Immersion is a feeling you get when it comes to games, animation and VFX that makes you feel as if you are involved or attached to the form of media. It allows you to get a real sense of the world and dynamics in that world that make it come to life, almost as if you are a part of it.
Typically speaking, GAVFX products can immerse the audience with a gripping story and well written characters but there is much more to it that just that. Sound can really bring scenes to life as well as exciting gameplay.
When it comes to video games, developers should be looking to make the most out of the platforms they are developing for, this may include movement controls for the Nintendo Switch or making full use of the DualSense control pad. Features such as Haptic Feedbacks and Adaptive Triggers can really make you feel as if you are in the characters shoes. The feeling of a bow string getting tighter in Horizon Zero Dawn or the rumble of the haptics that make it feel like your walking down a dirt path accompanied with the speakers inbuilt controller all add to the immersion of the product.
Along side all of that, Game Feel is a term that is largely used in the development scene but can be hard to understand. Game Feel refers to how good the game feels to play. Super Mario 64 is a prime example of perfect game feel for a platformer. If all the scenery is taken away and Mario is just in a test level, he feels great to control, Jumping, Long Jumping, Wall Kicks and Backflips seem to execute flawlessly.
Character Movement isn’t the only pillar in Game Feel, other pillars could include camera effects such as a screen shake or blood on the camera to indicate health, something Call of Duty does well or it could be how certain peripherals are used within video games. The guitar for guitar hero or Pokeball Plus for Pokemon Lets Go, it all circles back to immersion.
Immersion is important for GAVFX products because it is the start of a foundation for life within these products. If there wasn’t any immersive technologies used in these products, then it would result a dull, lackluster 5 minute pick me up before its deleted or uninstalled. Immersion keeps the audience gripped and keeps the audience coming back for more.
A blockout in game design is something that designers use to help plan and design the layout of the level. This in turn can help out other team members in terms of level design such as player-to-level scale, environmental assets, trial and error and configuring choke points in a map.
When it comes to developing games, you wouldn’t start by putting in tons of high quality assets if you don’t know where to put them, so by blocking out a basic level design, you are able to see what things are going to look like without putting in too much work and wasting time. It is fast, efficient and easy to do.
Here are some examples of blockout’s in famous video games, starting off with Uncharted 3’s Chateau level.
A reallu useful tool for Blockouts is Probuilder, which I wrote about way back in September, this post can be found here [LINK].
A game that has used Probuilder is Tinertia, now I’ve never played this game but looking at the gameplay videos on YouTube, you can tell how much something like ProBuilder would have sped up the level development. In this game, there is a lot of jumping around and going in and out of tight spaces, with ProBuilder, they would have been able to easily map this to how the character jumps and moves around. Unity have even confirmed that probuilder was used in Tinertia. Some more games to mention would be SuperHot and DeSync.
In todays Game Design session, we played a game of Kahoot! for revision purposes, well not me, I don’t play Kahoot. I win it. Except for this one, this one was the one that got away. Out of 40 Questions I got 35 correct and 5 wrong, however I can dispute a couple of those down to personal opinion and question wording. I personally think I had an outstanding performance, although it may not seem like it.
Questions such as ‘A rewarding experience doesn’t keep a player engaged’ is subject to personal preference. As is ‘High Skill & Low Challenge doesn’t lead to boredom’ and ‘High Challenge and Low Skill keeps a player engaged’.
The first one I can relate to in the form of Destiny, you get rewarded for playing weekly objectives, however once you hit a cap, the reward and the experience does start to decrease. The second question I can relate to in the form of Call of Duty, as an example, and a thing that us skilled players call pub stomping, where you go into public lobbies and outmatch everyone else. The third question is relatable to people who love a challenge, practice makes perfect as the saying goes.
Question 31 was ‘All game genres are trends’. This was misleading as the question implies that all game genres can qualify as a trend, not what is currently trending. Question 34 ‘Remasters of popular titles are NOT a trend’ was answered in mistake on my part, I misread the question. So with all that said and done, could I have achieved a perfect 40? Absolutely. Remember.
Playtesting is a method of testing a product at various stages of development. There are multiple ways to do this but they all have the same purpose. Mainly, the purposes will be to work out flaws in the game, test the game mechanics, look at the level designs and other elements of a game. It will also include looking out for bugs, issues, errors or something that isn’t quite right in the game.
