I discovered in my research that I the game I need to make should follow real world moral choices and how choices made should affect people’s perceptions on the real world. Seeing how popular games are, and knowing how powerful an affect they have on people’s lives, the games need to have strong choices about what they believe when they apply real life logic, and the result leads to changes affecting the game.

I also learned about the difficulty of making a full 3D game from what I talked with Brett. 3D is a hard concept to make beautiful in the remaining allotted time. A 2D game with good graphics would be easier than a 3D game with subpar graphics. It is easier to code and fulfill. Perhaps the question order should be edited to better fit the narrative, with the player’s gender first, and the three major questions.

This past week, I’ve finally gotten into what will make this project and the ideas I have for it come to fruition. Plenty of programs needed to be downloaded and a lot of time will need to be spent getting used to a learning how they work. In order to figure out which programs I needed, I spent plenty of time reading forums, instructional Wikis, and watching youtube tutorials mainly from this guy. In order to get the models made, textured and imported into Fallout 4, there are a bunch of steps that need to be done. In addition, there is a large amount of time to be spent on the creation of world spaces and NPCs in the Creation Kit.

The first program that I will talk about here is Autodesk 3ds Max. This is a modeling program, similar to Maya, that will assist me in the creation of weapon models. Now, going about getting a custom mesh into a game isn’t as simple as pressing the Export button. For Fallout 4, once you have a mesh and a texture for the mesh, you need to export it as a .nif file. In order to do this in 3ds Max, you need to have a separate plugin that allows you to import and export as .nif files. With that custom .nif mesh file, it’s time to open it in a program called NifSkope. This program is mainly used for Bethesda titles and basically acts as a bridge for the modeling program to the game engine. It assigns animations, sounds, size, and more. It’s basically where you glue your gun together after you made all the pieces. Then you can bring it into the Creation Kit to finally put it in your game. In action, it’s much easier said than done. Within those few steps I’ve mentioned, there are a ton of little tiny steps that take time to hurdle over.

All other tasks are pretty much located right within the Creation Kit. In it, I can write quest paths and their subsequent dialogue trees. I can also create custom NPCs that can speak those custom lines. World creation, object placement, and Nav Meshing can also be done right within the Creation Kit. It looks like it’s gonna be a lot of work, but not impossible.

10/29/18

This week I have a challenging research task: figuring out how to hook up an Alexa controlled LED light. I’ve done some looking around with smart home products and Bluetooth, but circled back to Arduino, something I found out about in the beginning of the semester but never got around to looking into. There are some tutorials that demonstrate linking Arduino to Alexa, but I will need an Arduino circuit board and some mini LEDs to get this going. For now, I will start on the code and do more research on LED linking tutorials. For my prototype, I’d at least like to have one LED hooked up and controlled by Alexa by simply saying, “on” or “off”. I want to continue researching Arduino and its capabilities before I decide on any hardware or look into anything else. This just might be what I’m looking for. The biggest remaining question is how the spice rack will know where each spice is on the rack. Also, I wonder if I have the coding ability necessary to put this all together on the backend.

 

• Exploring some more of the following programs:

 

• PubNub, PhoneGap, Cordova, React, Swift, xcode, Zeplin (part of sketch?), Figma.

Pubnub(free or 49$ per month for more services)- Real time app building tool, lots of helpful chatting tools/resources if confused by building platform. There aren’t a ton of reviews of it online, which makes me think it may not be legit/used often. I want to use something that will build my app the best way it possibly can, so I’m not quite sure about this.– good for location based apps?

*** ADOBE PhoneGap(free i think??–ADOBE)- A program that makes allows you to create a website which then will be packaged into a mobile app..It looks pretty straightforward. I would definitely be keen to using this program as long as I knew the right amount of javascript/html/css… I would first need to watch a ton of lynda videos/talk to a ton of people.

–> super helpful how-to

Cordova(free or not?)- Similar to phone gap… Their client base is very small (tiny companies like fitness apps), but it looks free and maybe simple to use in the case that you know your programming.

React(free i think–need props)– Javascript framework created and used by Facebook, and you can use it to build native mobile apps..This heavily uses javascript which I am definitely not comfortable with using… so I’m probably going to pass. Huge companies like facebook and instagram use it though which means it definitely has a ton of capabilities… I may actually look into this for building but need to brush up on my java!!!

