Multimedia Dev 1

What is the GDD for? A Game Design Document (GDD) is a blueprint for the design and development of a game. The GDD is a way of being creative and documenting the approach to the development of the game. Gonzale (1999) states that “ the important thing is to have something that describes your game project (or any other project for that matter) before jumping into production .( Gamasutra ) It should help to plan out your game. Though it is recommended that the GDD should be short it needs to be detailed enough so as game developers and artists can coordinate the development of the game independently whilst still keeping to the design.  The GDD is a blueprint for how the game is going to be designed and built, similar to a mind map. In conclusion, the game design document is vital to making a game and it is important to have in order to describe your game project. How do we make one? There are a variety of tools that could be used to create a GDD. These include word processing tools, vi

Lesson 2.4 was vary helpful as during lessons 2.1, 2.2, 2.3 I found myself wondering when we where going to learn how to get rid of the animals with the food like in the demonstration that was shown to me when the animal disappeared when the pizza hit them. It has also how shown me how to a  add the word game over when an animal passes me by but I had hoped that it would be in big letters and appear in front of the camera not in tinny letters and in the far left corner. As for the Quiz, I was not a big fan of that as I work better when I am given instructions weather then being left to figure it out on your own but the problems one, two and three where easy to fix I just had to with around when the balls and dog and change the box collider where spawning from. It was problem 5 to 8 that where the problem as that in involved the C#script so I had to look back at some of the tutorials to figure out what the solution was. (screen shot of Challenge 2 link to hear)

INTRODUCTION The title of the game that I am designing is called "Shrunk" It is a third-person maze / puzzle game that places you in the shoes of a lab assistant working on new technology when something goes horribly wrong and it is up to you to fix it before it gets any worse. The game Is designed for the PC using Unity as a game engine and based of a simaler idea to the games "I am Bread" and "I am Fish" by Bossa Studios and the movie "Honey I shrunk the kids" by Joe Johnston DESCRIPTION In the game Shrink you play as a lab assistant working for a professor who is working on shrink ray technology and while it it does work if the object ramanes shrunk for 24 hours then the effects are irreversible and can't be undone. One night while cleaning up after another day of experimentation and calculation you accidentally switch the shrink ray on and it blasted you and knocked you out . When you finally wake up you find that everything is large then

This was one of the frustrating tutorials I had to do not because it was hard but because I was suffering technical difficulty in lesson 2.1 I was having trouble with the C#script as when ever I tried to attach it  as a component to my player and notification kept coming up saying it didn't exist I tried it multiple times even deleting the entire thing and starting from scratch. Eventual I found that the problem with the assets when it asked for the assets to be updated I said no and the C#script started to work for me. Once that problem was dealt with everything was easy. However when I was typing commander into C#script so thing did not work until I relisted what was wrong. But despite these miner problems this tutorial was vary helpful as it showed me how to how randomizing works in video games and how to use the apply all option  as well as how to make it so my character does not fall off the edge of the platform and how to make "prefabs" which means prefabricated and

The first paper is " MDA: A Formal Approach to Game Design and Game Research ", the authors start by telling the reader what Mechanics, Dynamics, and Aesthetics or MDA is describing it as the "bridge" between game design and game development. They then go on to talk about what each ward in the acronym means Mechanic is about the particular components of the game, Dynamics is about the run time behavior of the mechanics acting on the players inputs and each others output over time  and Aesthetics is about the emotional response evoked in the player. It then describe the different stages of of AI complexity with first pass being the most simple and is mostly used for prototypes and games for 3 to 7 year old's, next is second pass which is slightly more complex and usually has game with a plot and different levels to it and is used for games for 7 to 12 year old's and finally there is third pass games is the most complex include games like thief and splinter

Twitter Task 6 This week I learned how to control my characters moments in unity tutorials. Another thing I learned this week is how to give constructive feedback. #dmed2023 — Bernard MacDonagh (@BernardMacDon14) October 17, 2020 Twitter Task 6 One thing that I would like to improve is my skills with Unity as that is going t be ecential for creating my game this semester — Bernard MacDonagh (@BernardMacDon14) October 17, 2020

I found the articles " Try Feedforward Instead of Feedback " to be a vary helpful read. I found in a way that the idea of giving advice for future situation instead of things that have already happened makes a lot of scene. I like the idea it gives on "focus on a positive future, not a failed past" as it causes you to think more positively and have people develop a growth mindset  but also helps for people who are a little sensitive when it come to feedback as according to the article people take feedforward better and do not take it as personally as feedback. They even experimented to see if the theory of feedforword was correct and the people who took part described as helpful and fun. To summaries feedforward is about improving the future and not focusing in the mistakes of the past.  Another  article that I found to be vary useful was " How to Give Feedback Without Sounding Like a jerk " as it tells us how from the experiences of someone else who had t

After giving it much thought I decided that moving forward I would go with my second idea that was based on the games "I am Bread" and "I am Fish" where you play as a person who has been shrunk down and has to climb up to the table to the shrink ray in order to get back to normal size. Now I just need to find out how to make the game work luckily the Unity tutorials I did for week 3 and week 4 have all ready shown me how to make my character move and how to control them but for this game to really work I also need to find out how to make my character jump in order for them to get around some of the obstacle that I have in mind fortuitously I have found a video on YouTube that showed how to add it to my C#script. Unlike in I am bread where you controlled individual corners of the bread in mine you will just be the full body as it seems too awkward to do. However another problem I have is due to only using pre made environments so far, I have yet to learn how to make

