Reflective Journal

Week I

MONDAY 26th FEB MM XX IV

Hello !!! This is my Reflective Journal

Course Review

The purpose of this course review is to make us reflect and understand our current skills and soft-skills, and what we would need to start working on our FMP(s) (Final Major Project)

As having a sense of where I am at, in terms of my media, creative, and technical skills. Can greatly help start and even push me into improving at a more consistent and thorough rate. As without this document, I would still do fine, but not be able to key and map out where I lie in terms of my skills and knowledge

Class Mind-mapping Session

The aim of todays session was to consider the various contextual applications of our project theme(s). As well as to select at least 1 media text for our contextual analysis as to initiate our project(s)

What is Mythology?

Mythology defined in my own words, is the collection or collected works of stories, in most cases being a part of a religion, cultural tradition, or even a shared universe like Marvel/DC Comics, or even collaborative projects like the SCP Foundation

In the small group project we were assigned to research and discuss as to what mythologies are, and what the crucial parts were to any myths, as well as ways we can interpret a myth.

Myths can be characterised as "stories of the human condition". Which is basically what me and my group referred to as "Canon Events" from the 2023 film, "Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse", where it includes key events of human life, including birth, growing up, love, friendships, struggles, death, and so on. . .

Additionally we can interpret Myths in many ways other than being the "human condition", as myths are considered "legends" and not just "stories", as a legend is a story that is partially true, but was exaggerated to be more "dramatical" or "theatrical".

As for the self research we did on our own, to then share it within our group members. We all researched different myths and legends, both modern and of old tales.

Comic Book Censorship and Mythology

I researched myths and its use cases in the Golden Age* of the comic book industry. Where I came across tons of censorship and cases of a lot of "inappropriate" deemed themes and subject matter, any LGBT+ representation, negative sentiment of religious beliefs, negative viewpoints of government bodies. These seemed a bit excessive, but for its time, it made sense. However, over excessive censorship like no comic books using the words "horror" or "terror" in its title, "Scenes dealing with walking dead, torture, vampires, vampirism, ghouls, cannibalism, and werewolfsim are prohibited."

These were the strict policies and rules imposed by the Comics Magazine Association of America. As a way to combat the rising fears and distraught by churches across America, people of strict Christian belief, as well many Christian schools having to ban comic books late 40s and early 50s.

*(Golden Age of comics describe a time and era in American comic books from around 1938 to 1956. Where modern comic books were being first published and getting popular on a swift level)

So when going into how mythology was used in comics of the Golden Age, they were primarily used as a way to counter the censorship posed onto comic book writers. As monsters and mythical creatures were borrowed and used from Norse, Greek, and sometimes even Egyptian Mythologies, as a vampire being present was considered "satanic worship", but Hades was not considered, as he was a "mythological character".

Overall, I learnt a lot on the wide spread use case of mythology and representation of mythology being used as a workaround, against the strict governing body that was the Comics Magazine Association of America.

Research of Media Texts

As for the media texts I want to delve and research about. I don't think I can find much suitable ideas that stem from researching censorship in comic books in the 50s and onwards. So I will take a completely different approach. I want to make a game involving a time loop, that also includes mythology or references to it at the very least.

One popular Zelda game that utilises a time loop is The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask, a recently released roguelike on the PS5, Returnal, and one movie that I enjoy a lot, Edge of Tomorrow, which is an action movie, that basically takes inspiration from Groundhog Day. In which it "game-ifies" the concept, by setting it in a war against an alien invasion, with the protagonist respawning a lot of times.

All in all, I am content with the media texts I have selected. As these will hopefully elevate my creative thinking, knowledge on various mythos, and steadily improve on what I actually want to make.

“Charcoal Drawing(s) Experimentation”

This is the work I did for the practical, more physical and paper side of my course work. As these help me a lot in my drawing capabilities, and how I go about designing and iterating on ideas. For two weeks, we had worked on developing our experimentation with charcoal techniques, and how we were able to handle and utilise a new form of tool to add onto our skillsets.

Character Development from an observational Skull Point

Iterative Design Practical Experiments

Back to Bibliography

I had to have a recap on what iterative design is, by rethreading and recapping what it actually is, and how helpful it is for my FMP.

To recap on what iterative design is. It is the process of refining and revising the design of a character's design through multiple stages or versions. It starts with concept arts, sketches, feedback, refinements, testing, etc.

The starter activity we had a "blob challenge", were we had a couple minutes to quickly create small characters that resemble any thing that I can think of. I really enjoyed this activity, as it reminded me of the many times I would just be doodling in maths class while trying not to fall asleep.

I started on the purple side, thinking of snakes, due to a Pokémon named Ekans immediately jumping to my mind. But went on to make a slug/turtle/amoeba combination, then a boat with a face, and finally I tried to recreate a creature from Monsters University that I have obviously misremembered. And on the green side, more Pokémon started coming to mind, some "Palmons", and one snail from a show about time and adventure.

We were shown a good example of a character's design being changed from its inception. Shrek originally was more "gritty" and "dark" when compared to his final design. As testing of the original screening with Shrek's old design was not liked by the audience, and more importantly, kids were scared and thought the film would appeal to more older audiences.

DreamWorks being scared, went back to the drawing board to make necessary changes that would elevate and improve upon the original iteration. And Ruben Hickman himself said that it needed to be toned down.

As one VICE article about why the "lost" and "gritty" version never made it to theatres. Going on about the film's horrid "high turnover rate of artists and directors", in which it led to the film being compromisingly tame.

This enforces the idea of constantly iterating, and having other people brought along to change key or minor aspects of a character, in order to improve upon it.

But there are other ways of iterating upon designs and ideas.

One such way is taking pre-existing ideas and stories from old tales, and making your own spin off them!

Sun Wukong, or in English, "The Monkey King", is a fictional character from the 16th-century Chinese novel "Journey to the West". In the original story, he is "a monkey born from a stone, from which he acquires supernatural powers through Taoist practices" as stated on the original blurb for the book.

The game, Enslaved: Odyssey to the west, released in 2010 on PC, Xbox 360 and the PS3. It is a loose interpretation and adaptation of the novel, where the game is set 150 years into a post-apocalyptic future. Following a world wide global war, only remnants of humanity are alive, with the goofy looking war machines still active, roaming around, akin to what Horizon: Zero Dawn would take inspiration from.

From the differences in the design of the characters in a side by side comparison, we can see that the character is more human-like. And less of a literal monkey, as instead of fur, we have skin. The body proportions are subtly divergent, as the original design is more smooth and wavy, parallel to a monk or in this case, a Taoist fighter. While the modern rendition is more bulky and hulk-like, a protector of sorts. Which goes into his helmet having a bomb attached, in which he must protect Tripitaka, or he goes bye-bye. Rather than just being a cool helmet for him to wear

Moreover, not visible in the modern image, instead of having a tail, he has a scarf or piece of rag wrapped around his hip, with the longer end sticking out. Where otherwise, an actual tail was in place. This was presumably done to keep the "features" of the Wukong character, but they couldn't give him an actual tail, so this suffices as a compromise.

Practical Work on Iteration

With all that being said, now it was time for me to take all that I have learned with iteration. And apply it myself as to see how much I actually have gained as a result.

We were given a couple minutes to roughly sketch out a character, with the following key words:

• Hybrid
• Woman
• Tail
• Circuit
• Wavy

I took "Woman", "Tail", and "Wavy" as the key words, as I was a bit blank on what it meant by "Circuit", and I do not necessarily like drawing "Hybrids". My drawing skills are still horrid, but it is clear enough on what I wanted to show with my first sketch.

