Creating an original 2D game

 4.11.24

Understanding creative media companies

In this lesson we learned about different creative media companies and how they work.

Game companies can fund, produce, and even provide creative insights for the game idea.

Game companies are also broken down into three main parts:

*Developers: Studios that produce or create a game, this includes all of it's content and future updates to ensure that people continue playing and keep it fresh. Game developers are usually help with the financial support and backing of a Publisher to help with costs. An example of a game developer would be Rare, which is based in Twycross, Leicestershire in the UK, they are well known for developing games such as GoldenEye 007 (1997), Banjo-Kazooie (1998), and Sea of Thieves (2018), with the last one being updated and played to this day. There are also some game developers who work without the help of a major publisher. such game studios are known as indie game developers. An example of an indie game developer would be Innersloth, a game studio based in Washington, USA, and are famous for developing Among Us and the Henry Stickman collection.  

*Publishers: The company that backs a game with money, handling the marketing, and adding their stamp of approval to the particular game that they are publishing. An example of a big game publisher would be Activison who are known for publishing big game franchises such as Call of Duty, Guitar Hero, and Crash Bandicoot just to name a few. 

*Distributors: Shops that sell all kinds of games (they don't have to be game-related shops). An example of an in-person shop that sells games would be the British retailer Game, which unlike other retailers sells only game-related products. While an example of an online shop would be Steam, which sells games online for computers, mainly for PC. 

Further understanding media companies

Vertical Integration: A business strategy in which a company takes ownership of two or more key stages of its supply chain. In the gaming industry it relates to a company's control over various aspects of game development, publishing, and distribution.

Horizontal integration: This is when a company acquires or merges with another company in the same industry which is operating in the same level in the supply chain. 

Developing Contextual Awareness

Game genres are a classification assigned to a classifiction to a particular video game based on it's core gameplay rather than visual or narrative focused features.

Examples of game genres: 

*Platformer                                                                                

*Shooter

*Fighting                                                                                          

*Beat 'em up

*Stealth

*Survival 

*Rhythm

*Battle Royale

*RPG

*MMORPG                                                                   

*4X

*Strategy

*Visual Novel

*Racing

*Tower Defense

*Sports Sim

* Party

* Social Deduction

* Sandbox

*Puzzle

*4X

*Strategy

*Visual Novel

*Racing

*Tower Defense

*Sports Sim

* Party

* Social Deduction

* Sandbox

*Puzzle

Verb: Action(s) that a player can do, these could include the ability to jump, walk, read, look, push, pull, shoot, move, etc.

Versatile Verb: Multiple actions that a player can do. 

11.11.24

Reflective Journal

The objective of today's lesson was to create a custom video game level in the game Super Mario Maker 2 in a group of three. We also had a look at different game tutorials and how they differ from each other. We looked at a particular game tutorial known as an "invisible tutorials". "Invisible tutorials" are tutorials which disguise themselves as ordinary gameplay unbeknownst to the player that it's secretly a tutorial. We also learned about the diffrences between "verbs", and "versatile verbs", with "verbs" being actions that a player can do, while  "versatile verbs" are multiple actions that a player can do.We had a look at game genres as well, game genres differentiate itself from film or book generes by focusing more on the type of gameplay rather than on the theme.  

(Concept drawings of our game level)

(Video about "verbs")

(A snap-shot of our game level)

18.11.24

Introduction to Construct 3

On this day we were tasked with creating a test platformer game using the Construct 3 engine. We started off by adding in an object by double clicking on the white screen and a screen comes up that says 'create new object type'. After creating the 'new object type' you should then scroll down to the sprite in the general section. I used the sprite section to create my placeholder platforms and player model in the first image above. For the creation of the character sprite I used the colour fill tool and picked blue as the colour to be used for the sprite. I also made the size - width of the sprite 250 and the height 250 as well. Later I created another sprite which was meant to be the platform in which the player would navigate on, for the width I made it 2500, and for the height I made it 250. I then named the platform as 'ground'. Overall I found the experience of making this section to be easy and smooth as a whole. 

I changed the background screen by double-clicking on it, and then scroll down until I saw 'titled background' which then I clicked the screen and it took me to the editor screen. Later on I began to add different parts to my player such as instance variable, behaviors, effects, properties. I also began to change the background of the game and add more colour and unique things to it. I also added an image for my character model as a placeholder. I also found this version of the section to be easy, though a bit harder due to adding the different properties for the movments of the chrarctaer model, and a bit of changing the background.

Layout: Put together visual elements.

Event Sheet: Creating events for the game.

Properties: All your files. 

Layers: To organise objects together. 

An object include platforms, the background, and even the characters of the particular game.

"Behaviours" tell the game engine how objects are meant to behave (hence why it's called "behaviours"), adding in properties and behaviours in, scroll to, and also platformer.

My original 2D game project 

3.12.24

DDS

5.12.25

2D game development project

from 9.12.24

On the 9th of December 2024 me and Doydas took character photos, which are photos of a real person and put into a video game to make the player movements look more realistic. I was used as the model for the character photos taken by Dovdas. An example of the use of character photos being used in the production of a video game would be the original Mortal Kombat which first released back in 1992. 

(The video about the making of Mortal Kombat 1992)

It was meant to be just a small test and just an example of how games were made when the technology wasn't as powerful as it is now.  Our game was also created in an 8-bit pixel style and not a full body photo.

