Entry #6: Wisdom, Knowledge and Teamwork
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With the FINAL Presentation coming up this Thursday, it´s time for a retrospective view of what I have learned throughout this course. This is not just for the assignment itself, but I also believe it to be useful as a preparation for the upcoming Arcade Project, where we will essentially have to apply every single principle we have learned so far in order to succeed. Since we have already talked about Agile Scrum I will not go over it again. Let´s get to it! Concept Creation and IterationAs a game designer, I craft the final player experience starting with the core rules (Mechanics). With the knowledge bestowed upon me by the Holy Scripture (the MDA Framework) After establishing some interesting core rules, it´s time to make paper prototypes. Testing the game this way requires you to think outside of a computer screen and can help focus on the pure mechanical possibilities of the game rather than how it looks (which is especially useful for me since I, as an artist am obsessed with precisely that). I think that letting other people play with your prototype is the only real way of figuring out whether the rules are actually fun even for people who don´t care as much about your game. It´s easy to get tunnel-vision when you are constantly invested in your concept. I also learned the hard way that pitching and ‘selling’ your concept can be a critical point in development. A setting where you can present your concept in a possibly ideal manner is where you will find out if anybody cares about your ideas at all. I imagine it would also be helpful to establish and understand your target demographic, though I have not had much practice with this so far. The responses we got from pitching and presenting became paramount to the positive changes that followed and partially reshaped our concept for the better. It is far better to scrap ten ideas for better ones than to ignore ten ideas for the already established ones. Planning WAY AheadDeveloping a game is no simple task. Almost every single asset and dynamic you want to have in the final game need to be written down and reviewed beforehand. What mechanics? What sprites? What animations? What sounds? Be careful to not over-scope. If you only have one coder it is important to always keep in mind that they will only be able to do so much per sprint. Plan in relationship to your resources. Make a contract with rules and standards you all agree to follow and adhere to in case of conflicts. Establish a level of involvement that everyone feels comfortable with. If four out of six people are doing most of the work because of a difference in ambition, it may hurt the group as a productive unit. You must be able to rely on each other and know what to expect in order to stay on schedule, not tussle, and avoid time-consuming delays. MVP (Minimum Viable Product)This is a new and wonderful concept for me. Essentially, it means that you work towards having a fully functioning game every step of the way rather than perfecting every element before moving on to the next. MVP has several benefits:
In short, if you enjoy stress, repetition, working over-time and slowly losing your mind, MVP is not for you. I, on the other hand, cherish my relative sanity. Final ResultI look back now at our workflow and level of execution and feel very content. We realized most visions we had about the game, and where we didn´t we still found a way to make it meaningful. I think we made consistently good decisions and listened to feedback, both from inside the group and outside. I know I´m stroking my own ego here, but I am genuinely happy with the outcome. One thing I think we nailed was the aesthetic theme of the game, ‘Heavy Machinery’ with a very mechanic choice of inputs. The mouse was never intended to be the mode of aim, although most intuitive to most, it was deemed too organic and precise of a movement. It certainly made the game harder to get a hang of, which was also intended. The classic arcade machines from which this game draws much of its inspiration would disregard the player´s initial familiarity with the game and force them to insert more coins if they wanted to get better. In addition to this, operating a big crane, a tractor or a digger is not necessarily something you would learn after doing it just once. There are many buttons and a time to press each. From an art perspective, I think we managed to emulate the feeling of old 16-bit shooters, both in visual and sound design. The greatest struggle I experienced was designing the background. Having a different image of what we wanted to the Lead Artist it took several attempts to even get the basic idea down. After completing the first iteration, I went back to work and re-work it every week following that, all the way until I left for America the same week as the Gold Deadline. Just before doing so, I made two alternative background scenes, fully ready for parallax and transitioning from day to night, then ending at dawn. This never made it into the final product. I think it was a shame that it didn´t (although totally understandable) since it would have provided simple, implied storytelling and display a deeper understanding of environment/set design. At least I proved it to myself! What about balancing then? I´ve played the game quite a lot, but not more than 10 times and I can consistently finish it. Every other time, I make one too many mistakes and get overwhelmed and destroyed. I think it´s in a good spot, where it rewards thinking ahead and punishes miscalculations, just how we imagined operating a big machine might feel like. Last WordsTo be honest, it is very difficult to put down exactly everything useful I have learned during this course since there is so much and I knew practically nothing before. It is very apparent though when I speak to others about the subject, that I have come a long way and fundamentally changed how I see games (and to some degree even people). The true test of knowledge and understanding now lies before us as we will have to apply all these new principles to succeed in the Arcade Games course (Arrrrrcade for those making pirate games). Thank you so much for reading! If you find that you disagree with me or feel that I missed mentioning something important, please feel free to tell me. I’m always curious to hear other people’s perspective. I hope you are satisfied with what you have learned so far and that you find success in the upcoming course! Kill’em with success, my friend!  |