I tried to make her pose like she was jumping or doing an acrobatic skill, as that's what I got from the word "Wavy". For "Tail", I did the same thing the Enslaved: Odyssey to the west game did, by just making it a scarf or rope tied around her waist. And the "Woman" part, I just drew her a bit slim and long hair was sufficient enough for me.

On the next key words:

• Technology
• Water
• Smart
• And Metal

I only took "Water" and "Metal" from the list, and started imagining her as an "anarchist" surfer, as I thought "Metal" meant like the music genre rock and roll. With the addition of the surf board, it added onto the "Wavy" part, making her seem "cool" and "hip".

Lastly:

• WIRES
• Experiment
• Wavy Hair
• And Fins

Were the few last words to iterate on our character. I managed to fit all of them into the next iteration, using "Wires" as her main weapon, the "Experiment" adding onto the surf board from before, making her a superherone, "Wavy Hair" was already sort of there, but I changed her hair up a bit to fit her new personality. And the "Fins" adds onto her power of controlling a surf board in the air.

Overall . . .

I enjoyed this short practical work we had on iteration. I already did know about iteration, but the short recap on what it really was, was helpful in jogging my brain about it. In relation to and how it could be implemented on my FMP, I would use it to constantly come up with designs of characters, artwork, scenery, locations, story writing, and so much more.

Westminster Design Workshops

THURSDAY 29th FEB MM XX IV

We went on a class field trip to West minister University to be a part of two workshops, one was a Game Design Workshop, and the second was an Animation based Workshop. As well as to explore the campus, look around what the university offers in regards to other universities that I have been to.

I first started with the Game Design workshop, we were told a lot of concepts and ideas that we already either learnt of have knowledge on. But this workshop was more focused around "Concept Art". How can we get an artist's or designer's vision, and apply it directly onto our work without much deviation. And then the exercise given was to try and "add" a character or building type onto already existing games, being Hollow knight or Minecraft. We were also given audio from their respective games . . .

I really love moths, and since hollow knight is all about bugs and critters. I drew it more around the character type of a "mini-boss", and it being more of an optional fight the player can fight or not. The wings were the most fun I had, as researching online at how the wings fold, are articulated and are actually designed. Gave me insights into moths that I never had before. The last drawing one the bottom left is me experimenting with a more detailed set of wings.

I also experimented with how the character would move, being a slug hybrid along with being a moth. Its fast on land, but slow in the air, and has razer sharp hands. As well as how it attacks with its sizing in mind, the main attack being a homing missile that has a quick charge.

We then were allowed to use a graphics tablet to finalise our designs. I took the opportunity to practice using in one of their facilities. I think I utilised the resources provided well enough to demonstrate my capabilities in showcasing my artistic skills.

For the Game Design, I overall liked the workshop they provided me, most of the key topics and parts of the experience I had already sort of known about. But it was a good rethread of ideas and topics from this past academic year.

Then the second activity I went for is the Animation Workshop. It was another fun recap on the fundamentals and discussions on what Animation is, but the most eccentric part was the lecturer. He genuinely seemed excited to talk about to us, what animation is.

Later on, for the practical part, a fun group activity was to make a stop- motion short 1 second loop of a random object going in a circle. The added time pressure helped speed up the process a lot, as our group had to make it look "not robotic" in how the object would spin. Gradually increasing in speed to then stop slowly. I really enjoyed the chemistry that our group had in partaking in this exercise.

Overall, I valued the time I spent and had at Westminster, and its workshops. Giving me clear insight as how the industry might work. As well as the amount of facilities present that replicate almost exactly how real world studios would operate.

independent Studies I

The extension task that I wanted to do, was to write and have another "Player-Acting" report. As the first report that I made was not satisfactory in my earlier units, so I had another go at it. And to broaden my understanding of other games and genres of which I would have not played or considered.

Reflection: End of Week I

This week, being the first of many for my Final Major Project, or FMP for short, has been an exhausting one at that. The project theme, "Mythology", has spun a lot of creativity in me. I have read a couple Comic books that utilise mythology, played various distinctive games that use the mythos it weaves into its narrative, or even a couple shows and films on Netflix that has used its mythos to great effect.

The one idea that I like, and keep going back to is something to do with Time travel! Or rather, time-loops. Where time resets back to the start, and you would have to restart all the lost progress that you just did. Majora's Mask, Outerwilds, Edge Of Tomorrow, and maybe even Returnal, play with these concepts effectively.

But why do I want to do something that is about a hefty science-fiction concept like Time paradoxes? Well it all relates back to the Human Condition of course. The very idea and notion of reverting a set moment in history, to undo something and keep chasing until a satisfactory conclusion is reached. And this works amazingly as a cosmic punishment instead, the constant suffering put in place for someone to keep repeating a moment in history, that they do not want to be in or apart of.

And with those ideas and concepts in mind, it would make logical sense that I would love to make a game, rather than an animation. As I do think I can confidently utilise the idea of "time-loops" and make an alright animation that says a good message with some mythologies in mind. Instead, I think it is wasted on animation, and making a game is far more suitable for me.

Lastly, the trip to Westminster was a good recap of concepts and ideas from the last few months, but showed the improvement in my art and design skills that I have honed and improved upon. Which motivated me greatly, as I felt that I couldn't make a satisfactory media product in my eyes. However now, I have the confidence in being able to show my crafted skills in the media texts I will be creating on my FMP.

My priorities for next week is to finish off the bits and pieces of work I abruptly wrote, and then start researching more and more about myths on my Research page, so hopefully I will get to that.

Reflection: End of Week II

It is already the end of the second week. In which I have to ramp up my research and contextual analysis, so that I can then slowly start my Proposal and the type of game I would like to make.

I actually do not know what I want to make and go ahead with my Game for my FMP. I have so many prosperous ideas that I want to execute, but I know I won't be able to combine them effectively together.

I do know what I am going to do in terms of the overall narratives, and some of the gameplay mechanics. I still haven't nailed down in concrete details as to what my actual game would be.

However I sort of know what characters I want in my game, I researched about a couple mythology figures like Actaeon, Icarus, and Cassandra. Of which I might find some use from, or pivot away from and make my own characters out right.

I started a small section for my contextual analysis, not much written as of right now, as I have to start playing the game eventually and write up some notes from various figures and connections with mythology I find within the game. But I found out that some of the characters, ship and planet are based from Greek Mythology. Which is good as it simplifies the connections that will be needed to make.

Overall, a short week in terms of production towards my game, but more of just research that contributes to my overall FMP. I hope to start work on the narrative and characters next week, as I think narrative is something I want to work on more for this project.

Week III

Character Experimentation

THURSDAY 14th MAR MM XX IV

In this lesson, we are going to be able to design a character, using specific elements of our own stories. As well as improve on our technical design skills.

The starter activity, was to explain the given character prompt, to your assigned partner. And have them guess based on the explanations that you gave. I was given the fictional character prompt of "Fish sticks" from the game, "Fortnite". And had to explain from memory what the main characteristics and design elements of it were. He got pretty close to how the actual character looks, albeit with some creative liberties and interpretations taken from what I said.

I then had to draw his character prompt, he described a fat beast, with long ears, peasant clothes, and green skin. Which I immediately figured out it was the lovable virescent ogre "Shrek". I drew a donkey and coloured them both for fun.

This starter activity show cased how wildly different or close to the designer's vision you can be, with how someone describes a thing. Moving on, we were taught about "shape theory".

Shape Theory

As Shape theory was explained about in class, I drew a couple sketches of moths depicting different shapes. I might have given the "circle moth" a bit too much width with its wings, so I stretched out the Square/Rectangle moth a bit more to exaggerate how its depicted.

