Project 4 - Post Mortem

This prototype was totally a unique experience. There was literally no restrictions. This also presented a problem where we could be paralysed by freedom of creativity. But I think our team did a good job of coming together with a game idea.
Everyone was given creative licence to voice their thoughts and our final game idea incorporated mechanics as defined by our Razor. We also divided tasks effectively. Level design was done by Chris, Yang and Triston and Programming done by Max, Jon and I. Of course, everyone also multitasked. Finally it all came together and the game was made!
A problem we had with this prototype was that we were trying to do too many things. There was practically no playtesting outside of our team and no iteration based on outside feedback.
Also, we were having difficulties merging code and version control with Unity. But with a bit of effort, it was not a big problem.

Project 4 - Goobles!

The last prototype was very unique. Surprisingly, this time we had no clients!! This time we are to make our own game idea and work on top of that. We were given a few restirctions though. We are not to have any AAA game themes , the producers are not to be involved in the game design process and we are to develop a razor and work on top of that while designing the game.

Also, the teams were of bigger sizes this time around. My team was comprised of AJ, JJ, Mike, Max, Jon, Yang, Chris, Triston, Nathan and I. That's 9 people in all! We started brainstorming. Many ideas were thrown about, but we finally decided to make the game around destroying a laughing ball of Goo as suggested by Nathan.

The idea revolved around a ball of goo which is falling down a level. The player has to use traps, rockets and other weapons to destroy the Goo or atleast a significant part of it before it reaches the bottom of the level. The Goo would also be laughing. As it gets attacked, it splits up into 2 based where it gets hit till it gets so small that it cannot split anymore. At this point, an attack can destroy the Goo.

The first week, we were building up a concrete idea. I spent time learning Unity. I went through some tutorials at Digital Tutors and got pretty comfortable with Unity. 

Next week, we got together and discussed how to go about programming. Max had made a demo level which looked good. I decided to work on top of that I took up the task of building an inventory and buy system and the GUI of the game initially. Worked with Max to streamline development and had a good prototype by the 3rd week.

By this time, our big ball of Goo had changed to a collection of smaller units of Goo which separate based on forces acting on it. This seemed better from a prototyping point of view.

Chris, Yang, and Jon also worked to create new levels. This was awesome as this enabled us to utilize our strength of higher numbers and also to figure out what type of levels would work best. I integrated code to Yang's level and made it work. It also helped me learn a lot about importing assets into Unity and working with them.

As there was a bit of a communication gap between Nathan and the team, finally it was suggested that a black and white look would suite the game. Also, it was decided that the Goo does not laugh.

AJ, JJ and Mike provided good direction and did a good job of keeping things working together. They also provided some sound assets.

I thought the game was good. But it needed a lot more playtesting. Also, i think every team member put in efforts. Max and Jon were awesome with their programming.

And that's it.. the end of the last prototype for this semester. 

Project 3 - Post Mortem

The game was, in my opinion a resounding success. Not many people thought that our card game would steal the lime light! Almost everything went well for the game from day 1. It was due to very fast prototyping and iteration and playtesting that we were able to achieve this. My team mates were just too awesome! Our team gelled together superbly. Thank you guys. Would be my pleasure to work with you guys again!

Project 3 - CONVERSE!

This month's prototype is to be made using HTML5. I was really excited with the technology and was looking forward to the clients and my team. There were 2 clients, one of which wanted a game based on Shoshone and the other was the psychiatry department which wanted a game to help autistic young adults.
My team was Zack (Producer), Jake (Who wanted to do art this time), Max (Engineer) and me (Engineer of course!).

The first week and good part of the next was full of brainstorming and physical playtesting. We brainstormed and then decided a card game would be a good way to create a game based on conversation. And we named it .. CONVERSE! Also, Our game was chosen to be featured on Utah News Break by Matt Jensen who would be filming our team's progress the entire month. Cool!

The playtesting was very critical to the project. We managed to try out many ideas and tried to find out what elements of the ideas made the game fun. Once we got a hang of what we wanted as a game, we started the coding process.

Me and Max started with the coding. Max is a code demon. I thought it best to help him and compliment his work and I guess it worked very well. I was able to contribute portions of game and integrated it with Max's code. Roger also helped us out by providing valuable suggestions, like to introduce a money management system instead of using swag to buy stuff.. etc.

