Composted Comments
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1: (Already Graded) [cghaibel, “Creating a Projectile”] https://wordpress.com/read/blogs/142440279/posts/3#comment-1 I think that the greatest strength of the text is how immersive it is. He explains his methods and though process in such a detailed and engaging manner that I forgot that I was reading a blog. It is very interesting to get such a clear view of how another graphic student approaches his tasks, and I found it all to be very relatable. However, I think the text would be a lot harder to understand if I didn’t study graphics. An example of this is the inclusion of a hexagonal color code “#96D0DF” and some basic Photoshop lingo, which while making it more enjoyable for me to read might have confused others. If this is intentionally aimed towards graphic students, then good job. The author sometimes uses inventive language to describe shapes. This is really nice and adds a personal touch when it is obvious what the author is referring to. The text has a fairly strong flow to it. It effectively conveys what it was trying to say. Well done! (Btw, nice title ^^)
2: [Mikael Ferroukhi, “Journal 2” ] It’s interesting to see how early you started with the animations. As it has proven to be fairly time consuming work, I reckon that this has payed off well. At first I was slightly confused as to why you decided to start animating a second enemy when the shark only had two frames in it’s animation, but I guess that it is better to have two animated characters rather than one during the early stages of creating the game. I enjoyed seeing to what an extent you used squash and stretch on the octopus animation, and it’s quite clever to recognize that it can be used especially well when working with an animal that’s already quite “squashy”. I imagine that animation to be very effectful when looking at the image that you posted. Otherwise, the text is easy to read, partly due to the nice use of paragraphs. The only time I had to re-read was at the beginning of the second paragraph. Neatly done! ~ Patrik Lindkvist
3: [Alexander Sinn, “Working with Scrum …” ] You seem to have put a relatively large amount of work into your post, which is really nice to see! I think it conveys your experience of working in a group, although it’s sometimes hard to tell what your opinion on certain points are. You do, however, seem to appreciate the scrum method, which I think echoes the opinion of most students. If I understand it correctly, in the last paragraph you mention that the motivation and hard work of the individual group member is arguably more valuable than making sure to check in on your team members. This may very well be true, but I surprised when I read this. The reason being that the biggest lesson I’ve learned from our group project is that I as single graphical artist can’t do all that much alone to affect the end product. Rather, it is a collective, group effort – the quality of which might be greater than the sum of the effort of the group’s individuals. Anyways, it was nice reading your post, and I appreciated the insight it gave me of how you and your team works! Have a nice day, Alexander! / Patrik Lindkvist
4: [carlgraphicscourse, “resuing assets”] It’s interesting to see the way in which you reuse your assets! Not only does it save a lot of time, but it can also make the game look more homogeneous, as long as it isn’t too obvious that the assets have been copy pasted. An example of when this works very well is the ship on the Main menu screen. It seems like you’ve made it slightly transparent, since the color tones blends with those of the background. This makes it look like it’s actually drawn onto the surface, while simultaneously hides the fact that it’s a reused asset, since it’s colors are desaturated and different. ~Patrik Lindkvist
5: (Already Graded) [Ellen のオタク日記, “Play-testing”] https://wordpress.com/read/blogs/142473381/posts/66 It’s interesting that you bring up the health component of the UI, as it was one of the things that stuck with me after seeing your game. Initially I was quite impressed by it. I think it is a very clever and original way to display health! But the next though I had was that it… kind of also didn’t feel intuitive that that was the thing that visualized the health of the player character. I think this was due to the positioning of the sprites on the screen, and their positioning in relation to one another. As I remember it (and I apoligize in advance if I remember things incorrectly!), the health sprites was in the middle of the screen. This is usually fine, but it becomes harder to get away with if you’re using an original way of visualizing health as you are. Games have taught us that the health is usually displayed in the top-left corner, and following this rule makes it easier to get the point across. Secondly, the individual health sprites (or health-light-bulbs) was perhaps placed a bit too far apart from each other. This made them feel like individual items, rather than parts making up one entity: The player health. And yeah, the red-ish color of the shield pickup did make it seem like something to avoid. The semiotic rule, as you put it, causes it to imply danger. That instinct only gets stronger when your playtesters are gamers, since games have utilized this alot which has probably further cemented this concept! These were the only two nit-picks I had about the graphical stuff, cause overall I think your game is definitely one of the best looking this year! And it’s quite funny that your playtesting caught both of these nit-picks, which only prooves that you’ve utilized the playtesting really well. I’m curious what kind of citique Mika gave you apart from the speed boosts key-binding, especially since you compared to getting a bucked of ice cold water emptied over you. (Btw, the animated fish in your previous blog post is amazing!) ~ Patrik Lindkvist
6: [Yinsong Hong, “Postmortem of final result”] Good day to you, Yinsong! Congratulations on the finished game! I’m afraid I missed out on playing it, but it certainly looks nice if judging by the screenshots. One of the arguably biggest challenges with the Umibozu concept from a visual standpoint was to make sure that it doesn’t look boring or washed out with the grayscale and the thick mist. It seems like you’ve pulled it off quite well by adding strong edges and the yellow color. I think you managed to discuss the difficulties you had in your group well. It’s simultaneously frankly and, in lack of a better word, kindly put. Although our group didn’t have these difficulties, the things you bring up are very relatable as you describe them, and your reasoning around these points suggests that you’ve been thinking about them a fair bit, as you’re able to offer good insight. Anyways, thanks for the read and good luck with the Arcade project! /Patrik Lindkvist
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