OTHER: Swift, Xcode, Zeplin, Figma (does anyone think these programs might be helpful?

Current Context

This week I took the liberty to explore more “state of the art” projects in a similar field as my project is going to be in. Since I have already looked at trailblazing games such as the Old School playstation 2 classic Rez and the more recent Beat Saber I decided to expand to more platforms and research some rhythm games that could help inspire my project. On IOS I actually found a game that was pretty cool called Geometry Dash. The game designed by Robtop features a 2D environment where the user plays as a box moving from the left to right, with geometry shaped obstacles that have to be jumped over as you approach them. Each level of this game has it’s own theme song and although the game could be played without sound, the sound definitely aids the gameplay as there are jumps every time there is a note change in the music. Every time the user hits an obstacle they simply start over. However I believe that the sound is the appeal in this game. It features catchy music that once you’ve heard a couple of times can actually memorize and help time your jumps as you progress through the game. I would like implore a similar strategy in the making of my project and have the music be about 1 to 2 minutes long and be simple enough to be able to catch on to and recognize when changes will be happening in order to make the movements necessary to progress through the level.

In terms of the movements the player would be making, I took what Professor Ault said to me about trying to utilize the kinect movements as much as I can to create a more immersive gaming experience seriously and started researching some kinect rhythm games. I thought a game that does this very well was Dance Central 3. I had not been exposed to the game because as a Playstation fan I felt like I can’t cheat on my system. However after watching people play online I quickly saw the appeal to the game. This game actually uses pre-existing songs and lets the player choose a character to perform the song with. It features the users actual kinect signature on the top right while the screen is filled with a dance environment depending on the song that is chosen and the character performing the moves that go along with the song. Depending on how well the kinect signature matches the movements on screen the game grades the user on how well they are dancing. This is actaully a lot of movement and I don’t know if I would be able to execute anything as flawless as this but it definitely inspired me to add more elements to the game other than just turning left and right. I think I could use this in a way that the player would have to do more basic movements such as raising their arms or jumping/ ducking over or under obstacles in the way. Combining that with the moving environment, I think I could create a very immersive and exciting environment for the user in VR.

I recently bought and played Undertale, a game where your choices in the game determine how the world reacts. Everything you interact with changes the results of the game, from what you say or do. The game does all of this for jokes, as well as messages about the player and what they believe. The game is full of likable, well-rounded characters that you can interact with in many ways. From talking and sparing them, to outright killing them. The characters react and change with every reaction, and the characters and the world around them change. The emotions of the game can have you laughing at one point, but then crying at another point. One of the major points is if a game needs things to die to make a game fun, which this game tries to show killing is not necessary. In the real world, of course killing is wrong. But is killing in a video game any better. The game is set up to try and make the player relate to the monsters in the game. The games focuses on interactions instead of gameplay.

This game relates closely to what kind I game I want to make, in terms of interactions changing the world. The game is slightly more moral based than what I intend to make. My choices are more like a personality quiz, personal beliefs based. While the game I am making will not have combat, the game will have some interactions and dialogue that will change the world. Changes will be visible to the player as they look around and see the city and park I want to make.

I have been learning how to use Twine for creating a story, with branching pathways for every choice. Twine is a much simpler concept than I was originally thought, though I am having a few problems with understanding how to connect each point into one story. I am starting to look up questions that should work for the game I plan on making. I hope to finally come up with good questions, such as “Are you proud of the world humanity has created?” This would be the first question that people would be asked and would lead to which location you end up with. The next question leads to the city being cleaner or dirtier, or the season of the leaves. It would be your view on being an adult or being a child, and which side you would rather be on. Next would be a question that changes the time of day, like believing in a deity would make it night, and not believing in one would make it day. These are the ideas I believe reflect the player’s ideals. The next question should affect how the people in the world live their lives, like at work. Something along the lines of “What is your thoughts on the people you have in your life? Are you a good person to all of them?” This would affect how people are interacting in a city, such as going to work. But this will change how people see you. They may stay a safe distance away if you prefer being alone, or may let you close if you are happy with the people around you. And the last question will be about how you view yourself. Are you proud of the choices you made? With this, your “sex” in the game would be determined, and the camera would shift into a third person POV, showing which gender you are.

