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].

This week was the final push before handing in my GAM140 assignments on Friday! Having spent a good amount of time on both projects over the Easter break, I was able to take the week at a relatively steady pace.

A Soft and Squishy Dungeon was fully finished last week and so no work was needed to be carried out on the project this week. I did spend some time playing through it multiple times, just in case anything had slipped by during playtesting. To my delight, there were no bugs found, however I did spot a couple of typing mistakes which I was able to rectify immediately. You can never be too careful when testing games, especially ones with branching portions, so I am glad that I took the time to do some final playthroughs.

As I finished the creation of my level design last week, I did not need to spend much time in Unity this week aside from making minor tweaks here and there. Instead, I spent a lot of time taking the appropriate screenshots and writing their accompanying annotations within the annotated document.

I went for a structure somewhat reminiscent of a game design document, initially spending time detailing the world and quest in order to contextualise my design decisions. I am glad that I dedicated some time to setting up the backdrop of the level as I think it helps to clarify my design decisions, as well as filling in the gaps in the readers imagination as the blocky aesthetic does not do a great job at conveying how I would like the finished level to look. I plan to improve my 3D modelling, and by extension ProBuilder, skills over the summer with a new Udemy course on Blender that I just picked up (Davidson and Abbit, 2021).

I then spent the rest of the document going over the level’s design. Starting with the overall topology of the level, I used an image with numbered areas to give the reader a broader idea of the layout (fig. 1), as well as where each space sits in relation to one another.

(Above) Figure 1: Annotated screenshot. The topology of the level with numbered areas.

I then went on to zoom in on the individual spaces that the player moves through, using both top-down (fig. 2) and perspective images to illustrate the level. Labels were made with the help of colour-coding (fig. 3) and in-depth annotations were written below each image. In an attempt to better convey my design decisions, I made good efforts to focus in on architectural principles and human instincts, as covered in previous lectures, when discussing these spaces.

(Above, left) Figure 2: Annotated screenshot. A zoomed-in look at the initial space that the player moves through, with more detailed annotations. (Above, right) Figure 3: Screenshot. The key for the annotations, to clarify for readers.

After finishing up this task, with the document sitting at about 2000 words, I had finished my GAM140 portfolio submissions. It has been a long road, and filled with a lot of learning and development, and I am proud of the finished products. I will make one last post next week as a ‘post-mortem’ to do a more in-depth reflection of the pieces.

References:

DAVIDSON, Rick and Grant ABBIT. ‘Complete Blender Creator: Learn 3D Modelling for Beginners’. Udemy [online]. Available at: https://www.udemy.com/course/blendertutorial/ [accessed 26 January 2021].

Having finished the majority of my Fungus game, A Soft and Squishy Dungeon, I spent much of this week refining the overall experience. This involved playing through the game multiple times, searching for any bugs or typing mistakes, and ironing them out where found. I also spent some time adjusting volume mixes, to ensure that audio fades in and out correctly at various points.

Based on my previous experience playtesting for game companies such as DONTNOD, I am aware of its importance in creating the best possible experience for your players. I also found an interesting article that highlights the importance of it (Roketronz, 2016), especially with the pretence of using a large variety of people from diverse backgrounds, many of whom may not be familiar with games. Taking this into account, and of course wanting to create the best game that I could, I decided to run some playtesting of my own. I built the game and sent it out to some close friends and family members for them to playtest. I also had some of my flat mates play the game in the same room as me, so that I could assess their reactions to particular moments (this in particular was something we had been taught about in our GAM130 lecture for week nine). Their feedback helped to iron out the game further, as they were able to report on any bugs or issues encountered during their playthroughs. They also gave me their overall feedback on the game. This provided me with some great early impressions, such as how the game made them feel, whether it was too long, if it was well-written, etc.

On the whole, early impressions were positive, although one point raised was that the ending seemed to be slightly abrupt. I spend some time adjusting and slowing it down over the weekend, so hopefully that has been greatly improved now. Another aspect that was raised multiple times was that players unfamiliar with game conventions were often unsure of what the ‘baggage’ stats in the corner of the screen actually meant. To rectify this, I have added a short tutorial message that explains their functionality to the player early on in the game (fig. 1).

(Above) Figure 1: Screenshot. One of the tutorial messages that teaches the player about how stats are affected.

