At long last, we're moving back into Unity (exciting)! After having worked on 2D games and 3D modeling, we're finally going to start creating 3D games. It's research time. What should a game NOT be? It shouldn't be confusing, but it also shouldn't handhold the player. It shouldn't be too hard or too easy. It shouldn't be devoid of rewards for the players hard work (i.e., it shouldn't be pointless). It shouldn't make players want to give up. It shouldn't be unfair. It shouldn't be full of glitches and bugs. It's very important to make games understandable. The player needs to know what they're doing, or they won't want to play. Integrating tutorials directly into the gameplay is usually the best method, and pretty much standard by now. People usually don't open games because they want to read a long instruction manual. Besides, handholding can feel restrictive and patronizing. Let the players feel like they've actually accomplished something–by letting them actually accomplish something. Let them figure it out. They're not idiots. It's also important that players are rewarded for doing well. This is especially important if the game gets repetitive (which it generally shouldn't, but it's pretty unavoidable to some extent). Most people won't want to complete tasks in-game if there's not some kind of reward. Then it feels pointless. To make sure the game isn't pointless, plan ahead. Throwing things together will lead to poor design, confusion, and less opportunities for the player to fully use the game environment to their advantage. It needs to make sense and it needs to be conducive to good gameplay. On the topic of repetition again, add variety. Unless you're making an arcade game (and I know I'm not), the player expectation is going to be that not everything is the same. Don't copy-paste your game world into existence; it's going to get very boring very fast. So, to summarize:
Citations:
“Keeping Your Players Engaged - Tips for Great Game Level Design.” Pluralsight, Pluralsight, 6 Feb. 2014, www.pluralsight.com/blog/film-games/keeping-players-engaged-tips-great-game-level-design. Staff, Creative Bloq. “10 Tips for Building a Better Game.” Creative Bloq, Creative Bloq ART AND DESIGN INSPIRATION, 17 May 2012, www.creativebloq.com/inspiration/10-tips-building-better-game-5126304.
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I got it over winter break, and I have no regrets. What's better than 2D exploration and questing...in space? This game is similar to Terraria, which I've reviewed before. The goal, at least initially, is to gather resources and survive in an unexplored world. It branches out from there, however. Once you gather enough resources and complete a couple of quests, you can leave the planet altogether and set off into the galaxy to do more quests, fight bosses, create colonies, or just do whatever's possible within the bounds of a survival sandbox. There are seven unique species the player can make their character, ranging from humans to carnivorous plants to walking clouds of gas wearing cowboy hats (no, I am not making this up). Each is based on a different part of history, and each has its own armor, weapons, and ships–which come with unique pets. Even the dialogue when the player examines an object is different depending on the species (this is how I found out my glowing gasbag man was, in fact, a cowboy). I love little details like this. In addition, the questing, fighting, exploring, and survival aspects of the game are all interwoven very well into the story, combining dangerous away missions, boss battles, and excursions in search of lost artifacts into a single cohesive story.
In terms of design, I adore this game. Large variety of wacky planets with a diverse set of biomes (including a forest of eyes)? Check. Unique creatures with their own attack mechanics? Check. Weather systems with actual variety? Check. Randomly spawned NPC camps? Check. I think that's really the best part of this game, that everything is so weird and varied. There's just so much stuff. I have real respect for the developers on this. And to top it all off, a great soundtrack. I do have some complaints. The main one is that parts of the main quest can be confusing, because it doesn't exactly lay out what you're supposed to do, to the point I had to go to the wiki and contact a friend who had played the game to figure out how to do relatively simple things like leaving the planet and following vague quest guidelines. "Scan Floran artifacts" doesn't help much when I'm given no information on a) what a Floran artifact is supposed to look like, b) how many I need, and c) where I find them. The answer to the last point is "not on this planet," which also did not help as it probably took me ten to fifteen minutes at least trying to figure out how to do so. At least some kind of instructions on how to use basic functions of my spaceship–you know, like navigation–would have been nice. My other pet peeve is that it lets you pick out an outfit (those suspenders look fantastic) and then tells you you need to wear your uniform all the time. Disappointing, but at least there are cosmetic armor slots in case you want to wear a tuxedo over you super high-powered space armor. Overall, I love the game. Forgive the punny title. We never actually got to rig anything in the 3D modeling unit, but I figured I may as well do a little research in case I ever have to do it again. First of all, it's important to use the right kind of rig for the character's intended purpose. If