Game Development Blog - Week 2

Hey there!

So... let me clear up a few things right off the bat. First of all, what is this? Well, if you don’t know already, I am a college student. Specifically, I’m studying Game Design. I’m in my final year right now, and in one of our classes, the students are all getting together to help make games. This blog is a part of that - for this game, I’m supposed to make blog posts every week or so about what we’ve done with our games in that past week. Neat, huh?

Second: where’s Week 1?

...there isn’t one. I forgot to make a blog post last week.

...

On with the blog post!

~~~~~

WEEK 2

Overview
Since there was no Week 1 update, I’ll take this space to give a quick overview of what you missed in that first week.

Our class, prior to the semester starting, was split up into teams of four. My team, for references sake, consists of the following:

Tom [Artist]
Ryan [Programmer]
Dustin [Programmer]
Connor [Designer] [Me!]

Once we got through that first class session, we were tasked with coming up with a number of game concepts that we could turn into games going forwards. A lot of ideas were discussed among the group - a parody game where you work the register a mini mart, a game where one person gives directions to a driver who is unfamiliar with the area... even a game where you play as a bird and shit on everything.

But eventually, three ideas rose to the top: A 2D RPG Platformer game where you can fuse elements together as attacks, a Reverse Stealth Game where you try to attract attention, and a 3D Beat-Em-Up based around musical concepts. I’ll explain these ideas in more detail at a later point.

Now we get into this past week, and the progress we made since the pure concept phase of development!

Progress Update
This week, our goal is to begin prototyping our games - we need three prototypes to move on to the next stage of development, so it seemed only fitting that we make one prototype for each of our game ideas.

Designer’s Prototype
At this point in the game development process, there is very little design work for me to do - the bulk of that comes once the idea has been solidified and full-scale development begins - so I spent this past week working on my Prototype for the Reverse Stealth game.

I should mention one thing: the three ideas we have were all created by a different team member. I came up with the Stealth game, Dustin came up with the 2D platformer, and Ryan came up with the Music Beat-em-Up.

I bring this up because, naturally, when it came time to decide how to make prototypes, the programmers immediately jumped at the idea of making prototypes for their own game ideas, leaving mine a bit in the dust. Nevertheless, I powered through and (after some coding assistance from a friend) I managed to pull together a digital prototype with all of my game’s core mechanics in place.

To explain my idea in a bit more depth: in a typical stealth game, you want to try and avoid being detected at all costs. In this game, you do the opposite. You goal is to run around attracting the attention of as many guards as possible. Why, you might ask? Well, a second character (which could be either a computer or a second player) is trying to do the normal stealth thing, getting through undetected. You have to distract the guards so that he can go through unseen by anyone.

Anyways, my prototype: currently, the prototype has all the primary functions - player movement, “stealth guy” AI movement, and two guards that see the player when you step within their line of sight, chase the player while in their line of sight, return to their post when you leave their sight, and capture the stealth guy if he enters their line of sight. It’s all very simple and crude at the moment, but functionally, it’s all there.

Moving Forwards
Our team was hoping we could get all of our prototypes to a playable and testable state by either the end of this week, or the end of next week. While it looks like this week will be too close to shoot for, next week should be an easily attainable goal. We will need to organize testing sessions for our prototypes, and once our games have been tested, we’ll need to decide once and for all which idea we want to move forwards with. We’ve discussed this briefly already, but the debate raged on exactly as you might expect. I argued for my game, Ryan for his, and Dustin for his (Tom stayed neutral, as to not hurt anyone’s feelings). We will need to obtain feedback from our fellow classmates and professors before we can reach a final decision.

That is all I have to say for this week. Until next time, take care, all!