Maya – Maya is a 3D animation, modelling, simulation and rendering software which is mainly used by artists/Game Designers.

Minimum requirements for Maya:

·         Microsoft® Windows® 7 (SP1), Windows® 8 and Windows® 8.1 Professional operating system - £39.95 for 8.1 professional

·         Apple® Mac OS® X 10.8.5 and 10.9.x operating system

·         Red Hat® Enterprise Linux® 6.2 WS operating system - £5,944.90 for the red hat

·         Fedora™ 14 Linux operating system

·         CentOS 6.2 Linux operating system

·         64-bit Intel® or AMD® multi-core processor - £114.01 for the AMD multi-core

·         RAM 4 GB of RAM (8GB recommended) - £25.31

·         Disk Space 4GB of free disk space for install

·         Pointing Device Three-button mouse

Requirement costs:

Cost – Maya is a free modelling and animation toolkit.

Personnel:

Animator - Animators bring life to a game. They are in charge of controlling how the characters move, how they interact with the world and the NPCs around them, an animator you will need to understand the timing and appearance of human and animal movement and facial expressions, and be able to lip sync, they must know how to make emotions through the characters movements and have knowledge of programming.

Game Programmers - Programmers are the core of a game; even though every member of the team is important, programmers are the arms and legs. They have to code the game, so that the character can move, so events will start etc. Game programmers need knowledge in C++ and other program languages, along with having good problem solving skills.

Games Artist - I'm sure most of us know about what this job entails, they create how the game looks by creating building, vehicles, characters, surface textures etc. Games artists are the bread an butter for a game, without them the game would have no textures, it would just be a horrible pink and black checkered pattern on every object and character. To obtain this role you must be able to draw from life; convey facial expressions and emotions; imaginative and creative and have strong observational skills.

Audio Engineer - Audio engineers are the people that create each little sound within the game, from wind blowing a leaf, explosions being detonated, character voices, to ambient sounds and with each little sound, changes the atmosphere of the game. if you're interested in the role you will have to be able to compose and perform music; posses aural skills and a sense of timing; have a feel for the atmosphere of the game and have knowledge of tools and technology that help with assisting you in the creation of sounds. 

Creative Director - The role itself is fairly new, but as creative director you must see to the quality and feel of the game, ensuring that artwork, music and audio assets that make up the final product. to achieve the role you must be able to inspire artist, programmers, producers and marketing staff the to the peak of their ability; make tough decisions that effect the schedule and budget if the game; understand the bigger image of development; posses imagination, creativity and problem solving skills and have a good understanding of financial and managerial aspects of the games development.

External Producer - Working away from the publishing team they ensure that the game is commercially successful. They handle the co-ordination of releasing screenshots and demo disks with the marketing manager, while also handling outsourcing of audio, cut-scenes or language localisation with the developer's internal producer and running tests on the early stages of the game. To acquire this role you must be able to handle multiple projects at the same time; have good project management skills, including scheduling, budget and risk management and be able to manage people, time and resources.

What i am currently working on

While creating my game there are alot of problems and i have to solve them all by myself. Being able to create a game without assistance means you must have experience in all roles, coding, designing, animating, you must be equally adept at all of them. Of-course there will be a certain role that you excel at more than others and for me that would probably be designing.

At the moment i am currently juggling two games. One of them is a simple maze form of game where you will have to solve puzzles, by hitting switches to get through locked doors, and with each level being completed the harder the game gets. The second game is a 2D side-scrolling platformer where the character "Bob" must go and save his burger shop from turmoil, when a crew of explosive experts attempt to destroy it.

Hardware:

Computers – A computer is a console/device, which can be used to access certain items, such as: films, games, internet, shopping etc. They are also used to store information/data.

Peripherals – Peripherals are used to import or export data to or from a device. An example of input items would be your keyboard and mouse, while if you were to export data you would use a printer or monitor.

Dev Kits – Dev Kits or SDK are used to create applications for different software packages, like; software framework, hardware platforms, computers or game console.

