Personal Statement:

Going ahead with my love and passion for videogames was an obvious choice that I didn’t need to think twice about. Ever since the Nintendo DS came out, I have always found myself eagerly waiting for the next game to release just so I can play it and gather inspiration for my own game concepts. Certain games that inspired this idea to begin to create my own games included games as old as Super Mario bros Wii to the Nintendo Switch’s newer releases such as Mario Odyssey and Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. 

 

While in school, the important skills that I have learned over the years are that communication and teamwork are extremely valuable, especially when working in a group of people. With the subjects that I have studied over the years I have learned skills that I can bring to this course to have the opportunity to excel but to also stand out from others. Some of these skills are as simple as maths and English skills but I have also learned creativity and adaptability from my photography GCSE. Arriving at college to start a games design and development course, I knew that the only option after this was to go to university to continue to develop my skills and passion for creating and making games. This college course has made me constantly strive for improvement and to make sure I am giving all of the assignment briefs my best effort. 

 

With the skills that I have learned for employment, I have learned from work experience was my experience at Nottinghamshire Wildlife Trust. I had gone to a workshop in 2016 to help them come up with ideas for a potential youth group for the Trust. On that day I was able to speak with one of the workshop leaders that gave me the opportunity to go to an official fundraiser event to make badges for over 4 hours. Not only did this test my communication skills, but also leadership. After this event, I was given the privilege to become the chair of that youth group for 3 years.  

 

To conclude, to be given a place on this course would mean that I would be able to further my experience and skills in this area. This also means that I can show my creative ideas and unique concepts. 

Project Pitch:

With the project’s ‘pitch’, this is a PowerPoint presentation to present the basic concept (idea) of your project to help your fellow classmates and tutors understand the basic concept behind your project’s pitch. I decided to make this project in collaboration with my classmate Joseph, because we have worked together successfully on past projects so it was a understandable choice to collaborate again.

Pre-Production:

The pre-production process hasn’t taken as long as it has in previous projects. This is because the project’s brief has been quite clear but also given room for us to make something creative and not thought of before. As this project is being shown to families we wanted to make it not boring for the adults but also entertaining for the younger children experiencing this project.

From the previous project we will be using the icon sketches from last time to further develop a new design, meaning not many major changes to the project. However, this doesn’t mean that the design will be made from scratch. We can just edit the existing designs and tweek what we need. Unfortunately, this isn’t the case with four out of the six characters we have because of them all being new characters with no existing concept art. This means that concepts need to be sketched out with a final design being compromised on.

Major changes to the art:

With the major changes to the art, we are aiming for a more kid friendly colour palette and also a cute but old fashioned look to all of our plushie characters.

This will be the base design for all 3 of our cat characters. We have Fifi, Flo and Dot.

For the base design for the 3 dog characters we will use this for Rosie, Willow and Bea.

We do have concept designs created but they will be edited and drawn up digitally. The process for these designs will be explained further in the production stages because it is a more reasonable choice. This means not only can I get the designs fully completed and be satisfied with them but this also means that I can focus on other areas of the pre-production stage.

 

Production:

With the project’s original concept, there was going to be six separate designs for characters, including dialogue icons to help represent the Luddites from their own perspective but also from others perspectives. This plan didn’t go forward unfortunately because of the time restraint with the strikes that had happened at college but also the fact of having to draw over 40 seperate drawings. 8 for each character. That would have equalled 42 digital sprites. Hopefully in a future project we can do something like that. With the process that is shown through the many screenshots, this shows just how indecisive I was with Rosie’s design. This was mainly because I wanted the design to stand out to children and for them to understand the tone of the different dialogue sections we included in this virtual experience.

 

Evaluation:

In evaluation, with the project’s overall completion I can say that I am happy with how it turned out. The project works perfectly and is able to convey the luddite’s past to all ages in a easy to understand way. However, if we did have more time, I would have added more characters to make it more interesting. This would have made it so that conversation could happen between the characters to keep the players entertained in the experience and to also make the project feel more complete. Looking back on this project, If I had the opportunity to change the art, I would without a doubt. I would take more time to shade, give volume to the dress, sketch more concepts, Just make the whole project of a higher quality on my part.

 

Video of final game

Introduction:

The project’s name is ‘Family Secrets’. This game aimed to be creative and to also stand out for the handmade art for our characters but also for the overall story line to stand out from the other projects, which it does. The project’s overall aims was to not only have fully functioning dialogue but also to have handmade artwork for the character designs and also for our game’s story to stand out with mystery and unanswered questions playing a major part.

Roles And Contributions:

For the individual roles and contributions made to the games, myself and Joseph had discussed a potential plan for the the production of our game. This included myself making the concept art, final designs and also making dialogue icons and full body designs for all of the characters. However, I also made textures for our assets in Photoshop and also made a draft script for the potential dialogue. Besides this, The contributions that I had made to our project took a lot more time and consideration for the overall final products.

The Positive:

The positive things that had occurred during our project was that the concept designs were completed easily and they also gave me a chance to further develop Fifi and Willow’s designs to make them look like stuffed animals (teddy bears). Another positive thing was that the overall art looked the way we wanted. The characters had a cutesy style but they also looked serious and like their individual personalities.

Screenshot of in-game dialogue

The Negative:

With this project, a lot of things had gone wrong. But this does happen with every project but the changes that have been made have made the game better. The main setback would have been my laptop crashing twice. This not only delayed the artwork from being finished but it also meant that the artwork could not be detailed as much as I would have liked to. However, this change did make the art still look great, even without shading. Unfortunately, some of the progress I had made on the artwork had been lost because of this issue.

