Friday, 10 April 2009
Bottlenecks
The games really coming on at the moment, but the groups still being bottlenecked by certain individuals which is extremely frustrating. The combat system seems to be working really well now, I've managed to get the quest line going up to the first boss.
Friday, 3 April 2009
Microbe Me!
A group blog is good for the project but I can't really talk about what I do and what I think as freely, so I've decided to create my own blog for our level 2 underwater game "Microbe".
My Views on the game so far:
When we first started the project back in January I hated the initial ideas that game out of the group. People just threw an idea on the table which had no thought or consideration go into it. Then everyone decided to go for "the next ideas we'll just make worse so that we have to do this one" approach, because we had to come up with at least 3 ideas. I thought this was the most stupid approach to creating a game I've ever heard of. But after another talk we decided to scrap that idea and after 2 more sessions we came up with the idea we have now, which is an underwater spore/pokemon rpg type game.
I think this project could be a lot further on by now, considering we've been doing it for over 2 months and we've had a group of 7. A good step we took was to put people into groups of coders, character artists, environment artists, GUI artists and scripters. This setup has reduced people relying on other people to do all the work.
My Input
I started off just happy to be a part of the group and having people listen to my input, but after a few weeks of meetings turning into casual talks and little work being done, I decided to help pull us along. We got round in our own room and I borrowed a white board, here we jotted down notes and other things we need to talk about. I've been making agendas to talk about and I've been trying to get every little idea out of everyone. I also have set up basecamp, skydrive and the msn group for the project. The msn group allows us to always talk about any problem that arises, the skydrive allows us to upload files and basecamp allows us to report on work. Also from skydrive I give out weekly milestones to try and keep the group on the right path as well as uploading notes from the meeting and arrange other meetings. I think the group have responded well to the input I've added and now work usually gets ran by me first and any questions anyone has they tend to come to me.
My work
I've decided to become the coder for the group because I can't draw for s**t. When I leave uni I want to be either a level designer or a games designer, but knowing a bit of code will help at the end of the day. I also wish we had done it in AS3 as well, but this would of left Matt having to learn it as well.
The engine I've made so far has Stats, Movement, Encounters, Collision, Levelling, A battle system, Dynamic Multi Array Moves, Cities, and a creature selection system. I've also tried to add my own GUI where possible.
Early Conclusion:
I really don't think were going to get the whole project done in the time we have been given. It doesn't help when people have a "it will be fine" attitude, because while its good to stay positive you also have to be a realist in games design. Not many companies can have the attitude "Its done when its done". The more we do though the more hope I have and the better the game looks. Even if we don't have time to get as far as we want, we can always close it off early and fix it so nobody can tell. I also don't think everyone who is working in the project is working at a first standard which annoys me severely because that will bring my grade down. Working in a group of 7 was a bad idea, I would of much rather of worked in groups of 3 and 4.
My Views on the game so far:
When we first started the project back in January I hated the initial ideas that game out of the group. People just threw an idea on the table which had no thought or consideration go into it. Then everyone decided to go for "the next ideas we'll just make worse so that we have to do this one" approach, because we had to come up with at least 3 ideas. I thought this was the most stupid approach to creating a game I've ever heard of. But after another talk we decided to scrap that idea and after 2 more sessions we came up with the idea we have now, which is an underwater spore/pokemon rpg type game.
I think this project could be a lot further on by now, considering we've been doing it for over 2 months and we've had a group of 7. A good step we took was to put people into groups of coders, character artists, environment artists, GUI artists and scripters. This setup has reduced people relying on other people to do all the work.
My Input
I started off just happy to be a part of the group and having people listen to my input, but after a few weeks of meetings turning into casual talks and little work being done, I decided to help pull us along. We got round in our own room and I borrowed a white board, here we jotted down notes and other things we need to talk about. I've been making agendas to talk about and I've been trying to get every little idea out of everyone. I also have set up basecamp, skydrive and the msn group for the project. The msn group allows us to always talk about any problem that arises, the skydrive allows us to upload files and basecamp allows us to report on work. Also from skydrive I give out weekly milestones to try and keep the group on the right path as well as uploading notes from the meeting and arrange other meetings. I think the group have responded well to the input I've added and now work usually gets ran by me first and any questions anyone has they tend to come to me.
My work
I've decided to become the coder for the group because I can't draw for s**t. When I leave uni I want to be either a level designer or a games designer, but knowing a bit of code will help at the end of the day. I also wish we had done it in AS3 as well, but this would of left Matt having to learn it as well.
The engine I've made so far has Stats, Movement, Encounters, Collision, Levelling, A battle system, Dynamic Multi Array Moves, Cities, and a creature selection system. I've also tried to add my own GUI where possible.
Early Conclusion:
I really don't think were going to get the whole project done in the time we have been given. It doesn't help when people have a "it will be fine" attitude, because while its good to stay positive you also have to be a realist in games design. Not many companies can have the attitude "Its done when its done". The more we do though the more hope I have and the better the game looks. Even if we don't have time to get as far as we want, we can always close it off early and fix it so nobody can tell. I also don't think everyone who is working in the project is working at a first standard which annoys me severely because that will bring my grade down. Working in a group of 7 was a bad idea, I would of much rather of worked in groups of 3 and 4.
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