The most common methods of playtesting include Kleenex Test, Focus Group Testing, Beta Testing, Blind Testing and In-House Testing.
Kleenex Test
A Kleenex Test, otherwise known as a tissue test, is NOT a form of testing tissue or toilet paper brands, it is in fact the principle of a kleenex where this method gets its name, it is meant for single use. So a player would test this game once, this is so the developer can get feedback from the players initial reaction.
Focus Group Testing
Focus Group Testing is where a build of the game is thrown towards the target audience, mainly to see how the target audience find the game and get their thoughts from the game.
Beta Testing
Beta Testing comes in many forms of open, closed and in house. If a beta test is open, it means any member of the public can sign up and play the beta test, if it is closed, players will normally need to sign up and get a serial number, or be on a mailing list to recieve a purchase code of some kind, normally these beta’s are for players who have played the franchise recently but not limited to them as new players can also try this. In house beta test means just the development team will test the game.
Blind Testing
Blind Testing is where players who have had no prior experience with the game will go and play the game for the very first time, they are then able to offer a fresh set of eyes and feedback on the game.
It is important to note that Playtesting is NOT Quality Assurance, the two are very different but they can cross paths at certain points. Where Playtesting is more Quality Control. Playtesting is more for the developer to see how players react to the experience of the game, this isn’t to say that play testers won’t identify bugs, because they will, the main purpose is to see if the experience of the video game is as intended from the developer.
Quality Assurance is mainly where developers will look to identify bugs, errors, vulnerabilities rather than the overall enjoyment of the game.
Personally I have taken part in tons of beta tests, for apps and for video games and I always try my best to provide feedback to the developers. My most recent beta was for Roller Champions. This beta was a closed beta and I received an email about the beta after the testing window had closed. This is a good method to use because it gives players a taste of the game and because there is limited time, you feel more compelled to play it.
The biggest beta I played was for Call of Duty: Black Ops 4, Blackout. When this was first announced as a beta, I played it non stop because it was so enjoyable and there weren’t many bugs to be found, however at the end of the beta, the developers were focusing on Battle Royale comparisons, namely that of H1Z1 and Fortnite. So market research and mass testing seems to be a common method of playtesting. The problem is, when a big name game has an open beta like this one, a lot of players perceive it as a demo. It is not a demo. It is a genuine method of testing. However, the same can be said the other way, whilst the term Playtesting or Beta Test // Open Beta is as common as it is now, that doesn’t necessarily mean that it is a beta, some developers will put the tag of Beta on a product because it makes players feel exclusive if they get in it, when really, its a demo.
It is also worth noting that more and more developers are offering access to beta’s with the pre-order of a game, not only does this entice players to buy the game to have a chance to play it early, but because if is accessed after a pre-order, developers see this as a window of opportunity for a franchises most loyal and hardcore players to provide feedback. Clever marketing to say the least.
Another year, another Game Jam, this time the theme is Roll-a-Ball and my team consists of:
Me – Jordan Robson – Programming, Level Design, Graphics, Menus, Music. Will Langley – BLOG – Graphics. Marcus Eley – BLOG Jake Langley – BLOG – Playtesting and SFX.
To get started we made a board on Trello to assign jobs and make lists of assets we might need to create, it is important to note that this Trello board is very ambitious, but that’s what aiming for the stars gets you.
First things first, it was important to get the movement of the ball down, otherwise the game would not be playable, So I followed the classic Unity Roll-a-ball Tutorial for movement, this is a fairly simple script that is easy to build upon.
Following on from this, with our idea being an arena game where you have to avoid being knocked out, it was time to start looking into AI and movement, we tried a few various techniques but they didn’t exactly work how we would have liked it, and then we came across NavMesh.
NavMesh is a built in tool inside Unity that automatically maps the area for the AI to patrol in, the only thing we needed to do was set a target for the AI to chase and for that, we chose the Player. After loads of tweaking to the AI’s speed and movement, the AI became a fully functional part of the game, and the best thing about this is, it isn’t resource heavy at all.