Publishing:

Steam Greenlight – Steam Greenlight is a brilliant idea, which allows the public to browse through a variety of games and then rate them. The highest rated games then have a chance to be transferred to steam’s market place, for the steam audience to buy.

PSN (PlayStation Network) – This is a program that was made by Sony as an entertainment service that can be downloaded on smartphones, tablets, games consoles etc.

IOS - ISO (International Organization for Standardization) is an independent, non-governmental membership organization and a developer of voluntary International Standards.

Android – Android is a mobile operating system that was made by Google. It’s mostly installed on smartphones and tablets.

ID@Xbox – This program allows qualified game developers to self-publish games on Xbox One.

Self-Finance – Self-financing is when an organization has enough money to fund for itself. A pros of this is that it require no approval for your money and is the quickest way to secure money. The cons are that you may have limited resources, this can reduce the size of the business and you may not have the skills, knowledge and experience to be successful.

  

Indie Funding – this is independent developers creating small games and making money off of them. One of the advantages of this is that the developer can create almost any game they want (if they have the skill), the disadvantages of being a sole developer or a small company is that not many people know of you, so your games don’t get a lot of attention. A project named indie fund helps these small developers to become the next generation of game developers.

Crowd Funding – a project to raise money by getting a lot of people to donate small amounts of money within a long period of time. (Usually over the internet).

Grants – Unreal Dev Grants is a project to help developers using unreal engine to fund for their early stage of the game by donating up to $50,000.  https://www.unrealengine.com/blog/new-round-of-unreal-dev-grants-fund-education

Publisher – a publisher is the company making the game and selling it. So EA made battlefield 4 and sold it to millions of people, but they sold it earlier than they wanted to and consumers were given a broken game, causing people to be dissatisfied with the product and company, this is bad publishing. Giving a game a deadline can put a lot of stress on staff especially when people are expecting a game that tops the last one.

Time Constraints:

Deadlines – A deadline is a set date where you must complete your task and hand it in, on a specific date. If you don’t then there is usually a punishment/penalty. If you miss a lot of deadlines this can lead to you being fired.

Availability of Equipment – This is how much the developers can afford to buy. They may need 30 monitors, but they may not be able to afford it, so the game will have a later release due to lack of equipment, developers will have to test their game, this can prove to be difficult if the computers don’t have high end, CPUs, GPUs etc.

Availability of Personnel – To make a game you require skilled applicants, but getting the people needed for the specific task is harder than expected. The company has to think about the wages of the staff, how qualified they are, how many staff they need on one task, voice actors, game designs, programmers; all of the people within the categories have to be skilled at what they do.

Timescales for Clearances – How long it will take to get the game to be official, how long it will take for the game to be reviewed and given an age limit, reviews from “judges” to decide the rating of the game, and for the developers to decide if the game will have any delays to extend the development to fix any bugs, this would increase the date for it to be released.  

Steps and Ethical points about Games

Stimulus:

What is a brief? A brief contains the data that a client has prepared for the employee to follow, when asked to create a film, game etc.

Client Brief - A client brief is given to the employee, informing them about what the client wants within the game, as an example the folder would contain information about the genre, device it would be made for, how many levels and how many characters are made.

Own Brief - An own brief is data that the employee makes for themselves. if the client brief doesn't inform the developers about how many characters, levels etc. then the developer has more freedom to be creative. They are able to create as many levels as they like and as many characters because an own brief is a brief made by the employee.

Market Research - This is when the employee goes onto the internet to search for ideas, information, inspiration and consumers are interested in. Research isn't just limited to the internet though because developers can create surveys and hand them out to get feedback within a the local area.

Ideas Generation: 

Brainstorming - When brainstorming a developer will write down all the ideas that he/she has either gathered from inspiration or thought of on their own and list them on a piece of paper or within any other form such as word, power point etc. After, they will pick out the best ideas and combine them together. (if possible)

Mood Board - A mood board is a brief form of story that shows images of what the developer envisions the game to be, that is accompanied by text, explaining what is happening within the segment. This is to give an idea of the feel of the game, and how it may play.