• Circles - Soft, Unity, Cute - The round shape often is associated with unity, a sense of movement, less prone to set things apart.
• Squares - Strong, stable, fortified - These bulky shapes create that sense of strong equality. It is seen as stability, order, peace and sometimes wise.
• Triangles - Movement, Shifting, Swift - And then finally here comes the shape with a desire to keep going. They are more associated with constantly going in a direction somewhere, and are prone to be less stable than its peers.

And there's more complex, different shapes, but for simplicities sake, we were taught the main 3 that express differentiating dynamics within them.

Now after taking these new shapes and design methodologies in mind. We had to apply it onto our own work, the FMP we have been researching for the past 3 weeks for in our proposal. We had to identify 2-3 keywords or elements in our story/narrative. Which I came up with "Adrift", "Bygones", and "Damned". And then start coming up with the first iteration of our character.

I split the paper into three parts, and started sketching on my character, I was thinking of the movie "Cast Away", (the one with the volley ball that has a face on it). And imagined my character akin to a classic island survival scenario. I added more "mystical" elements, like a staff with a crystal in the middle. And a hovering orb that can speak, inspired from the game series, "Destiny".

In the second iteration, where now I thought of how the game of my FMP will go as. I drew him in a platforming scenario, and borrowed elements from the character "Spike Spiegel" from the show, "Cowboy Bepop". He isn't as battle hardened and broody anymore, but more "unsure" and inexperienced. His body is less muscular, and more slim, as it was easier to draw, and I think audiences will feel more sympathy and like the character more if he's more vulnerable. Added casual clothes, rather than just some ripped pair of jeans and being shirtless, as to add onto the audience sympathy and relatability. The staff remained, while I didn't think the orb was needed.

Then finally for now, the final iteration of this small workshop. In terms of body, I sharpened his body a bit more, as some muscle was needed if I want him platforming and using his magic staff in combat. I refined the hair more closely to what Spike has. I lessened the battle-scars on his T-shirt, just some scratches, with a tear here and there. And made it more noticeable on the pants, as I tried to make it look like it was a pair of jeans that got ripped into shorts, "jorts". I also liked the dynamic pose I made here using references I found online.

Overall, I think this was a good session to help with my FMP, as well as advance my creative endeavours that I will have in the future. Being able to express and symbolise character traits, personality, what they stand for, and so on. By just drawing them in a certain way using the simple "shape theory".

Reflection: End of Week III

Now at the end of the third week, I am still unsure on where I would want my project to go. As having completed my primary, secondary and still working on my contextual analysis. I still can not definitively land on one concrete idea that would be executed in a reasonable amount of time.

Compared to last week where I was unsure as to how to proceed with the uncertainty. So what instead I am going to do is, write down all the ideas I have in my head, and then take the best concepts and ideas to combine them harmoniously. The three ideas, that I have thought roughly through, all have something to do with Time-Loops, or Time-Parallels. These game ideas are:

• Trying to stop an Island from self destructing, but when it self distracts, the island resets back to the start, where the player has a time limit to beat it in.
• A small village, with a mysterious object in the middle, that controls the area's platforms and advances time forward or back. Having to traverse the game in three similar, but visually different enough to defeat a boss in three separate time lines at the same time to win. The challenge being to navigating the city’s shifting landscape—buildings morphing, streets rearranging, and NPCs aging or de-aging
• A small Side scroller, similar to the first idea, but the player can get multiple endings, and is more story focused with conflicting sides the player has to choose or everyone perishes.

All of these can be good on their own, but after careful consideration, it would be best to combine them all into one, and remove the unnecessary or conflicting concepts.

Final Game Concept/Idea

So my final idea would be: A top down, 2d-zelda inspired game, where the player is stuck in a time-loop. Having to stop an island he is cursed on from self-destructing. 3 possible endings, (4 if you count the island exploding as one of the endings). Where the player must choose and pick sides that occur on the island. The player can wander and talk to NPCs, solve puzzles, fight some bad guys. The more the time goes down, the more the island deteriorates, the more it changes. Resulting in access to some areas, changing or closing off most areas.

This is a bit chunky of a game concept and idea, but if executed well, it should result in an estimated run time of 10 to 30 minutes. Or if lucky, beaten in the allocated time given.

The inspiration is most obviously from the game "The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask". As playing it, and hopefully finishing my Contextual Analysis on it, the time-loop mechanic was revolutionarily for its time. And the fun bits of talking to NPCs, learning more about how the small village operates, the in-game clock that you have to follow. Overall, that would be one of the main inspirations.

Another game, that I played and then watched a full gameplay walkthrough of it online, was "12 Minutes". I liked the basis and structure of the game, but I don't like how repetitive it was, having to wait full minutes in game to progress, left a bit of a sour taste in my mouth. The narrative of the game was suboptimal, as the conflict was very distressing, but the ending just simply can be summed up as, "it was all a dream". Laughable at best, a waste of time at worst.

I still haven't thought or fleshed out the narrative, but I like how the film, "Edge of Tomorrow", the main character having to slowly piece his surroundings and situation, when he realises he is in a Time-loop. From then, having to adjust and improve from his last life. Which gives me an idea to put into my game, as to make the idea of the player improving from his failings, a journal will catalogue and note down all the major notes the player might have forgotten but will be needed to know for each puzzle or current problem.

Here is how the UI of the game will look like, placement of UI elements, scaling of the world, and such and such.

For my first iteration, I kind of executed the design elements almost perfectly. Due to my understandings, knowledge, and conducting research alongside analysis of various 2d games in my earlier units, which led me to create this mock-up on the spot.

More concepts that I want to delve and utilise, I want the gimmick of the game to be like an old "haunted" game. And the player is sort of trapped to it. Fun quirks the game might have is that randomly, trauma of the person playing the game appears and are gone randomly. And on top of all of this, this adds a creepy feeling

Prearrangement of my Preparation for my Pre-Production

Now that I managed to put in solid words what my game project would be like, how would the pre-production stage for my FMP would go like?

I think I would do the same thing and start preparing mood boards, a Game Design Document (GDD), and some light extra secondary research that will aid the new ideas I might come up with.

The first important thing I would like to do is improve on my time management skills. Which I fell short on in most of my previous solo and group projects, part of that problem was that I am too intricate with how I work, as I would get work done through out the time given. But only I would ramp up speed and production when I realise we don't have time to perfect and clean up the work.

A way I would try to alleviate this, is by sticking to a tight schedule, but leaves some room for content and ideas that need more ironing or testing out on. Further more, I want the gameplay to be prioritised over story. By which I mean is, having all the mechanics and parts working well enough to then add the art, story and cutscenes in later.

The second most important thing I want to execute is how cleanly understandable and straightforward my bible (GDD) will be. As I did have an alright, base level GDD, but it wasn't updated nor added in quick successions, as it would take some considerable time for some features or gameplay ideas to be written on the GDD of my last group project.

Inception of Pecha Kucha

There are 3 things I want to discuss about and propose for my Pecha Kucha: The research that I have done and how it links to the themes and ideas that I want to explore in my game. What style of gameplay I am going for. And lastly, the resources, tools, and what I will need to execute upon my idea.

And along with that, I want to do something unique, style the script that I will talking in, with P o e t r y . . . As I think it will be worth a shot.

Overall . . .

I hope to begin Pre-production middle of next week. As I still have a bit of overdue work that should be done, pertaining to my contextual analysis, adding onto my research as how it links to the FMP, and some of my reflective work.