Finn’s failed attempt

Fifi’s failed attempt

Willow’s failed attempt

The Changes:

The changes that were made to the game on my roles were not major but they did affect the final project. The main changes that were made was not having anything to chase the player as myself and Joseph couldn’t decide on a character concept to chase the player. This didn’t happen because we also were short for time. Another change that happened was that the full body designs on Fifi and Willow had to skip being shaded because of technical difficulties with my laptop as the drawing tablet I own doesn’t work on the computers. Looking back on the project’s completion, I am happy with how it turned out but I know that I could do better next time.

Before:

Willow’s failed attempt

Finn’s failed attempt

Fifi’s failed attempt

After:

Fifi full body after

Fifi after

Willow after

Progress:

With the progress of production of my contributions to the game’s overall completion, I would personally say that the progress was steady and constant, even with a few slips in the production’s process. With the timetable, it didn’t play a huge part in keeping myself organised as I prefer to work on one thing at a time until I am happy with the overall product. This meant that some assets or textures took longer than others because they were more complex or needed more time to be at a high personal standard.

First ever concept design for Fifi

Fifi’s concept art designs

First ever concept for Willow

Willow’s concept art designs

Ty Beanie Boos: Inspiration for the full body designs

Fifi’s base colours nearly completed

Willow’s base colours completed

Ten second video of game in development

Influences And Inspiration:

For the inspirations behind the concept of ‘Family Secrets’ to even the overall story-line, there was many different inspirations from not only other video-games that either myself or Joseph (My colleague for this project) have played and enjoyed. There are many different games that have inspired this game but the games that I found personal inspiration from were:

Five Nights At Freddy’s:

With the 8 game series (There are 7 games so far, the 8th is in development), The main inspiration was the lore (story) behind the games. The inspiration that I took from the series was to have the story be surrounded in mystery and have unanswered questions but to also have things that wouldn’t add up.

Latest upcoming installment in the series

Splatoon:

With Splatoon, The actual colours of the ink that Nintendo chose are what inspired me. The colours are not only vibrant but they contrast each other. This is known as complementary in artist terms. This inspired me to have some of my own art in the game but have the colour schemes be complementary.

Splatoon title cover for the game’s disc case

Mario Odyssey:

With the latest Mario installment into the huge series, Mario Odyssey took everyone by surprise. From the retro aspects to old characters coming back into this game with a modern spin to even the story line. The inspiration from this game was the creative flare and it showed that any simple idea can be developed into something truly spectacular.

Mario Odyssey title cover for the game cartridge’s case

Communication:

As this project was developed and completed in a team, communication was vital to getting this project to the overall game it is now. Our communication was constant because of ideas being developed further and also to ask questions or for help with a certain part of the project that we were working on. Communication was also present between myself and my tutors. This was not only to show the progress of the project but to also ask for advice and assistance on the project’s development.

Learning:

With communication, I have learned to make sure to address problems to my partner or tutors before they get worse. Also, verbal and physical communication is important as with verbal communication, words can be used to explain an idea but physical communication can show your ideas physically on paper or on a screen.

Survey Feedback Summary:

With the recent play-day, Myself and Joseph wrote a survey to get feedback on the game’s completion to see what our classmates and tutors thought about the final game. To summarize the feedback in a simple way would be to say that the majority of the feedback was extremely positive, However, there was a lot of constructive criticism and other potential ideas for the game if it was to be further developed in the future. Some of this constructive feedback included “I like the fact that it was pencil drawn and then moved over to computer maybe if you had dark outlines picking out certain features of the characters that would be good”. This is referring to the first question, which asked about the game’s graphics (More specifically the graphics for not only the heads up display but also the full body versions of our characters that you meet at the end of the game).

Evidence for the first constructive criticism

However to show more constructive criticism, “I think the game mechanics are straight and easy to follow, however I do think that the text could go a little bit slower, I did find that the text was going a bit too fast for me, also there should be some kind of music to relate to your game play. if you have been inspired by “Luigi’s Mansion” then think what kind of music they have used.” (This is referring to the second question which was on the topic of the game’s mechanics).

Evidence for the second constructive criticism

Conclusion:

In conclusion, the project outcomes were to make the game stand out and to have a good story-line. These were both achieved with the story being left on a cliffhanger and the game having handmade art to make it stand out. With the aspects of game design, I would like to be able to focus on getting my 3D modelling skills to improve but also to have more opportunities  for experimenting. With skills that I would like to learn and develop it would be on how to make AI’s (Artificial Intelligence) to make them potential enemies for future projects that I get the opportunity to work on.

Pre-Production:

Story:

You play as Finn Wolfston, a 17 year old anthropomorphic wolf (animal with human features) who grew up not knowing entirely who his father was, where he worked, or what kind of person he was…This left many questions that gave Finn determination to keep on pestering his mother about his father’s occupation and identity, But he never got any answers. His mother would always tense up at the subject of Finn’s father as she would either not reply entirely or have the simple command of telling Finn to ‘Drop it’. (This means to stop talking about the subject of his father and forget about it). But this only made Finn’s curiosity grow more and more. One fateful day, Finn decided he’s had enough of waiting for answers so he takes matters into his own hands. He discovers his fathers occupation after many hours of hardcore researching. His father worked at some sort of testing facility, but that’s all he could find out. The next morning, Finn decided to head to the location of the facility to get some answers, which was a foolish choice. Why? He found himself on the top floor of the facility after blacking out due to some sort of gas. The only way Finn can possibly escape is to go from the top floor down. During his escape he will find out more answers than he asked for…With the aid of two mysterious characters. Will they actually help Finn? Or betray him?

Concept Art For Characters:

For both of the concepts for Willow and Fifi there are seperate designs for concepts, this is where the games were used as inspiration for designs as well as my own creativity. I am not saying the designs are copying the actual assets from the games I was inspired by (As this is known as plagarism), Instead I am saying that I have taken inspiration (which means that I was drawn to the ideas that other developers that made the games had. This means that for example, If I was to really enjoy the ‘Spyro The Dragon’ series, I could make a game inspired by Spyro’s creativity and unique feeling with everything in the game.