they'll never be seen speaking or showing complex facial expressions, the face doesn't need much done to it. Don't try to animate a four-legged character with a bipedal rig, or vice versa. None of this is new to me. One should also utilize control curves, named and color-coded to keep track of them, and hide/lock any controls that aren't necessary to avoid confusion and accidental edits. Add controls as needed. This ties back into knowing what the rig is going to be used for before you start creating it. Deformers are useful for facial rigging. Don't create loads of extra joints if you don't need to. It's also important to make sure the joints and bones are placed in the anatomically correct positions. This will lead to a lot less horrifying and ridiculous deformations. It's also better to skin the rig (attach joints to mesh) with a low-quality version of the model, as this will allow the machine to update more quickly and provide quicker previews, making it easier to know what you're doing. Also, use all the viewports you have to make sure it looks right from all angles. Considering all the little details, I'm kind of glad we haven't rigged anything yet. I still remember last time... So, to summarize:
Citations:
“5 Tips for Character Rigging.” Pluralsight, Pluralsight, 20 Jan. 2014, www.pluralsight.com/blog/film-games/5-tips-character-rigging.Charlie. “Our Top 5 Rigging Tips.” Fudge Animation, Fudge Animation, 19 Dec. 2017, www.fudgeanimation.com/experiments/top-5-rigging-tips/. We're finally wrapping up with 3D modeling. Now that it's all said and done, here are my thoughts on the matter. Besides the programming I did earlier in the year in the 2D game project, 3D modeling has probably been the easiest thing I've done all year. That's not to say it's actually been easy. The biggest challenge is that a lot of the work is meticulous, and small changes can have big effects that might not be obvious until later and are difficult to troubleshoot. During the column modeling project, for example, I noticed several of my maps had not turned out correctly. I still have no idea why, but they were definitely warped, and it was noticeable in some places on the model. I followed the tutorial meticulously, but for some reason mine didn't turn out correctly. It wasn't really that drastic, though, so I still count the column as a success. The meticulousness caused other challenges, though. A lot of projects ended up half-finished due to the amount of time they took being longer than the amount of time there was available to complete them. UVW unwrapping was also complicated, or at least some aspects of it were, and it often ended up messing up without a clear cause. I did enjoy figuring it out, though. It was almost like a puzzle. In general, that's what I like about 3D modeling: you want to make a certain object, and you have to figure out the necessary steps to make that object come into being, and it's a lot like solving a puzzle. As for the program ads Max, I have mixed feelings. I like the functionality, but it's very resource intensive and tends to have difficulty opening–or that might just be the subpar computers. Sometimes the menus are confusing to navigate, especially when icons get changed over updates. Also, a few useful features were changed since the time the tutorials were made for no apparent reason. One of these was the ability to lock viewports, which would have been helpful. So, in conclusion:
I got to playtest a game about loansharking–and in the process learn how not to get ripped off. Lenders are not your friends. Last Friday I had the opportunity to playtest Shady Sam, in which the player is a loanshark working for the titular character. Long story short, you have to pick from three loan options to make the most money off of innocent people who didn't read the fine print. It's sadistically fun, and now I know what to look for to avoid in order to not lose loads of money–long terms are great if you're the one doing the lending. The game also provides a lot of incentive to keep replaying, including an random selection of various rewards to put on your desk; enough different scenarios to keep the end profit from always being the same; a 1-5 star (actually dollar sign) rating; and you even get a cool nickname at the end. I've never been happier to be called "Bad News." All that, and it's only in beta. The game requires you to use your head and look closely at all the terms, and even exercise math skill, all of which you have to do when actually looking for loans. It also throws in other factoids, like student debt figures, types of fees to look for, and how cycles of debt happen. I feel more confident about borrowing money now. However, it did get a little repetitive after a few plays, so a larger variety of scenarios would be nice. Playtesting is useful because it can help find bugs–for example, sprites not showing up, which happened several times. It's also useful because it allows the designers to see how players actually interact with the game, sometimes in ways they may not have anticipated, and if all the features work as intended. It allows the designers to learn about areas of improvement as well as what should definitely be kept. So, to summarize:
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AuthorI'm moving on to my 4th (and final) year as a Game Art & Design student at Durham School of the Arts. I'd like to call myself an artist, but I'm a programmer at heart. Archives
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