FMP – Designing for children – What to do

Research

There is a major difference  between designing products for children and adults,  This means for my FMP, I need to make sure that I design the product  toward the correct demographic, which are children. So what do I need to do with the design to make it friendly and appealing to the younger audience. Well by drimlike.com, they state that due to children not being able to read well, or have difficulty reading, use short paragraphs. This can apply to the early stages of my game when teaching a user how to play the game. using simple instructions within the game will be a must to make this game easy to learn and understand, not just for children, but for older consumers too. Another major point stated is navigation, which should be simple and easy for a child to use, this can apply to the menu system to the game. This will mean that I can not have complicated menu systems within the game.  Another few points is that children are not patient, and will not keep playing or interact with something that takes to long to load or takes to long. So this means I need to make sure that each level in the game is able to load quickly and each of the levels do not take to long to complete. the next point is to keep the product interesting for children and this can be done by making the product look fun, by using simple sounds and animations to keep them interested.

Another site timbuktu.me also add some extra rules. “Don’t underestimate your audience”. Which means don’t treat them lessers to anyone else, you want to make them feel like they know what to do and they are smart. another rule is to respect the parents, this means make sure that the product is appropriate, as they say “Would you want your own kids to buy things online every time they grab the ipad?”, even though I can not designing the product for an ipad or to have in-app purchases, but it makes you think that, if you are a parents, would you find this product suitable for a child to play?.

Next is to look at what type of colour scheme that I need to use to make the game most desirable for a child. By childsmindinnovation.com, “colour is a big part of their world. The playful, visually stimulating variations of ‘reflected light’ that we see as ‘colour’ provides a dose of happy energy like that of a child”.  “young kids are drawn to it and desire playful interaction with it”. So by this designing a product aimed towards children should always have a lot of bright colours, as they are naturally drawn to it.

So what have I learned from this?

I have learned that I need to make sure that the game is simple for a child to use, this can be done by making instructions simple to read and understand, this can also extend to making the designs the visuals of the games to also be simple, to make the world within the game easy to understand. This will also mean that I will need to show what the goal of each level is in a simple manner, I plan on doing this by showing what needs to be done within the first few levels (which will be tutorial based). Next is to make the levels not last too long, so the a child does not lose interest, make the levels short and fun, and reward the child for completing the level, making it a more enjoyable experience. The menu system of the game must also be simple so that a child is able to play the game without help from a parent. Finally the colour scheme of the game should be colourful, as colour indicates fun. I will be making the world of the game look like papercraft, using different colour paper and a animated world (using small and simple animations).

Client – Burstalls Project: What have worked on (Part 1)

Before christmas in November, we (me and my group) were given the task to recreate the outside and interior of the Burstalls building, we created concepts and ideas of what direction design wise we could go to the client. I created sketches and 3D rendered concepts of how the building could be showcased. I will show the images below:

These are the sketches I drew up before I created the 3D concepts.

These are the 3D concepts based of the sketches I created.

And these are just showcasing how the building can be shown, what perspective I could show the building as.

The final decision of the art direction was to create a fly over of the outside and inside of the building using a normal perspective, so not having the building cut like in many of the designs shown above, however the island concept maybe used.

GrowGuu – Prototype: Plan

I have not currently started the creation of this project within the game engine at this point, but I would like to take some time to plan out how I am going to produce this game.

I am going to create multiple prototypes for this project which will be broken up into phases to ease the pressure of me programming the game mechanics.

Below I will list the phases and what will be accomplished within each phase:

Phase 1

• Create basic player movement system
• Create growing mechanic when collecting an item
• Test background and check to see if it blurs (find fix if it does)

Phase 2

• Create shrinking mechanic
• Create shooting mechanic (shoots a blob and shrinks player)
• Create danger objects which damage the player (makes player shrink)

Phase 3

• Create spawners for objects
• Create prototype level for timed mode

Phase 4

• Create time mechanic
• Create basic menu

After phase 4, I will then create the pre-alpha version of the game using all of the mechanics I have produced in the prototypes.

This method of producing the game will be used for all the following game modes.

GrowGuu – Visual Look and Design: Concept – Post 2

Player Design

I have started to work on the visual look of the game. I first started of by doing a basic design of how the player will move within the game. As the character is very basic (being a circle) there are not many design choices I can make within a sketchbook, so I decided to concentrate on showcasing how the player will animate and change shape whilst moving. Below is a scan of the page where I did these designs (Part titled Player Design + basic animation).

I am planning on creating these as animatics within Photoshop over the next day to showcase how the animations will work.

