Understanding Creative Media Companies
Game Freak is a Japanese video game developer best known for the Pokemon Game series. It is one of the owners of Pokemon along with Nintendo and Creatures Inc. Game Freak is the main developer for all the Pokemon mainline series. The Pokemon games are then publicised through Nintendo or Pokemon Company for the Nintendo consoles.
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Nintendo is a Japanese multinational videogame company and is best known for developing the Mario, Zelda and Kirby series. Nintendo also releases it's own videogame consoles which has some of the most successful consoles in the videogame industry. Nintendo is a partner of Game Freak as they have their games on their consoles, but is still technically a subsidiary of Nintendo. Nintendo has a presentation called Nintendo Direct which is lived streamed on Youtube to showcase the newest up-coming games.
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The Nintendo eShop is the official game distribution for the Nintendo Switch and is a digital distribution service. It was formerly available via Nintendo Network on the Wii U and Nintendo 3DS. On this service, people can get the game digitally on their console instead of having a game cartridge. All of the newest games are distributed here including 3rd party games. Game, Currys and Argos are UK stores where you can get a Nintendo Switch game digitally or physically.
Bibliography: Game Freak (2024) Wikipedia. Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_Freak (Accessed: 10 November 2024). Nintendo (2024) Wikipedia. Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nintendo (Accessed: 10 November 2024). Nintendo eShop (2024) Wikipedia. Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nintendo_eShop (Accessed: 10 November 2024).
There are different types of companies involved in creative media production which contribute to the industry. Designers/developers are the ones that make the game and its a team of people with different roles of game designing. The job requires a lot of money ranging sometimes millions which is why there is support from the Publisher. The publishers fund the development and help market a game. They handle the marketing costs by paying for screen adverts, print adverts, and online advertising.
They are also responsible for the distribution of the game; setting up manufacturing, producing the physical games and box, shipping copies to retailers and online platforms. The distributors release the physical game to the public, usually in a retailer. Retailers sell the game to players that covers the cost of producing a game, shipping costs and the store's own cost.
The money made from selling new copies of games is split between the distributor, publisher and developer. Sometimes, indie developers can't afford to distribute their game this way, so there are online services that allows you to publish a game for free. Vertical Integration is when a parent company operates and owns more than one of the stages of production in a single industry. For example; SIE develops the game, Sony Interactive Entertainment publishes the game and the Playstation store distributes the game, all of which is owned by Sony.
Horizontal Integration is when a single parent company owns other companies or studios across different industries. For example, Nintendo owns The Pokemon Company, Monolift Soft, iQue, 1-Up Studio and Mario Club.
Developing Contextual Awareness
A game genre is a classification assigned to a video game based on its core gameplay rather than visual or narratives. There are game genres such as: platformer, shooter, fighting, sport, rhythm, RPG, adventure, racing, puzzle, sandbox and visual novel.
Platformers are centered around running, jumping and climbing to navigate the player's environment. They have enemies or obstacles (blockers) to avoid and fight to reach the end goal. This genre is the best way to show verbs and versatile verbs which are actions that the player can make. Verbs are the simple actions, for example, running, jumping and climbing. Versatile verbs are something added extra to the actions to enhance the players performance in the game and is usually used for more experienced or at the end of the game. These are used everywhere in games just to help the player.
When starting to play a new game, usually the controls aren't known, therefore a guide/tutorial is needed for the player. Most games have a paused screen with a tutorial or a character telling you what to do, but there are games that use invisible tutorial. Invisible tutorial is when the game design/level guides the player visually what to do.
This is seen in Half Life 2 in how to kill the zombies. The game shows a zombie chopped in half with a sawblade in it's stomach. Then the doorway to the next section is blocked by a sawblade. The player picks up a blade with the gravity gun and at that moment, a zombie wanders into view. The player instinctively hits the the fire button and the sawblade cuts through the zombie. In ten seconds, the game has taught the player that sawblades are effective for killing zombies without reading anything.
Level Design Workshop
Nintendo is a very famous game design company making games like Super Mario, Zelda, Kirby and Animal Crossing. However when their games are being developed, when they design a level they draw it on a piece of paper. These are the main techniques Nintendo used in a platform level design:
1) Grid paper; allows for easy scaling of objects and blockers.
2) Simple shape based drawing; make everything easier to draw.
