Week 6 - Game Design & Plan

Started the lecture at 10 and all three groups don't have a presentation today on game progress instead John talked about an event in Dundee called "conference in youth enterprising", take place in two weeks time. I manage to produce a hand drawn mugshot image for the main character and second character for our game design document. All my team members were happy with these character images and they said this is more than they could ever try.

Later we look through some websites to find some game sound tracks. We found this website useful and manage to find few sound tracks for the title screen and levels and it is free of use as long it is not for commercial use and attribute his name on our work. 

Mean time Andy and Stephen updated  the game design document. At around 1 PM we met John in his office. He asked what are the current risks affecting our progress but to be honest i would say it's the programming sector as every team members are totally new to html5. Then John chat about the Dundee trip, ticket fares and etc.

We called of the day.

Week 5 - Game Design & Plan

At 10, we started the lecture where all three teams done their game presentation. During our team meeting with John, Andy showed him the Game Audience and Competitor Analysis document and Game Planning document, which he later impressed with the document layout.

The major part of game development begun this week as Andy started the marketing campaign in Facebook, aiming 100+ fans, for whom get the prototype totally free to play upon release. We named our game "Spy Green". Andy and Stephen together started working on the Game Design document. Due to unforeseen circumstances Kieran is no more part of our development team so i decided to help Callum with the level design. During out discussion about prototype, we decided to do a complete working level as a prototype that might appear in our final game.

We then discussed on what everyone doing for next week. We really need some artwork for the game plan so each member decided to create their own interpretation of main character even though i am the lead artist in our group. Also we agreed to do some research on html5 by doing some online tutorials.

We called off today

Week 4 - Game Design & Plan

Today we had a team meeting right after the flash lecture because there is no meeting with John tomorrow as per the original schedule. Andrew created both fan page and group page in Facebook. I found the group page is very useful to get updated by team members also easy enough to clarify any doubts or share any files.

Today we have managed to allocate the tasks which are very important part of the project. Andrew will do the main programming based on Stephens design concepts. Callum and Kieran were asked to work together on the game level designs. Our team need someone who is really good in artwork. I accepted that task due to my previous experience in drawings also i agreed to produce all the assets which needed for the game. I told Andy that i could also help him with the programming, not like a co - programmer but as a learner. I am more than happy because i can produce something for the team. I discussed about the game characters in details with Stephen. This is what i need to produce right so i must know what's in his mind and a list of assets need to be produced based on his design concept.

I dropped the full time work to part time now so just working only 2 days only. Now the pressure is off from me shuffling between work and study. I can spent more time concentrate on studies and for our game too :)

That's all from today ;)

Week 3 - Game Design & Plan

We started the class at 10. As usual we done a short presentation on our current progression and it were shorter than last week's so the other teams too. We haven't done much work since last week apart from finalizing the 2nd draft of the report. We have a two week time from today until next meeting with John so each team will have more evidence to share during the presentation. But this will not affect the individual team meeting with him in his office he said.

We met John in his office according to the allocated time, talked about the risk factors, strengths and weaknesses of each team member. Stephen and Andrew said they were made an analysis of 3 similar games earlier the day, which updated in the 2nd draft of the report (GAACA) as well. We told john that our goal is to complete 5 working levels for this game at the end of the year and we could do it if we get the first level working. We are actually decided to do the 1st level itself as a prototype and John showed us his archive of assets, e.g. soundtracks, which we could use as a resource. Still we haven't allocated any tasks for team members and hopefully will sort it by next week. We came back to the lab and Stephen updated the 2nd draft of the report, meanwhile Kieran completed the project plan using Microsoft project. Andy told us that he had set up a real time website called "World of Text" for our group's meeting so we could communicate virtually about the development. I couldn't connect with my team at all because i was working the entire week end :(

We called of the day. We are not having a meeting with john next week so rather than coming next Wednesday we were all decided to meet after Tuesday's flash lecture. When i got spare time during the week i spent more time understanding the HTML5 as i am completely new to it. I think this is a common issue with all the other team members. I used the following sites to learn HTML5 in more depth but i found myself struggling with it ;)

http://www.html5rocks.com

http://www.w3schools.com/html/html5_intro.asp

Week 2 - Game Design & Plan

Previous week John told us that from this week onward lecture start at 10 AM rather than 9 AM as per the scheduled timetable. This is because people turning up late, telling excuses like woke up late, miss the train, etc. also it is most convenient for everyone. Lecture started at sharp 10 and the purpose of this to give a short presentation by each team about their own game. We presented our game ideas and progression as a team, where two other teams and John were audience whom made some good suggestions. 

After the lecture John allocated a time schedule for each team to meet him up in his office. Our team got an hour to spare before the meeting with john. During that time we discussed more about the game ideas, when/where the game need to be set whether if it's in past or future, how realistic can it be, etc. We headed back to John's office and continued our informal discussion. He suggested us to split each daily hour in to three 4 hour segments so we can do our work more conveniently and effectively well within time. He warned us otherwise it will end up lack of time and project will burn out due to work overload.

Personally i think it is a very good idea especially when working within a project team but my dedication to full time employment doesn't allow me to do so. I am working 4 and half days and at this situation i am sure that i can't provide a quality work even by a margin of 25%. I discussed my situation with john because i don't like to give any pressure to my colleges in the future because of my incomplete work whenever they need it. The only option is to drop back to part time and i told them that i will think about it as soon as possible.

Discussion completed after an hour so we headed back to the lab. Stephen and Andy co-worked on the Game Audience & Competitor Analysis report since the last week and Stephen provided me a copy of the first draft. All we know by now is each member need to carry out certain tasks but not decided yet 'who do what'!! Andy updated the team website and said he will complete the 2nd draft of the report by next week.

We called off the day :)