Final Major Project - Kyle Fielding : Task 7

Unit 4 - Creative Media Production Management Project

Unit 5 - Working to a Brief in the Creative Industries

Final Major Project - Kyle Thomas Fielding

Monday 05/01/2015 - Friday 12/06/2015

Evaluating Feedback

As a media production specialist approaching the end of my two year college course, the time came to demonstrate my ability in managing an independently devised production through the stages of pre-production, production and post-production.

I must devise initial ideas and select one that I will further develop using a broad combination of skills that I have acquired over the past two years of studying my BTEC extended diploma. The project must relate to one or more disciplines across video, audio, motion graphics, photography and graphic design.

I must demonstrate that I am able to plan in advance all stages of production and fulfil to a production schedule that I myself have devised. I must also, if encountered, evidence how I adapt to changes in my production schedule and overcome production difficulties.

I must use a range of web 2.0 technologies; evaluate my success in responding to my Final Major Project brief. One simple and easy way to do this is to ask people questions and get their feedback, so I made a questionnaire and sent it to a few people, out of the lot I will choose 3 to evaluate.

This is my very first response to the surveys I sent out, the first question was simple but it had to have some creative insight into the game. the question states; "Do you have any ideas of how SWITCH II could be made better?". which is a simple way to get feedback that could make my game a lot better depending on how many people answer this. But as this person said they couldn’t think of anyways the game could have been made any better, this was no use to me.

The question; "Did you encounter any glitches in the game? If so what were they?". glitch or a bug means something that shouldn't be in a game, but may appear anyway due to some coding or animation that shouldn't be there. glitches and bugs are usually patched by developers in downloads known as patches. as this person gave me some valuable information about "the red shirted guys seemed to get stuck in the floor a lot" in my experience this happen once or twice, but it never occurred to me as a problem, now i now it affects at least one player, and must be fixed to create a fluid game play experience.

"Any ideas for another arena or level to be added into the game?" was a question to help me extend the games pliability and make it longer, this person helped a bit as they gave me an idea that may not be possible in Gamemaker but for another game maybe it could work.

I asked another question to help me make my game better, "Would you prefer a level picker or just be sent into the action level by level?", this could help me create an entire set of levels and the player gets to chose one or a few to play one after another, if they have a preference to a map or a background, to play on. but as this is complicated procedure to make i asked if players would prefer this, instead of wasting time on something that only a few people would like.

Since this is my first game i ask if the player liked the game that i made, asking them for their opinion if my game was to their standards or if it needed to be a lot better. this person answer was kind, but offered no information on why apart from just "I liked it".

since i asked a few questions and didn't want to take too much of their time, i asked one last question; "Any additional information you would like to add about the game?" asking for their feedback and opinions lets the player know i care about their opinions and game play. they didn't give me any constructive criticism although "I enjoyed what was of it", which is reassuring that i did do a good job.

This was randomly selected out of the surveys i have received back, they have answered all the questions differently than the last which is a very good thing, it gives more information and more to work with. they answered "Nope sorry I like it how it is". this does not help one bit but it does give me some feedback as another person likes it.

This person gave me some feedback that I've received before as well as some new information "A few," which means they've encountered more than one and i have a lot to fix "the enemies continually hurt you and they got stuck in the floor" i already knew about the floor glitch now I'm learning about this new continual attack glitch which should not happen, there may be a problem with their punching animation.

This person gave me a great idea for another level "Water? Slow movement and very blue" which could refer to an underwater level of half under water and half above surface, or even a beach level

This person also gave his opinion on the level picker or straight campaign type level. With "Level picker" as their answer. This will help me in the future as people do prefer to choose their own game and arena. I now know that people do like some customisation, and in the future I will so for feedback for more customisation ideas and options.

Asking for someone's opinion whether they thought the game was well done or not, is important in the game industry, as if no one likes the game no one will buy it, it will receive negative reviews and then will be hated and forgotten very soon.

Aski the player for more insight for the game is also important as it helps me build a better game for everyone to play. But this Person answer the question with; "I enjoyed what was of it", high may imply there wasn't enough of a game to get really into but however they did enjoy the game, which is a very good thing.

I added in 3 different enemies into the game which isn't many but for a quick 5 minute game, I thought it seemed enough. There are also 3 different levels, but this didn't seem enough for his player, so I will attempt to add in another 2 enemies and another 2 levels in the future. Increasing my games playability and length, offering more enemies to kill and more levels to enjoy, will make my overall game many times better.

Asking players if they found any glitches in a game is a way of QA testing a game, and QA testing is by important as it can fix game ruining bugs and keep players from complaining about the game, making it a better game to enjoy overall. This person did find a gotcha where I presume they are saying "going offscreen made me teleport", which is a known bug to me. Although I can't fix this, I know why it happens, maybe in the future I will learn a good and workable way of fixing this.

Once again I asked for the players input in level design, to see if they have any good ideas to make more levels for the players. They simple replied with another question "spaceship?" Which implies they don't know whether it's a good idea or not, but since my game does already have a space level maybe I could edit the background to give it a more space ship textural feel.