Willow:

‘Withered’ Willow:

• Colour Palette: Darkened pastel colour palette used for Willow.
• Stuffing and patching shows ‘experimenting’ and withering over time.
• Bow will be found beside the body as it’s too damaged beyond repair to wear.
• No models are required, Just a 2D graphics sprite.
• Eyes will have a brown gradient.
• All colouring and line art will be completed via wacom intuos drawing tablet and stylus.
• Softwares Required: Adobe Photoshop/Illustrator or Microsoft Paint.

 

Willow:

• Colour Palette: Pastel colours.
• Bow will be on right ear.
• Model is required for the ‘end’ of the game.
• All colouring and line art to be completed via a wacom intuos drawing tablet and stylus.
• Softwares Required: Adobe Photoshop/Illustrator or Microsoft Paint

Fifi:

‘Withered’ Fifi:

• Colour Palette: Darkened pastel colour pallete of the original pastel colour palette for Fifi.
• Broken crown with ‘Diva’ engraved onto it.

Fifi:

Inspiration:

For the inspiration behind both of these unique characters they were based off of my pets. Willow being an English white golden retriever and Fifi being a calico cat (we don’t know exactly what breed Fifi is, since she was someone else’s cat before my family took her in). With both of these as inspiration I had used my own personal art style I have developed over years of practice to create multiple designs for each of them so that if myself and Joseph liked assets from more than one of the designs I would be able to create a separate design which would combine the both. (This is known as development).

Inspiration also struck my creative flow when I was playing Animal Crossing: New Leaf a few days ago. One of the characters is known as Isabelle and she has uniquely shaped ears which I took inspiration from for Willow’s iconic ears. However, with some of the designs, they were inspired by other games myself and Joseph enjoy to play and communicate about.

These include:

Splatoon:

Why Splatoon?:

The reason why we decided on Splatoon as part of the inspiration was because of the bright colours used in ‘Turf Wars’. This has high contrast but the colours work in harmony. This inspired myself to want to use pastel colours (Something I try extremely hard to avoid) and make a game with it.

Splatoon 2:

Why Splatoon 2?:

With the added on DLC (Downloadable Content) known as ‘Octo Expansion’ takes place inside a maze like subway station. This inspired having the maze layout for our testing facility. For the inside of the ‘Octo Expansion’ it is known as the ‘Deep Sea Metro’ which has darker shades of grey and black for a colour scheme.

Bendy And The Ink Machine:

Why Bendy And The Ink Machine: Chapter 3?:

The reason why myself and Joseph chose chapter 3 was because we knew that the layout of the building in chapter 3 was the inspiration for the layout of out building with multiple floors and dangers along the way. Another reason why we chose chapter 3 instead of any of the other chapters was because this one has the most character development and tells the stories of the characters which answers unanswered questions that I have had from playing the previous two chapters.

Rusty Lake Hotel (Not for the easily scared):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hQuJW2jBjv8

Why Rusty Lake Hotel?:

A bit of context first. Rusty Lake Hotel is part of the Rusty Lake series. I enjoyed this game out of the entire series but this is because of the horror attributes that it contains. I do agree that the game is quite dark, like any horror game but this is because that makes the ‘Rusty Lake’ series unique as a horror and puzzle game. The inspiration from this game isn’t with the actual game play, But instead the art style.

Super Mario Odyssey

Why Super Mario Odyssey?:

For the reason why I was inspired by Super Mario Odyssey is because of the creative flare it gives off. It’s very different to any of the other main series Mario games. Odyssey allows people to not have to follow the story and have a chance to explore to come across references to some of the older games (Super Mario 64 mainly) and to also see some of the older characters that nobody had heard anything about for years. (Pauline).

Another reason why I was inspired by Odyssey is by how colourful it is. Odyssey has so many bright colours that make all of the 3D models stand out from the landscape. When I saw this I felt inspired to do something which involved colours and character design. This is how I came up with the idea to add my two pets into the game. (Fifi and Willow).

However, My more personal choices for inspiration would have to definitely include Super Mario Odyssey but for different reasons to what has already been mentioned.

Five Nights At Freddy’s:

-Why FNAF-

Super Mario Odyssey:

-WHY MARIO ODYSSEY-

Pokémon Sun and Moon:

-Why Pokémon Sun and Moon-

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Concept Art And Development Of Designs:

Fifi:

Here you can see all six designs on the page that I sketched them on. The four colours that you can see is a possible pastel colour palette because this will have a bright contrast with the room that both Fifi and Willow will be eventually found in by Finn. Another reason is because in my experience of drawing as a hobby, I always avoided pastel colours because I didn’t feel confident using them. So now I am challenging myself to use them to create a character. It may sound unrealistic to some people but I am determined to make this work. This is why I researched pastel colour palettes since I knew I would eventually find one that I could show to Joseph and that we would compromise on together for Fifi’s design.

Design 1:

Design 2:

Design 3:

Design 4:

Design 5:

Design 6:

Willow:

Here you can see all six designs on the page that I sketched them on. The four colours that you can see is a possible pastel colour palette because this will have a bright contrast with the room that both Fifi and Willow will be eventually found in by Finn. Another reason is because in my experience of drawing as a hobby, I always avoided pastel colours because I didn’t feel confident using them. So now I am challenging myself to use them to create a character. It may sound unrealistic to some people but I am determined to make this work. This is why I researched pastel colour palettes since I knew I would eventually find one that I could show to Joseph and that we would compromise on together for Willow’s design.

