Studio 5 & 6: Exploring Playability

Group members

Ateeb Shah (Me) and Gurmeet Ghatora

Swish Basketball Game

Observer: Ateeb Shah (Me)
Player: Gurmeet Ghatora

• Not good as a first impression.
• Engaged more once player got more familiar with the controls.
• When a basket is scored, player triumphants with comments.
• After a couple of minutes, player finds it easy to score baskets, slightly becoming bored.
• Expression becomes slightly content.
• Wants the game to end.
• Is happy when a difficult basket is scored

The conceptual framework identified was easy fun. The game took hardly a minute to get used to and from there it was a repititive process of doing the same thing in the same way.

BR'S Rocket Rush

Observer: Ateeb Shah (Me)
Player: Gurmeet Ghatora

• First impression,'sik game' which means good in slang.
• Varied keyboard controls for the game.
• Little cut scenes to give user background information on the game.
• Player continously firing and enjoying 'destroying' opponents in the air.
• Slightly challenging as targets keep moving
• Engaging player to go quicker and to accomplish objective.
• Triumphs as player continously kills enemies.

Identified as easy fun, hard fun anad serious fn. game required concentration from player as the number of enemies and attacks increased. The controls for the game were easy to learn so getting into the game was no problem.

Air Hockey Game

Observer: Gurmeet Ghatora
Player: Ateeb Shah

Started to read the instructions before playing the game
Concentrating when playing
Starts laughing when he looses
Starts becoming enthusiastic when winning and making use of constructive language.
Relaxes, sits back and breaths out when he starts winning.
He kept on playing when he was loosing
It started getting easy and he got the grasp of it, Won overall.

As a result, you can clearly see that there are two fun concepts that have been demonstrated to us by the user. These are hard fun and Easy fun.

Arrows Game

Observer: Gurmeet Ghatora
Player: Ateeb Shah

Firstly, the player started reading the instructions carefully
Tensed facial expressions when having to reset the puzzle the fourth time
Got more focused when loosing – hard fun
Kept on playing when loosing on the twelfth go
10 minutes passed trying to solve the puzzle – unawareness of time
Finally gave up after becoming puzzled and irritated

As a result, the player was clearly defined to be having hard fun. The result ended with the player giving up after some time as he couldn’t solve the puzzle.

Studio 3: Use Cases

Use cases

• Use cases focus on users and their interactions with the game
• They help define and organise what users need to do
• They help with delegation of work

Use cases are:

-Individual
-Generalized

They help to:

-Focus on user
-Break down functionality
-Address scoping of the games concept
-Introduce parsimony

Player Input Use Case Diagram

This use case represents the input commands can do within the game

Game Object Interaction Use Case Diagram

This use case shows the different kinds of interactions the user will experience within the game

Display System Use Case Diagram

This use case diagram shows what displays the user will be able to view

Audio Interaction Use Case Diagram

This use case shows the audio elements of the game

References

Lecture 3 notes

Note

As i have had problems with uploading the use case diagrams onto blogger, instead i have placed them in a word document.

Studio 4: Starting Work on Assignment 1

Below i have given some bullet points of what i will be covering in my final key assignment. I have created this so i can get an idea on what elements of the concept i need to emphasise on.

Game Concept Idea

• Based on demons and monsters.
• Based in the asian world.
• Role play combined with combat
• Blood and gore
• Fight to save the human world from the demon world
• One player

Main Game View

• Different in game angles- birds eye view, angled view, 1st person
• 3D environment
• Mainly asian environment
• Rendered objects to look realistic

Core player Interactions

• Combat- blood and gory violence
• interactive storyline
• health attributes
• Types of weapon- gun or sword
• Potential for combos- infinite
• killing enemies in certain ways
• Demon trigger- transformation (attributes are increased)
• PS3 controller- in game controls
• interaction of environment, objects and other characters