Platform Concept Sheet

9.12.24

Game level desgin concept

This is a concept of what our game level could look like. The purple cube is meant to represent the player. The grey cubes on the other hand are the enemies, and the black cubes are meant to be spikes so when the player hits them they lose some of their health. The brown pixels are meant to be platforms and the blue pixels are meant to be flying enemies that would swoop down onto the player if they got a bit to close to them. The red pixels on the top of the page is also meant to be the player's health bar. 

I also created this concept on Piskel. 

16.12.24

More game level design concepts

This is the concept of what our first level in our game would look like. The purple block is meant to be a place holder for the player, the green and brown pixels represent the ground of the level. While the dark blueish pixels are meant to be the platforms and the yellow pixels are the coins. The red and yellow bars are meant to be the health bar and coin count. 

13.1.25

Reflective Journal

The objective of today's lesson was to try out other people's games, and to see what they did well, what they could improve. For example the first game that I tried out was not really that fun to play, and had too many spikes which meant I couldn't progress further, however I felt that it had a nice aesthetic to it which I personally liked. The second game that I tried out wasn't fully fledged out but I did see what they were going for, it is unfinished so it doesn't really look that nice to look at unlike the previous game. 

20.1.25

Progress on our game

The progress on our game is going smoothly. We have been working on the game's poster and I did a sketch of what the poster could look like down below. 

Later on Reni designed the final iteration of the poster on Adobe Photoshop based on some ideas from my original sketch, though she was unable to include most of my ideas as only the first boss was animated.

We also did recordings of different sound effects in the game, such as walking, boss, and death sounds. The sounds were created foley sounds, meaning that we recorded them using sounds that we made by ourselves, or in our surrounding environment.

The process of making these sounds was easy to record, but we had to choose carefully choose which sounds the best, and which fit perfectly. 

21.1.25

Feedback to our

game

In our group, we had a prototype of our game tested by others to see what they liked and what could be improved upon. The feedback that we got was written down, and overall the feedback from others were similar. Overall it was positive with some tweaks to be added into the final product. 

For this week I will be working on some audio for the game. 

27.1.25

Further feedback to our game

Reflective Journal

The general consensus from our peer feedback was that the game was overall positive with certain things that needed to be updated, this was also our last team crit. We had a look around at what other people's games and gave feedback to what is good about the games, and what could be improved upon. 

When it comes to my reaction to the feedback I wasn't really all that surprised by it. The reason why I say this is because I had seen a bit of the final game before, and saw what I thought could be improved upon. 

Our team made the decision to fix the leg movement of the player's character as we got some feedback related to it. I am overall happy with most parts of the game, with the exception of one thing which would be the boss fights, this is because they die almost instantly when you shoot them in just one hit and you can just walk right through them without receiving any damage. 

Our 2D game project

 

17.3.25

Final Evaluation

The task for this project was to create a 2d game using the Construct 3 game engine.  My initial response to this project was that of interest and intrigue, as I wanted to see what kind of 2d game we could create using this game engine, and all the possibilities that can come with it. 

Our game concept didn't really change that much as we planned the game in advance before we started the full production of it. We talked about how the game would look and play like. The planning involved what the game's theme, style, and colours would be, and how the player's character and the bosses would move, act, and look like. 

The issues that we had while making the game were mainly to do with the aspect of the game audio and how to approach it, and also we had to fix the leg movement of the player's character. There was also the question of finishing the game's prototype on time, and because of this we decided to start making the final game using the prototype developed by Reni who was in charge of making the prototype. 

We responded to the issues by trying to fix them. We managed to sort out the issue of the game's audio by making foley sounds with a sound recorder with some colleagues, whom helped with acting out the particular sounds that appear in the game. When it came to the player's character leg movements, we were able to get it fixed in no time, as it wasn't really that hard to get it fixed up. When it came to finishing the prototype on time, Reni struggled with finishing it, so she asked for some help, and as a team we came up with a solution to fix it quickly.  

The technical skills that I personally learned during this project came from the making of my very own game project on Construct 3 from 18.11.224, as it gave me an idea of how to make a game using that particular game engine, and how to overall use it. I also made mock game levels using the website Piskel, and drew out a sketch of a poster for our group project game, this helped us give an idea to what the levels and poster could look like for the final game, and personally for me to design different concepts for what the final product could end up looking like in the end. 

Communication was a bit of a struggle at first for most of us in the group, but over time we managed to work on it. One of the biggest things that helped us to overcome this problem was the use of Microsoft Teams, as it allowed us to communicate between ourselves, this allowed us to have the confidence to communicate with each other more clearly on the project. 

We were able to add all these different pieces together into the project quite well I would say so myself. We made the decision to make the game 8-bit, which in the end helped us to easily add the game's bosses into the game as they were drawn out first. 

I do believe that one of the game's shortcomings in my opinion would be that we didn't add any other enemies besides the bosses, and more game levels. I personally feel that it would have made the game more interesting to play, but due to the time and (to a certain extent) the resources we weren't able to do that. I also feel that we should have planned ahead a bit when it came to the enemies. 

The main critique that we received from our fellow colleagues was that the player's movements, as many said that when he was supposed to be walking, instead it looked like he was "gliding" across the screen. So we had to fix that issue, which we did. Some were also a bit confused by the ending cutscene, as some thought that it implied the player's character died, that he was sleeping, or even that he had broken all of his bones. Despite this, I would have to say that the feedback to our game was very positive. However, the thing that I would have done differently would (as I have said before) added more levels, and enemies besides the bosses. 

Overall, I would have to say that I am (personally) satisfied with the project, including how we each worked individually throughout this particular project. I also learned that when working with deadlines you won't get most of the things that you want. From this, I hope that when I work on a similar project like this in the future, that I would be able to get more of the things that I (personally) feel would make it better in the final product.