Design 1:

Design 2:

Design 3:

Design 4:

Design 5:

Design 6:

Finn:

Design 1:

Design 2: (Redrawn Design 1 in my style):

There are many reasons for why there is such a big gap that I am now filling in. This is because of two close family members being badly injured which meant I couldn’t update my blog as I wanted to. Another reason is that the laptop I have access to at home decided to break, Which took a few days to fix and get running while looking after two family members who are still in bad pain and struggling. Besides this, The time has not slowed down production on both sides, Only my side of the project’s workload. However, I am able to catch up for lost time and get back on track to making the project as good as it can be. Luckily, all of the screenshots have been recovered from my laptop needing repairs which means that there is no evidence lost.

Sketching:

With the sketches, They have taken a while because at first I tried to take on too much work with all 6 emotions for each character, I decided that doing only 2 for each will be effective since I wanted to focus on capturing the emotions in their expressions and body language rather than rushing it.

Possible Concepts:

Originally, Myself and Joseph wanted to incorporate some sort of reoccurring threat (danger) into the game by having something to keep the player moving to not spend hours playing the game. We had decided on trying to make either a failed experiment or the protagonist’s own father (Who we decided to call ‘Jeremy Wolfston’). The reason this was the case was because of our first play day with our fellow classmate devs (Developers). The feedback from the simple survey I had created will be mentioned in detail later on.

Possible Concept 1:  Jeremy Wolfston:

With there only being two sketches of Jeremy, This shows that the idea was soon scrapped because of three reasons:

1. My family emergency had happened two days prior to the discussion of having Jeremy Wolfston in the game at all
2. The game already had a lot of work that needed done and myself and my colleague decided that we were going to try and do more work than we knew we could complete. We wanted this game to be completed fully, not incomplete.
3. The timing of discussing this was nearly halfway into production, this meant if we did add him we may of had to compromised a few other assets to be able to still complete the game.

Concept 2: Amalgamation (Combination) Of Two Animals:

-Sketches-

The reason why I had this idea was to do with the testing facility that this game takes place in. With the backstory behind our two plushie characters, Willow and Fifi, they were created after many prototypes. The amalgamations are some prototypes alongside another concept.

Concept 3: Prototype Fifi And Willow:

-Sketches-

This concept is pretty simple. The idea was to have the failed experiments (Prototypes) be able to come back to life and mistake Finn for Jeremy, meaning they want to harm him.

Emotions:

Finn:

-Sketches-

As you can see, all of these emotions are the most basic and dynamic for any character to emote. What makes these emotions unique to Finn is with his ears and his personality. I am able to draw emotions easier when I can understand the personality of the character and pretend to be that character in the situation they would be in.

Willow:

-Sketches-

As you can see, all of these emotions are the most basic and dynamic for any character to emote. What makes these emotions unique to Willow is with her ears and her personality. I am able to draw emotions easier when I can understand the personality of the character and pretend to be that character in the situation they would be in.

Fifi:

-Sketches-

As you can see, all of these emotions are the most basic and dynamic for any character to emote. What makes these emotions unique to Fifi is with her ears and her personality. I am able to draw emotions easier when I can understand the personality of the character and pretend to be that character in the situation they would be in.

Full Body Designs:

Willow:

With the full body design for Willow I know I wanted to make her look adorable yet goofy at the same time. Since that is the easiest way to describe her personality. The reason why she has a bow on her right ear is because of her being based off of my dog, she used to wear bows when she first came into our family.

-Sketches-

Fifi:

With the full body design for

-Sketches-

Failed Attempts For Colouring:

Willow:

The reason why I see this initial design as a fail is because of the colours chosen. They do compliment each other but I may have a gradient going from the tips of the ears to the bottom and the same with the tail. The ear that is in the background will only be one solid colour as it will look more effective.

Fifi:

With Fifi I wanted to have a simple yet cute design. I hadn’t realised how many colours Fifi actually has on her fur, which is four (White, black, orange and brown). In addition to this the base colour that I had originally used was completely wrong. It was more of a cream off-white colour rather than just being purely white.

Finn:

With Finn being the main protagonist, I knew that he needed to look like the design (concept) and have that signature serious but curious personality. With this attempt he doesn’t look like he would have those personality traits.

Potential Colour Schemes:

Willow:

-Image-

Fifi:

-Image-

Finn:

-Image-

Art Style Inspirations And Original Concept Designs Explained:

Willow:

The best way to explain who Willow is a 1 year old golden retriever who is bigger than the average (And still growing!). Her personality is she is very cheeky with lots of personality and character who loves to play and spend time at doggy daycare with her fellow dog friends.

(She is a LOT bigger than what she seems in this photo).

 

First ever concept art design of Willow

Fifi:

With Fifi, She is actually a 26 year old calico cat who is a family pet. The reason why I decided to add her into this game was because I wanted to make this a personal tribute to her because of how old she is. Another reason is that I love to make any project of mine personal so that it keeps me motivated and working harder than ever. This also pushes my creative thoughts and abilities.

Photograph of Fifi in real life

Fifi’s first ever concept art design

The reason why in the concept art Fifi wears a crown is simple. As a joke my family has made her middle name ‘Diva’ because of her age and she does like to have her surroundings tidy, she needs to make sure that she tells us when she is hungry or wants to go outside because she is sadly a deaf cat. By her meowing constantly and being so overly dramatic we nicknamed her ‘Diva’ as one of the other jokes is that Fifi sees the home she lives in as a 5 star hotel and restaurant. But I love her none the less.

Survey From Play Day 1 Feedback:

Question 1: We not only have a health bar design and designs for dialogue for our 3 characters which will have sprites. What would be your overall thoughts on this?

Question 1 Summary:

 

Question 2: What do you think of the current 3D models and textures?

Question 2 Summary:

 

Question 3: We have been researching official soundtracks from many types of video games hoping to find something suitable to fit the theme of our game. Are there any games you would recommend that have an elusive/horror theme?