3) Colour coding; distinguish various objects and blockers from each other.
4) Text labels; create easy to understand directions for the level's design.
Knowing this information, I used it to make my own platformer for beginners who are playing a platformer on the platformer making game Super Mario Maker 2 which has many different tools to make a platformer. I also had to use the techniques of invisible tutorial in the game level. First I had to design the level on grid paper. I used geometric shapes for the level design and I designed the player as a square. I also added a key to with an explanation to what they are.
I used squares with a letter inside them to represent what they are. For example; I wrote the letter 'M' for the player Mario and a 'G' for the enemy Goomba. I named almost everything so I can get other people to understand the level. I didn't add a name to the some of the blocks which it could confuse some people who are trying to understand the function of the level. The second sheet of graph paper was more confusing to understand and more difficult for beginners. I added more difficult items and didn't show the player how to use them.
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This created problems like the player panicking and not knowing what to do because I didn't guide them through the design of the level. I forgot to add a finish line/goal because I was so focused on adding in items, enemies and understanding in what different items did. I think I was taking the level design too seriously which led me to forgetting that this was for beginners. When other people saw me play my own level I received feedback saying that 'I made it too hard for myself'', 'There's no guide to help you play' and 'The beginning had a very good start as the higher platform told the player to jump'.
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Intro to Construct 3
Construct 3 is a game making software that I will be learning how to use for my 2D game project. There are 5 windows in Construct 3 with different uses and tools. Layout is where visual elements are added. Event sheet makes the action/'coding' in the game.
Project imports files into the game. Properties show the properties of layout. Layers organises the placements of the objects. An object could be the player/characters, background, the ground/platforms, audio and keyboard.
For the player, I added Scroll-to, so the player is in the center of the screen, and Platform, so the player won't fall through surfaces. A general rule that should always be known is that 'Don't always assume that the game engine does whatever I want it to do'. In conclusion, this has been very useful and engaging because I continue to experiment with the settings and properties for making games. The most hardest part for me is adding the audio because there are many options that confused me and I didn't know what the right option is.
Reflective Journal
I enjoyed using a game engine for the first time. As someone who has no experience with a game engine, it was very simple to understand adding in the sprites and behaviours. However, I had difficulty understanding the event sheet which adds more features like controls. This was difficult for me because of the navigation on adding events and actions. With the events I added, it was confusing because there were two different events for the controls. For example; for the keys when they were pressed down, there were two options which was 'key' is down and on 'key' pressed. This is something that I will have understand the more I use this game engine.
Preproduction of a Game
How to become a game designer
Team 2D Game Project-Idea Generation And Planning
From today I was put into a team game project to produce a game. The game's theme is 'fantasy', and the branding of the game must include Stanmore Studios. To make the game, we will use the software Construct 3. The game's visual elements can be made with my teams different skills for example, photography, hand drawings or graphic design. The game also has to have 3 different verbs, which can be running, jumping or climbing.
Mind Map
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With this in mind we then started to make our game concept sheet and pre-production documents.
Game Concept Sheet
Our team decided on the 2D platformer shooter game because it has more features than just running and jumping and it won't increase the workload. We made a concept sheet with our ideas for the game which includes levels, characters, enemies and settings.
Game Moodboard
Team Schedule
Weekly Reflective Journal-6th Jan
This week, our team took a look at our progress in our game project. The most concerning parts of the project is the progress our game. We haven't started on the prototype and character and level design. Also we haven't started on inspiration, so my teammate made a game mood-board with the game levels and enemy design of Mega Man which was our main inspiration because it's very similar to our idea of running, jumping and shooting platformer.
We made a schedule to organise our roles in making the game. I would be in charge of making the game characters and the prototype, whilst Ishwar and Cristina are in charge of the audio and marketing of the game. I set a target for myself to finish character sketches and design by next week Monday where we will have another team crit to discuss on what to do.
Character/Level Design
I had now started to sketch the main character for the game which at the beginning I had found very difficult. It was hard for me to think of something original because my designs too similar to Mega Man. Then, advice was given to me breakdown mega man's character design into simple geometric shapes. The idea was to change the shapes to come up with something new and original. This reminded me when we did the 12 principles of animation and ‘appeal’ was how a character body shape reflects their personality. The idea was to come up with something less humanoid and more robotic looking.