I found lesson 1.4 to be very helpful to me as it showed while the others lessons taught me alot of the basics like how to cause the car to move and at what speed and how to work the camera and how to make it fallow physics I kept on asking my self when is it going to show me how to actually control the car and make it move left and right and not just straight with the keys and this tutorial has helped me see how to do that.  I was not a big fan of the quiz that I had to do in challenge 1 as I much prefer being give the instruction instead of be left to figure it out by my self. I order to figure it out I had to look at past instruction videos to help jog my memories and one I did it was easy as fixing a few mistakes and bugs it much simpler then make it all from scratch. lab 1 was also helpful as it showed me how to fill out a project design document as well as gave me one to fill out instead of leaving be to make one my self. (screen shot of the Unity challenge 1 link to here) 

In the paper " What are the qualities of Games? " the author in a vary informal way, first goes in depth on on the recurring themes of games such as "games have rules, conflict, goals, decision-making, and an uncertain outcome" as well as the giving a simplified form of the different definition of games such as "games are activities, they are artificial/safe/ outside ordinary life they contain elements of make-believe/representation/simulation, they are inefficient, they are art" and how these are formal element's and goes on to provide a like to another an amazon page for  Challenges for Game Designers . The author then goes on to talk about "Atomic Elements" of a game with links to different aspects (1) Player , (2) Objectives , (3) Rules , (4) Resources and Resource Management , (5) Game State , (6) Information , (7) Sequencing , (8) Player Interaction , (9) Theme , (10) Games as systems . The author then goes on to talk about critical ana

I found Seven ways to crush self-doubt  to have some vary good advice. I agree with number 1, I should not try and compare my work to someone else and just focus on doing my one my way. I also agree with number 5 set goals that are within my control to be rather good advice and something that I will do in the future. I also number 3 be vulnerable to a trusted community, I ask what my friends think of my work so far all the time so as to get there opinion on what could be improved upon. Another link I found useful Silence the critical voices in your head  and how they suggested to see ever thing in a glass half full point of view trying to find a positive to everything, However I do sometimes find that difficult as I can be a bit pessimistic when it comes to work but in the future I will try to find more positives and be a bit more up beat. (Screen shot of Seven ways to crush self link to page hear)   

have done twitter task 3 — Bernard MacDonagh (@BernardMacDon14) October 10, 2020

(my brain storm for game ideas)   The first game idea that I came up with is a racing game, it felt like a rather good idea since so far the only tutorial we have done in unity involved cars, where you as the player will take control of a car and have to race along the track in the limited amount of time the is given to you by me and you get a point for each lap that you complete in the given time. I got the idea to do a racing game after seeing a walk through of Mario Kart on YouTube so the style will be similar but much more simple due to my inexperience with unity. For my layout I was thinking, since it was inspired by Mario Kart and they are known for their crazy and odd environments, the background for the game would be outer space and if  possible  have the track going around the sun. As for the track its self I figured that I would make a relatively standard race track with it starting off with a few different obstacles like crates and a few barrels that can be easily driven thr

While I was doing unity tutorial 1, I found the video instructions to be very helpful. I enjoyed putting together the small game it helped tech me how to add and remove objects from it, as well as add and change C#Script however in order to do that I had to download Microsoft Visual Studio which took a while to finish but once it had it was very easy to add and change certain things about specific objects in the game. It also taught me how to make objects fallow the physic of gravity and collision which I thought was going to be much more complex but was actually very easy all I had to do was add rigid body to the components and nothing more. However lesson 1.3  took a bit longer not because it was hard but because the internet at the time was not working well so the instruction videos took a lot longer to buffer but I feel it was also the most impotent as it taught me how to handle the camera and make it fallow to vehicle. The tutorial has taught me some very impotent basics that will

WHAT IS A GAME ANYWAY In the paper "What is a game Anyway" it uses informal language to describe to me what a game can be and give me example. One such example that was given was "Three to Fifteen" the author explains how many players there can be, the objective, how progression works and how to win. The author then went on to explain critical vocabulary, which is essentially the describing of a game to people. Next they went on to what defined a game with a list of peoples different opinions on what that means a few examples are a game has “ends and means”: an objective, an outcome, and a set of rules to get there" by David Parlett another is "A game is an activity involving player decisions, seeking objectives within a “limiting context”" by Clark C. Abt. (image of the paper link to hear) THE ORGANIC NATURE OF GAME IDEATION The next paper "The organic nature  of game ideation " was written in a much more  academic style , the paper starts

Attention readers I have made this post to tell you all that I have now added a twitter widget to my to my blog that you can access in my top side bar so that anyone who  wants to can see my twitter account. (image of twitter logo link to website)

When I first saw the number of tasks we had to do in week 2, I was worried think every week was going to be like this, but once I took a look at week 3 I was relived to see it was one task a day instead of 2. However I am still a little nervous about having 3 tasks for Friday to Sunday, but the fact that one of them is just leaving comments on other people blog calmed me down a bit and the reading seems like something you can do the week before.  According to The Psychology of Checklists Lauren Marchese it is suggested that I make a list in order to keep track of all my work and when something is due, and I'm inclined to agree. Along with this Realistic Study Plans by Amanda Collins has helped try and design a study plan which may help in the future. However I feel like my biggest challenge will be juggling the different modals and making sure I have time for all of them.  (image of clocks link to website)