Question 3 Summary:

Question 3 (Game Official Sound  Tracks):

 

Question 4: What do you think of the current game mechanics and overall gameplay?

Question 4 Summary:

 

 

6.05.19-14.05.19:

This block of time was used to make sure that the illustrations used for our game were given their final coloured details, given line art and made sure that they looked like the original plans I had thought of.

Before:

Finn’s failed attempt

The reason why I personally have an extreme amount of dislike towards this attempt is because not only of the colours but also the eyes in particular. The eyes look too extreme for this simple illustration. As a result, the drawing looks really creepy (which wasn’t intentional at all).

Willow’s failed attempt

The reasons why I dislike this attempt at Willow is not only because of the same reasons that I had for Finn, but also it just didn’t look like the style I wanted to portray for Willow. Her personality is clumsy and cheerful yet here she looks completely lost in her own thoughts and slightly dumb…which was not what I wanted at all. It is true that I wanted her to be more caring and not as intelligent as Fifi but I didn’t want her to look completely unintelligent.

The reasons why I dislike this attempt at Fifi is not only because of the reasons that I have explained with both Finn and Willow but with Fifi not only did she not have the personality in her colouring and that the colours chosen were just bad, it was also the fact that I felt like I had rushed the illustration and that I felt like I hadn’t put any real time and effort into it.

After:

Fifi’s full body’s base colours nearing completion

Greyscale Fifi’s colouring nearing completion

Greyscale Willow’s colouring nearing completion

Fifi’s coloured icon’s colouring nearing completion

Willow’s coloured icon’s colouring nearing completion

The reason why there are such drastic changes in the before and after screenshots is because of myself and Joseph having discussed that because of my art style being more unique and non traditional (more cartoon like than realistic) we should make the icons have a cute but detailed look. In my honest opinion, I like the after results better than the before because not only of the colour choices but it genuinely works better for my style of illustration and drawing. Another reason is that it gives each character their own charm and personality, making them all stand out individually rather than together as a trio of characters. The final reason is that I actually felt like I was giving my best work.

15.09.19-21.05.19:

These final four days were used to make any final touches to the project. This included adding in the final versions of the artwork, making sure that everything worked and also finalising what needed to be done on the 21st. The reason for this was because I had an operation that day meaning I couldn’t attend college for the final day of production because of my operation. But I do have some screenshots for what was done in those final four days.

Willow’s grey-scale icon having the finishing touches made

With Willow being translucent, we made this choice because we didn’t want the player to see Fifi and Willow until the ending scene of the game, meaning that there is an added element of mystery and uncertainty. This also makes the story of ‘Family Secrets’ have a lot more depth and mystery because of the other character’s true looks not being certain or described by anything else but a simple silhouette. Another reason why we decided to keep Fifi and Willow just silhouettes was because of character development. Character development can be crucial in some games that are heavily story based. An example of this is an indie game known as “Five Nights At Freddy’s”. The reason why I chose this game in particular was because of the creator/main developer. He is known as ‘Scott Cawthon’ and he is known for the series of 7 games (The 8th one is still under development) that were very story based. However, what made Scott’s characters stand out was how there was a lot of unanswered questions that the player wasn’t given answers to. This meant that Scott could add a lot more depth to his story with all of the question’s answers being in the actual game’s story (lore).

Blueprint of how the dialogue works

As you can see here, this is a simple blueprint. This actual blueprint will not only make the dialogue play for the characters but it also makes sure the dialogue won’t play again as the collision box that triggers the start of the dialogue will be programmed to delete itself from the game’s world after the sequence of dialogue is completed.

Example of how dialogue will look in the finished game

This is a screenshot of the final product of how our protagonist, Finn will show as not only a dialogue icon (Sprite) but also how his text will look to indicate that he is speaking. However, this screenshot also shows how the overall widget (another term for a blueprint that will appear on the screen as a heads up display) will look like on the screen when the game is started. This makes placement and sizing a lot easier as you can automatically have a preview of how the heads up display will look and then if there are any changes that need to be made they can be made.

Title screen’s final touches being made

The actual title screen of the game was made on the last day of production because we knew that other elements of the game were more important and that they would need to be our priorities instead of worrying about a title screen. This doesn’t mean that no effort was put into making the title screen, it only means that less time was needed to make it the way that we needed, which is a positive thing as we could keep on doing test runs to make sure everything worked and that nothing was ‘clipping’ or glitching. (Clipping means when two assets in your game are overlaying one another, making them flicker between each of them being in front of one another).

Rug being placed above the floor boards

The reason why there is a ‘rug’ on top of the floorboards is to add an element of surprise to the player. This is because if you were to have looked at the screen, the floorboards could be easily seen and the player could just try to avoid them. This means that the player knows what is going to happen next and as a consequence of this the game is not as exciting and classed as a ‘thriller’. With the rug being over the floorboards, you can’t see them. This makes the rug look like a decoration choice rather than being purposely placed to hide something.

Fifi’s grey-scale icon having the finishing touches made

With Fifi being translucent, we made this choice because we didn’t want the player to see Fifi and Willow until the ending scene of the game, meaning that there is an added element of mystery and uncertainty. This also makes the story of ‘Family Secrets’ have a lot more depth and mystery because of the other character’s true looks not being certain or described by anything else but a simple silhouette. Another reason that this choice was made is because originally we were going to have Fifi and Willow be fully coloured with different emotions and even have them be slightly animated. This didn’t happen because of not only technical difficulties with my laptop but also my inexperience with animating and coming up with different concepts for both Fifi and Willow’s emotions. This also meant that Finn (protagonist) would have also needed that treatment. That would have meant 18 different fully coloured illustrations which then would need at least 2-3 more each for animation. This adds up to between 36-54 illustrations which would have been fully coloured and detailed. That doesn’t even include the full body designs. I total at maximum, that would have been 56 fully detailed and coloured illustrations.