Mega Man had small oval and circular shapes that build up his body, so I changed the shapes that it wouldn't have 4 limbs. Instead for legs, I added a gigantic wheel that he would move around in and 2 arms that would shoot out bullets. I added a small head at the top to make the character look more friendly and I also used circles to connect all the parts together. I also considered the physics of the robot with the arms flailing back when he sprints. This was the finished character and I named him Droll.
Enemy sketch 1:
Enemy sketch 2:
These are the enemy/obstacles sketches for the player to avoid in the level and the difficulty progresses the more you travel in the level. I added features like a straight laser that turns on and off, bullets that fire at the player, a little enemy that will damage the player if it touches and tyres that rolls towards the player. I was not certain that I will add all of these enemies, but I wanted to add my ideas for a beginner game and test my game designing. My teammates said that they like the enemy design because the features and ideas were simple.
Level design:
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This is my simple level design that will hopefully go into my game project. For this design, I added one level that was simple and easy to understand. I added a platform that was raised that would keep the player safe from the laser. I used an arrow sign to direct the player where to go, including collectables. I used a symbol key to tell my teammates what each object was.
Pixel Design of Characters
For the art style of the game, I decided to use pixels because it's very simple to make designs from using software that use this style. First, I tested the software 'Pyxel Edit' to try out my skills and to understand the shapes and colours. I started by looking at characters that are in the 8-bit style to study their design, so I can convert my character designs. After experimenting with the software, I started to make the characters/enemies:
Droll/Player
Laser blocker
Shooting blocker
Enemy AI blocker
Weekly Reflective Journal-13th Jan
In this session, my team and I checked on our schedule to see if all of us has caught up. My team and I still needed to do poster concepts, storyboarding and prototypes that were in the schedule last week. We then had a chance to check the other prototype made by the other groups so we can get feedback. Since I had not made a prototype, I used the game I first made when learning how to use construct 3. The rest of my teammates went to give feedback to other groups, whilst I was receiving feedback from my prototype. The feedback I received was very helpful to me in improving my game.
Feedback of Prototype:
I was interested by the feedback that Vlada gave me and I was expecting for people to not find it enjoyable at first. Most of the feedback was about the Character designs and the colours. I was surprised to hear that people had a difficult time looking for the spikes because the colour blended in with the dark background. Another comment was on the characters which some said that it looked nice, and others said that the enemy AI had no purpose or was not working properly. Overall I think the feedback that I received made sense considering that I have not made a prototype and what I presented was not finished.
Since I had not made a prototype I decided to make the prototype this week to teach myself how to make the shooting mechanic in the game. I will also design the backgrounds and change the colours because of my feedback.
Weekly Reflective Journal-20th Jan
In this session, our team was making final adjustments to our game and poster designs. We weren't able to finish a video trailer for our game. However, I made a shooting prototype feature and a rough design of the game. I wasn't satisfied with the final look of the game. It was very incomplete because all I added was the character and it's playing features, a platform design and a background design made by my teammate Ishwar.
The final adjustments I made was adding the background design, the platform design and some pipes for the player to jump on. One thing I am satisfied with is the platform design that I created on Pyxel Edit. I haven't gotten any feedback on it yet but I like the colours that I used for the platform. I also added a running animation which is just a simple frame that shows the player moving. I didn't add any other frames, so it doesn't look like a smooth transition between idle and running. I added a gear collectable and the idea was to get all the gears to complete the game, but it wasn't finished in time. We also didn't add any audio for the game as well as any enemies.
For my team to work better, I could've communicated more with them about what their roles needed to be done. I also need to improve my skills on project and time management.
Evaluation
My task for my project was to make a 2D original game with invisible tutorial being emulated into the game. The game engine that we would use to make our 2D game was construct 3 which was a browser. When I started the project, I was really excited to make a game with construct 3 because from first learning on how to use the game engine, I wanted to learn more about the other features and what else I can make into a game. I was very confident with my ideas and that I would be able to finish the game with all my ideas put into it. However, later on I found that I had set my expectations too high and that communicating with my team has become difficult.