While I have been busy refining the narrative game this week, I have been even busier creating my level design in Unity. I am mostly going off of the initial design that I drew up. In the first iteration of my block-out, I tried to lean more fully into the rigidity of the human settlements by having the level be very rectangular and perpendicular (fig. 2). While I like the look and it certainly conveys the human faction’s aesthetic, moving through the space felt too artificial, with little variation in shapes and flow. Taking note of this, I remade the area to be less blocky and exhibit better flow, while still retaining the rigidity I wanted to get across (fig. 3).

(Above, left) Figure 2: Screenshot. The initial block-out for my level. This one was much more clinical. (Above, right) Figure 3: Screenshot. The final block-out for my level. This one has much better flow and variation in space.

I am much happier with how this layout looks, and it appears to exhibit good flow between narrow and prospect spaces. I have included a rhizome shaped area that will give the players some agency in how they move as well as an acid pool which will require platforming to traverse. I’m hoping these spaces break up the gameplay and add some variation to the stealth navigation. There are also some examples of optional areas with loot that the player can find if they take the time to find them. This will hopefully promote thoughtful exploration of their environment. I have tried to represent the building as best I can with my limited ProBuilder knowledge, by extruding rectangles out of the main structure, which tower above the player as they move through the area. Ideally these would look much more authentic, however I think this method still gets the idea across.

After that I added in many of the gameplay objects, including enemies (represented by red orbs), cover, doors, crystals, moving platforms and loot (fig. 4). With these objects all included, the level looks far more dynamic than it had before and I think it is easier to see what the finished product would potentially look like. I also had a go at modelling the Spirit Tree (the objective of the quest) to mixed results (fig. 5). I will certainly be brushing up on my modelling skills over the summer!

(Above, top) Figure 3: Screenshot. The final level block-out, populated with the necessary objects.(Above, bottom) Figure 5: Screenshot. The Spirit Tree made in ProBuilder using a cylinder and some low poly spheres.

The deadline for these assignments is next week. I will likely spend much of my remaining time tweaking elements of my level and writing all of the remaining annotations.

References:

RoketronZ. 2016. The Importance of Playtesting [online]. Available at: http://coffeepoweredmachine.com/the-importance-of-playtesting/ [acceswed 8 April 2021].

This week marks the start of the Easter holidays, giving me some extra time to work on my Fungus game and annotated level design. I have spent a good amount of time finishing up my dialogue for the final character The Critic, writing an epilogue, and generally going back through all of my writing to polish it and check for any spelling mistakes or general grammatical errors. The Critic’s dialogue was interesting to write as much of what they say is dependent on what the player has done up until that point. In its finished state, the script for the full game is close to 6000 words long. This has been a very big undertaking, and shown me just how much writing can go into branching dialogue, but overall, I am very happy with the finished script and the story as a whole. I am going to spend the next week implementing all of this dialogue in, playtesting and generally smoothing out the entire experience.

I have also created a simple menu (fig.1), featuring the title of the game (now called ‘A Soft and ‘Squishy Dungeon’), as well as ‘play’ and ‘quit’ buttons which will either load the player into the game or exit the application. The title was made in a similar monochromatic style to the rest of the game, to create a cohesive aesthetic feeling throughout. When initially implemented, the menu felt too static and I felt that it needed some motion to add some life to it. To achieve this I added a simple animator component to the image, which allowed me to make it bob slowly up and down.

(Above) Figure 1: Screenshot. The menu that greats the player when they load into the game.

Sound has now been implemented into the game. By going to freesound.com (Free Sound, 2021) I was able to download a number of royalty free .mp3 and .wav files to be used for background music and character speech. I now have a different sound for each character, as well as music pieces for both the menu and gameplay. Playing through the project now, I am struck with how much sound can help to bring a game to life; the navigational sections now have a richer atmosphere, and the characters have even more personality that extends past their presentation and writing. For future projects I may think about adding sound in at an earlier point in development, as it helps to better convey the ‘game-feel’ when playing through for testing.

Finally, I have added functionality in for the various stat variables within the game. If the player wishes to choose a response with a certain required stat, the flowchart will check whether they meet the correct requirements through ‘if’ and ‘else if’ commands. The response will also be greyed out and un-selectable if their stat is too low, giving some visual feedback that they do not meet the requirements to select it (fig. 2).

(Above) Figure 2: Screenshot. Dialogue choices with one option unavailable.

I have also begun preparing for the block-out of my level. While I can make basic shapes and structures, ProBuilder is not a tool that I am very comfortable with. Because of this, I have taken some time this week to follow along with some great tutorials, as well as the Unity Learn resources. A particularly helpful one that was recommended to me by a peer, took me through step-by-step construction of a house (Unity, 2018). I am now more confident with some of the terminology and tools available, such as extruding, mirroring, inserting edge loops, etc. While my level will look far from attractive, I hope that I will be able to get across my design intentions through a basic block out and communicated ideas in the document.