But if I can not do that, then I hope to continue working on getting more research done about the various narrative aspects of my game. As compared to last week, I did way more work than I expected to output.

End of Week IV

This week's objective was to continue finishing off the work that is either due or not completed from last week. And to finalise the Pecha Kucha and have it ready for next week's presentation.

Pecha Kucha

Now for my presentation that I will do start of next week, I will need to finalise the presentation, and have the script ready in preparation to present to my class.

The script has been so far the most difficult to work on, as I have to have the flow of each verse and line go neatly in that section of the slide. And on top of that, rhyme or sound nice, as well as making sense in what I want to say. I should have definitely cut back, but I am close to completing my script, so why not just finish what I have started already.

Not much other work has been done, other than finishing off a majority of my unfinished work, and updating some of the previous journal entries to be more in line with the consistency and style of (so far) new entries. I hope to present well for next week for my Pecha Kucha, and then start work on my pre-production for the game.

I finished my contextual analysis on the game "Returnal" this week, where I had used my understanding of semiotics, and applying use of research in order to find corelations with mythologies, story and so on. It was helpful in making me understand how I would apply myths and legends onto my story in my FMP, as well as how I would go about making use of semiotics in my narrative.

End of Week V

After ending this week by presenting my Pecha Kucha, the collective agreement that was gathered about it, was that it required more time to cook in the oven. As after a whole week to think about it, it should have been prepared more earlier, and had more revisions. Or even better, less stress on making it "flow" or "rhyme" well. And more on giving a serious presentation in a straight-forward manner.

I also slowly started working on my GDD for the game. Just making a simple google doc, with a couple sentences put in place for what I want to add to my game. Nothing full yet, as I got many pieces of research and media I got to analysis before putting the pieces for my game together.

Afterwards, I completed the second contextual analysis, on the film, "Edge of Tomorrow", where I re-watched the film, and applied all my media theory that I learnt on it. I got so much useful narrative techniques, story, ways of making effective characters with depth, and so much more. I think I chose the best piece of media for the type of game and story I want to tell.

All in all, most of the work I did for this week was for analysing the good and bad that came out of the Pecha Kucha, and the contextual analysis of "Edge of Tomorrow", which both were helpful in contributing for my FMP.

I wish I did less planning and more actual work, as I do think the amount of research helps mould the outline of what I want to work on, but I see it as a way of avoiding said work. So hopefully after the break, I immediately start rapidly increasing my said output.

Week VI

MONDAY 15TH APR MM XX IV

After 2 weeks back from the half term break, I got the energy that I desperately needed, and immediately back to work it is. After setting up the foundations for my GDD, this week, I will focus on working on finishing all the Pre-production work that is going to be needed. As I know I am way behind schedule, as compared to my Proposal, I should be in production right now!

Schedule

Here is a quick Schedule I mocked up, including the previous 5 weeks. From what I can infer, I have written single sentence notes on what I will be doing up till week IX. But after that, I will note down in the later weeks what I have added. So for now, here is the live document I have:

Start of GDD

A GDD, as on my previous units, "stands for "Game Design Document". It is basically your game's bible; includes everything your game has, had, and will have. It includes the premise of the game, story, characters, mechanics, abilities, art direction, level layout, sfx description, and so much more."

And for this week, I will write the majority of my GDD, as to speed up the pre-production phase, and get into the production phase immediately.

My GDD will also include the schedule and maybe mood boards, but I might make them as separate documents if needed to be. Here's the live document for it:

GDD File

I plan to have the majority of the GDD done within these three days, and made and accommodating schedule within the document as to show my progress.

I decided instantly not to have the mood board be in the GDD, as it makes it difficult tenfold with how google documents handles images, and Google Slides is just more feasible in that regards. And here's the associated document with it.

Mood Board

Earlier in my Research page about different mythological characters that I researched about. I decided on utilising these figures for my game, and even having Actaeon being the main character for my game. As the game needed someone who was cursed on being stuck on the island.

I researched a bit of how colour theory, and how it can be applied to my game project. As I wanted to give different emotions to each of my characters. Like with Actaeon, I wanted him to sort of a coward, but he was still brave, so the dark, bits of pastel colours of navy blue as his primary colour, and a stark beige being his accent colour.

The same can be applied to all the other characters, with the evil inverted "twin/alter-ego/nemesis" Noeatca, being the opposite colour, which is a deep "Rosey"-red. And he would be a coloured more "brightly" than Actaeon, as to show that he isn't entirely evil or we maybe being tricked into thinking he is nice.

The two side characters, won't appear much in the game, but I want them to be fragments of the main character's personality indirectly. Kind of like how Batman's rogues gallery is a culmination of who the Batman is, Two-face being the struggle of how batman juggles his identity, Scarecrow being the fear and mythos of "The Batman", Joker pushing Batman's no killing code, and how far he can push Batman into killing. And so on . . .

Icarus, in most media, is shown as being considerate, and "pure" of heart, and I don't want to change that, but "twist" or "curse" it. And he is a "extension" of Actaeon, so I want him to be the "immature" side of him. But I don't know how I would pull that off without accidently making the character hateable.

As for Cassandra, I wanted there to be a female side character, as to not have a male only character list, and also utilise her to tell an interesting side of Actaeon, in Greek mythology, she was bestowed the power of knowing what can happen in the future, but due to her fault, she was cursed of no one believing a word she would say. I wanted that to sort of flow in the narrative I wanted to tell in the game, but also the character aspect of constantly being worried of things to turn out bad in the future.

End of Week VI

Now comes at the end of the first week of pre-production, a lot of work has been completed during this time. Most important is the script for the game finally being completed.

The biggest task was not the GDD, or the part of having to figure out how this game will play out, it was the narrative that I want to focus on for my FMP. In my previous projects, story would either take a back seat, or be watered down a lot as to save time, energy, and utilise resources into other areas. However, I want to tell a good story with a proper character arc for this game. And to execute that, I had to research a bit on what stories would require to actually carry out good, effective story telling.

A popular format of telling stories, is the Hero's Journey arc. Campbell's version had 17 steps, so I went with the shortened, and more concise twelve step process, which is Christopher Vogler's version. The research that I compiled for it, made me understand at a more in depth level how it all works. And why it all even works in the first place.

I utilised the Hero's Journey to make my narrative flow as nicely, and make it short enough that I can make it easy to put in my game without needing to remove or reduce the story bits.

Character Concepts

During the week, I would do a couple of concept sketches, and since the game would just feature the two main characters, with a lot of minor side characters, I only focused on iterating on Actaeon, and his inner persona, Noeatca.

I accidently made Actaeon a hulk-like brute, as I focused more on the stance and the power that it emits, rather than if this body type even works for the character I planned out. But the facial expressions and vibe it gives off, is what I am happy with essentially. Again, he is not meant to be that bulky in retrospect.

For Noeatca, I made him lanky and skinny on purpose, but appearing more formal than the rest of his associates in the story. I wanted him to be the opposite of everything Actaeon sort of stands for, dressing more appropriately, having that exaggerated "swagger" of a twenty-something year old man.

I got other characters in the game, but these will be the main two characters, as the rest of the cast are simple NPCs that have quests that sort of relate to what the player is going through. Even though I kind of fleshed out the characters in my mood boards, and character descriptions for two more characters, I need to be realistic and cut down by a lot and only have them appear as small minor side characters.

And finally the last thing I did was research on Colour theory. I did some surface level look at how colour theory actually works, and how it can be applied on my Research page about it. I mostly applied onto my Mood Board, where I want to get the character's personality and mood across as quickly as possible before the character says a word.