 Intro:

Super Mario Odyssey is the next big game that released October 27th 2017. This was the first mainstream Mario game to the Nintendo Switch. With the game, you obviously play as Mario but you meet a new companion, Cappy!

For this comparison, I will be comparing the retro aspects that Mario Odyssey has to offer and the more realistic aspects. With all of that said and done, the first category will be the statistics.

Statistics:

How Many Power Moons Are Available In Odyssey?:

A total of 513 moons are available to the player before completing the game fully (and unlocking the Mushroom Kingdom, Dark Side of the Moon and Darker Side (Of the Moon).

When completing the game, a further 129 moons are available to you, this is by the 3 new kingdoms that were unlocked.

However, during the end-game, there is a singular moon rock on each kingdom (excluding dark and darker side of the moon) these add additional moons to each kingdom.

Which gives us another 194 additional power moons to be available to the player.

This gives us an end total of 836 power moons (This doesn’t include any power moons from the shops you find in each kingdom).

What Do The Paintings In Odyssey Do?:

This is supposed to be a reference to Super Mario 64 as in the game Mario is able to jump through paintings to gain access to the many different levels. There is a total of 10 paintings which instead of taking you to a completely different level, they take you to an inaccessible part of each kingdom that require the paintings to access.

Locations Of Each Painting And Where They Go:

1. Cascade Kingdom: This painting will lead to Bowser’s Kingdom.
2. Sand Kingdom: This painting will lead to Metro Kingdom.
3. Lake Kingdom: This painting will lead to Sand Kingdom.

Wooded Kingdom:

(This painting will lead to Luncheon Kingdom).

Metro Kingdom:

(This painting will lead to Wooded Kingdom).

Snow Kingdom:

(This painting will lead to Cascade Kingdom).

Seaside Kingdom:

(This painting will lead to Lake Kingdom).

Luncheon Kingdom:

(This painting will lead to Mushroom Kingdom).

Bowser’s Kingdom:

(This painting will lead to Seaside Kingdom).

Mushroom Kingdom:

(This painting leads to Snow Kingdom or Seaside Kingdom).

Important Note:

Bowser’s Kingdom and Mushroom Kingdom will either lead to Snow Kingdom or Seaside Kingdom depending on which is in Bowser’s Kingdom. The opposite will always be located in Mushroom Kingdom.

Why Are There Purple Coins In Odyssey?:

Purple coins act as currency for each kingdom, being exclusive to the kingdom that you collect them in. For example, If you collect 10 purple coins in the Hat Kingdom, They can only be used in the Hat Kingdom. However, these coins can be used to buy collectables and stickers for the Odyssey but also costumes for Mario to play dress up with!

Hat Kingdom:

With the Hat Kingdom, the design for these coins is a purple top hat, very fitting with Cappy’s design and also the overall design of the Hat Kingdom. There are 50 coins in total to find in the kingdom but they are quite easy to find if you enjoy exploring the kingdom. (Which is very fun and rewarding to do).

Cascade Kingdom:

In this old fashioned (literally) prehistoric kingdom, the design is a stone wheel. This design relates to the caveman feel and unlockable costume that the purple coins in the Cascade Kingdom can buy you! But it also could be about the sleeping T-Rex…But there are 50 coins in total to find and collect!

Sand Kingdom:

In this desert-like kingdom, You land the Odyssey to see it’s nothing but Ice! While trying to sort out the problem at hand, you will come across nearly half of the purple coins easily but make sure to explore this huge kingdom! It has many secrets to hide! This is because this kingdom has 100 purple coins to collect so get exploring!

Lake Kingdom: 

In the Lake Kingdom, We are challenged with Bowser having stolen a dress for the dear Princess Peach to wear as her wedding dress. This kingdom has a lot to offer with there being a lot of timed jumps involved (And a lot of air bubbles!). For the purple coin total, it’s only 50 this time but they’re reasonably easy to come across.

Wooded Kingdom:

In the Wooded Kingdom, The story of a problem after problem continues. But this kingdom has a lot to explore…including if you were to jump down from near the Odyssey….there’s a whole other area down there! But there also is an angry T-Rex as well….explore at your own risk! This time we’re looking for 100 coins instead of 50.

 

Lost Kingdom: 

In the Lost Kingdom, We meet an old foe. Klepto! After you are without Cappy because of the bird, you do have access to some of the purple coins but I personally recommend using Cappy. There are 50 coins in total to hunt for but it’s pretty easy.

Metro Kingdom: 

In the busy city of the Metro Kingdom, we come across another familiar face! Pauline! She is the mayor of New Donk City! This city is huge and it’s fun to explore it but there are 100 purple coins to scout for. You better get searching!

Snow Kingdom: 

In the chilly Snow Kingdom is where you will be heading next! With it’s freezing waters and snow everywhere searching may seem impossible but if you look hard enough and have a good sense of Mario logic you’ll be just fine. 50 coins is what this kingdom is holding.

Seaside Kingdom: 

In the sunny seaside kingdom, we are shown that it’s similar to the lake kingdom, it’s mostly underwater but bigger, much bigger. This time instead of 50 purple coins it’s 100. It does take longer to find them all but it’s not too difficult.

 

Luncheon Kingdom: 

Next up is the kingdom involved around food! With this kingdom, The player will carry on with the story, Defeat the boss (Cookatiel) and then be on your way to collect more power moons. Onto the topic of the purple coins, there are 100 to collect. With the purple coins in the luncheon kingdom, some are easy to find whereas some take a little more effort to get all of them.

Bowser’s Kingdom: 

Now we end up in Bowser’s kingdom to attempt to save our beloved princess from being married to King Bowser! With the kingdom itself, it’s huge and full of enemies and challenges to try and stop you. There are 100 purple coins to find in this kingdom and they are hidden well, in some places which are quite the challenge and require skill to get all of them.