After, I decided to go into Photoshop and try out a few different designs for the character using just one base colour (green), and showcasing all the designs on different colour backgrounds (Red, blue and yellow) to see how they look if I do decide to allow the backgrounds on the levels to change colour each time they are loaded.

Below I will show the designs I created, there will be 3 images, one for each background colour:

I decided to number each of the different designs to make it easier to explain each design, at this current point, I personally like the first 3 designs the most (1, 2, 3), but the final 3 designs (6, 7, 8) is a showcase of how the first design could look with a custom shader being used.

For the early prototype of the game, I will be using the seconds design as it is very simple and it will be easy and quick to produce the animations that will be needed.

Environment Design

After creating the designs of the character, I decided to create 3 possible environment designs, but I only used one background colour for all of the design to keep it simple. The first design is just a very basic design, no detail, just flat colours. The second and third designs is the basic design but showcasing how the same environment design could look with particle effects, first being with particles being showcases in the foreground, second showcasing particles in the background. Below I will showcase all of the designs in order.

Design one – Basic

Design two – Basic with particle foreground

With animatic

Design three – Basic with particle background

with animatic

The animatic is very mild, all it does is change the opacity of the particles making them more see through. If I do use particle effects, I want them to also move around randomly.

GrowGuu – Current progress: notes and ideas – Post 1

At this current point, I have started to plan out how to make my project. I started of by breaking up everything I can think of and listing them in my sketch book. My plan is to add to them when I think of other jobs that need to be done to create  a great final product. After I created a day plan which I only done two of the three task at this current point, which are creating the gameplay mechanics for the game, which I did by listening the different mechanics for the character and for environment objects, and how they will work and effect the player. After I created a blog post which is breaking apart the ideas for the visual look of the game. I want to try and break up all of the different possible ideas, and think of all of the possible problems for each of them. Link to the blog is here.

Below I will show scans of the notes and explain them:

Page one                                        Page two

 

Page three                                     Page four

Page one is just be breaking up what I need to do throughout the entire project, so that I am able to make this game one bit at a time and plan out how I am going to make it, which I think will help me produce a great final product.

Page two and three are mainly notes about how the mechanics for the game should work, from how the play should move, to some of the in game mechanics. At this point I am not considering any of the level mode mechanics, as I want to try and get the main game-play mechanics working for the first game mode that I am going to make which is time mode.

The forth page is just talking about what design direction that I should choose. I decided to continue this page as a blog post, so I am able to showcase research more easily. Link to the post is here.

My next step for this project is to start creating some of the concept pieces to showcase how the game could look, I will do multiple versions and designs of the visual look, showcasing how it looks zoomed in and out. Before I do that though, I want to try and think up a few more design directions that I can go.

GrowGuu Project – Visual look and design: Research – Post one

I am currently creating and designing a project called GrowGuu, which is going to be a game based around eating and growing in size.

Design Direction

At this point, I am looking at how the game could look, and what is the best direction for this project visually and mechanically. One of the problems that I have ran into whilst planning out this project is how the game will look when the player is very small. When the player grows and shrinks, the camera will also zoom in and out to that the user will always be able to see the character and the surrounding environment easily.

I have created one possible fix for this problem which is to make up the game level environment made up of only horizontal and vertical lines, no diagonal or curved lines, as when zoomed in, they can show up pixels which can make the game look strange and cheap.

Other option that I could use is to make the game look pixelly by nature, making it a fundamental design choice for the game, but the issue which I get with this direction, is how to make objects stay looking pixelly when the player grows to a massive size.

Below I will show an example of what the problem is:

The image to the left is the corner zoomed out (scale 512 x 512), and the image to the right is zoomed in (scale 32 x 32).

Colour Scheme Direction

The next step is to choose a colour scheme for the game that looks nice and pretty, but also is very simple in design.

Below I am going to show a colour wheel

Link to image is here.

With the creation of objects within the environment and the background, I need to make sure that environment objects do not blend into the background (making it hard for the user to see items within a level)

One of the directions I would like to go in is to make the background be able to change colour every time the level is open to make the game feel different each time a user plays it. I am not planning to make a pretty picture for the background, but just a solid colour, maybe with some basic particle effects to make it more interesting to look at.

With foreground objects such as the player and objects within the environment, I am planning to be just as colourful, but the problem with the idea of making the background change colour, is that like I said before, it could make some items within the game hard to see when certain background colours show up. So my first idea is to make the player and the walls to the level black, which should make the player and walls stand out without being too bright. and then designing objects within the environment to be certain colours which the background wont use, and also change the tone of the colours slightly compared to the background. The second idea is to only make the walls black, but also make the player colourful, but with all of the objects and the player to have a black line that goes around the edge to separate the background and foreground with a visual line.