Thumbnail Sketching - Thumbnail sketches are used to go through several ideas quickly. In a sense they are closely related doodles.

Concept Art - Concept art shows the stages of a project. It'll go through the cycle of the character, weapon and scenery. At the end stage, the art piece should be finished but it doesn't have to be put into the game because the created item/person is still only a suggestion.

Legal and Ethical Consideration:

Copyright - When making a game copyrighting the logo, title etc. are essential. If you don't Trade Mark or copyright it then people can steal the name, logo and idea of the game, leaving you with nothing, so it's best to make sure that everything is copyrighted to prevent theft.

Libel - When someone is found to be libel it means that they intentionally tarnished or slandered someone's reputation. 

How female characters represented within video games - Almost in every game women are categorized as sexual objects. Most developers create them with a scarce amount of clothing, leaving a rather revealing attire, followed by overly enlarged body parts. An example of this would be the old Lara Croft games.

 

Assignment 1: Understanding Digital Graphics used within Computer Games

Course: BTEC L3 Games Development

Unit 78 – Computer Games Graphics

Start Date: 28/09/15

End Date: 05/10/15

Tutor: Josh, Rai

Name: Wyatt, Chapman

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Assessment 1: Understanding Digital Graphics used within Computer Games

Within this assignment I am going to discuss, compare, and review different types of games, from 2D to 3D.

The 2D game I have chosen to review is Mark of the Ninja, a 2D side-scrolling, platformer. All games that are 2-Dimensional have 2D sprites. A sprite is an object, scenery or character.

Mark of the Ninja is about a man that becomes engulfed in the pride and honour of his clan, but also becomes corrupt from the power that resides in the Jade Flower. By mixing water with the crushed flower, the clan can then harness incredible abilities, which have helped them to advance through the ages. Only recently the Jade Flowers have started to wither, so the clan leader resorts to new ways for the clan, but someone doesn’t agree with the choice.

The aim of the game is to get through each level using stealth as the key factor. You can choose to get through all levels without killing anyone, which provides you with more points, or you can go through the levels silently killing everyone. You want to avoid all light if possible and use tools to distract the enemy away from your line of path. Moving along the in the game you start to learn about the secret of your clan leaders choice.

I believe this game uses a cel shading artistic style, although it’s not clear because of all the dark (mostly black) colours, but when the character enters the light we can see quite clearly, the black outline around the characters and very cartoonish style. The game encourages stealth by making anything within a shadow black. Once your character is next to a wall, or crouches on the floor in the dark, he blends in really well, but when you’re in the light we see the colours of the character indicating that you have been exposed.

Even though this is a 2D game, it doesn’t have the pixilated style, which most platformers are associated to have. The characters are smooth and well designed, along with the animations being fluent. To compensate for the dark, gloomy look that the game has. The developers/games designers have created a beautiful background, with city lights that pierce through the negative appearance of the main platforms of the level.

The in-game interface is very simple and only consist of a health system, score, tools and a few indications of the controls at the top right.

Mark of the Ninja doesn’t have any obvious texture art. Most of it is just black colouring, but there are 3D textures, such as, bricks sticking out from walls.

Planning your character's looks and animations is extremely important, and by doing it step-by-step you have space to make any improvements on the next stage of the picture. This gives the developers some ideas on how they want the character’s design to be like. Just because they drew the character, object etc. out does not mean it will be in the final publish of the game.

The 3D game I have chosen to review is Skyrim. Skyrim is a 3D RPG. (Role Playing Game)

Skyrim tells a tale about a prisoner, which is given an opportunity to redeem themselves.

Within the land of Tamriel, there was a war between humans and dragons. The dragons were gods among humans, but that didn’t stop the rebellion. After decades of slavery and slaughter, three brave heroes, which wielded the power of the voice, sealed away Alduin, lord of the dragons, within a time loop. This could only delay Alduin’s return.

On the day of the prisoner’s execution, Alduin had returned. Coincidently, Alduin appeared before the execution, your execution. This created chaos, panic, desperation and your means of escape. After escaping it becomes your job to defeat Alduin and his rising army of dragons. You must master the power of the voice and become “dragon born”.

