Week 15 - Creating Game

Since the last week's failed attempt of QA's 1st draft, I personally met John for some guidelines for re writing the QA. This time it gave me more of sense, and it helped me to re write the QA report for today. I checked it with my team members and all they said was, "It should be al right". I think the reason they gave such a feedback, may be they were not sure yet, how a QA plan look like, and I am in that same confused situation.

During the meeting with John, I asked him for a feedback, and he said, "it is better than before". This time, I produced a constructive draft including few charts that describes the way, we are going to approach the players with our game. He also suggested us to update the QA plan if, we make any changes during the further processing.

                                                                                                       

Week 14 - Creating Game

Last weekend, Andy requested me to produce a 1st draft for QA & RO plan. As, I was always working on weekends, I told him that hopefully I am able to produce a 1st draft on this Monday. But, I didn't manage to time well, so didn't produced any. When I came in class on Monday, I knew my team mates were quiet disappointed with my absent work. That ended up in a heating conversation in our team when, Stephen claimed, "He didn't produced any quality work at all even in the last trimester, and he is continuing the same this trimester too". I came to know from Andy and Stephen that they had a conversation before about my inconsistency and it forced them to take a decision of firing me from the team. But, I know that, as a designated role of game artist, I did produced character sketches, main menu image, and sprite sheets for the game in last trimester. Some how , they decided to overrule my sprite sheets with Callum's without giving me any notice, but I was quiet happy with his sprite sheet too.But at this instance, I requested them to give me another chance to produce a QA plan because, I didn't wanted to left out of the team half way through. They agreed, and I produced a draft one for today. 

During the group meeting with John, we shared it with him, and he said, "this is a software engineering type of QA plan and you need to re write it." I wasn't disappointed because, I tried at least rather than not doing anything, and taking criticism from my team members. I took the responsibility of re writing the QA for the next week, as the way John expecting.

Andy told me that they don't have nothing else to give me to work on, as Andy doing the programming, Stephen doing the scripting, and Callum doing the character design. That's why, I left with doing the QA report only at this stage. Also, he suggested me to learn the HTML5 in more depth, so I may help Andy with some programming in later stage.

Week 13 - Creating Game

Hello Again :)

I am back after a terrifying winter holidays, as I was working full time. So I didn't enjoyed even the word, so called "HOLIDAYS"! The good news is, we mange to pass the 1st trimester module with a high B1 that is a 69.2/100. Honestly that was really disappointing, because, I and Andy lost an A grade just by 0.8%. Any ways, I am happy with my score and looking forward to score better in this trimester. The reason we scored a bit low  mark was our presentation attempt. That was a terrible performance completely, and  a hilarious moment occurred when I forgot the name of my team member during the acknowledgement. LOL

By the way, we started our second session of our Game Project called, "Creating Game" by scheduling  a group meeting with DR. John.  He spoke about his holidays, but soon drifted the topic in to course work. He explained the assessment components, marking scheme for each , and the expected deadline for each task. So far he is happy with our effort and outcome, but this time, he is expecting a great start from the beginning itself. He asked us to complete a Quality Assurance and Roll Out Plan report for the next week, which worth 10% mark of the total. This report is completely new to us, and have no idea how to do it. John gave us a few tips and guidelines about it, but seems like doesn't make sense.

We back in the lab, and discussed our upcoming plans for the project development. QA plan strike in our plans, but still it's unknown, whether the facts - who is going to do it, and how it need to look like. 

We declared the day after having no plans for doing the QA and RO plan. 

Week 12 - Game Design & Plan

This is our final development week for 1st half of game development and the last blog entry of this year. Expecting the game development will be continued over the Christmas and New Year breaks. Blogs won't be updated weekly until we begin the second half of the game development which is in January 2nd week.

Today was our team's final presentation. We forced our self to be the first team to do the presentation even though none of us have proper rehearsal. We did managed to deliver it in 20 minutes time slot in such an awful manner also couldn't time to speech the final bit which is the "Future of the game" but at least John is happy on the fact that our prototype is working and it is plenty enough to get a clear concept of the game. Each team individual, especially me, faced the lack of confidence and nervousness. Still we managed to get a nice round of applause for our bravery to do the presentation first. Compared to ours the other two team's presentation was brilliant as they never faced any difficulties that we faced and i think they got the confidence from our brave attempt ;) After all group's presentation we had a chat with John and he congratulated us for doing it first also advised us how to do it more precisely on next time. 

Phewww thanks god that's the end of a tight module. See you in January for the 2nd half.

Wish you all a Happy Christmas :)

From Tuesday (11/12/2012)

I met the team in flash lab afternoon to prepare for the presentation.Andy and Stephen already made a slide note for me based on what i should speak. It's not a biggie talk but felt some fear because i am doing the opening talk. I guess i can do it but let's see in action tomorrow.

