Systems Ready!!
Greetings True Believer!!
I welcome you to my blog! Here I will be documenting my research and development for my MA in Games Design. Where I will be studying full time for a year with the hope of graduating, Winter 2018.
Introduction & Aspirations
I would like to start by giving you a brief intro on myself. I am a 24-year-old aspiring Games Designer from Preston, UK. It goes without question, that I have been enriched in the culture of games throughout my life - my fondest of memories, being on the SEGA Megadrive systems playing games such as Sonic, Altered Beast and Boogerman, to then playing Jazz Jackrabbit (until only recently I realised it was developed by Epic Games) on my neighbour's computer, with thanks to her grandchildren whom I was close friends with.
It was then in my early teen years, that I did some experimentation with the Bethesda construction kits to make dungeons and houses for my in-game characters, primarily for all the free items I could find, but most certainly a stepping stone closer to my future. Which brings us closer to where I started my BA Hons degree in Games Design at UCLan in 2014 and graduated this June with a 1st.
With my head held high due to my success, I thought it best to continue with my research and progress further with my skillset, as I so aspire in the future to be a Game/Level Designer for an established company such as Team 17, Foundry 42 or Bethesda (the godlike goal). Although there is the other possibility, to hold my own independent title made with the skills I acquired on my journey throughout UCLan or with a small team of friends also found throughout my time here.
Now, this brings us to the first task...
What skills do I bring to the MA?
What Interests me?
"Perhaps this is why I find my calling as a designer, to ultimately create and test interesting designs to test both myself and the player, possibly in the forms of puzzles, or areas to traverse, to creating that hard boss in order to make the player learn to level up or play in a more optimum manner to best it?"
Initially, I would like to think that due to my broad background knowledge from playing older games and my art and design life throughout school, college and now into university, I think it has given me the strong base to become a quality Games Designer.
I specialise in creating games systems within Unreal Engine 4's Blueprint Scripting systems, these would include such things as:
- Level Design - currently I find my levels somewhat caged in, but I am planning to diverge from my usual styles, to try and adopt a much more realistic approach to areas and levels.
- User Interface - such as Score calculators, Quest Journal/Objective screens, Loading screens and upgrade menus, even at times the artistic design using Photoshop.
- AI - to which I have learnt to create a dynamic master class to create unique functionality within each instance, such as creating a shop screen, giving objectives or items, to simply talk text, along with a few enemy instances, that attack with an array of animations.
For one of my final BA projects, I decide to try to re-create elements from an RPG setting to see how far I can push my design skills, here is a link to my development site of this project - http://www.ultimateunreal.com/xb3001-professional-game-practice/
Here is the final video showcase for my project, showing all the skills I mentioned.
Now, this set of skills I would say are my key toolset, but I do have a few other minor skills that I have picked up over my journeys such as SFX, sound engineering and lighting, but I plan to enhance these with my Blueprint knowledge to make systems appropriate for artists to use.
Finally, although not mentioned as a skill, I do have a deep understanding of rules, balance and statistics, all of which are key concepts for when I have been building games. As I am always in the need to think of the counter-argument to my questions (when scripting) in order to create an elegantly designed bit of script, but I do wish to further my understandings on this subject and perhaps divulge into real programming languages, as I currently know none, showing how versatile the Unreal Engine is to a novice programmer or a none programmer (like myself!)
What Interests me?
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| A collage of some of my favourite games |
From the greatness that is games, there are a few key topics that I keep close, those being the immersion of both it's world in which your exploring and it's inhabitants, to the incredibly detailed universes and finally the one I enjoy the most is personal developments and the fulfilment you get from completing or collecting things in game - secretly an achievement/treasure hunter as I love to go for the 105%.
Although in my time I have experienced and exploring a myriad of different worlds, I know I always found the most fun when I am engulfed with its deep story-lines and mysteries that I am yet to unfold. But with this consideration I fondly believe that I have always been keener on sheer progression and defeating those difficult tasks within games and ultimately beating the game, it just so happens these both go hand in hand.
"Perhaps this is why I find my calling as a designer, to ultimately create and test interesting designs to test both myself and the player, possibly in the forms of puzzles, or areas to traverse, to creating that hard boss in order to make the player learn to level up or play in a more optimum manner to best it?"
I would certainly consider my passions in level design and mechanic/technical design, in order to create methodical and diverse worlds for the player to explore and study, with the hope of them learning the game intuitively.
In the terms of playing for enjoyment, I get a great sense of appreciation towards games when I am rewarded justly for my actions, be it from opening chests, completing a hard puzzle or simply kill/collect objects in the world. Perhaps the idea of looking into the philosophy behind the Reward Systems, Player Feedback or Achievements in games, as I find with my favourite genres that I always aspire to complete the 105% with all the achievements (since their initial release). As for the genres that I favour, I would have to go with RPG's, real-time strategies, first-person shooters and occasionally co-op (depending on the platform). Along with this, I am seriously a long time Sony fan as I am a predominant console gamer.
In the terms of playing for enjoyment, I get a great sense of appreciation towards games when I am rewarded justly for my actions, be it from opening chests, completing a hard puzzle or simply kill/collect objects in the world. Perhaps the idea of looking into the philosophy behind the Reward Systems, Player Feedback or Achievements in games, as I find with my favourite genres that I always aspire to complete the 105% with all the achievements (since their initial release). As for the genres that I favour, I would have to go with RPG's, real-time strategies, first-person shooters and occasionally co-op (depending on the platform). Along with this, I am seriously a long time Sony fan as I am a predominant console gamer.