Although Skyrim is a fantasy game, the artistic style focuses around photorealism. A lot of the colours are dark and gloomy creating a negative atmosphere. (Depending on the season) For example, in autumn, the trees are “dying”, losing their beauty, with every leaf that falls and fog gathers, dimming the light, lowering saturation and vibrancy. Summer changes that atmosphere dramatically though; light becomes more vibrant, the grass, trees, the landscape in general are more saturated, the shadows become far clearer and help to add to the beauty of the game, by having the light beam through the tree’s leaves, and wild life appears majestic.

The in-game interface within Skyrim is quite bare, it consists of a stamina meter on the bottom left, a health bar in the middle and a magic (magicka) meter on the bottom left. Also, we can see the enemy’s health bar, and a navigation bar at the top of the screen.

In terms of background scenery, there isn’t really any. Skyrim uses tall mountains (which are not accessible to climb) to block off the area that has only a white, black or transparent plain. While on the subject of mountains, let’s talk about textures.

In this image we can see that it is a 2D texture, but that is hard to notice because the developers made the model with parts that stick out and put a few 3D rocks to add the feel that the texture is actually 3D. In-fact most of the textures within Skyrim are 2D. From the ground, grass, walls etc. the grass is a little less noticeable because of the small patches of 3D grass, bushes and trees, that steer your view away from the plain texture. Of-course the PC version of Skyrim can help to fix this by installing mods that create true 3D models of grass, or you can get 4k textures of trees and other objects to make it considerable harder to see through the 2D trick.

These are just two examples of the concept art created by talented developers. On the top we see a beautifully designed idea of a dungeon within Skyrim, and at the bottom we see an incredible amount of detail put into a design of Markarth. (One of the major cities) both of them have a an amazing amount of detail put into them, but you must remember that even though a lot of time and effort was put into these, they are still only ideas and can be thrown aside later on for a better design.

Both Mark of the Ninja and Skyrim are completely separate games. Skyrim is about exploration and freedom. Creating your own path, while still following what you must do. Unlike Mark of the Ninja, the stealth system in Skyrim is quite lacklustre.

While Skyrim uses a fantasy, RP setting, where you discover mysterious creatures, places, people and have multiple options of how you go about that. Mark of the Ninja is more of a platformer merged with an action-adventure because on the platformer side of the game you can only really go two ways, and that’s left and right across the screen. Usually right being backwards and left being the path where you progress. While on the action-adventure side if you want to stealth kill someone with your sword you must enter a quick time event, and then press the appropriate buttons, within a time frame. Do this incorrectly and it can devastating consequences.

In Mark of the Ninja there is no freedom, and you have no obligation to change how you progress through the story. Yes. You can be stealthier, by not killing anyone, or can you do the opposite and go on a riot. Either way you cannot become a vampire, criminal etc. Mark of the Ninja doesn’t have a levelling system, and you can only buy new equipment and upgrade that.

The art styles are even further apart. Skyrim using photorealistic to try and produce a new reality, instead of using photorealism to copy from the real world. Mark of the Ninja uses cel shading, a very cartoonish art style. The good thing about a cartoon styled game is that it requires less processing power than if you were to make an extremely detailed world.

Assignment 1: Researching Games

BTEC L3 Games Development

Assignment 1: Researching Games

Start Date: 28/09/15

End Date: 02/10/15

Tutor: Wayne, Gallear

Name: Wyatt, Chapman

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Types of Genres – Genres are the different types of games; from FPS to RPG, or even combining the two, it creates a whole new game.

FPS (First Person Shooter) – The main aim for an FPS type of game is to gun down the opposing team. Once you have eliminated a certain amount, the team with the most eliminations win.

CS:GO (Counter Strike : Global Offensive) is an FPS that is extremely competitive. 

There is no single player/story mode. When playing multiplayer it requires you to think on your toes against the other team, especially because this is one of the most advanced FPS today, (In my opinion) so if you don’t think tactically you are going to fail. Listening to footsteps, knowing when to reload, where and when to throw a grenade, flash or smoke are all vital.