Next, it was time to look at making the enemies spawn in at random intervals because having just one enemy would be too easy, I looked into a method called Co-Routines. Co-Routines are a function that runs automatically every time its called within a time limit. I also used a method called Instantiate which makes the script spawn a prefab every now and then. I used these same functions for a power ups script.
These two scripts also share another method which is OnDrawGizmosSelected(). This is a function for Unity that allows you to draw in-engine a surface area, as such, this can be used to mark what area the power ups and enemies can spawn in.
It was then time to make the power ups function, we decided to have four power ups, all used by either the player or the AI, however instead of the AI getting a Freeze power up, it would instead hit a little harder by adding more velocity.
This is fairly simple to do and it just requires component manipulation, which is alot fancier than it sounds. For the Giant power up, we had the balls double in size, for the dwarf power up in would be 4 times smaller, for the Speed power up, the move speed would increase by 50% and for the Freeze power up, the player’s rigidbody would become Kinematic, the enemy would gain more velocity. Each power up lasts for 8 seconds thanks to the co-routine I have set up.
I then programmed collisions so that they played a sound among players and enemies, I also added a background music track. This was done by having the background music play in the background of the main scene and then using a script to make it a singleton, a singleton essentially makes it so only one of these objects can only exist at any given time, so no matter how many times the menu is loaded, it doesn’t play the music on top of the same music that’s playing.
Other than a few UI scripts for lives and score count, as well as button press indicators, this was all the scripting complete, it was time to make the level look good. The stage originally was a blue square with a white border. This was good for testing because everything was easily visible, however it didn’t really scream Rollerball Royale, and so I made 4 cubes and positioned them into walls. I then made a ‘light rig’. The light rig is an empty game object with 4 different coloured lights as children, then by using the animator within Unity, I animated the rotation of the empty game object to make the lights move around, creating some kind of atmosphere. Finally, I took Will Langley’s logo of the original game name Rollerball Arena and placed it as a texture onto the center cube.
With the arena complete, it was time to start making some UI elements, We decided to go for a lives approach. You get knocked off the stage 3 times, and its game over, we also needed a score system, the score is based on how long you are alive multiplied by pi but rounded to an integer. Finally I felt like the game needed some input indicators so I made some key graphics to place onto the game.
I then wrote a script so that whenever what button is pressed, the graphic would shrink down in size before returning to its original size. This is what the game looks like with the UI.
I then went onto creating a main menu scene and game over scene, with limited time left of the GameJam, I haven’t included all the normal features you might see from a menu screen such as volume options.
With all that said and done, the game is functional and this is what it looks like in action!
What Went Well?
The things that I felt went well in this GameJam was the planning, programming and the level building, when we’re using Unity Teams it can be fairly difficult to see what people have changed and what assets have been uploaded but with this, there was no outside interference, we used it purely for playtesting purposes whilst I designed the level. I also think that Will and Jake have done good on their parts as well. Will’s logo and graphics he made bring the action to the game and Jake’s sound effect hunting adds that bit of life to the game.
What Didn’t Go Well?
In terms of the planning, we were a little over ambitious and didn’t make the most of the time we had, Marcus was going to be making some 3D assets but didn’t really come round to doing them, I also felt the communication between us all could have been a lot better. In terms of the programming, we spent so much time on AI but this is also a good thing, whilst it isn’t perfect, it is also very challenging, the issue was that the solution to our AI woes were built directly into Unity anyhow.
What Would I Do Differently?
I think in terms of doing things differently, I would probably be looking at making a roll-a-ball game that has obstacles you need to avoid and collectibles to pick up, however I wouldn’t want it to be like the October 2020 Game Jam where it was an infinite runner, maybe something like a labyrinth or a Kula World style game.
Game Design Principles are like the pillars that you need to have when considering making a video game, there are loads of these pillars but the key pillars would be:
Objectives // Goals
An objective could be collecting an item to complete a level, as an example, collecting a star in Super Mario 64 would complete that objective, the goal was to collect all the stars from each painting.
Game Mechanics
Game Mechanics could be how the player moves and interacts with the world. As an example, in a game like FIFA, the player needs to be able to control a ball, a core mechanic of the ball is the way it moves and interacts with other objects. The ball will ricochet off goal posts and corner flags, if it goes out of bounds, it will give a corner, goal kick, throw-in, if its raining, the ball won’t go along the ground as smooth and so forth.