Moon Kingdom: 50 Coins

The moon kingdom is at it said in the title, On the moon!

 

Mushroom Kingdom: 100 Coins

Note: The Ruined Kingdom and the Cloud Kingdom don’t have any regional coins inside of them, this could be because of how small both of them are or the fact that they’re both used as arenas for 2 separate boss battles, the lord of thunder (A giant dragon) for the Ruined Kingdom and a good old fashioned fight with King Bowser in the Cloud Kingdom.

Characters:

With characters in Odyssey, there are two categories, Characters that are given dialogue and NPCs. (Non-Playable Characters) who do not have any dialogue that is unique.

 Characters: (With Unique Dialogue):

1. Mario
2. Princess Peach (A cool thing that Nintendo has added in Odyssey is that after beating the main game, You can find Peach in every kingdom, besides dark side in a different outfit for each kingdom.) (This doesn’t include her normal pink dress and the wedding dress).

King Bowser

Cappy

Tiara

Captain Toad

Hint Toad

Toadette

1. Uncle Amiibo

Pauline

Characters (Without Unique Dialogue):

 

Levels:

Retro:

‘Retro’ Levels for Odyssey are known as ‘8-Bit’ Levels. These include 8-bit Mario having his classic sprite and sprite animation as you play these mini-levels like a normal 2D Mario platformer.

 

(This doesn’t include any of the newer costumes that have been added since Odyssey’s release).

Realism:

For the more realistic side of Mario Odyssey, We’re presented with stunning graphics and textures on polygon models.

Assets:

Retro:

With the retro assets that we see in Mario Odyssey, we see many different kinds. This is because having a retro aspect in such a modern game is a huge part of Odyssey’s charm and why so many Mario fans love it. It brings back memories from the past games that people experienced, Even when Mario started out as being known as ‘Jumpman’ in the arcade classic ‘Donkey Kong’.

Why Are All The Assets Made For Retro And Realism?:

The reasoning behind this is my own personal theory and opinion. Since I have easily put over 100 hours into playing Mario Odyssey, I’ve seen many assets in realistic graphics and retro graphics. The reasoning why they did this is because I personally think that this yet again adds to the charm Odyssey has and makes the game stand out to the other Mario games in the main series.

Realism:

Gameplay:

Retro:

Realism:

 

What Is ‘Amped Studio 2’:

 

 

With this piece of free software, You can create music/beats to export as WAV files to then use in Unreal Engine. With this screenshot, I have used two simple pieces of music that the software gives you to play around with.

 

In this screenshot, It can be seen that with the new piece of software I have been using I made some simple notes inside of Amped Studio and imported them as WAV Files into Unreal Engine. This technique here is very similar to the technique I learned last week with having notes of Violins.

What Is ‘Human-Computer Interaction?’:

Human–computer interaction researches the design and use of computer technology, focused on the interfaces between people and computers. Researchers in the field of HCI both observe the ways in which humans interact with computers and design technologies that let humans interact with computers in novel ways.

(Write in own words)

My Health Bar:

Here is the design process of my health bar, showing the design process taking place in Microsoft Paint and then finishing in Photoshop.

 

 

 

How Could The Health Bar Be Further Developed?:

With the health bar being complete and functioning, I would have added a more complex design (In terms of graphics and the overall look of the health bar). With the overall design, it is simple yet this is effective. For example, in the Legend Of Zelda series, we always see the same kind of health bar system being used.

Here we can see in this photo of the game, even in the latest installment of the zelda series we still have the same iconic health bar system, which is the system of hearts. The thing that makes this very unique is that each heart has four sections, depending on the enemy you may take only 1/4 of damage instead of losing a whole heart. But the amount of damage you take can also depend on how many ‘sections’ of the health bar system you have. The amount of total hearts that the player can obtain by finding heart containers (An item which grants you an extra heart up in the top right hand corner) is known to be between 27 and 30. This is because in the latest installment of the Zelda series, The player not only has to worry about health but also stamina. The way that these heart containers can be obtained are by beating four challenges (known as shrines) for one heart container. Depending on how you play the game you can either decide to have more health, and still a lot of stamina or more stamina and still a good amount of health.

Another example of showing how a health bar can be unique is Super Mario Odyssey.

With this photo of the gameplay, we can see just how different the styles and uniqueness of different games can still understand the way to get the player’s attention to show that these two icons actually mean something in the game, giving us constant information rather than just being there to look pretty.

Day 1:

My team partner, Joseph wasn’t at college so I spent the first full day of the project alone. Which was stressful as I had to rely on myself to create a Health-Bar and Mini-Map design that my partner would like and that would suit the theme of our project.

Health Bar: The Design:

 

Here you can see the finished product of the health bar design, which is similar to the first design but it’s different with the colour scheme and shading.

Health Bar: The Comparison Between Designs:

As you can see, the middle image is the original idea I had but I soon changed it since I saw that the colours wouldn’t work as effective as I had wanted them to. So instead I used 3 colours. White, pastel green and pastel purple. Another clear change is that the colours are different shades of 2 colours. Black and red. However, the first two designs have stars for highlights where the other doesn’t. This is because of the project being a graveyard stars for highlights and bright pastel colours wouldn’t work with the theme, which is horror.

Day 2:

Day two was much more productive than the previous because I had Joseph with me so that meant we could reflect ideas off of one another for the design changes, sound ideas and finally who would do what. We had already decided this on the day we had to prepare a concept but the original concept we had was scrapped because it was too ambitious and it was much more sensible to expand something already existing.