RPG (Role Playing Game) – This type game focuses on story, questing and leveling up. It needs hours of attention and comes with a bundle of side-quest to keep you entertained. Usually there will be skill trees, or another form of perk system.

Skyrim is about a man/women that was destined to be executed, until a dragon came out from the heavens, slaughtering everyone but allowing you to escape and advance your skills further.

Skyrim is the most known RPG. It’s got tons of content, a driven story, great levelling system and hundreds of side-quests. Made by Bethesda (known for their RPG games) Skyrim will take hours, weeks, or maybe months to fully complete.

Strategy – Strategy games make the player think ahead when playing against an opponent. They must know what to capture, what to build, when they should attack and who to create an alliance with. One wrong move at the start of the game, could create problems later on in the game.

Empire: Total War is an historical game, which has amazing detail. Released in 2009 it was far ahead of its counter parts, which made it very popular among new types of audiences and already made fans of the total war series. This strategy game isn’t just about fighting though, there are diplomatic issues, trades that must be made, and naval battles must be fought. Land needs to be conquered and so war must be set.

Action – Action games demand fast reflexes, great accuracy, and timing to beat each level. Most action games merge with different genres, like battlefield 4. It’s a FPS but also an Action game that needs you to have better reflexes and accuracy to beat your opponent. Interactive movies can also merge with the action genre by adding quick time events, like Until Dawn.

Until Dawn is a horror game, where you play as 7 characters that must survive against a murderer and the Wendigo. Full of quick-time events, you panic to keep the characters alive throughout the story. One mistake can lead to the permanent demise of a character.

Simulation – These games are usually over complicated (like buss simulator) because of how many controls there are, but that is because simulation games try to copy the real world task of being a bus driver.

Each button, screen etc. can all be used and will be used so that you can understand, even if it’s just a little, what it’s like to be a bus driver. Mainly all you do in this game is drive around, pick up people that are standing at a bus stop and dive them to their location.

Action-Adventure – This type of genre has very interesting and popular games. The main type of games for this genre are [hard-core] stealth games or survival horrors.

Fox Engine: Metal Gear Solid V’s engine started being developed after 2008’s Metal Gear Solid 4 with the hopes of making the “best game engine in the world”.

The Metal Gear Solid series has a very heavy aspect of hard-core stealth game-play, except for the newest one of the series, all previous games needed you to use stealth throughout all of the story because that was the most efficient way for the player to progress.

Sports – The sport genre consists of competitive games such as Forza, an online and single player track racing game; or maybe people would prefer to play tennis on their Wii. In today’s generation of gaming most people play sports games on their Wii, PlayStation interactive controller, or the Xbox 360/Xbox One’s Kinect.

Forza series is just one of the most popular car racing games, and it’s not just because of the amazing graphics but the wide variety of cars to buy, or earn; leader-board placements (trying to get, or stay number 1) and the locations that you can race on.

Platformer – Platform games have been around for years. Almost all platformers are 2D with the exception of Fez having a 3-Dimensional camera used to see the level at a new angle. The idea is that you get placed within a level and have to make it to the end without dying, but it’s not that easy because there are obstacles in the way and puzzles you have to figure out.

Because of the advancement in technology players can now invite their friends over and play together on super Mario bros, this adds a whole new diverse way to get through the levels because players can pick each other up and then throw them over obstacles, or you can even throw them off the edge to kill them if you really feel like it.

The objective of Mario has never changed it's idea.You must complete a set number of levels before you get to the last level where you will then fight the boss and save Princess Peach from King Bowser and his children.

ETHICS:Impact on Games in Society

Games in society:

Concerns such as excess playing time – playing for long periods of time on a game can cause a lot of problems. One of these is involuntary movements, or urges to do certain actions, that would be done within a specific game. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/video-games/10663708/Excessive-gaming-can-cause-involuntary-actions.html this website explains the types of experiments they did on 762 forum users, which said they would avoid CCTV, try the grasp a gaming pad in thin air, or shoot things, or people with guns that were not there. http://thenextweb.com/insider/2013/01/12/what-makes-games-so-addictive/ this website states why excessive gaming can be fatal. Chen, a male gamer, was playing at an internet café, doing  a marathon of League of Legends when the very next day he was found deceased, paused in the position that indicated that while he was possibly undergoing a cardiac arrest, he still attempted to play the game.