The concept of the game first changed when I was thinking about original character designs. When I first talked about what type of game it should be with my team, my teammate Ishwar said that he wanted a shooting game. This brought us to make our game like the 2D platform shooting game, Mega Man. Therefore, I had to think of a different character design and this would choose what type of setting the game would be in. I made a robot that travel with a big wheel as the player which made me think that the setting should be a space/robotic place. My team were having organizational problems and for me, I think what made me have more decision making thoughts was that the deadline for the project was very close, so I had to make the features of my game more simple.
I had organizational problems with my team because we had trouble communicating with each other. I also had a problem back at home because I didn't have wifi at home for a month which disrupted my ability to work from home. The team also didn't have the same motivation that I had to make the game. Since I was the most experienced with construct 3 and most interested with games, my role was to make the game and my teammates were making posters marketing the game. However, my team didn't seem to be doing any work on the marketing and were evidencing the work for the project. To fix this communication problem, I set up a Google file where we can all put and share our work at anytime. This wasn't entirely successful in fixing the communication problem because my team still didn't do any work on the game even though I said that the game is free to edit.
I also had practical problems with my game because I had to learn the basic features of the game in the limited time that I have before the deadline. I used the video tutorials by GamesDesign with Reily to help me learn how to code the game's main mechanic, shooting. To help me in making the game I made a prototype of the shooting mechanic, which was a requirement to make a prototype in our project. Also many of my ideas for how the player interacts with the enemy were very complicated to code into construct, so I had to move away from those ideas to save time. This did make my game feel very empty and incomplete, but at least I have something to gain feedback on when the deadline is passed. Therefore, I wouldn't call my decision of leaving my ideas behind successful because the outcome was very far from what I had initially thought.
Personally, I think I improved on pixel designing skills and coding in construct 3 skills. Even though I did not add more play features to enemies and the level, I still had learnt a lot more from when I started to use construct 3. For example; I had learnt how to make a platformer shooting game where you can control where to shoot by aiming the mouse at the opponent. I am most proud of how I can turn my sketches into an 8-bit style. When I first started to practice working with pixels, I first looked at other games that used this style, for example; Zelda, Pokemon and Mario. I looked at character, platform, enemies and background designs so I can gain their traits and use them into my own ideas.
The most problem I struggled with was communication. It was hard to speak to my teammates and share my information because they were very busy in their own time. Therefore, the project wasn't organised and the roles of one of my teammate, Cristina, was unknown. Our team crits on every Monday was also uneventful due to me being absent. The only one I had a team crit with is when other teams were testing out my prototype and I would discuss with my teammates about what our game needs changing with.
The level design research that I did learning about how the makers of Mario created their levels had influenced me the most. When I started to think about how to design the game, I remembered how the Mario developers made their design by using graph paper and simple shapes. I also added a key so my team would understand what I'm designing. The references that my team collected also gave me inspiration on how to design my platform and characters.
My game is very incomplete and not playable. The shooting mechanic and player controls work fine, but is still overlooked by how empty it is. All there is is two platforms for the player to jump on and three collectable gears. There was no counter for the collectables and no timer and health bar. There was no enemies/blocker for the player to go against. Finally there was no other platforms to make it seem like a level and no finish line.
Since my game was not tested by other people, I had to say my own feedback because I had the most experience with it. The game's overall asthetics was very underwhelming beacuse the background just repeated itself. I feel like I could've have added a simple title screen to make the player feel like what the game could be about. Maybe the title screen could've been designed with outer space related drawings. I was designing my own background with a cityscape because the feedback that I recieved from the prototype team crit was to add various colours. I had planned the buildings to have different colours, but my teammate Ishwar had designed something more simple with the colours being the same to the prototype.
Looking at my character sprite that I had created, I wish that I could've added more animations to the player. The sprite only had two frames for one when it is idle and one for when it is running/moving. Therefore, it made the sprite look strange whenever it moved.
In conclusion my game project was not very successful. I am not very satisfied with my final game and not satisfied with how we worked as a team. I realise that I need the team to really focus on what role they are given and that I should find solutions for this. I have learnt from my team-based project that it is really hard to communicate with my team, especially when they aren't keen on working on the project. I also really need to set priorities so I can be able to work at my own pace in a tight deadline schedule. Therefore, organisation is very important for me and is something I really need to improve on. However, I am proud with what I have learnt to do with Construct so far and I plan to do more in future projects. I will learn from my mistakes about this project and will try my best in my nest team-based project.
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