Mini-Map:  The Design:

As you can see here, this is nearly the complete process of how I made the Mini-Map’s Design. (I originally did have OBS Footage of the complete process but for some reason it deleted itself when I was checking it while at home. However these screenshots show the process at multiple stages). With the overall idea of the design I am unable to pinpoint the inspiration for it but I had watched a movie known as ‘Coraline’ recently so I’m assuming that’s where the idea with stitching came in. For the rest of the design, I am pretty certain that it just came to me from the simplistic colour scheme.

Day 3:

The final day of production was the most stressful because of many reasons. One being that the Mini-Map didn’t want to work, which was frustrating since the previous time that I had created a ‘Mini-Map’ it didn’t want to work either.

Blue-Prints: Screenshots And Explanations:

Health Bar:

With the health bar’s blueprints (Above) there are two different blueprints which both work together to aid in making the health bar function properly and to actually appear on the screen.

Blueprint 1: What Does It Do?:

The first blueprint will be able to get a percentage from the health current and maximum being divided to get the percentage of health left. This is then linked up to a node known as ‘cast to first person character’ (Because it’s a first person game).

Blueprint 2: What Does It Do?:

The second blueprint not only controls how fast or slow the health is drained but it also programs for that when you run out of health a sound is played to show this. This blueprint is linked up to a widget which is what the health bar is displayed on. A widget helps there be player and computer interaction as when you take damage the health bar widget deducts health from the health bar, showing that there is interaction between the player and the computer. This is known as human computer interaction. (H-C-I).

The Pages: What Is It For?:

The pages are going to be collected inside of the game, meaning that when you get a page, a sound will play. This will happen when the collision boxes around the pages are triggered by the player walking or jumping into them. The icon that you see is to show that the pages have locations that you won’t be able to see with all the fog that was added to create a tense and chilling atmosphere. So the icons were added to show the locations of the pages to make it easier for the player.

 

Final Day: Evaluation And Final Touches:

The final day of this project, known as ‘Post-Production’ gave me and my partner Joseph time to be able to fix any last minute issues that we had with the project. An example of this would be the ‘Mini-Map’ which wouldn’t work like it should. A possible theory to why it wasn’t it working could be that ‘Mini-Maps’ are more often used in third-person open world games. Where as our project is a first person open world game. This means that there could be more steps needed to getting the ‘Mini-Map’ to work.

Mini-Map: Problems That Need Fixing!:

The Problem: What Exactly Is Wrong With The Mini-Map?:

The problem with the ‘Mini-Map’ is hard to pin point exactly. I’m not sure if it’s multiple problems with the same source or if it’s multiple smaller problems with different sources. The problem that surfaced clearly is that the ‘Mini-Map’ doesn’t want to function with the display capture, which is known to be live. (This means that the display that will be shown inside the ‘Mini-Map’ isn’t showing up at all. More specifically the area where the display capture would be is just black).

The Problem: Is There Any Theories To Why This Is Happening?:

A possible theory for why this issue has occurred is because of the minimal lighting used for the game. This means that the render capture (What captures the display to show where the player is by using an ‘Icon’, Which is known as a ‘Paper Sprite’) isn’t able to see the icon, or the player in fact to be able to show the exact location of anything with an icon.

Another possible theory for this is that as I mentioned before, Open world games that use ‘Mini-Maps’ are always in the third person. Our game is in the first person. This means that there could be more issues with the ‘Mini-Map’ because it’s a first person open world game instead or third person. (I am aware that there is a possible way to change a first person view into a third but I’m not sure on how to do such a thing. Plus there is the possibility that it will not work).

The Solution: Were My Theories Incorrect?:

 

Evaluation: The Final Response:

In an evaluation, it can be known as a final response as you have to explain in either minor or major detail for:

• What did I set out to achieve?
• Did I achieve my aims?
• What went well during production?
• What didn’t go so well during production?
• What have I learned during the project that will aid me next time?

Evaluation: What Did I Set Out To Achieve?:

With what I had set out out achieve I knew that I wanted to show everything that I had learned from starting in September. This is a short period of time but I was keen to learn and practice, meaning I put all if my skills and dedication into everything I have done. (Which includes this short 4 day project). With what I specifically wanted to achieve was to be able to create a creepy horror game that had ambience with sounds to create the perfect tone. (Of course there were no jump scares in the game to really make the player on edge but the skills that I have learned with sound have made it possible in my personal Opinion).

Evaluation: What Did We Set Out To Achieve?:

Myself and Joseph, As a team we had set out to create a game that was different to everyone else’s. This did mean that we had to use an older project and build up on top of that as a base but that is because the original idea that we had was too complicated for the time limit we had. (Plus for the first full day of production, Joseph was not at college due to being ill so that also took a large toll on the overall final product. But both of us as a team do think that we were efficient with equally halving the work so that the workload wasn’t all on one person but we also communicated well. All of this had made us both agree that we had set out to achieve something different but realistic and sensible.

Evaluation: Did I Achieve My Aims?:

With my Aims for this project, they were:

• Make something old into something new and better than before

With the question of if I have achieved my aims or not, I think I have. I know that the pixel artwork that I created from scratch will show that using an old software (Ms Paint) can be used to make something new that can be used in modern day softwares. (An example of this would be Unreal Engine).

Evaluation: What Went Well During Production?:

The main things that went well during production would be that the communication myself and Joseph had was very effective. Another thing that was going well during production was the amount of work that we were able to get done in the amount of time we had per day.

Evaluation: What Didn’t Go So Well During Production?:

The only thing that didn’t go so well production was having Joseph not at college for a full day because it meant that there was only myself working on the project, meaning that took a toll on the project’s overall final design and functions.

 

Evaluation: What Have I Learned During The Project That Will Aid Me Next Time?:

A lesson that I have learned during this project that will aid me next time is to always make sure that both people know exactly what to do as myself and Joseph did have a few occasions when we would discuss who was doing what, which is ideal for each day of a project.