Contextual Gameplay

• Starter menu- what will it contain? Story mode, Game options, Extras
• Options for when each area is selected
• Selecting difficulty level
• Opportunity to try out tutorial
• Will not be multiplayer game as it is just one main character the user will play as
• prohibits potential for being played online
• Tutorial machanics- how will player be teached? in what format? basic tutorial and advanced tutorial?
• Game machanics

Talk Story

• Narrate story
• Only narration on how game begins- introduction
• World background- what was the world like prior to the current situation
• War betweeen worlds
• Corrupt worlds
• How did it become like this
• Brief character backgrounds
• Level design- how many levels? mini bosses? main boss? experience points at the end of each level?
• Peaceful scenery at the beginning morphing into a more sincere environment
• Geography- shape of the world, countries, locations.
• Cut scenes- movie like story line

Assets

• Sound effects? love songs for touching moments? battle music
• Motion capture
• Martial arts moves captured to look smooth and realistic in the game

Team Members

Lead Designer (Head)
Lead Programmers (Team Leaders)
Games Mechanics Programmer (Games physics)
3D Graphics Programmer
AI Programmer
User Interface Programmer
Audio Programmer
Art Director (Team Leaders)
Concept Artist (Roughing art concepts)
2D Artist/Interface Designer
3D Modeller
Character Modeller

Studio 1 & 2: Exploring Games and Idenitifying Games Concepts

Group members

Ateeb Shah (Me), Gary Blake and Manjit Ghatora

Rating (1-5)

1- Outstanding
2- Excellent
3- Good
4- Indifferent
5- Bad

Identifying the games concept

Mortal Kombat

The idea of the game is for the user to compete in a tournament called ‘Mortal Kombat’. Ultimately the good guys have to win in order to save the earth realm. The game has a wide array of characters with unique moves assigned to each of them.

The implementation that makes this game so good is its detailed story lines for each character, its high levels of blood and gore (combining rich graphics with relevant audio) and its fatality killing moves.
Genre: Beat-em-up Rating: 1

Halo

Game is set in the 26th century setting. User plays as Master Chief, a cybernetically enhanced "SPARTAN" super-soldier. Player must battle a horde of aliens, on foot and in vehicles whilst attempting to uncover the secrets of the Halo, a ring-shaped structure. These super soldiers have been assigned to protect the earth from the alien race, the Covenant.

The implementation which makes the game good is the detailed environment and the realistic graphics. The storyline is very engaging and gives the same impression of a movie.

Genre: 1st person shooter Rating: 2

Tekken

Again this game is based on a tournament where players from all over the world can compete. The tournament is held by Heihachi Mashima the owner of Mashima Zaibatsu. The winner of the tournament takes away a large purse of prize money and gains the title ‘The King of the Iron Fist’.

The implementation that made this game good was the wide variety of attacks players could perform. These attacks can also be combined to produce combos which would deplete the opponent’s health substantially.

Genre: Beat-em-up Rating: 2

Pro Evolution Soccer

This is a basically a football game whereby players can choose their favourite teams and compete in, world tournaments, exhibition matches and other types of competition.

The implementation that makes this game good is its realism. For example,the movement of the players, the face expressions and the physics around how everything is positioned and captured.

Genre: Sports simulation Rating: 1

Grand Theft Auto

Objective of the game is to build up your reputation as a ruthless gang leader. There are many ways in which this can be done e.g. completing missions set by other criminals, stealing, robbing, killing, establishing a name in different locations of the game.

The implementation that makes this game good is the freedom that the player has. Player can virtually do anything; go into any building, roam around as they please, kill anyone on the street, complete missions whenever and however they wish. Genre: Rating:

Genre: Action based RPG Rating: 1








Metal Gear Solid

The story is centered on Solid Snake, a retired soldier whose mission is to infiltrates a nuclear weapons disposal facility. The purpose of this is to neutralize the nuclear threat from FOXHOUND. The player has to go around the different locations and towards his objective using stealth, violent and strategic methods.

The implementation that makes this game good is because of the storyline and the motion capture behind the movement of each object and character in the game. There is a very high level of realism in the game in terms of player interactions.

Genre: Tactical espionage Rating: 1

References

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page