Developers Diary. Meeting 4. Jetpack Orangutan.

Today (22/10 -14) we had our 4th meeting in order to lay a solid foundation for our pitch, and determine what we wanted to do for the next few weeks. After a rather stagnant weekend with a few members (including me) of our group having left the island to spend time with friends and family, it was time to get back on the horse and plan the next phase of our game concept.

In order to start with the pitch, we wanted to solidify ourselves as a group, and progress beyond “team 4”. Even if it is just a symbolic change, symbols carry power and I believe it will help us in the long run. Henceforth, the groupname is The 4est.

We jotted down our ideas for a very broad and basic pitch, in order to be able to build onto it in the coming weeks. Our major concern here, I think, is outside opinion. We have no real idea of how our pitch will be received from outsiders, so I think we’ll have to concoct a meeting with another group and try to pitch our concept to them, for practice.

After that we decided that our next focus point should be the concept document, the powerpoint presentation to be handed in. This seems to be a good task to tackle right now and should prove insightful to get our ideas out in as few words as possible.

We decided to hold up on a set date for the next meeting, however I’m sure that we will meet in the weekend to discuss the paper-prototype that we will be presenting on friday.

Developers Diary. Meeting 3. Jetpack Orangutan.

I came home from Stockholm after visiting family and celebrating my sisters birthday.

Upon arrival I went to bed and the following morning (21/10 -14) we met for the third time to start production on our paper prototype.

Our first problem arose very early. We had no materials to build. However, as we knew exactly what we wanted for our prototype, what we wanted to deliver, we knew what materials were needed and we set out to find some. After picking up some clear tape and different colored magc-markers we set to work.

The idea was to construct a typical level on paper, by taping a4’s together to form a successive line of paper as the “level”. We drew Triangles on the paper to simulate enemy projectiles, and circles to simulate enemies. After this we taped the entire topside of the “level” in order to make sure that the marks left by our colored magic-markers were removeable with some paper-tissues.

We constructed a “screen” which work as the bounds that the player can move within.

After testing it, we decided that it was indeed what we wanted, and that it delivered what we wanted it to deliver. Next meeting is 22/10 -14, where we will discuss our pitch.

Developers Diary. Meeting 2. Jetpack Orangutan.

Second Meeting.

We met up again and immediately began discussing what the group had done.

As producer I had the team assemble in the library and I asked the group to look at the slides for the One-Page Design Lecture that Marcus had put on our web-portal for Uppsala University.

The first thing we did was decide on a high-concept. A sentence that is the essence of our game, is punchy and informative and interesting.

After that we decided to hold off on the One-Pager until the Paper-Prototype, who’s turn-in date is fast approaching, is finished.

Alex Cully showed us what he had in mind in terms of music and intro-music, and an idea for powerups that were all very interesting and amusing, and we decided to roll with it. In order to implement them into the game, we had to change the design of the game, however this was easily done and it worked out great, according to us.

Filip Frandsen showed us his concept art for our main character and a few other ideas, and we all thought they were very interesting, and conveyed our feelings for what we wanted the game to be.

Marcus wanted to hammer out the details of our game, and so we did that, and in the end I think we’re all very pleased with our design, however it would be nice to have it in a document to refer to.

Yet again we shared out individual assignments for our team to work with. As I was leaving the island on the Friday I told everyone that I would have a more floating role during the weekend and check up and coordinate what the others were doing, as well as help in what manners I can.

Developers Diary. Meeting 1. Orangutan.

First meeting.

We met up to start the prject by discussing our different ideas and settling on one.

First things first however, we decided to fill in the other roles:

I was given the role of Producer.

Erik decided to be Lead Coder.

Filip decided that Lead Art was for him.

Marcus chose Game Designer.

Alex 1 chose QA and Lead Sound was given to Alex 2.

We discussed at length our different game ideas and finally settled on Marcus’s, which I’ll explain briefly:

You are an Orangutan in a jungle, and zookeepers have been sent out to find and take you back to the zoo they’re working at. You must use your different weapons to to defeat them and repel them from the jungle.

After this we distributed certain tasks for the group to manage until wednesday, which is when we will meet again.

Depressing State.

Today I was invited to a group dedicated to discussing the design of games, and games in general, as well as the overall state of gaming, the game industry and most things included in this. First and foremost, however, it’s an ongoing discussion.

Unfortunately (and there’s not escaping it) the first 2 or 3 posts in the group are all very depressing and bitter, warning us as designers not to get into the industry.

What? Well, obviously this is not a great way to start off as a designer, but at the same time it’s true. The state of the games-industry is absolutely horrific. There’s almost no one making any money to keep players interested. Developers are laid off left, right and center and it’s incredibly disappointing all-in-all.

So how do we keep the quality of a game exceptional, generate income and keep attracting new users? After all, players are ready to spend money on games, we see this in AAA-titles and subscription-based games. However these are all equally as progressively disappointing in most cases. The AAA-titles are only A these days in the sense of money spent developing. Not to say that they aren’t enjoyable, but that simply isn’t enough anymore. As designers struggle to practice their craft, their livelyhood, and create something extraordinary, thousands of mediocre and sub-par games are pouring out of the industry, creating a heavy cloud that the rays of sunlight that are the good games can’t pierce through.

“Create a good game and we will play it” doesn’t work if you can’t find the game. As my tutor said: If you’re in the mood for brownies, you look it up on google and you find recipes to make them. But if you’re looking for a Type X game, googling it doesn’t help much if it doesn’t exist. All brownies are good.

With all the negativity around this, I don’t think this is “the end” of anything. At the end of the day, all things change, and once you hit rock-bottom you can only go up. You just need to build yourself a ladder.

Week 5.

Week five was a somewhat slow week. With Adam not present and our communications-course on hold, we were given a challenge to create a finished concept-document based on randomly generated story and characters for our introductory game design course.

We made a team of 6 people, and set to work over the course of 2 days to do the assignment. I kept a developer diary on what everyone was doing, our more skilled graphical artists made art for our different characters and we all made an effort to actually deliver something that was appealing to a niched market.

We designed a point-and-click adventure-game in which you play a young ex-skin-therapist vampire-girl, who longs for company, but due to her terrible skin-condition during the day (vampires can’t stand sunlight), there’s only one person who will be with her, and that’s a blind vampire-hunter that aspires to greatness. He doesn’t know she’s a vampire. They get  a tip about a haunted mansion somewhere in Italy. The game takes the player to a few locations around Italy before finally showing them the mansion, and its many explorable rooms and puzzles. The mansion is haunted by a demonic baby which the vampire-girl wants to make skin-creme off of.

That’s the plot, and we were all very pleased with the effort.

This week was also the first game-jam, which I did not participate in due to illness, but from what I hear it was incredibly educational and a great deal of fun, hopefully the ones that could go were able to take something away from it that will be useful later on.