By the 3rd week beginning, the game was pretty much done. And we playtested it a lot with friends and family. We got a lot of feedback and we incorporated most of it. We also found out proper values for game items and also tinkered with environment cards. The game was initially too difficult, but after a while, it was balanced.

Finally, on the 4th week the game was ready and Zack did a great presentation to the clients. They were highly impressed. They eventually offered us an internship in the summer if their dept gets funds to fund us. We would be only too happy to do the same.

Week 1

Week 2

Week 3

Week 4

The game is hosted on the following link. Play it if you get time!

http://www.psych.utah.edu/Converse/html/Converse.html


Ciao!

Project 2 - Post-Mortem

The game pitch went well. The client was satisfied with what we had to offer and he said so himself!

The post-mortem was done on the game after that. W mainly discussed how difficult it was to get a solid game idea, how many times the idea was changed and how difficult it was to find a fun mechanic to make the game not feel like homework. We agreed that instead of just dishing out an unfinished game, it is better to focus on developing the idea at this prototype stage. Yes, we faked our presentation and are proud of it! :D But I had also made a working prototype at the end of the last day too if it was needed. Finally, everything fell into place and it paid off!

Project 2 - Week 2 to 4

The game idea went through many changes. Finally, it was decided that we use a money mechanic to inject some fun into the game. The users would be hired as a engineer for Dr. Andrew D Sorder and its up to them to keep the Steam Power plant up and running with maximum efficiency.
There would be wages which is essentially the difficulty levels. If an engineering problem is solved successfully, the player would be rewarded with more money. If he fails, eg. blows up the engine, his pay rate is reduced and he may have to pay to get new parts for the engine or repair the engine.

The challenges themselves would be displayed diagrammatically. The individual components like the boiler can be clicked upon to get more details about it which would help to solve the problem.

2nd week -
Skeleton of the game made. Got textboxes working.

3rd week -
Got text input working. But at this point, Brianne said that Roger advised to fake the game. So, we threw it out.

4th week -
Got a power bar animation working. If correct answer, it stays in green zone. If not, it goes to red zone and the boiler blows up. Also, made the final prototype by incorporating all the art into the game. Even though its not a fleshed out game, it looked pretty good finally.

For the final presentation. none of the above was used. The game was simulated by using Prezi! Yup - That's right! But, the presentation went well anyway. The client liked it and said that its exactly what he wanted. That made my day!

Project 2 - Week 1

September 17, 2012

New week, new teams, new clients.. new game! Exciting !

There were multiple clients for this month's prototyping. There was the mechanical department, wanting the students to make a game using their tread-port for patients. And there were other departments, like the mechanical department which wanted a gamified version of a thermodynamics textbook.

I was very excited to work on the tread-port as I want to work on virtual reality and related stuff, but it was not to be. But I was appointed to work on the thermodynamics one. It's ok. Makes you realise that you dont get to work on the games you want even in the industry.

I was with Brianne, Triston and Jake this time. We brainstormed ideas on what could be done with the game and also had a talk with the Professor (Bob Roemer). He basically wanted a game which could be given to students as homework, through which they could understand thermodynamics better. There would be problems presented graphically, and the student is supposed to solve it using a calculator and type in the answer in a text box.

Well.. the fun part is thrown out of the window at this point. So, we got together and tried to think up ways which would help put in some sort of interactivity in the game. I could not help too much as I remember almost nothing of thermodynamics.

Spetember 19, 2012

Based on our discussions, Brianne gave the presentation to the professor. He likes it and we gear up to start working.

We broke up the game into tasks and all of us picked up one. I picked the hint mechanism.

Worked on XNA the whole week and got the hint mechanism up and running.

Project 1 - Week 4 & POST-MORTEM

Monday - Sep 10
Finally, the day for the dry pitches arrived. The game was pretty much finished, except for the timer and the end game splash screen. The pitch went fine. Roger and Bob gave some useful feed back to better the pitch. Have to work on that.

Wednesday - Sep 12
Zeph did a very good job of incorporating the advise given for the pitch. This time around, he gave his best presentation yet. Not sure if Kate liked the game, but when she later came to play the game, she was pretty excited. She was of the opinion that the bees could be bigger and also raised concern of how the game would look on an iPhone.
Anyways, we gave her the game and the associated materials on a DVD. Before she left, she gave us some of her company's cheese again! Yummy!