I think this was a good enough effort for this week, but now I got to work on my Grey Box, that I will hopefully finish by the end of next week. When looking at my schedule, I didn't do definitive dates, just notes and bullet points of what I would sort of be hopefully doing that week. Maybe I could work on a flow chart to help with designing the quests and how it will flow, but that is for next week for me to decide. Overall, I am not fully satisfied, but it is still good enough.

Week VII

MONDAY 22ND APR MM XX IV

Now the seventh week of game production, I need to start working on the game now, making the grey box. But after having the game be playable, I need to start working on a system on actually cataloguing all the encounters and quests that will appear on my game. And additionally, an audio plan, making a ton of art assets to put in the game, and also having a game slice ready this week or next week.

Early Build of game

Here is how the game looks right now, very basic, but the movement will need a lot working on. I haven't fully figured out the art style as of now, but I want to make a game like Omori. And use animation techniques to make it "charming" or at the very least nice to look at and play.

I want to add potential controller / gamepad support the game as well, as I think this type of game works really well with using a more traditional way of playing games, rather than a keyboard. I don't want to focus too much on it, but it is another option for players to utilise.

The movement mechanics I have implemented, a bit slow and quite finicky to move around with. But it works, and that is all I need and I will "improve" it later down the road. As I need to work on developing my characters and art style. As having a distinct art style, makes the game stand out from other games.

Class Crits

We were tasked on critiquing some of character work, by peer reviewing each other's work. I showed my two character drawings I did a couple weeks earlier, as I didn't think I would need more drawings of my character to use as concept art. Which is found here

I first looked at my classmates art and critiqued his work. By pointing out what works well first, and then gave them some pointers on how to improve said art.

Afterwards, it was their turn to now do the same process of critiquing to me. Here is what they said about each character drawing:

For Actaeon, his "island stranded" clothing was effective, but I should have applied more tonal values, in the sense of giving a more volumetric feel for the character not being totally bland.

And for Noeatca, his "design simple and effective" but my classmate has no idea whom he is, and his clothing style is a bit polarising from what he has seen from the game so far.

I agree with these criticisms, and that is why I changed Actaeon to be more "depressed", and less "whimsical", even though he barely showed any signs of that. And in the concept art after this segment, I replaced his torn out shirt and shorts, for a tank top and bland trousers. As his haircut has changed a tad bit, from a "stylised" ruff haircut, to a a "messy" ruff haircut.

Character Design and Potential Art style(s)

Adding onto the previous segment, I know that I draw pixel art, or simple "flash-era" 2d cartoon drawings. But I might not utilise a different software to make most of the art assets for the game, as using the construct 3's own art tools in the game engine will be sufficient enough. As I don't want to make to draw complex characters and scenery for the game.

Omori is the game that has inspired me the most with how I am going to have the art style of the game be visualised. It is simple, charming and effectively "sombre" with its child-like ambiance but a sad undertone that can be felt in its "aesthetic".

Using Microsoft Paint, the free drawing, pixel-based art tool that comes with Windows computers. I used a mouse and quickly came up with these drawings as to see if I can make an art style. MS Paint is similar with how Construct's 3 engine works. But I will still go ahead and use Construct 3's own art program to make almost all the art assets.

I took the Actaeon character from the Character Concept, and drew him more simpler than the sort of complex drawing I originally drew him as . . .

The main changes in character design are that, he is visibly more "depressed", as he dresses in a tank top with unassuming trousers. His hair is messy and ruffed up from not taking care of it, and a scrubby patchy beard to emphasis that more from the previous iteration I did.

The unirat I added as merely a joke, but I loved how "cartoon-ish-ly" on point with the type of "vibe" I wanted the game to emit. So I kept the creature in, and is going to appear in the tutorial section of the game. The unirat was made on the spot, and felt "kind-of" mythological, as I combined a boring animal with a mythological one. This goes back to my inspiration from the game "Omori", and some inspiration from the 2010 tv series, "Adventure Time". With it being whimsical and sort of random, but still "fits" with the whole personal flair and "allure" I'm giving the game.

From my contextual analysis, the second media product that I have researched, is the film "Edge of Tomorrow". In which I did a deep character analysis, on Major William Cage. I liked his flawed character traits, being a sort of 'Coward', never engaging in the war that he is selling to the masses. And when he is suddenly thrusted into combat for the first time, he has to adapt and sacrifice himself to the greater good of humanity.

This is what I want my character, Actaeon, to go through. I want to tell a complete hero's journey arc in this game. Have the player(s) slowly realise how terrible, but sort of almost apologetic of a character Actaeon is. What I mean by this, is that the audience can almost forgive Actaeon for the actions he has done and did over the course of the game. This is a mostly stretch goal for me, as I still want to achieve telling a proper narrative in this game, but I have to also work on the gameplay side of things at the same time.

Flow Chart

First before doing anything with flow charts, I had to research a couple different GDDs, I looked at the original GDD for the Golden eye game on the Nintendo 64, but then I looked at the Grim Fandango GDD. Where it outlined easily how the rooms where connected, what the player will need to do, location illustrations. But the part I was focused on was how the simple the flow chart looked, and that was all I needed.

A program I thought I will never ever use was "Microsoft Visio", it is an application to quickly make flow charts easily and seamlessly. And yet here I am now using it for plotting out my entire game's start, middle and end. Along with how the player will interact with the quests, what is required, how they will solve the puzzles, and so on.

This is the flow chart so far, as I took only ten minutes to write down the beginning part of the adventure the player will go through. I struggled with thinking of stuff the player will do, so I resorted to "fetch" quests, and either funny or quirky slice of life quests the player will need to help or be apart of.

I want at least 5 easy quests the player can do in about a minute or two, 3 medium level quests, where the player will need to look around for context clues, talk to NPCs for help with where or what to do, notes/signs/paper-trails that lead the player in the right direction. But before all that, I need to actually have the dialogue system in place.

Before I talk about the dialogue system that I implemented, here is how I made a simple and intuitive way of approaching the avatars that will accompany the text boxes.

Avatar: The not so last images

Instead of using an outside program to make all the art pieces, textures, etc. for my game. I am instead using the built-in art program already in the Construct 3 engine, as to speed up the creative process. As the 'scuffed' 'drawn-like' art style is charming, and would save a lot of time in the process, as I would not need to keep exporting and importing the drawings from a program like "Piskel" to Construct. I went ahead and tested out that hypothesis, by first making a couple drawings to see if that would be the case.

And as I stated in trying to figure out my art style for the game. The drawings are indeed neat, and have that "Flash-esc" era charm to them that I did not fully intent on. But I am glad I went with this route. And so, I will apply this way of producing drawings to all the art pieces in the game, as I intended to.

The many different dialogue systems

As Talking will be a big part of my game, with the player going from NPC to NPC. There had to first be a system in place to show that.

My dumb brain thought I could easily implement a dialogue system on my own, and the first two iterations did not work at all. I genuinely crumbled at this task, defeated, and thought of making a more tedious system of just having a hundred different objects and text boxes that each show their own different lines of text.

This old system in question that I tried to use, used a sprite to check if the player was overlapping with said sprite, and on interaction with another sprite check to see the value of a text, it should have spat out the text. But to repeat, it wasn't working.

However, not all was lost, I looked at a video online detailing how to implement said dialogue system.

Here, the dialogue system now works on a Function based system, where it calls on a value, which in this case being a string value. And then it carries out those actions. The good thing with functions, is you can just have one massive command chain in place, and then just refer to it by a simple value.