Resources
Resources could refer to collectibles in video games, the big one for me would be survival games like Ark and Minecraft, you punch a tree and you receive some wood or start hitting a rock and you get some stone or metal.
Challenges // Rewards
Challenges and Rewards are what keep me playing video games, I love having a challenge and being rewarded for that, whether that is an in-game item or a Playstation Trophy, it sets a clear goal and improves the longevity of video games by having these.
For this assignment, I will be looking at three games from one series that has spun across generations, how that game has changed and evolved with the times, I will also be looking at the target audience and technological advancements have improved the games as they’ve evolved.
My game series of choice is Spiderman. Spiderman is a brand that has received many iterations in different forms of media but when it comes to video games, the web-slingers games not only age well, but also show clear advancements with technology.
Spider-Man – PS1 – 2000
Spider-Man on Playstation One is one of the many forgotten gems from this generation, swinging from the skies to building to building, this game was every comic book lovers dream. Finally, people could be the crime-fighting neighbourhood friendly Spider-Man.
The Rise of NeverSoft
The game was developed by game veterans Neversoft and published by the now ever-so-hungry Activision, this game broke boundaries in terms of game-play and customisation. One of the first Playstation One games to feature a semi open-world adventure that features exciting game play and tons of collectibles, thus giving the game some form of longevity.
Neversoft, who were the original developers of Tony Hawks Pro Skater, have some sort of notorious status for their games having collectibles and tons of unlockable content, in Tony Hawks Pro Skater for example, you would collect the letters of SKATE and have tons of challenges to complete, in Spider-Man, the principle is no different, you would collect Spider-Man tokens and Comic Books to unlock special spidey suits that would have different abilities.
This comes as no surprise, as not only was it the same developer that made both Tony Hawks Pro Skater and Spider-Man, but they were also built using the same game engine, more than likely by the same team. The earliest signs of the games development cycle are from a Playstation demo disc, where the game was almost entirely different to the final product, this could be a result of an iterative design process.
Neversoft are a game studio that left a huge footprint in the gaming industry, being founded in 1994, it was only 5 years before they were acquired by publishing giants Activision. They originally started out as a toy manufacturing firm before rearing their heads towards video games. The first game they released was for the Sega Saturn and it was called Skeletal Warriors. In 1996. They ported the game to PlayStation.
Shortly after the port, in 1998, the company began to run out of money and so they decided to start meeting with bigger firms to sell ideas to, or to offer a developing helping hand, they had a meeting with Activision who were publishing a game named Apocalypse, internally at Activision, this product was a failure so they got Neversoft to help them out with the development, and thank god they did, because later on in 1998, the development of Apocalypse was going really well when Activision approached Neversoft with a new idea.. Tony Hawks Pro Skater, although back then it was known as Top Skater.
NeverSoft split the team up as they couldn’t afford to just leave Apocalypse in the dirt, and part of the studio started working on a prototype for Top Skater. Whilst 3/4 of the team finished off Apocalypse, the remaining quarter worked on THPS until October 2018 when Apocalypse had finished development, from this point on THPS was in full development and released in 1999. In 1999, Spider-Man was being developed along side THPS.
The Release of Spider-Man
In 2000, Spider-Man was released and to critical acclaim, the game received high ratings from some of the industries top reviewers. From the success of the Playstation release, the game was ported to other consoles such as the Sega Dreamcast and N64. It was only at this point that NeverSoft realised just how powerful the PlayStation was as a console, as the N64 required a downgrade in the games cutscenes, the game went from pre-rendered cutscenes to comic book strips.
The game received an age-rating of E for Everyone by ESRB however, I feel it was primarily targeted towards male teenagers. The trailer features a techno soundtrack and a lot of action, which is something you necessarily wouldn’t associate with kids or females, the trailer also plays on the fact that you can be SPIDER-MAN, grabbing the attention of comic book fanatics and fans of the old cartoon, which had a demographic of male teenagers.
The game would go on to receive a Sequel, named Spider-Man: Enter Electro. This game featured a huge change from the first title, as you were able to actually go to the ground floor in some levels, in Spider-Man, there was a dewy yellow mist, that when you entered it or got to close, would mean death. Whilst this wasn’t entirely a free-roam environment, it was enough to entice players to buy the game, so they didnt feel like they were replaying the first title.