This person replied with "level picker" helping me once more Decide to add in customisation options in or not. Although all players have given me a proper negative response to level picker, they have mostly given me good positive feedback on whether a level picker should be added in or not.

Is player said that they "found it new and entertaining", which is a extremely good response to my first game, as I tried to make it unique, this response lets me know this person did notice that, and my work wasn't wasted.

The player also said that the main menu was original to them, legit the character and not a mouse or a control pad do the work, giving the game more of a fun design.

In conclusion (change), I found that getting feedback from third party's or players is valuable to a games designer, as people gpcan give you fresh ideas, give back constructive criticism, and help me find buys and glitches. Other people have other ideas, sometimes better, sometimes worse. But a little help could go a long way.

Unit 4 - Creative Media Production Management Project

Unit 5 - Working to a Brief in the Creative Industries

Final Major Project - Kyle Thomas Fielding

Monday 05/01/2015 - Friday 12/06/2015

Evaluation

To start of pour project I had to look at a creative brief and find out and learn the 8 different briefs there are, to do this I had to do some internet research and look at real life briefs from company to company. After analysing them and paying close attention to what one party wanted and the other needed to do, I myself looked at my brief and followed it accordingly

To keep up with my work I created a work log online, so I knew what I did last time I was working and what I needed to do next time. I updated this log daily ad put into some pictures and some detail, but not too much as I didn’t want it to be too demanding and take too much time away from my work. My made plan was easily followed and it helped me a lot to keep up to date with my work and not fall behind.

My next task was to do some ideas generation to decide ad get some ideas on what to do for my project. I contemplated art styles, settings, game genres, and characters, all to be added to a game. But in the end I settled for a simple pixel art style as I am neither an artist nor a great script writer but that’s what I learned during this project. After deciding on what I was to do, I continued the assignment to the next task on my list.

For the 3^rd task I was to pitch my idea to the group, as an indie games company with my ideas and what I had f my production (tech demo, sprites, sounds and future production). To make the pitch successful and correct to the brief, I had to finalise my idea for my game, prepare a proposal in response to the brief, prepare a presentation including visual aids, delegate notes and notes, and give the presentation in the form of a pitch to the client. Although very nervously, I believed my pitch went very well.

To help me making my game I had to research many forms of games that were made -preferably- by an indie developer, and Game Maker. I found 3 videos all tutorials for a Game Maker platformer, all which gave different explanations to make a simple game. Also two of them I found were worded tutorials by YoYo games (the creators of Game Maker). Which of all were very helpful in making my game.

In a pre-production effort to make sure while making it, my game would be fine and nothing bad will ever happen to it. I made a risk assessment which I would think of problems with anything in production, like Game Maker not working correctly, so I had a feasible fix for it. In case anything incredibly crippling did happen to my game files, I made 3 contingency plans. This involved last second measures to make a totally new game. But in case that never happened I decided to make my map layouts so I knew straight away how to shape my rooms.

Finally is was time to create my game probably, which took many weeks, watching and reading tutorials, while slowly building a game. After experiencing many errors and many many bugs in my game, I was eventually able to create a finished version. Full with tutorial, main menu, pause, score and health systems.

I believe that my game is quite original as when I researched I found no other games that a switching ability and the coding for the switching are extremely long and arduous to make. There is now animation for the switching ability as it is not needed due to the suddenness of death in most plays.

In my game there are a lot of sprites in my game and due to this I put in a lot of work in Piskelapp and game makers in game sprite maker and editor. The amount of time and effort that I put into this is seen as I am no artist but I tried my best and with many different sprites for each level, object and background, the game is very diverse.

there is an incredibly a lot of coding whether it was made by drag and drop or written, the enemy objects have around 50 lines in the step event alone and a few of them lines have drag and drops while most are written code.

Although with all the work I put into the game it could be better as I have still not fixed the tutorial bug where the text pops up one after the other with no timer at all. Although the tutorial does work in every other way, it does teach you the main elements of the game.

Due to sprite and object limitation in GameMaker I was unable to add in more than a few traps if I wanted to keep the game play fluid and fun. I had to delete many weapons and traps half way through making the game and this halted my production by a week and a bit as I had to change most of the game.

Although, my game is named after the 'Switching' ability the play itself doesn't 'Switch' correctly when the player is killed they take over a random enemy object and not the one that killed them. Also the only trap in the game (a timed grenade) does not take a life or end the game, it instead makes the player object take over an enemy object.

I believe even with these faults that my production and work is still quite good in terms of the briefs requirements and the entire length of my production is a good stand point on that. As with 3 working levels, a tutorial, interactive main menu, and ending room. Having checking in the brief constantly with each new task I made sure that I would complete the unit to the briefs requirements.

Finally I do believe strongly that. I learned many professional industry practices, as I learned how to keep to a time and how to make a semi-professional indie game in the GameMaker engine.

Task 7 - Evaluation