Social isolation – Gaming can cause people to become addict and sometimes this addiction can lead to them cutting them self-off from the real world. By doing so most people tend to forget how to interact with people in the real world, in a normal way. Anti-social behaviour can potentially cause people to go insane. Let’s say that you put someone on an island by themselves for a month or two. Eventually they will go insane because of lack of social interaction. Now say that the island is a bedroom, where someone plays games only by themselves, the same thing will happen because we are not anti-social beings, we must communicate with other people.  https://socialwellness.wordpress.com/the-causes-and-impact-of-social-isolation/ this article tells us the effects that social isolation can have on people. They can feel more depressed, feel like they have less energy.

Cost – Playing games can have a very big impact on your wallet. Along with the console you have to pay for, there will also be several games you will buy for the starting console of your choice, the cost can go up to £500+, and that’s only your console and some games. Imagine how much you will spend over the years just buying games. 

The problem isn’t just with physical objects though. Now days you have to buy in-game items with real money, just to progress to the next level. A perfect example of in-game temptations is Clash of Clan. This mobile game has an in-game currency called “Gems”. These gems can be used to instantly build, or upgrade items in your village. There are only two ways to get gems, and that’s using real money to get mass amounts of gems or waiting for clutter to build up and then removing it to collect 1-8 gems.

Separation from reality – There has been incidents where excessive playing and social isolation have come together to confuse reality with the gaming world. This can cause people to question if they are in a fake world (when in actuality they are in the real world) and think that the gaming world is where they belong, that it’s the real world. Because of this some people have committed real world crimes, such as: car theft, murders and try to recreate scenes from games, which can be gruesome and inhumane. http://www.criminaljusticedegreesguide.com/features/10-deaths-caused-by-video-games.html  numbers 3, 5, 8, are the main stories that were people that got confused and obsessed with their games.

Benefits – Playing certain games that require you to be quick thinking and move precisely when needed can also translate into real life situations. Games can increase cognitive functions, hand-eye coordination, reflexes and the time it takes you to look at a situation process it, then think of a solution on how to tackle that situation. http://www.theguardian.com/education/mortarboard/2013/mar/20/can-computer-games-sharpen-your-mind in this article someone states that just by playing games he’s able to unwind and relieve stress levels so that he can go back to work with a focused mind set.

Thinking and strategy skills – Some games are made specifically for this reason. Take the military for example. They use game simulations to help them sharpen reflexes, make quick judgments of situations, plan their next attacks strategically, increase teamwork and help with the psychological problems with war. http://www.polygon.com/2013/9/16/4738616/the-future-of-video-games-in-the-military this article explains what the military use games for. Some of the text is opinionated near the bottom, I would advise that you ignore that.

Future impact – With the way things are going, games are taking over everything. People are using wii sports to stay healthy and fit, instead of going out and doing it in reality, children are playing activity games, such as catch on PlayStation Champions. Socializing has become something that people do more over the internet rather than online. http://thenextweb.com/insider/2011/08/31/video-games-are-the-future-and-theres-no-way-to-avoid-them/ this article explains how things are going at the minute, and how new people are being introduced to gaming.

 Psychological factors: 

High score listings - Having high scores within a game is stressful because once you have 1st place you want to keep it, but anyone, anytime can beat that score, by just getting one more point than you, so because of this people come back to the game and spend hours trying to beat the new world record. This benefits the developers because it creates "loyal fans".

Competitive games - Competitive games have an amazing life span. This is because it's hard to get bored of beating other people. Once you find someone more skilled than you, it becomes stressful, knowing that someone out there is far superior. To prevent this people practice over and over again to hone their skills. In most games this can lead to people buying extra content to get better gear.