There's two functions at play here, the string "t", destroys the text boxes, avatar and any other stuff for showcasing text boxes. And then Creates them again, this is to ensure no overlaps are made when the player somehow interacts twice accidently. In addition, a type- writer styled effect is applied, where the text is shown in over three fourths of a second. As if the text just appeared, it wouldn't look as nice.

I tried to make it so where you had to press the button to change text twice, one for completing the text, and the second one to go to the next prompt. But this brought many more problems, so I kept it simple, and the player can just skip the texts without it finishing.

Here is how it works, interacting while a collision is present, brings up the "Dialogue" function. Where it simply checks the instance variable of said sprite, and then gives a text that's associated with it.

And here is the code for how I handled every text, this was the easiest way I approached storing all the texts and pulling in the avatar PNGs. I could have used an array, and easily stored information that way, but I am sort of low on time, and I did not want to waste more time on the dialogue system.

But overall, the dialogue system is full proof (almost), and I can copy paste it and just change the values, and keep a track of them in the code itself. By separating it based on either the area, questline, or part of the world the text box will appear in. And that will make it easy, or hopefully, more intuitive to add texts, but will slow down the process in the long term, when I have like over hundreds of text to keep track of.

Additional NPCs

As the identity of the game is slowly shifting from a serious narrative-based game to a more chill, charming narrative, with some serious bits still thrown in to have a foundation. I wanted to bring in characters from other games or animations that my classmates make or have made. It doesn't even have to be a character from their game, just a quirky original character that may or may not give quests for the player to interact with.

1. is Vanta, the name is derived from the darkest black paint currently in existence. 2. is a homeless opium bird, he will probably ask for money or some worm food, as he is currently homeless. And 3. is a totally original character, that borrows inspiration from the manga/anime, "JoJo's Bizarre Adventure", a character named "Enrico Pucci".

These were the characters I quickly sketched and could put in my game, but this was done as a fun exercise to see if I can draw as fast as I can, as I will need to, if I want to try making a sweet and charming narrative experience.

End of Week VII

At the end of the seventh week, and time flies by so quickly into my face, as I realise I will now need to ramp up production and maybe cut back on some of the theatrics/ambitious parts of my game. Like for example, the combat system might need to be cut back on a lot, and keep it very simple.

Here is how the game looks right now, and I am satisfied with how it feels, and plays. But I am not happy with how little I actually did, as most of my time was spent trying to make the mana system and dialogue system as intuitive as possible. With many, many bugs popping up, or just nothing working as intended.

This room was originally a placeholder. But with the way I work, I cleaned it up a bit too much and worked on it a bit too long to not make it a grey box. And transition into a game slice.

All in all, a fair amount of progress in production for the amount of content that is there. But now I have to keep working next week and hopefully have more to show.

Week VIII

MONDAY 29TH APR MM XX IV

Start of Production Week

This is the sort of start and end of the pre-production phase of the whole game project. I will need to cut down on a lot of empty work in progress systems, and put a lid on some practically completed projects.

Movement and Mana system

I didn't touch upon this topic, as I mostly forgot to and was focused on the more mentally challenging systems at play. But I realised this was also important, as the way the character moves and how the player interacts with the game was going to be fundamentally important to note down.

The character moves in a tile-based system. Where one press of a button, gives the input to go up, down, left or right once. Simple to add, but to make the game unique and have challenge, the player will need to manage a mana and stamina system with the limited movement they have. And when they run out of stamina, back to the start it is.

The example on the right, shows when the player has pressed "W", but first, checks the global variables of the character being alive, not in a cutscene/dialogue and if the game isn't paused. To then simulate the movement of them going up by 1 tile, reset the timer countdown (I will explain that in a bit), and play the corresponding animation that comes along with it. And as a result of moving, minus the mana/stamina by one.

This, I think adds challenge and that extra intrigue. As originally the game was on a timer based system, where a certain time limit was given instead of moves. But that was too similar to another game, "Minit", and this distinction in mechanics separates it enough.

But how does the mana system work?

Well, each time the player moves, they will lose one points of mana. But also if he stays still, he will lose a point of mana in a couple seconds repeatedly. This is to encourage to keep up pace and to discourage wondering around aimlessly.

Inventory Systems

The inventory system is very bare bones, but it is also used as a quest tracker sort of, at the same time. As the player picks up items, they can see what stuff they have gathered in their run and make a guess as to where that might actually go.

Here in the tutorial example, (not in the game slice as it kept dropping the frames due to a faulty code error), shows the pizza being held in the inventory. And to keep things simple, you can't hover or move it, it is just there, and not there when interacting with the right collisions.

I might make it smaller, have it only be 4 slots, as I don't think the player will hold more items. As the process of continuously retrying will make it difficult or hard to hold more than 4 total items.

End of Week VIII

The pressure slowly starting to rise, as I need to manage my time more accordingly. I don't think I will be able to finish everything off and I need to condense the workload that will not be in the final game. The Noeacta character I have been working on, whom is a huge part of the game, won't appear, when I am laying out what I have left, compared to what I can even add.

This might change, as I might add him at the last weeks, when I somehow have time leftover from adding in the more crucial parts of the game in.

Colours

Additionally, the progress I make when drawing objects with or without colours is a massive difference in time spent. And so I will have the game in almost complete grey scale. As the time it takes me to draw and colour in one sprite, is the same amount of time it takes me a couple sprite with the boiling effect on display.

Even though I did research in colour theory, and it would have been nice to show the stark difference between Actaeon's world, and the world he steps into. His apartment being grey scale, and the island beaming full of life and energy. But I think this is good for the game to have more content, rather than a very short game, due to not being able to colour in all of the objects and props in the game.

Game Slice

Here in the game slice, is the beginning of the game, no sound, no theatrics, just how the game will function as a whole. But the mana system won't appear at the start of the game. As the player will learn how to move, interact and figure out how the gameplay look actually begins.

Week IX

MONDAY 6TH MAY MM XX IV

Three weeks before the deadline, and when looking at the schedule for this week, I need to start polishing what I have from my game slice that I made last week.

For this week, I mainly focused on reducing the amount of work I pile onto myself, like how I made the game almost exclusively grey scale last week as to save time for myself from having to colour the game a lot. And for this week, I have to consider the audio side of things for this project. As currently there is no sound in this game, but I don't have much time at the same time. So I am going to go over that in the "Audio Plan" section.

Audio Plan

I do not want to slow my content creation process with sounds and music, so I will use the same methods I have used for my art process, easy and simple. However! It will be quite difficult to make music that is quite annoying to hear after a couple times, as the game is all about repeatedly doing the same thing over and over, I don't want the player to go insane hearing the same chirpy beat over and over.

I have outlined the Sound effects, Music, and other miscellaneous foley that might appear in my game. The sounds I want to be snappy and smooth, I want it to feel good that the player has moved, done an action, completed a quest, and so on.

And for the music, which is my area of expertise, (well not really, I just barely know how to operate a digital audio application), and with it, I want to flex the music the player will be hearing on a constant basis. The main issue I will run into is making iconic, catchy, but also not intrusive music that the player won't feel repulsed after hearing it on their fiftieth play-through.

End of Week IX

It is that time again, which means, I got to catalogue everything that I did this week, what challenges I faced, and what I will do to continue the project. But before any of that, I got a couple of major bugs that I want to address that I spent my good hours on.

The very big headache I had to deal with from the start of the production cycle was the implementation of controller support. This was really the most frustrating feature, that always needed to be rechecked and configured endlessly. A new bug would pop up, ANYTIME I tried to implement something noteworthy or try to improve the mechanics by a bit.