Between the release of Spider-Man: Enter Electro and Spider-Man, Tony Hawks Pro Skater 2 was developed where Spider-Man was an unlockable character, which was a nice easter egg. Shortly After, the first Spiderman film was released, alongside a video game to match, a year and a half later, Spiderman 2 was released.
Spider-Man 2 – PS2 – 2004
Spider-Man 2 was a huge step forward for Spiderman games in general, this was a game that not only showcased the power of next generation consoles, but a game that once again enabled audiences to think that they were once again Spiderman… this time with feeling.
The PlayStation 2
The best-selling console of all time was every game-developers dream come true. Sony had smashed it out of the park with the release of the PlayStation 2 and with a massive catalogue to boot, this console enabled new possibilities and came jam packed with features. Whilst the Playstation had a form of Dualshock controller, the PS2 introduced the Dualshock 2.
The Dualshock 2 featured full analogue stick support without the need to toggle it off and on, this allowed for characters to be moved in multiple directions that weren’t possible before, not just that but players were now able to control the camera, which came in handy for this game in particular. It also featured rumble feedback and two new programmable buttons, L3 and R3.
DualShock 2
For this game, and its predecessor Spiderman, the development was passed onto a well known studio named Treyarch.
Treyarch: Building a Legacy
Treyarch as we know them today are massive money making machine for publishers Activision, as they develop the Call of Duty franchise now in rotation with Raven Software and Infinity Ward. However, Call of Duty may be their biggest claim to fame but it is by no means their best claim to fame.
Off the back of arguably one of the greatest Spiderman games and movies to exist, Treyarch had to work some wizardry to make the second Spiderman movie tie-in game, for it to be something special. The game featured a huge open world to explore with bad guys on every corner, Treyarch had managed to capture the attention of gamers with this massive improvement over the first Spiderman title.
The biggest improvement they made for this game was for the web swinging. Dissatisfied and hungry for a better solution to the web swinging from the first game, Treyarch hired a developer specifically for improvements to the web swinging, this developer used an old PC game named Rocket Jockey as inspiration as to how the web swinging better in movement, and with that used a development technique named Ray Casting. This allowed the developers to have Infinite map points available to swing from.
As a side note, the developers of the original Spider-Man video game, Neversoft, would go on to be merged with Treyarch’s development partner, Infinity Ward.
Spider-Man 2: Movies to Video Games
There is an odd debate amongst gamers across the internet of Video Games being made into movies being absolutely disastrous, however, when it is the other way around, with the right developer, these can be masterpieces. Shying away from TV Shows and the awful The Walking Dead video game, Spiderman 2 is functional proof of making a video game from a movie isn’t always a bad thing.
Once again targeting male teenagers, the game allowed you to play through the movie at your own pace with a few added extras from the developers. The trailer once again put you into Spiderman’s shoes, describing the game as the ‘City You Protect’ and ‘Your Playground’, it was capturing gamers hearts and their wildest imaginations.
The game received a load of critical acclaim, from the realistically sized Manhattan to the combat, you can bet your bottom dollar that Treyarch were having a ball. Having been released on June 28th 2004, by the 7th July that very same year, the game had shipped over 2 million copies world wide and Spiderman fans could only marvel at the gameplay and graphics that were being showcased. If only they knew what was coming in the distant future… 16 years as a matter of fact.
Marvels Spider-Man: Miles Morales – PS5 – 2020
Several reboots and many years later, Spider-Man finally felt at home with the technological advancements that had been made, 2020, a year as strange as it was, the one thing I personally had to take me a way from the madness was video games and with that, I got to play through Marvel’s Spider-Man which was released in 2018 and developed by Insomniac Games for Playstation 4. However, as good as that game was, and it won plenty of awards to back it up, the real winner here is the spin-off. Marvels Spider-Man: Miles Morales. The reason for this? The release of the Playstation 5.
Playstation 5: Play Has NO Limits
The Playstation 5 is the definition of having all of the cake and eating it, this is a developers fantasy. Not only did they have a console that enabled them to push graphics beyond boundaries but they also had access to the best control pad ever made. The DualSense is Sony’s move away from the DualShock and it is a welcomed change to say the least.