With some consideration to the outside world, I am also fairly keen on cycling and mountain biking, as I do enjoy viewing interesting scenes to get a sense of the real world in its true perspective. Furthermore, I do enjoy architecture in the sense that if I was to approach it in a game scenario, I can legitimately interpret an area due to my experiences.
As I am not truly taught in programming etiquette, I have become a lot more aware in the process of creating efficient running games otherwise it ultimately breaks immersion from the game, which in turn can have drastic effects on your projects.
In my past projects, I have tried to emulate these concepts to the highest degree that I could currently do, at that time, yet now I found problems with my old work and I love to remake them so they are more efficient if I was to recycle them for future projects. So a possible idea could be, to try to replicate and optimise mechanics from games currently in the market to see how they can be recycled into dynamic and bespoke mechanics.
My main reasons for considering this as an option is that during a little bit of reading of Game Design: The Art and Business of Creating Games (See link below), I came across a section called Getting to YES: Concept Development (Page 4), where it goes on to mention how most games begin with single idea, and although sometimes we perceive our idea to be original:
"Sometimes the idea is completely original, but more than often had been built on the work of designers who have gone before. Beginning designers often fret about this but it is nothing to worry about. Why? Because usually when game publishers say that they are looking for a "new" idea, what they really want is a new wrinkle on something that is established."
I do consider that this may not have been wanted to take in a literal sense, but this gives me some hope to consider the deconstruction of mechanics in games currently, and then try to put my own wrinkle on the re-created mechanic to see if I can make a new dynamic mechanic/s and possibly put it to use within a small arcade style game.
Link to the book on Amazon:
To put this in a professional perspective, I have simply looked for lock picking-type mechanics in games and upon the first page, it gave me an IGN link showing a variety of concepts of lock picking in games that have been developed over the last 30 years :
It came to light that most share a lot of common ground, be it from the use of a lockpick to create the correct pattern (Advanced Dungeons & Dragons: Hillsfar (Fig.1), Bethesda's - Elder Scrolls Series (Fig. 2 and 3), Sleeping Dogs (Fig. 4) and Risen 2 & 3 (Fig. 5)), to simply pressing a defined button in succession during a time limit in order to open (Dust: An Elysian Tale (Fig. 6)) but all have that little wrinkle to define them, such as:
Link to the book on Amazon:
To put this in a professional perspective, I have simply looked for lock picking-type mechanics in games and upon the first page, it gave me an IGN link showing a variety of concepts of lock picking in games that have been developed over the last 30 years :
Link to the URL:
It came to light that most share a lot of common ground, be it from the use of a lockpick to create the correct pattern (Advanced Dungeons & Dragons: Hillsfar (Fig.1), Bethesda's - Elder Scrolls Series (Fig. 2 and 3), Sleeping Dogs (Fig. 4) and Risen 2 & 3 (Fig. 5)), to simply pressing a defined button in succession during a time limit in order to open (Dust: An Elysian Tale (Fig. 6)) but all have that little wrinkle to define them, such as:
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| Fig. 1 - Although made in the late 80's the idea is simple, match the correct pick to open the lock. (Advanced D&D - 1989) |
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| Fig. 2 - The objective here is to tap the action button and then secondly set the pin when it reaches the top of the lock. (Elder Scrolls: Oblivion - 2006) |
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| Fig. 3 - Unlike its predecessor, this version has been reversed, so in order to correct the lock you are required to depress the pins, wait for a rumble of the pin (and controller) and set them. A further note, depending on the difficulty changed the speed in which the pins reset with the added effect of being a shorter time to open the lock (Elder Scrolls Online - 2014) |
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| Fig. 4 - The mechanics behind this version is more or less a replica of the Elder Scrolls: Oblivion's version but you have to press the pin and wait for it to turn green to show its success. (Sleeping Dogs - 2012) |
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| Fig. 5 - Again this concept is essentially the same as Elder Scrolls and Sleeping Dogs, but the added twist is that as is gets incrementally difficult, a considerable amount more pins are added to unlock. (Risen 3 - 2014) |
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| Fig. 6 - Now in this scenario, you are required to press the buttons shown on the right side in succession before the left side covers the lock and ultimately shuts you out. (Dust: An Elysian tale - 2012) |
Ultimately, I do wish to pursue this further to see what other mechanics are commonly found within game genres and to see if I can re-create and adapt the concepts into recyclable and adjustable mechanics within the Unreal Engine. With the added benefit of putting these "new" mechanics into a small, possibly arcade type game, in order to showcase my developments and final conclusions.
Another idea I have considered was to see how I can replicate systems that reward us with that sense of accomplishment in order for the user to become attached to the concept, similar to achievements and in-game objectives. The great thing about this idea is that with consideration to the time a player would have spent doing the mechanics, mentioned above, there would be a reward in place.
Taking care of the Player...
Essentially, I want to look into Level Design (Simple/Complex), Bespoke Mechanic creation and Reconstruction, Creation of Player Rewards, Audio and SFX. I am considering that this is a lot of fields on my chosen subject, but I do plan on taking many journeys to also view the world around to try and implement that sense of real world within my applications, as I find that sense of realism really helps the user interact with the application almost intuitively.
Along with these jump off points, I will plan to visit relevant locales, look into the design of areas (Public spaces, immersive game levels) and the architecture behind them, films and other sorts of mixed multimedia, just in the hope for it to in some way influence my design and overall outcome.
Now with this great list of possible points, I also plan to upload posts to inform of any new and relevant information that I find, along with the reasons behind my choice. So I hope this has given you a great introductory insight on my plans for my processes for my MA journey.
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