I have started my writing for the annotated piece too, spending some time going over and elaborating on the worldbuilding and quest design that I outlined last week. I hope that by covering these contextual aspects of the level in my submission, I will be able to better convey many of my design decisions. Next week I intend to playtest A Soft and Squishy Dungeon, and spend a considerable amount of time fleshing out my level design and its accompanying document.

References:

The theory lecture about designing for others raised a lot of interesting discussion points, the most valuable to me being about following a brief. As I have already been able to see in my GAM140 projects, I tend to get carried away with ideas, which can sometimes stray outside of the bounds of the brief. It is important to frequently check your project against the brief given to you to ensure you are not creating something that ends up outside of a clients desires for the project.

This week’s workshop introduced us to the ‘3D Game Kit Lite’ (Unity Technologies, 2021), the tool we are recommended to use in the production of our annotated level design assignment. After just two hours of experimenting with it, I can see that it will be a powerful tool in the construction of my level. Combined with the use of ProBuilder, it is possible to very quickly mock up a level, with many of the package’s objects such as crystals and doors being able to stand in for potential quest objects and pick-ups, as they have broad functionality.

I took some time outside of the lecture to follow an in-depth tutorial for the package on Unity Learn (Unity, 2020), which reinforced a lot of the knowledge I had gained from the workshop. By the end of the tutorial I was able to use the PolyBrush to create natural craters for acid to sit within, attach moving platforms, doors, and counters to crystals, implement checkpoints, and tinker with enemy AI (fig. 1).

(Above) Figure 1: Screenshot. The test area I used to experiment in and follow along with a tutorial for the 3D Game Kit Lite.

Building on from my proposal within the worldbuilding lecture we had last week, I have sketched up a potential level that fits within the world (fig. 2), as well as fleshing out the quest that it sits within (fig. 3).

(Above, top) Figure 2: Picture. The initial sketch for my level design done on paper. (Above, bottom) Figure 3: Screenshot of a word document. The plan for my level and the quest it features in.

The quest involves clearing out an abandoned outpost and placing a quest item in a Spirit Tree at the end of the level to either kill or catalyse the surrounding plant life, dependant on the player’s alignment. The player must stealth their way through this area to avoid being killed by patrolling drones.

The overall shape of the level is circular in its topology, taking great inspiration from Skyrim (2011) dungeons and Dark Souls (2011) areas. This was a conscious decision, as I feel it reinforces the feeling of having actually ‘cleared’ the area that you are moving through, something that may not have been as prevalent if the level had taken on a more linear layout. When sketching out the different spaces that the player moves through, I tried to adhere closely to what was discussed in a Gamasutra article about designing levels around basic human instincts (Totten, 2011). I want the player to be typically alternating between narrow and prospect spaces, with refuge being found in cover and hiding spaces. This will be done to create tension and anticipation in the narrow corridors, before a feeling of awe and potential at the larger areas they will be met with.

Within the Fungus project, I have finished up the dialogue for another character, Memory. The topology for this is still braided but has many branching points, making a lot of the dialogue missable (fig. 4). Having reduced the scope of the game, this now means that I have just one more character to write for, so hopefully I will be able to finish up all of the dialogue next week.

(Above) Figure 4: Screenshot. The topology for Memory’s dialogue.

I have also made some small visual tweaks and quality-of-life fixes. Initially, the transitions between dialogue and menus were quite jarring, as it would abruptly jump from the character portraits to a blank screen which would often break immersion. To negate this, I added some brief pauses of 0.5 seconds between the say dialogues and menus. Although a very simple fix, it goes lengths to make the gameplay smoother. After this, I decided that I would like to give the player some more visual feedback regarding the effect that their decisions have on the state of the game, particularly the ‘baggage’ stats. To achieve this I used the ‘lean tween’ command, to briefly expand and retract the box whenever a stat increases or decreases, alerting the player and drawing their eye to the corner of the screen. I think that this does a much better job at giving the player feedback than what the game did previously.

The Soul Slug encounters have been moved from a prototype stage, and are now fully implemented into the navigational sections. They work as a semi-random event (semi-random because they are actually hand-placed) that the player can stumble upon. When the player comes across one of these the flowchart briefly diverts to another section (fig. 5) that contains the interaction, where they can choose if they want to alter their statistics, before being taken back to the main portion, containing the navigation.