Last point I like to add to this is, looking into the Game Maker Engine, I have found out that you are able to make custom shaders, which I could use to make the game have interesting lighting, giving objects more of a gradient. But at this point this is a very early idea, and I would personally like to make a working game before I plan on playing around with the shaders within the engine.

Learning and Research – Unreal Engine 4 : Post 2 – Ideas

I have had a look at the example 3D side scroller that is included within Unreal Engine 4 (4.9.2); and the first thing I think I need to change a lot compared to this example is how the camera is used. Within the example, the camera is very static and it feels like that it is too close to the character, making it hard to see the environment around, especially when jumping. So one of my major goals over the next few weeks is to learn and create a camera system that is less static to the character, is able to move back and forth, and also able to rotate pointing towards the character.

With the character movements within the example, I feel that what is given is a great start for what I want to produce in my final version of the game, all I will need to change is how quickly the character can move and maybe try to add a double jump mechanic within the game.

Finally, after looking at what I be working with, I think that it will take a few weeks or maybe just over a month to get a very basic version of the first introduction level (which will be teaching the user how to move the character around). I feel once I have made this though, the production of the levels will be developed a lot faster.

Learning and Research – Unreal Engine 4 : Post 1

First goal

I am starting to learn and gather research into the Unreal Engine 4. I am planning to learn and understand how the Blueprints system works, so that I am able to create the first early version of my games mechanics. What I need to learn is how to make an object move about in two axis within a 3D space, which will include moving left and right and jumping. I also want to make all of the physical movements to be what I am after within the final version of the game. At this point, I am not planning on making a level to be completed, just working movement mechanics for the character.

I am also going to test out how the camera could work with the character, and how to make it move smoothly with the character without being a static movement. I will do this as part of learning how to make the basic movements. This will also include basic models which I could create within 3DS Max to create foreground and background objects to fill the space to help test out the camera and camera angles.

Second goal

I would like to start working on basic gameplay mechanics and further the movement mechanics for the character. This will include some game play aspects such as basic level design and basic puzzle solving (this could include moving an physics object to a position so the character is able to jump high enough to reach higher ground). This will be the first steps to create the first level of the game, and would be used as a basis of all future levels.

I will do update post of my progress over the next week showcasing what task I have completed and any tast that I am struggling with.

Rabbit Heart Project: Post 2 – Designs, Test and 3D Models

I have started to create some early designs for some of the possible assets for the project, below I show the concept sketches for the assets. The designs and sketches were worked on over the last week.

     

          

I have also done some test using the Morph modifier within 3DS Max to test out possible uses for morph targets to be used within this project, below I will show two examples.

This is the reference image I used to make the heart. Link will be here.

This was the first test I did for the Rabbit Heart Project using the Morph Modifier, so I thought that making a beating heart would fit very well, so had a go at modelling the heart which took about 20 minutes using a reference image I found on Google, which I will show below with a link to the image. After, I dupicated the orginal heart 2 times, and using the vertix brush which is build into 3DS Max, I expanded the larger area on one of the hearts, and the expanded the smaller part of the other. I then used both of them hearts with the original to allow the vertices to tween.

This is an early version of a chamber that could hold parts of animals or new weapon technology. Within it I tested out animating a liquid using Morph Modifier and animated textures.

Below I will show some of the 3D models that I have worked on over the last week. These are high poly versions that I have created to see how they will look, before creating the final versions of these assets.

I am planning to create 2 assets ready to be put within a game engine by the up coming Friday.

Rocket Business Promotion Project: Post 2 – 3D Modelling and Final Product

I have further developed the design of my rocket within 3DS Max. I have added the rocket and wings to it, and coloured it using default textures within 3DS Max. I also did a model of the planet, and tried to make ship and planet look like toys and look friendly.

Below I will show the progress.

I decided to put the planet and rocket within the same scene, to see how they look together. I also set up lighting on both the planet and the rocket to show some shadow, and lighten key areas on the ship. I also tried to create the smoke within 3DS Max but for some unknown reason, errors stopped the smoke from showing up within the renders.

Due to not being able to add smoke via 3DS Max, I decided to use photoshop with the brush tool set to high transpanacy to allow for a soft look.

As you see, the smoke looks good, but the rocket itself still seems out of place due to there being no materials on some parts of the ship, and the window looking bland. So I went back into 3DS Max and added some colour to the ship, and also added a handle to the rockets door.  I used the render above for the planet and smoke, removed the old version of the rocket and replaces it with the new. I had to slightly change and improve the rocket smoke, then it was complete.

Below is the final version of the rocketship.