Taking the inspiration from the DualShock 4, the controller has kept the touch pad and the integrated speaker, however Sony have added a built-in microphone, haptic feedback and the biggest change of all, Adaptive Triggers. We now live in a society where immersion is the next big thing, with the current trend of Virtual Reality, console gamers didn’t really have much of an outlet for immersion, until now.
Firstly, with Haptic Feedback, you can now feel the bumps in the road as you drive over them and you feel how hard you are being shot dependant on the weapons. From the DualShock 4’s rumble motors, the vibration was either strong or weak, now with the DualSense’s haptic feedback, you can feel everything and in different parts of the controller too.
Adaptive Triggers make those boring old games like Call of Duty, feel like a brand new game. Every gun you pick up feels different to shoot, you can finally feel the tension when pulling back on a bow string, you can feel your players running out of energy as they try and sprint for the ball in games of FIFA. Adaptive Triggers is a very rich feature and a joy to use, it separate’s the boys from men when it comes to control pads and console wars.
And then there’s the console itself, this powerhouse is the definition of a ninja. By that I don’t just mean that it’s tall and sleek, but it is also silent and deadly. The output this thing can produce, to console gamers, is just simply wonderful. The only downside to the console is the built in storage, weighing in at just 725GB of usable space, it’s almost as if Sony weren’t aware of newly released games coming in at 75-120GB. However, you do have the option of an internal SSD and external hard drive.
Insomniac Games: Success is Certain
Insomniac Games have a massive history behind them, starting in 1994, Insomniac Games would go on to produce games like the original Spyro, Ratchet and Clank and Resistance, all of which were exclusive to Playstation at the time of their release. However there was a time where they would move away and develop amazing games such as Sunset Overdrive which was exclusive to XBOX. In 2019, Sony purchased Insomniac Games after Marvels Spider-Man on PS4 became the fastest selling PS4 game, selling 3.3 million units in just 3 days.
However, not everything Insomniac produces immediately became gold, in 2013, they developed a game named Fuse. Fuse turned out to be one of Insomniacs worst reviewed game, what’s funny about this is the game was published by a small studio, Electronic Arts. This is funny because EA are a publishing company that have been under fire for a long time, having strict deadlines, pushing developers past their limits, under-paying employee’s and also being named as one of the worst places to work, so this game, while not as successful as Insomniacs other hits, had EA written all over it. This was the first and the last time Insomniac Games and Electronic Arts worked together.
Spider-Man: Miles Morales
Spider-Man: Miles Morales is a game developed by Insomniac Games and published by Playstation Worldwide Studios. This Playstation exclusive was one of the bigger launch titles to accompany the PS5. Taking full advantage of the consoles best features such as Ray-Tracing and Adaptive Triggers, this game became a spectacle for the world to see, I think the trailer above makes that evident.
Spider-Man’s target audience does take a small detour here, as it is pushed towards Teens to Mature audiences. However, the demographic for the game had attracted an ethnic minority due to the main characters background and story.
Miles Morales might be a name not synonymous with Spidey fans, but this is a smart game choice for the current times that we live in. With the powerful Black Lives Matters movement impacting everyday lives, a lot of people perceive the release of Miles Morales as a ‘publicity stunt’ or ‘an attempt to make Spider-Man relative’ when as a matter of fact, Miles Morales has been around since 2011, and even back then the move was conceived as a publicity stunt by Marvel.
It is also worth noting that Miles Morales makes an appearance in the base Spider-Man PS4 game, Marvel fans like me who played through this game would have only been intrigued by this if they knew the history of the character, little did we know it would lead to a full blown game.
Two years earlier, Miles Morales was the main character of the animated film ‘Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse’. This film is the perfect introduction to Miles Morales’ life as Miles if people weren’t aware of who he is or what he is about. The game takes plenty of inspiration from this film.
Conclusion
Spider-Man is a franchise that has such a twisted history behind it, from the comic books to the films to the video games, it is hard to keep up with the times. The Spider-Man movies as an example had 3 separate reboots. The three games mentioned here are from three different era’s of Spider-Man, all made by different developers.