Peer pressure - Peer pressure with games is common. if you have ever had a friend tell you about some amazing game that surpasses all other games and you should go buy it because it's fun and he/she would love to play with you, then that would be classed as peer pressure. Your friend is giving a biased opinion that makes you question your own opinion and therefore causes you to want to buy the game, even if you didn't like it from the start, the fact that your "best" friend is telling you about it in this way makes you cave in.

Fun - A major factor within games is whether or not you enjoy them. Pick a type of game that suites your needs as a gamer. After all the main attraction of games is entertainment. If you're not having fun, then why are you playing that game. Even if you get angry at a game it can still mean it's fun, it's just that your stressed because you're stuck on one part.

Educational value - More and more games in today's generation are aimed at helping your brain to learn, or training your brain to hone reflex abilities, and hand to eye coordination etc. In the military they use war simulations so that soldiers can practice shooting a gun and killing the enemy. Of-course it wont have the same impact than if it was done in real life, but it's used to prepare them for what to expect. Games for the elderly are mainly used for amnesia patience or people recovering from strokes because games can help to nurture their brains recovery.

Expectations - Lots of gamers will overestimate a game from the predecessor, or from trailers and teasers. Expecting the sequel to be just as amazing as the first one, whether gamers know or not, this puts an incredible amount of stress on the developers. Take Valve for example; they made Half-Life and Half-Life 2, but they are afraid to make Half-Life 3 because of the expectations. They know that if they don't make a game that the consumers deem worthy of their demands then the developers will be sent hate mail, death threats etc. 

Leveling - If a leveling system in a game is to be implemented then it has to be balanced. The developers should not make an exp system and expect gamers to grind for 12 hours just to get to level 2, because they wont, it would just become boring and everyone will start to get bored, which means hate reviews will go online, then sales will drop and the company would have to eventually abandon the game because of the lack of funds. 

Yet if the developers make an excellent leveling system people will play for hours because they intend to become the strongest within the game and that can only be done by getting the level cap, to get the best loot. Borderlands for example had an original level cap at level 50, then they brought out DLC that contain 11 more levels, this brought back some of the fans and got gearbox some extra money, then they thought we'll increase the level by 11 again making the max cap at level 72, but of-course this also got people to buy this DLC, just so they could stay max level and have the best loot.

This is a small game sketch i did on paint, it's certainly not amazing and eye catching but it was just something quick i did to get the general idea. Basically the star is the starting point (bottom left, blue object) then you have to jump over the spikes where you will make it to the other side, then you jump on the platforms, onto the booster, grab the "warp gun" and then rush to the exit.

Game Plot (Character's goal, item information etc.) - the character's goal is to deliver 8 golden hearts to the evil empire. This empire wants the hearts for their incredible power. With this power they plan to dominate every piece of land. You are one of those people that want this power, and is being payed a hefty price for them. but while rushing there the character encounters hunters trying to take back the sacred hearts. Each time she accidentally drops one and leaves it behind, she will lose money off of her reward (end of level money to buy new upgrades). The hearts are your health and can be restored after you have finished the level or steal back the hearts before the hunters sneak off with them.

Throughout each level you will encounter chests. These chests have loot within them, that will help you in the long run, especially the chests with gems above them. Chests will be hard to get to as you progress and the player will have to decide whether to risk collecting the item for a later advantage, or to pick the safe route and possibly struggle later on. Each level will have several possible ways to complete it and i'm not talking about 2 ways but about 2-4 ways of completing the level, and considering the simplistic nature of the game, that's a fair amount.

The CCTV cameras watch your every move, and will decide accordingly where to place traps. The traps can be quite deadly; from closing a pathway off, giving a countdown to complete the level, giving out fake chests, or spawning more enemies in. It will also resort to cheap taunts, in an attempt to aggravate the player. This could lead someone to want to complete the level twice as much as before. Yet this isn't just your "arch enemy", the CCTV camera will also record each level you complete. This recording will assess where you will be on the scoreboard. Faster the time on a level, the higher up on the scoreboard the player will be.