Tag: Week 3

Week 3.1– 8th February. 2021

When I think of how games are made, I now understand why ‘rapid ideation‘ is vital. 

The amount of time it takes to test and implement new ideas and check off what works or not, what key features are going to be included and why, what emotion, or atmosphere you are trying to create for your audience, and knowing who your audience is aimed at.

The development process, could take a lot longer if this approach was not put into action. However when working on a prototype, you follow a loose theme, which I understand to be, any part of a game, eg. a particular level, where you take part in game jam’s, where you only have a limited time to get your ideas noted down, tested and re-tested in different ways.

The aim is to fail, and to do so fast! By keeping this in mind, everything you create should be a rough prototype that can be developed continuously in numerous amount of ways.

Brain storms, and body storms is what I already do. But now I am experimenting with new things and its getting really exciting! 

Some of my peers recently used ; White boxing. I am temped to give it a trial run, but I am trying to keep my direction focused with the Kanban method, I must apply my steps of development in order to learn any other prototype techniques later on. But this is not important for now.

Week 3.2 – 10th February. 2021

Challenge activity

• Choose one or two different methods of prototyping
• Identify any interesting characteristics you like about it

Legend of Zelda; Breath of the Wild

by Nintendo.

The methods I have experimented with are; Game Prototyping – Photoshop Sketch Prototping – Photoshop 

I knew we needed to be quick with this rapid ideation process, thats why I used photoshop, due to still learning how to use Blender.

I wanted to work on one of the scenic backgrounds, with a concept in mind about creating a new level.

Although this game has got beautiful scenery throughout, I wanted to experiment with effects and decided on this scenic view below. 

Concept

With this in mind – The aim is to take the image apart, by transforming it into tiles, or jigsaw pieces. Then as you entered the new level you would have to piece the picture together before you could even start. 

Problem

The reason why it took so long was due to a plugin called Comic kit, (originally was going to be used on my third picture below) I thought it would help with the speediness needed for this approach, however the download took a long time and would not open in photoshop.

Solution

I therefore had to do the rest by hand, but in doing so… I crafted something more unusual than planned.

I am very pleased with it, and wish I had not hesitated to draw by hand from the beginning.

First part of process

•  Add gradient map to the original art work – clicked reverse 

This gave me more shadow definition – then converted it to a smart object – toggled with a few different effects, (once again I have never use these before.)

But the one I chose is called crystallize – cell size 20 – this was the closest thing I could get with an outcome similar to a tile effect.

Second part of process

I played around with another filter called noise – dust and scratches – adjusted the radius and threshold many times until I chose to stick with radius 18 and threshold 28.

This time around, the effect was more fluffy and light, and then I started to imagine Zelda entering this level, as though he was dreaming.

**Comic kit Plugin; As I mentioned earlier, the idea was to make the level into a jigsaw – Thats why I was downloading the comic kit plugin, to add to my 3rd picture of the development process, it should have gave me access to line patterns / shapes, and then selected each one, within a cartoon style. This was going to be a quick way of making a puzzle, by extracting the highlighted shapes from it.

Final part of process

Next as the cartoon effect was not an option, I traced over every line I could see, concentrating on the jigsaw idea. From here I discovered that by tracing all the lines, I had traced the shadows to, which then altered my original notion of creating a new level which you can only enter, when you have completed the jigsaw, but not just a normal jigsaw piece, but the shape of the shadows to, as you can see…it would be quick difficult. 

I personal would like to try this, and I know it would keep me engaged…knowing you can’t start the level until the whole jigsaw is complete.

Testing

To test this jigsaw out, I would have liked to place it onto Blender or Unity, and picked the pieces off individually, by timing myself to see how long it would take to put back together, and find out if their were any issues.

Plus to develop even further, you could make the levels start with numerous jigsaws throughout, and to complete each one, by using different textured puzzles.

 

References

RUBINO, Giovanni. 2021. Rapid Ideation. Available at : https://flex.falmouth.ac.uk/courses/911/pages/week-3-what-is-rapid-ideation?module_item_id=49152 [accessed 8 Feb 2021]

Reddit Inc. 2020. ‘Satori Mountain at sunset’ Available at : https://www.reddit.com/r/AstralObservatory/comments/dp17iw/satori_mountain_at_sunset/ [accessed 10 Feb 2021]

Full List of Figures

Figure 1: Reddit Inc. 2020 Satori Mountain at sunset