Project Aetherial Blog Six
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Introduction Finally! The finish line has been reached and crossed over! Ten weeks of work and different opinions have at last been passed. I cannot say my team have created an extraordinary game, nor a revolutionizing one, but we have a game that (to my knowledge) work without crashing, have a beginning and an end, and the team has survived! You usually never choose who you work with in a workplace, but there are worse and better outcomes in different team constellations. I would have to say this team has unfortunately been one of the worse ones in that regard. Anyway, let us not get stuck in the mud with the team and our adventures (that is a story for another day) and move unto slightly happier territory. I will just end this introduction by saying we all have to learn to cooperate with people we rather would not want to work with or people who view teamwork starkly different than you.
The game Our game, which kept the name Aetherial from the original concept document, ended up being three levels long and ended in a boss fight in a separate boss level. We did not implement a tutorial level, instead we simply showed the player at first how to move and shoot (only two actions the player can do in the game) and then started the first level. We did create two explanations for the two power ups in the game, but sadly did not implement them into the game, which might have lessened some confusion regarding our power up crystals. Though it seemed like, during the final playtesting session, that sound cues helped inform players that the crystals were positive objects to interact with and we got no complaints, to my knowledge, regarding the power ups. It is hard for me to say if the games difficulty was well balanced or not. I have played the game many times by this point and as such have no problem clearing it. When observing play testers, I noticed several who had some trouble reaching the boss level and others who simply breezed through it. We did get some praise for the first level, which while not a tutorial level still worked decent in easing the players into the game and teaching them the two main actions of the gameplay. What I can surely say is that we should have tried to develop the boss fight more or remove it completely. While the three “normal” levels worked to an extent (from what I could read from the playtesting feedback), several thought the boss fight boring, too long, and ending abrupt with no lingering positive feelings. Should we have had the time and motivation, we probably would have tweaked the boss fight after the final playtesting feedback, reducing the boss’ health points and maybe altered the attack pattern of the boss whale. I am still proud of our results, considering it is our very first time developing a game in our lives and the fact we faced difficulties within the team. What I personally would have wanted to add, seeing as I am a graphical artist, is more comic strips explaining some of the story. We only ended up with one picture seen when starting the game. I know pictures and cutscenes in any shape are a hassle for many people, but I personally enjoy them, and it would have been a good challenge to go about creating them.
Art and animation This project has thrown me head first into the very tricky and difficult craft that is animation. I can definitely say that my animation skills have improved throughout this production, considering I had not done any animation before this. Due to overseeing four different enemies with two animation cycles each, I have come to do a lot of animation in a short time span repeatedly. None of them are perfect and I learned early on to kill my darlings in order to create simpler and (hopefully) smoother animations. My common enemies were one hit kills, but I should have thought more how to include visual cues of enemies getting hit and them hitting the player. Together with our art classes, this game development has resulted in many hours with the drawing pad. I would like to say it has improved my art skills (though artists tend to always sell themselves short). It is also difficult to be a graphical artist with “mediocre” skills paired with a graphical artist who clearly have more experience and talent than yourself. This has taught me the most valuable lesson yet: you only “compete” against yourself. No matter if we one day will compete for jobs in the industry, right now you should never compare your skillset to others. This will only result in you being disheartened and viewing yourself as inferior. We are here to learn, polish our skills and fail! Final words My first game project has resulted in a product that, while definitely in need of improvement, is a good foundation that can be built upon as the program goes on. I will certainly have need of the skills I have learned in this course throughout my continued game making career. With that, I cut my tethers to this project and look forward to the next! Let us go onwards to the arcade games and thank you for reading! //Therese  |