(Above) Figure 5: Screenshot. A portion of the navigation flowcharts holding a Soul Slug interaction.

References:

Dark Souls. 2011. FromSoftware.

Skyrim. 2011. Bethesda Game Studios, Bethesda Softworks.

TOTTEN, Christopher. 2011. ‘Designing Better Levels through Human Survival Instincts’. Gamasutra [online]. Available at: www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/134779/designing_better_levels_through_.php [accessed 20 March 2021].

UNITY. 2020. ‘3D Game Kit Lite.’ Unity Learn [online]. Available at: https://learn.unity.com/project/3d-game-kit-lite [accessed 18 March 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 16 March 2021].

Within my Fungus project, I have made some small tweaks that have helped enhance the overall ‘game feel’ of the piece. To start, I have replaced the default Fungus font with a pixel-style one found on DaFont (Tyler, 2010). I really like this look as I think it has a nice cohesion with the pixel art used for the characters and backgrounds (fig. 1), as opposed to the previous one which stood out too much and felt incongruous to the rest of the game.

(Above) Figure 1: Screenshot. The new font used for the dialogue. I think it fits much more with the aesthetic and world of the game.

After that, I spent some time fleshing out the navigation sections, as I felt they were somewhat lacking. Going over my initial GDD for the game, I saw that the main emotion I wanted the player to feel was disorientation. While I think that this feeling is definitely conveyed in the dialogue portions, I wanted it to be more prevalent while traversing the dungeon. To achieve this, I have greatly increased the size of these sections to have more snaking and separating pathways that confuse the player, with the flowcharts topology being much more complex as a result (fig. 2). I have also added dead-ends, meaning that I had to find a way to implement backtracking. To achieve this I have created a simple menu which sits below the navigation buttons, containing a ‘back’ button. Clicking this button simply directs the flowchart to go to the previous block – a simple solution but effective as it feels like you have more agency over where you go, rather than each navigation section being ‘on-rails’.

(Above) Figure 2: Screenshot. The updated navigation with increased size to create confusion, and accommodate for dead-ends and backtracking.

I have now also implemented some colour-coding to my flowcharts (fig. 3). Red and green represent stat increases and decreases, respectively, while blue denotes the beginning and end of a flowchart. I have also added comments under relevant blocks to detail how the player’s statistics will be effected, and where certain events are triggered. All of this means that it is now much easier to understand my flowcharts at a glance, something which I have found to be beneficial with balancing the game. In the future, I will make sure to begin colour-coding my Fungus flowcharts from the outset of a project, to help with clarification.

(Above) Figure 3: Screenshot. Ego’s dialogue flowchart, now with colour-coded blocks.

Our GAM140 theory lecture for this week was focused on worldbuilding. I have always enjoyed getting lost in fictional worlds, regardless of the medium they are found in, but it was particularly interesting to think of them through the lens of games, where the world can be used to facilitate particular elements of the gameplay, and be effected by the choices of the player. Using superstructures and infrastructures as theoretical tools for building better worlds, gives the creator some good groundwork that once laid down can be built upon exponentially.

Following this lecture, we had a workshop in which we were able to use what we had learnt and apply it to our own ideas. We were taken through each stage of the superstructures and infrastructures found in fictional worlds, slowly fleshing out the ideas we had. I ended up creating a world set on a distant alien planet colonised by humans. See below for the document created during the process (fig. 4). Considering that I started without any idea for a world, I am happy with what I was able to create during this workshop. I also feel that, with some refinements and additions, I may even be able to set my level within this world.

(Above) Figure 4: Screenshot. The document written in Notepad during our worldbuilding workshop.

Following this lecture, I went down to the library and picked up Jeff’s book on quest design, Quests (Howard, 2010). While this part of the assignment is marked purely on our application of level design, I want to improve my understanding of the quest that it takes place within as that will greatly feed in to my design decisions. I have not yet finished the book, however I have already gleamed some interesting information from it regarding symbolic objects to obtain, spaces to navigate, characters to meet and challenges to overcome. With all of these working in harmony to reinforce the symbolic nature of the quest, a game’s theme and deeper meanings can be explored through the acting out of a quest’s objectives. I will ensure to take this into account when creating my own quest.

References:

ANDREW, Tyler. 2010. ‘PixelMix’. DaFont [online]. Available at: https://www.dafont.com/pixelmix.font [accessed 17 April 2021].

HOWARD, Jeff. 2008. Quests. Massachussets : A K Peters.