Week 11 - Game Design & Plan

As usual we started the class at 10 today and DR. John delivered a special lecture for us that lasted for an hour.  It was very much interesting and the purpose behind it was to make the students aware that how 'to/not to' get a job in game/software industry. He talked about the development kits, future of gaming platform, important graduate skills and strengths, building a portfolio and website by going through a slide show "A survey of dev's". After the lecture our team got the first chance to have a meeting with John. During the one hour slot we discussed our progression and the current risks that could slow down our prototype release. A fair amount of functionality's need to be done within programming sector but it's not a concern yet as we got still a week left. Overall John is happy with the progression me have made so far and he agreed to have a formal prototype presentation for the next week.

We team back in the lab and talked about how we are going to present our prototype for next week. Since Callum decided to modify the sprite sheet, whom also doing the level design and tile sheets, i have been told to produce/search some legal sound effects e.g. door opening and closing, empty gun and reloading, picking up objects etc., which could apply to our prototype. We dropped the idea of recording and editing some sounds live due to lack of time but certainly do that for our complete game. I have produced a first draft slides for our presentation which will be reviewed and updated by Andy or Stephen accordingly. I finished off lab and decided to find out some online sound effects at home. I have offered some help to Callum with the tile sheet and level design but he said he is well in control. I didn't manage to take the tutorial for Melon JS so i couldn't help with the programming part. My main plan for this Christmas holidays is to learn how to code in HTML5 and it might help me to program something for the second half. I will be at work the whole weekends so can't really work on anything until Monday. One more week to present our prototype and the pressure is building up

From Tuesday (04/12/2012)

 

We had a team meeting after the flash class to discuss about the progression. Andy implemented a basic structure for first level but not used any tile sheets also made the character sprites (hero & guards) working. I came to know that last day team decided to substitute a much more impressive sprites than i made. It doesn't look the real top down that i made as been told but technically yes. The one i made in Photoshop was a simple sprite with head and shoulders viewed from the top only but what Callum made a sprite (full figure) in paint that can be viewed from any angle as it rotates. Personally it was the idea i went through in the beginning but team decided not to go with it so i sticked with the simple top down (sprites can be find above and on previous blog) sprites/objects. Now team happy n decided to go with the new sprite sheet Callum made for all the characters. I have been told that to find suitable sound effects for the first level. That's all from today and i see you guys tomorrow in lecture.

Week 10 - Game Design & Plan

Started the class at 10 and as like told last week Team Batman well presented their game prototype and it was super awesome. We never presented ours because Andy found out the prototype was not working because of some minor code error which was rectified later on. But we did manage to share the prototype with DR. John during our team meeting. Prototype means no working level has been done but just the game title screen with music and a first level layout with a controllable sprite!

I did manage to draw a top down look alike character sprite (left) but unfortunately that didn't met the expected standard. It doesn't look like a drop down version right! So back in the lab i tried to draw out some images on a paper but my team said it's better to develop the images using digital software's as it's easier to edit. The images itself need be in 32*32 pixels so i found harder to draw it out in paint after some several tries. Then using the photo shop "like a master" and nailed down a top down version of the main character. My team mates were happy with my drawing concept and i was like yaaass! I left the university afterwards and decided to finish off the images at home, the only place i could more concentrate.

Graphical Assets which i should complete in 2 weeks are allocated as below:

* Section 1 character (Done by 28/11/12)

• Civilian
• Carter without weapon
• Carter with fibre wire
• Image of fibre wire
• 1 white and 1 black computer terminal

* Section 2 characters (Done by 05/12/12 attempt by 28/11/12)

• Security guard
• Carter with knife
• Image of knife 
• Piece of paper 
• Red key card 

* Section 3 characters (Done by 05/12/12 attempt by 28/11/12)

• Elite PMC guards
• Carter with gun
• Image of gun, dynamite
• Security camera
• Another top down person pick a random colour this will be used as a main objective character for a demo level

          

                 

I have managed to make half of the sprites/objects which highlighted in red and sprites are above. Andy advised me to take a tutorial for Melon JS that could help me with map editor and how sprites and tile sheets (for level design) are to be layed out. I also thought that i could help Callum with tile sheets using a portable application called "Tiled" while Andy and Stephen working on the major coding. I didn't manage to get time to look at the Tiled and Melon JS due to my weekend job and looking forward to work through it next week only. 

Week 9 - Game Design & Plan

Came in to class a bit late by the time all teams were about ready to share the game updates and progression. When it reached our turn we shared all the evident and updates such as artworks, fan page, group page, team websites etc. During the one hour private section with DR. John we talked about the current risks that could affect the game.

We back in to the lab for further discussion. As we are flying towards the deadline we are aware that lot of tasks need to be completed so we reallocated the tasks again for each team member. I had to leave quite early today due to my work. Stephen gave me a list of assets (top down game character sprites) which must produce in two weeks time. I left university at around 2 PM.

During the rest of week i went easy on game artwork but spent most of the time working on other module assessments. I will try to produce some images by next week but confused which application should i choose - paint or photo shop?? Andy made a stunning game cover screen was another major development happened during this week :)