The two biggest encounters with the relatively unknown bugs at the time was . . . Using the analogue stick, would make it so that the player moved infinitely and not lose any mana. And the second one was when I introduced yet another global variable, where it would display the correct UI elements and add/remove some of the options, (as it was still the tutorial). And when this was disabled, meaning it removed the restrictions of the tutorial, the game would control as normal. However, when it was enabled, the gamepad controls would not work.

The first bug was actually stupidly easy to solve, I just had to apply a "once while true" and "trigger once" condition(s), as the way the gamepad works in my head. Is that it is not a set command, as the condition was constantly being met, like similar to a "every tick" condition.

The second bug drove me up the wall, as when I separated the tutorial sections of the game, where the player has less options in the tutorial, and is given more options when he is in the main game. The gamepad controls stopped working, I had tried for hours in the middle of the night as to why it wasn't working.

The code in the mana was accidently tied with simulating movement, and the global variable became an "on and off" switch for gamepad controls to work. Meanwhile the keyboard controls had their movement simulations and associated code contained within itself.

More Pre-prod materials in production week!

Here is the flow chart I have been developing for over three weeks, and I put it all together in this google slides. About a third of the game has been removed, or reduced in scope and ambition. Like for example, there was going to be a whole cash shop system, but it was better to just make it simple and have it link with the inventory system.

FLow_Chart.PPT

For the first proper location, this is how I mapped out the points of interest, where the characters going to be, and so on. The player starts in Cassandra's house, and has to go around and help, talk or fight with people. "Up north" is going to be blocked off by a random NPC, maybe a wendigo that's chained up that's close to the entrance of that area.

I like how it turned out, but I will improve it and make it a collectable item in the game. Now the challenge will be putting this into the game as quick as possible.

Making the mana values sort of easy but hard will be challenging, the amount of clues to point the player in the right direction will be difficult, as I don't want it to be obvious on where everything is. So striking a balance of how much the player should know, and how much they can figure out on their own will be the intriguing part of game design.

Here is the two first cutscenes that will play, they will be max of 10 to 20 seconds total each. I don't think these will be difficult to implement, as I will use the same tactic I have been doing for turning my still drawings, into more "life-like" drawings.

The first cutscene is Actaeon in his room, rotting the days away. And a thought occurs, where he finally decides to get up and try to "move on" from what is currently troubling him. And after beating the tutorial, the second cutscene plays. Where Actaeon is sucked into a portal, from which he grabs onto a staff that helps him escape into a different world/realm.

There is two weeks left now, and the more I work on this game, the more I realised how much earlier I should have started. But at the same time, I work harder and am more productive when I have less time to do it, which I wish it wasn't the case, but it is how I am.

Week X

MONDAY (THE) 13TH MAY MM XX IV

Final weeks of production, and I am starting to worry about the state of the game. As the game currently, has no sound, only a tutorial level with the second level being a grey box basically, no working enemy AI systems, and no cutscenes in the game.

With one week left until half term, the amount of production will need to be cut down or watered down to a more manageable level. I will go over the missing pieces of what I will need to do immediately, and what the next steps are going to be for my game.

Enemy AI

The first system in this week that I decided to scrap, was the enemy AI. Because, after working on it for a couple days, I had sunken a bit too many hours into it for it to not work. And had to let go of the enemy encounters all together, but replace it with destructible objects instead. As those are still blockers, but makes the game more friendly and chill, rather than having to fight off hordes of monsters in the game.

The reason for scrapping the enemy AI systems, is that I tried to apply the same movement code that the player has, onto the enemy blockers, but it would not work, or collide within another. And so I made the decision to save time, by removing it from the game altogether.

And in its place, I am putting destructible boxes as a substitute. It slows the player down, adds an extra interactive element to the game, and adds to the themes of the player's character, 'Actaeon' being more of a pacifist and not a fighter.

The soundscape and music

Music is what is going to influence the player the most, and hopefully, the art style compliments the tone I am going for. To make the music for my game, I will use the program "FL Studio", which I used for producing the music on my previous game project.

FL Studio, is a DAW program. DAW stands for "Digital Audio Workstation", in which most users of the application, use it to produce music. It can be used to edit sounds, help with dialogue, and etc. In my use case, I will make background music for my game, which will loop continuously for the player to hear on a constant rate.

As stated on my Audio Plan on my Game Design Document, I originally wanted the music to be very empty and bleak. But I don't think I have time to execute that idea very effectively. So I made sombre music instead, and I listened to some tracks from the games, "Citizen Sleeper", and "Signalis", as to get that tone and emotional response almost right. As the tutorial stage is blue and sort of depressing to be in.

I first started with the G minor key. I think this key range fits the tone I am going for, disturbingly austere, but almost forgiving to sit through. But that's what I think of this key, as it was perfect for this part of the game. The first three piano chords are in the minor chord, then the last chord being in major. This mixes things up by not only just being "sad music", but the feeling of the music trying to fight its wallowing sadness that its perpetually forsaken in. In short, pessimistically optimistic music.

I still think this track can be improved, as the melody still feels subpar as to what I can produce. But it isn't terrible, which I am glad it is not.

Here is the finished song in its entirety:

Cutscenes

The next big part of the game, that won't actually appear much often, but will contribute a lot to the visual mood and tone of the game are the cutscenes. As I want them to instantly tell the player what Actaeon has gone through, and immediately sort of know what to do next, without saying a word to the player.

I quickly started working on the first cutscene that will play when the player clicks start on the game. I used the storyboards I made from last week, with some minor tweaks as to how the cutscene plays out.

I then took the short gifs of animation, and inserted them into Adobe Premiere Pro. I first slowed down the clips by four times, then repeated them four times. This is almost the same technique I applied onto my previous game project's cutscenes, "Rogue Agent: Abandoned Infiltration".

I didn't have time to make another music track, so I chopped up the music I had already made, and placed it into the timeline of the video. I think I made excellent use of "chopping" up a song and making it sound "unique" enough. And at the same time, I think it flows into the main game neatly. Where the player will be a bit hesitant, as to why the music feels "distorted" but also not at the same time, when they are playing.

Here's the first finished cutscene:

I like how simple, but effective I made the cutscenes appear. I think my ability to tell a narrative, without any character saying a word, has improved since making cutscenes previously.

End of Week X

I slowly come to consider if I can ever finish my game, and the goals that I have set for it at the start of the project. My inability to set realistic deadlines is slowly showing itself, and I want to get this project over with. If I have the ability to restart this project from the start, I want to properly set milestones I know I CAN achieve.

When I considered to remove a big part of the game, being the "Enemy AI" systems altogether. As to mostly save time, I thought replacing it with breakable boxes would feel "off". Because I designed the game around perfecting your route, either avoiding to fight the "blockers" blocking the path, or finding an optimal path to each destination given.

However it was quite impossible to find a solution in making the enemy AI move at the same rate as the player moving. As the sprites would overlap with each other, and I would need to write and make an exhaustive amount of code to consider for each instance of enemy popping up in the world. So I used solid, stationary boxes, to save a lot of time, and "simplify" the game a bit. By "simplifying", what I mean is to make the encounters easy and straight to the point, with the puzzle solving bits be the main obstacle the player has to interact with.

However, the more visual parts of the game are coming along together well enough. As I finished decorating the tutorial area, which classmates found to be very polished and fun to interact with. But the amount of content I have implemented is very worrying.

Week XI

I know I don't have a lot of time, so instead of worrying about stuff I can not control, and are long out of my reach. I will continue working on systems that I know that can be completed and are within my grasps.

