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!