This is also without going in to the historic rights issue with Spider-Man, essentially Sony has owned the rights to the Spider-Man character since 1985, so while it is believed that Spider-Man is a Marvel character, which he is, he isn’t Marvel’s property. This is heavily noticed in the gaming world as XBOX fans of Sunset Overdrive could only dream of Spider-Man landing on an XBOX console, citing why Sony couldn’t just give the rights back to Marvel. A deal was reached with Disney and Marvel in 2015 that allowed Spider-Man to be featured in Marvel’s cinematic universe, citing the third reboot of the film franchise, starring Tom Holland.
Iterative Design Process is essentially when you take an idea, or multiple ideas and set them as a foundation to build upon. As a game designer, we would be taking multiple ideas and creating prototypes based on those ideas, we would then build upon those ideas and see what works best, what looks like our vision and what works well. If an idea we have doesn’t fit in to our vision, we can simply abandon it. Iterative Design can be a cost-effective approach as it puts user experience in the center of the design process.
Iterative Design has four main stages and they are Prototype, Playtest, Iterate and Implement.
Prototyping is where you make a basic playable version of your idea and see how and whether or not it actually it works. As previously mentioned its best to have multiple ideas incase the first one doesn’t quite work out.
Playtesting, this is essentially what it says on the tin, we’ve got a prototype and now we need to test it. To do this we simply play the game. During this stage its ideal to get feedback from family and friends and use their collective feedback to see what works and what doesn’t. Why didn’t this idea work, what was fun about this idea, was it easy to play etc..
Iterate. Now that we’ve got some feedback from our playtesting session, in this stage we focus on building on that feedback and using it to improve our game. Essentially this will loop us back to a prototype stage where we would make some of the changes suggested by the feedback received. Once they have been made, we would go back to a Playtest and then iterate again based on the feedback.
Eventually we’ll get to the Implement stage. The Implement stage is where we take our game and release it to a wider audience. However, this doesn’t mean our game is complete, there will be feedback from the wider audience which is different from that to the friends and family feedback. Using that feed back we go back and iterate.
For me Iteration is nothing new, as a former music producer and graphic designer, there was always things to change whether it be a time signature, tempo, colours in a certain graphic, keys, shapes, it was all about getting feedback and using it to improve the product.
Up to now, I have used an Iterative Design Process for Qubitz! which is my game on the Play Store. This allows me to continuously improve on what I have made. As an example, before publishing on the Play Store, I made a closed testing track and shared it with family and friends who have Android devices. They then told me what they liked and didn’t like about it so I had to find a balance, most of the changes were how the game mechanics worked.
After that I then shared my game to Reddit and got some constructive criticism and am now using that for my next update. I am also reaching out to multiple mobile game focused websites to try and get a feature and some feedback from those guys aswell.
I have been working on a mini game after being inspired by the game jam back in October. However, I wanted this to be a mobile game that utilised touch input.
I started the project the half term week after the game jam and finally was able to build a playable version on mobile. As I want to be a game developer and increase my portfolio and skills, I published the app to Google Play.
I have started a independent studio named Glitch Arcade, copyright pending, and want it to be a place where singular developers like myself can publish their games if they wish to do so.
Qubitz! A challenging endless runner that tests your reflexes and reactions.
Jump, Slide and Manuver around obstacles to try and get a high score. Featuring numerous customization options to make it your own personal environment.
Ads will appear every 5 deaths however there is a Pay-What-You-Want to remove ads.
Coming Soon:
High Score Leaderboard. Gameplay Recording to share to social media.
In todays session, for the 3D minigame I modified the FPSController script from the standard assets pack and made it so that we could pick up coins in the 3D minigame. To do this I made a int titled ‘Score’ and a Text game object titled scoreText. To add the Text game object, I had too add ‘using UnityEngine.UI’ to the collections.
After that, the next step is fairly simple, In the update function, I wrote ‘scoreText.text = “Score: ” + score;’ This will take our game object of scoreText and convert it into what we have wrote after the assignment operator. Then I made a new function which is called void OnTriggerEnter(Collider other). This is a built in function of unity that detects when one object passes through another. This uses a conditional statement.
So what this does, it checks to see if the player is passing through an object with the tag ‘Coin’. If this happens, it adds 1 to our score integer and then destroys the coin. Here it is in action.
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JORDAN | GLITCH ARCADE 