Blog Critique
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As part of Game Design 2: Game Production, we have to provide feedback and critique to blog posts by other students. This blog entry will be updated with links to each feedback and critique provided in comments on other students’ blogs. 1. Linn Mellström – Harpoonhttps://limegamedevelopment.wordpress.com/2018/02/07/forsta-blogginlagget/#comment-3 It is clearly delivered what the assets being created are and why these assets belong in the game. The author made inquiry and research into harpoons before designing the asset. The information is valuable however could be improved by discussing how the references and research gathered affected her design of the asset since the assets are meant to portray a Japanese fishing boat but the research she had was based on Northern European sources, and as such would warrant if this had any effect on how she portrayed the asset. Outside of that it provides valuable information into the artist’s process of designing and producing the asset. The post could perhaps be improved further by showing the few sketches that were made and discuss what it is that did work or didn’t work in each design sketch. By comparing the sketches and reflecting on each sketch, the reader would be granted greater insight into the art and production process for the asset. 2. Cai Songqiao – Enemy Designhttps://caiart.wordpress.com/2018/02/15/development-blog-2-enemy-design/#comment-3 The blog post is introduced as a reflection and information about the enemy design yet seems to be more focused around the perspective of the game and how that affected asset creation rather than going into detail on the process of designing the enemies themselves. In context to the perspective and how it affected asset, you explain how you did it and briefly why you did it. Sketches for work-in-progress enemy designs are provided in the post but there is hardly any reflection on these sketches or the thought process in the design of them. If the post was meant to be focused on enemy design and not how perspective affected the design, you could improve the post by reflecting further on the design process and where you intend to take these designs further down the line as they are still only in the sketching stages. Statements such as “art in top-down games is usually ugly” can be highly subjective, and I would recommend refraining from making such statements in the future unless able to provide some sort of argumentation for this or discuss further why you believe so and how it affected your design. In context to the reflection on this topic, I believe you could have said what you wanted to say without making such a controversial statement by examining further how this change of perspective from top-down into 45° angle improves readability of assets in your game. The post is somewhat hard to read because the flow is broken by occasional grammar and spelling errors, and as a result the post would require some editing to improve the general flow of the text. 3. Christopher Haibel – Scrum + Grumpy = Scrumpy, A Coincidence I’m Sure…You present Scrum and your experiences in a clear manner, providing summarized information as to what it is, how it functions and why it is used. The screenshot you provided is too small to be of any use to readers. You mention details about some problems arising to the inexperience of the group with the scrum methodology, but mostly talk about how it has affected you. It would have been interesting to get more reflections on what it was that your group overall struggled with and perhaps thinking about what may have been the reasons for it. Was it simply due to the inexperience or could there have been other factors that played part of it? It would be curious to know why you thought to yourself “Do I have to?” regarding the stand-up meeting and what contributed to these thoughts. 4. Mikael Ferroukhi – Game Design Journal 4It is clear the what, how and why of the post. The post is rich with insight into the thoughts and ideas behind the level design for your game. It is thorough and concise in terms of where your design ideas began and how they changed as you began to explore what worked and what didn’t. Perhaps the post could be improved further by more of a breakdown for the thought process that went into your design of the level presented in the images. Even though it isn’t necessary, it would further detail your thought process in the level design with the reflections made earlier in the post. Overall however there is little that needs improvement as the post is quite detailed, however while you talk about having a scrolling or looping background from side to side and following that you mentioned that you wanted to have a randomized level but scrapped that idea. Did you still maintain the looping background or was the scrapped as well? It just doesn’t feel clear whether you had begun making experiments with a looping background and if that had been implemented or not. 5. Alexander Sinn – How Has Playtesting Affected The Development of Umibozu?This post was an interesting read and divided appropriately into sections that improved the flow for reading through it. You are specific about the how, what and whys in the purpose and performance of the playtest, and there is little need for improvement. It covers the main aspects and reflects your thinking about preparing for the playtest. I am not surprised that you found yourself sifting through feedback to separate comments that were only memes and provided no value at all to the playtest, as I had heard others experienced the same. It is a shame that your Beta playtest couldn’t be set up due to technical issues. it would have been curious to know what changes you had made and how they had affected the player’s perception since the alpha, especially since some players had reported feeling motion sick. If there was anything to be improved about the post, you could have gone into details about the feedback survey’s questions and taken examples based on that on how you avoided manipulating testers. This is not necessary but would provide further insight into your playtest preparation. 6. Carl Leong – Time to dissect a fresh corpe: Aetherial Post MortemYour post-mortem goes into depth on interesting aspects of the game production in particular the importance of building a strong connection with a team and being able to have complete trust and honesty between individuals. However, I find the post-mortem somewhat lacking in context to the actual game produced by the fact that you barely go into any detail on elements of the game design, art direction and final product outside that you mention that you are fairly satisfied with the project as a whole outside of some sounds and that the animation process was time consuming and difficult. I’d have been interested to see more delving into what and why you think some things in the game worked and why they did or did not work. It would have been curious to get further insight in the overall art production as well and not just the animation, and whether you are satisfied with the results and why. You mention that your workflow has evolved as you went about working on the project, it would have been interesting to hear how it has evolved and how it affected production in more detail. I think your reflections on team work are important, and it plays a huge role in the development process. As such, it was an interesting read to see your thoughts on it now that the project is over.  |