I tried to evenly spread all the work I would need to have in my game. The first being, working on the boxes, and making sure they don't clip or break other systems somehow. Then working on more tile sets for the island. Afterwards some sprite work. And lastly writing some dialogues for the player to read in the game.

In my playtests, before the game slice, players were stuck as what the controls were for the game, so I added the option to see what controls were bound to what buttons. But then players were lost as they did not know which objects to interact with.

I kept how the icons "light-up" when the player is near the object. But I did some tweaking to how the "Question Mark" icon interacts with the player. I added another button prompt, which I worried was a bit too many buttons for the player to remember. However, the game can be completed without the player ever pressing this button once. So anyways, when the player is holding down the "shift" button, they can see all available, interactable sprites in the game.

The coding was a bit tricky, as I had to rewrite it from the ground up. But it wasn't too tedious, as I just had to re-arrange the order of operations of the coding.

Breakable Boxes

Before making the world, I finished drawing the boxes. I originally wanted them to be sort of "angular", so I drew both versions, and the flat box looked more pleasing to the eye. So I went ahead with that, and quickly drew it.

I originally wanted the box to be static, and unassuming, but it looked lifeless, and dull. So by "re-drawing" it and have the animation play on loop, it suddenly makes it beam full of lie. I use this effect on almost all objects in the game. It is called "boiling" or "line-boil" or a similar name. And all it is, a drawing, redrawn slightly "off" or "differently", and it gives it instant charm.

Tile sets

I hurriedly made these tile sets, as I knew from my previous game projects, tile sets don't need to be fancy. They do their job well enough, if they are visually pleasing and non-obtrusive to the player.

The grass was 4 lines i drew, and then I duplicated it three times to make the edges of the left side, corner, and top side. I chose a light colour, as the player is already outlined with a very dark grey. And for the "ocean", I just duplicated the grass, rotated it 180 degrees, and made the colours dark instead.

Overworld

Now with the tutorial area done, I move onto making the second part of the game. Being the main island, as that is the large subset of the game the player will be spending their time in.

Here is the main island, which includes a shop, and two houses for now. I added a bunch of obstacles in the shop, that has the player breaking the boxes. As a way of being challenging and making it quite difficult, by extending the game a bit.

The difficult part I have to do right now is drawing the roof for the houses, and then have it be seamless when transitioning from the island, into the little houses the players will explore in.

Using the concept art for the main island, and some inspiration from houses that appear in the old Pokémon games. I drew these two houses quickly in the Construct 3 engine.

I like how the "shop building" appears in the game. I took advantage of perspective, and did some lighting and shadows from a top down perspective. The house was simple and not much to say, other than it feels like it could be a house from the year 1920 or 1970.

I added the second NPC into the game, being Cassandra, and she introduces the player into the world, by having the player a lot of exposition about the world. But also I want her to teach the player how to break objects using the attack button.

I overlayed Actaeon, and started drawing her ruff outlines based on him. But then once I liked the overall physique of her, I then had to give her some clothing. But I was a bit confused as what to style her as.

I realised I can give her some Greek clothing, as the island is pseudo-mythology related. I researched a bit of how Greek clothing were and still are. And I came across something known as "Greek Toga" while browsing on Amazon.

It fits the character Cassandra to wear something Greek-related. As its not stated in the game, but she's sort of displaced in time, and now lives on the island eternally.

Here, the player does not know they can break the box yet, but they know that they can interact with NPCs and objects, so they would first talk to Cassandra. And she talks a bit about the island, how she came, and that someone saved the player and put their trust into her.

I still have to add a cutscene that links the player from the apartment, into the island. But as of now, the player wakes up in someone's bed on a mysterious island. And hopefully, the lore and world will kind of make sense when Cassandra is spouting information at the player.

I did some playtests, and some players really liked reading all the texts and dialogue interactions. But some would skip and try to "speed run" the game as fast as they could without a second thought.

End of Week XI

It is the penultimate week for my game production. I have to come to terms with not completing my game on how I originally wanted to. But suffice to say, I liked the amount of work I have completed this week.

The random, short playtests I would have with other students and classmates, really helped with refining my ideas into the right direction. Like I wanted the cutscene that played at the start to not be skippable. However, that made it a bit frustrating when you wanted to skip right ahead into the game. So I allowed players to skip if they wanted to.

I also added text art at the bottom right corner of the dialogue textbox. Which says "Space to continue", and this is to indicate that the button for interacting, also changes the text. Which some playtesters were confused, as they thought a different button was there to change the text on screen.

Week XII

It is the last of production towards my game, and I the game is far from complete. But I still want the core gameplay to be finished, even if it is missing a ton of content that would improve the game.

I still don't have player animations in the game, as I still have the "stick-figure" placeholders from a month ago. So I hope to finish that off. I want to add more cutscenes into the game, as to flesh out the world and have more context clues as to why the player or Actaeon is doing any of these things or why he is in that place.

I added two days of me just doing things to give the game content, at the end of the week. As I could think of things while making cutscenes. Which is why I swapped the dialogue, and puzzle making from start of week, into the end of the week.

Player Animations

Here I finished off the player animations for walking and attacking:

These were made quickly using the same art tools I have been using for the asset creation. They are two frames long, because the movement system is tied to how long the animations are, and I didn't have time to mess with that. And also I think its quite funny and charming that the character's entire "walk cycle" and "attack animation" is two frames long.

More Cutscenes

I was struggling to make content for the game, so I immediately instead worked on making cutscenes, which I saved for to be done in the latter end of the week.

Using the storyboards I made two weeks ago, I hopped on Aseprite to start working on the cutscenes.

The premise of this cutscene, is that the player, when approaching the portal in the corridor, gets suck into it. And slowly gets "spaghettified", which is the process of atom and matter being slowly stretched thin, when they come across a black hole.

I however, did some changes to the original storyboard, as when the player comes across the portal, it does a cut to black, and the player comes across a staff immediately. Which then "crashes" the game with a fake blue screen.

The spaghetti part still happens, and the cut to black, but now Actaeon is falling through the portal. And sees a staff near him, which he then picks up. And the

I forgot to add the portal in the corridor. But I didn't want it to look like every other object in the game, so I added a "pulse" effect onto the object.

I didn't want the portal to be very "basic" or regular, so by distorting it. It comes across as being "other-worldy", and a bit terrifying. As the game slowly sets up the world to be very dull and bleak, and this random portal contradicts that. And so the change in Actaeon starts here, whether he likes it or not.

And here is that cutscene:

Portal Cutscene

Final Cutscene

Since I don't have time to finish the game, I might as well leave it off on a cliff-hanger.

The player is on a boat, approaching a more larger, and dangerous island. And that's it, after that, the credits roll, which I wrote "Actaeon's Journey continues elsewhere". For a short demo, this is fine I think. But I didn't want Actaeon to end off here.

The player was meant to leave the island to confront Noeatca, way way further in the story. But with no time on the clock, this is how Actaeon is now leaving the island.

The credits part I quite like, as I liked how I did the "coding, art and music by" part as visual symbols, rather than writing it out.

Cliff-hanger Ending Cutscene

End of Week XII

Game production for the game has now concluded. And with that, I have to conclude all the work I still have to work on, to a close.

I didn't have time to finish the puzzles, and the cool little side stories that would have been present in the game. But as a demo, I am happy that the game looks pleasing to the eye, the tile-based movement mechanic, as well as how I did the cutscenes.

However, I am happy I managed to finish the major mechanics of the game, even if the content present isn't present. Like the player animations that was made last second, and the barely existing music that took me quite a bit to sound right. Even if the melody needs to be worked on more.

The reflective process has now concluded, anew . . .