Exploring some of the following programs:

Adobe XD, Invision, PubNub- Kuiphoff, PhoneGap, Cordova, React, swift, xcode, Sketch, Invision, Zeplin (part of sketch?) , figma, Balsamiq (will continue on next research post),

ADOBE XD VS. INVISION VS. BALSAMIQ VS. SKETCH

**Adobe XD(free with TCNJ sub): This application seems like an amazing prototyping tool. It is easy to use, and allows the user to create wireframes and full designs as well as preview their design as an interactive prototype. This will definitely come in handy when trying to visualize the differing layers of my idea. Right now, I have so many different ideas for “parts” to add to my app, but I’m not sure what will work/look good. Laying it out on Adobe XD will definitely help with making my ideas come to life as well as giving me a good and reliable expectation of what can and cannot work. A few flaws I’ve learned from Adobe XD were it’s sometimes confusing interface (with all of the connecting arrows)

Invision (free): Invision is another mockup tool/program that is used by large companies to prototype their ideas such as Netflix, Uber, Linkedin and Viacom. When comparing this program to Adobe XD, one frustrating element is that it is only for prototyping, all design will have to be done within another program. Many have stated that Adobe XD is a great program to use from start to finish, despite some flaws. Invision might be something to use as a fallback – it has some good elements such as its history tab and hotspot templates.

Balsamiq(9$ per month): Not sure if this one is even worth mentioning but I’ve seen it being compared to Adobe XD and Invision on some websites. It seems to be more of just a wireframing product, and it may be a bit outdated. It features low fidelity designs at first, which I’m not sure would be better or worse. I may want to see a more high quality version of my design earlier on. Additionally, Balsamiq does not encourage much of the designer’s own unique work- it’s mostly based on using their own logos/icons created. (it seems)

Sketch(99$ per year): Sketch has some pretty awesome reviews online saying it’s actually an upgrade from Adobe XD because of what it has to offer. First off, it’s easy to learn (similar interface to adobe xd), has hundreds of free plugins, and the basics needed for a digital designer are all right there.

Overall, I will continue to try all of these programs, but I am definitely leaning toward Adobe XD and for wireframing and prototyping.

 

Characters –  in any game characters are a definitive aspect that distinguishes distinctive playstyles. From the weapons they use, to the abilities they perform, and to the way they simply move. In certain video games characters have very specific roles that illustrate what they specialize in; certain exact circumstances that they shine in among all others. For instance, in a game like Overwatch the character Reaper is regarded as a damage dealing character who focuses on eliminating foes with his dual shotguns up close. Other characters like Widowmaker do the very same thing but with a Sniper Rifle at further range. Considering what characters you need in any given match could be tactically crucial to achieving victory.

(Reaper)

(Widowmaker)

 

Extra: Character Archetypes (Community Categories)

Stage/Map Awareness – Is often overlooked as something that takes precedence after choosing the right character or team composition. Older games used to be incredibly oriented around an arena style map design where actual weapons were placed in specific areas of a given stage. Depending on the power of the weapon you might of had to delegate some members of your team to secure the zone or risk being at an armament disadvantage. Other titles like the fighting game Injustice for example possess stage interactables that when utilized grant the player access to throw-able objects or movement options. Winning is not only about how you use your character but how you also use your environment too.

 

This week I found an incredibly helpful video by game developer Ryan Stevenson who talked at a Game Developer’s Conference on how the team approached creating a style for their newest game Sea of Thieves. The video goes over many different parts of the design/thought process. Ryan emphasizes the importance of research, references, and concept art so you don’t start creating things blind. He also recommends looking at others work not to steal their style but to try to understand why they did things the way they did (how they use lighting and color for example).

He also mentioned that they chose a more stylized aesthetic instead of a realistic one because those are the ones that tend to hold up better. I couldn’t agree more. While realistic and hyper-realistic games are impressive, it wasn’t really until this console generation that the hardware was powerful enough to handle such detailed models. Even then only AAA companies can afford to spend so much money to make these pricy games. Older games that were “realistic” have aged poorly aesthetically and this is something I want to avoid.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BzppoQTG3m0