The Game Pitch

The Game Video

POST-MORTEM

Now, it was back to business. Robert explained the post-mortem process and how to go about it. The team got together and had a constructive and honest discussion about the development process and experience.
It started with how we went about discussing the game ideas, how the 1st pitch sucked, the confusion after the game idea was changed by the faculty, our initial struggles with MOAI, how we got things finally working  one step at a time.
We found that one of the biggest challenges was to manage the work load. Having an engineer of Jon's stature had its advantages. I was able to learn a lot by interacting with him. But it also meant that he was much faster at grasping stuff than AB and me. I did my best to contribute by doing all the animations and contributing with some Box2D stuff. But I wanted to do much more. Maybe next time. The learning was worth it.
Hopefully, the whole process will enable everyone to work better next time.

Thursday - Sep 13
The producers were supposed to give the same pitch presentation to the capstone undergrad kids the next day. As he could not go, I jumped in and took the opportunity.
Reached the venue at WEB on time. Was a bit nervous at first, but I was looking forward to it so much, that it all went away. Helped the others with the presentation and distribution of flyers.
Finally it was my turn. My first presentation on US soil! Wooohoo!
I must say it went much much better than I expected. Robert and Roger too appreciated my effort and it made my day! :)
Got to interact with the kids after the presentations were over. It was interesting to listen to their ideas. I tried to help them with their queries. Hope it helped them. Its not like I am John Carmack.

Anyways, next week its a new client and we get to work on a new tech - XNA! Looking forward to it. :)

Project 1 - Week 3

MOAI's more or less demystified. I am now able to work much quicker now. I integrated the animations into the main code and helped Jon with clearing out some bugs. I also made the startup screens and an animation where the bees stay highlighted till they reach the cow. But that idea was scrapped. Now the bees just get highlighted at the moment its clicked on.
Made a video of our game and gave it to Zeph for the dry - run pitch on Monday. Excited to see what happens on  Monday.

Project 1 - Week 2

Its been a busy week. Things are definitely starting to heat up.

On Monday, the team got together and we were still getting to grips with MOAI. A lot of work is going in that direction. We were struggling with the technology instead of concentrating on gameplay. Have to sort that out quickly. I helped Jon with overlaying the sprite over the Box2D object.

On Wednesday, It was a much better picture. We divided our tasks. Jon had already made a skeleton on which AB and me could work on. I took up the work of animating the sprites. Zeph would work on the sprite sheet and give it to me. Initially it was tough, but then finally got it right on Saturday. Now I have to integrate the code with Jon's.

Let The Games Begin!!

Finally... the dream is a r3al1ty!

This marks the beginning of my game development blogs.

August 20. Monday 2012.
           This is the day I have been waiting for the past 20 years.. or as long as I can remember! I am gonna make games for a living! The journey was not easy and a lot of people - my family and friends helped me reach till here.

The first session was Projects 1. After introduction to the professors and a really long kick-starter from Roger, a client walks in and starts talking about the game she wants to be made for her company - The Beehive Cheese Factory.

Whoa!! That's right! Its a real client, who's willing to pay real money to make a game! That got me off guard!
She went on about the company, gave us samples of cheese and we started on game design right away! We have a month to create a prototype of the game and if she likes it.. Jackpot!! $$$$

The cohort (a geeky alternate to class) was divided into 7 teams. Each team is to pitch a game to the professors and the client on wednesday! My Team was Zeph, Aaradhya n of course, yours truly :).

The brainstorming sessions started, various ideas got thrown about, n finally we agreed upon a mortal kombat inspired cheese game! HAHA! Cheesy..

Perfected the game and prepared for the pitch on tuesday.

August 22. Wednesday 2012.
The game pitch on wednesday started with an addition to our team. Jon , an engineer working at Disney was added to our team. He would also double up as the artist. I, was EXCITED to have him on the team! An actual employee of Disney! In my team! This is what I have come here for!!

The game pitch could have gone better. But it was ok. Ended up confusing everyone with our ambitious game. It was basically a game where 2 mice are trying to get to the cheese factory first and throw cheese at each other to delay the other mouse. But it turned into something of a complicated mess. Hehe.

Now that the pitch is over, its down to the drawing board again. But one of the biggest issues was.. we had to make the game using MOAI SDK and NO ONE had any idea about it. Not even our profs! How bout that! Guess they like throwing us to the wolves. But I am game for the challenge.

MOAI.. Bring it On!!  Bwahaha!!!!