Design Chemistry

Design Chemistry

       I can relate to this idea, of small teams of people working as a group to make something big. In our class (Design 101) we have a final project of making a board game. Were all in our own little groups of around five. When we all are out of the class are cool with each other. We get along good and share funny story’s and jokes all the time.  When it comes to time that we all work together on a project in class, such as a werewolf game we played toward the beginning of class, we worked together and made an awesome balanced game. Then there are days were we are put into small groups to make separate in-class games. When it comes to these for some reason we get into survival mode. Once our games are made we pass them around for a critic - If u can call it that. I took a college writing class in high school and we did this EVERYDAY! It was done right we all passed our papers around and talked about them freely without the creators input. It was well oiled and all the comments were thought out and were reasonable. But for some reason in Design we get defensive and have an angry tone toward each other. It seems were trying to one up each other when we should be working together to help each other to improve our games in larger terms, help us learn. There are some people who give great feedback, but there are times were I believe people are actively seeking out ways to say that your game is terrible. I understand I want to know when my game is bad so I can fix it, but there come a point the info they are trying to relay back to me is nothing but hate with no back up. Were I’m getting at with this tangent is that even though we are a group of people with the same goal, to learn as much as we can from the class and succeed in the industry. I feel like once were put in our separate group we go hostile on each other. It seems because we become closer to our group mate more so than the entire group. Thus I believe if it’s a large team that they work as one team not many teams.

Prototyping

Prototyping

           

Prototyping is something most people don’t directly think about. Usually the thought process starts at the design process of how the game is going to work and such and people argue or debate on what should be what and such, when time is better spent on testing the ideas in a mock up or a prototype. Why not take all the ideas into a simple state and play them all out. The time spent on bigger project debate what should be in the game or not can be spent on testing the idea on the field or in this case the game. Getting people outside of the development side to test these prototypes is also very important. The developer made the game and has a sub conscious on how the game works. Where an outside mind is coming in with a fresh slate and will tell you out right what they think or saw. It can be scary to put out a prototype to test, but it’s needed. Yeah it’s not finished, so you will get feedback but failing is learning. What better time to fail while your building than when its officially out. I can’t wait for next week’s class, because we get to have our prototype tested by others than our group.

Chap 4 Work

Veelox – “V- Locks”

                Veelox is a bread warrior. As a child his family left him to die as their village was ransacked by savages. Instead of being killed by the savages Veelox was taken with them. The so called ring leader took Veelox under his wing, educating Veelox and teaching him how to fight.  Veelox was one of the few of the group that was well educated and soon grew apart from the rest of the group. He ran away around the age of 14 and soon went vigilante the rest of his life, meeting some friends and enemies on the way.

Jonliu – “Jon-Lue”

                Jonliu met Veelox in the village of Wenz. Veelox herd there was trouble in the town and went there to help out with what he could. Jonliu was also a young man looking to help the world with his skills. Jonliu was a cleaver guy; he was skilled and small talk and thievery. Jonliu jailed as a kid and when he got out he knew he had to give back to the world, since the world gave him a second chance.

Winger – “Wing-Err”

                Winger they called him, cause of his signature mark he’d leave on his victims. Winger would cut the tips of his victims’ finger as if they were bird, making them unable to take flight. Winger was the pigeon keeper of his old village. They used them to send massages to other villages and towns.  He loved his pigeons so much that he didn’t want them to leave and so clipped the one feather need by bird to take flight, which is located at the tip of the wing. His village with no birds able to fly kicked Winger out and now Winger has gone mad without his birds and is going town to town murdering and torturing others.  

Chap 3 Work

Chap 3 Work

Take a game like starcraft2 and make it into a first person strategy game. That’s insane to think of, but also awesome. I remember there was a game that was called StormRise. I was extremely excited about this game. In a sense it was as close to a first person RTS you can get.  After all the hype it turned about to be a terrible game the camera didn’t work well and the game itself wasn’t fun. The idea stuck in my head though. If a good developer had this idea and took the time to do it right, such as Blizzard, I’m sure that this could be much fun.  SC2 fans would hate me for saying this but SC2 as that, a FPRTS, would be awesome to see.

Character Creation

DropBox Link  <--- Click

Game Mechanics Examined

Game Mechanics Examined

Great games have just enough game mechanics to make if fun, but they master these few mechanics. There are games that are amazing games, and have a lot of mechanics and they work. But most games that over throw the ball on mechanics lose it for me. A game with little mechanics but works great is Counter-Strike. You shoot and buy. That’s the jist of CS. A game with a lot of mechanics that work great is Metal Gear Solid 4. You had to watch your moral, health, ammo, money, etc. There was a lot of mechanics that flowed well together and worked out.  Japanese games always seem to have tons of game mechanics. Which is great, but there are games that have so many that it’s too much to hand. In the end it comes down to if the game mechanics flow with each other.

Accessability

Accessibility

            So I decided to try out StarCraft 2 with this assignment, and boy did I piss off my teammates tonight. First I was told to play my game for 10 minutes with no arms. HA! Starcraft 2 with no arms? Well let’s just say, I got carried that match. Since I had no arms I put my mouse and keyboard on the ground so I could use my feet. Well the game went terrible. Half the time was spent trying to get the camera on my base, it was flying everywhere. Other than that I was barely able to make any units I was struggling to do the most basic actions.

            The next challenge was to play with no vision. I turned off my moniter and kept my headphones on. The thing was I memorized all the hotkey, so I was able to hotkey my way through the match with my teammates taking control of my army while I just built with hotkeys. It wasn’t as bad as no arms since the game is based off clicking and hotkeys more that visual play.

            The last challenge was to play with one arm. Just like the no vision the game is playable with just a mouse or keyboard. But best with both of course. SO I used only my mouse to play the game. It worked out just fine. I wasn’t as optimal as I orignaly was, but I was able to function the best out of the 3 challenge. Blizzard did a great job on ease of controls for SC2.