With both GAM140 assignments completed and handed in, I would like to take some time to do a final reflection. By evaluating the projects and discussing what I have learnt during this module, I hope to consolidate my learning and understand what to focus on in the next study block.
Narrative Game
On the whole, I thoroughly enjoyed creating my narrative game, A Soft and Squishy Dungeon. As the first fully finished game that I have created from scratch, and one that feels personal to me, I am very proud of the results and there has been a great deal I learnt throughout its creation.
One of the main things I learnt through making the game was how to use Fungus. Through a lot of trial, error, and experimentation I was able to get to know the tool through hands-on practice. Across the whole module I became a competent user of the package and able to use many of the commands it provided. This even helped me in my group project for GAM130, in which I used Fungus to implement much of the text and narrative. I intend to continue to learn to use Fungus into the next study blocks as it is helpful for quickly adding in writing to games and useful in a wide range of contexts.
I have also learnt a great deal about writing branching narratives and the amount of work that it entails. Even though for the most part I went for braided dialogue topologies rather than fully branching, writing the dialogue for my game took a great deal of time due to the sheer amount of choices I gave to the player when deciding how to respond to characters. While I hugely enjoyed writing the story, in the future it may be a good idea to reduce scope for solo projects of this nature in order to reduce the amount of time spent writing.
I would also like to further develop the mechanics of the game to incorporate more diverse gameplay and choices. To start, I would like to enhance the stat functionality so that it has more effect on the game state. For instance, a character may address you differently depending on your level in a particular attribute, or it could effect what who you meet and where you go. I could even add a form of turn-based combat using Fungus if it seemed appropriate to the game.
Aesthetically, I am pleased with how the game feels. I think that the monochromatic and grayscale colour scheme creates a mysterious and unique art style that you don’t see in many other games. The music and most of the sound effects fit with the mood. I am particularly fond of the haunting choir music (Migfus20, 2021) that plays during navigation as I think it gives the gameplay a dreamlike, otherworldly feeling. There are some sound effects, particularly The Critic’s (C-V, 2020) that I may think about changing in the future. I was also unable to find an appropriate voiceover sound effect for the barista in the epilogue. I am happy with my character designs as they are each distinct from one another and representative of the character’s personality and world views.
Currently, while some characters have different states (such as The Ghost in the Static‘s screen being on/off), they all have a neutral face. If I were to develop the project further, I would like to draw some additional portraits for each character to give them more personality. These could include any variety of expressions, including happy, sad, shocked or angry. This was intended to be included in the project, however I unfortunately ran out of time before I could draw and implement them. I think their inclusion would go great lengths in bringing the game more to life.
I am happy with how I created and structured The Critic’s dialogue. The way that they analyse the player’s statistics and previous choices and make remarks about each was done to create a greater feeling of meaningful choice, and make the conversation feel more personal to the player, who will likely feel antagonised. This was done as a workaround for having multiple endings, as I already had a plan for the ending epilogue which I thought was strong and didn’t want to compromise that by creating extra endings for the sake of it.
I will continue to develop A Soft and Squishy Dungeon over the summer, including many of the improvements discussed in this post. Once it is at a state that I feel is finished, I plan to release it for free on my Itch.io page. Look out for it on my account @Samson_JayC.
(Above) Figure 1: Screenshot. One of the interactions found in A Soft and Squishy Dungeon.
Annotated Level Design
The annotated level design was a great exercise in not just level creation, but quest design and world building too, parts of narrative design I particularly enjoy. There are many parts of this assignment I am happy with, however I feel there is great room for improvement too.
Many of the issues I found with this assignment came from my lack of knowledge on ProBuilder. Prior to this project, I had very little experience with the package and so a lot of my time was spent getting to grips with it. Because of this, I lost a lot of potential development time following along with tutorials and doing self-learning. If I were to do this module again, I would make sure to start learning ProBuilder much earlier on in the study block so that I would have enough time to create the level to the quality that I envisioned. On the other hand, the 3D Game Kit Lite (Unity Technologies, 2021) was very quick to learn and utilise in my level. I think that I will use it again in for future block-outs as its ease of use allows for rapid prototyping of levels, with many of its objects being able to stand in for game mechanics that will be implemented later in development.
I feel that I was able to effectively apply theories of level design, such as narrow/prospect space and form/void, however I would have liked to add some more examples of light and shade to create a sense of mystery or potential. Furthermore, while I did include some moments of brief ascension, it could have also been a good idea to have more moments of elevation, perhaps to reflect the player’s progression through the space.
Despite not being marked for it, I am really happy with the worldbuilding and quest design behind my level. I think that the world I have created has a lot of potential to be developed further, something that is particularly relevant, with our upcoming world pitches in the next study block. I also find the concept of differing quest objectives, dependent on your alignment in the game world, an interesting concept and would like to explore it further. I think that some more environmental storytelling in my level could have been helpful in alluding to the wider world and story of the game, and this is something I will keep in mind for future levels.
On the whole I think that my annotated document was well constructed. My annotations were clear and colour-coded, and my writing was in-depth. I feel that I was able to get across most of the points that I wanted to, and hopefully able to fill in where the visuals potentially fell short. I am also glad that I spent some time detailing the worldbuilding and quest of the level, as I feel it was able to better set up and contextualise my design decisions better. I could have possibly added more perspective screenshots, or even recorded a walkthrough video alongside the document, to better convey the feel and scale of the level while playing.
(Above) Figure 2: Annotated screenshot. One of the spaces in my finished level, with accompanying annotations.
Conclusion
This module has been highly influential in my ongoing development as a game designer. I feel that through the creation of two wildly different projects, I have learnt a great deal about many aspects of design. I have also been able to reach into other areas of game development such as art and writing, contributing to my efforts to become a ‘T-Shaped’ student. Through regular reflection of these skills, I have been able to consolidate my learning and better understand areas for improvement. I look forward to bringing these skills into future study blocks with an enthusiastic and open mindset.
Refrences:
C-V. 2020. ‘belch.’ Freesound [online audio clip]. Available at: https://freesound.org/people/C-V/sounds/521535/ [accessed 04 April 2021].
Migfus20. 2021. ‘Choir Background Music.’ Freesound [online music piece]. Available at: https://freesound.org/people/Migfus20/sounds/560480/ [accessed 04 April 2021].
Unity Technologies. 2021. ’3D Game Kit Lite.’ Unity Asset Store [online]. Available at: https://assetstore.unity.com/packages/templates/tutorials/3d-game-kit-lite-135162#version-current [accessed 21 March 2021].