Tech Tip: Google Maps!

Hello! I'm doing this week's extra credit a bit early in the week, just go get on top of things!

I decided to do the one where I embed a google map into my blog post, I had to decide what place to pick so I said I'd go with TU Dublin as it seemed the most logical lol I was going to go with my village but thought it might be a bit creepy to have it online! 

That's it so :) Thanks for reading, hope everyone is keeping safe! 

-Megan

Drive Baby Drive! - Alpha

Hello and welcome to this week's post for the project task! This week we had to spend three hours at our game, improving it and working away at it. I hope you enjoy this post!

So I started off where I finished last week and that was with my coins working aka being collected but it wasn't counting them. I redid the tutorial and it wouldn't work for me so I gave up on the one I was using and instead went to find another one. I found this one on YouTube and it worked for me straight away which was great! It even included a sound which was perfect as that's what I was aiming to add anyways.

So, I went off and added 20 coins to the game, of course, this took longer than expected as I had to place them all around the big track. Eventually got it done and tested it and they all work. I realised while doing this my car is going so slow compared to at the start. I have no idea why. I spent ages trying to make it go faster by editing it. Nothing was working, it was a prefab car on the asset store with a lot of code, I may have to make my own if I can't figure it out. It takes 3+ minutes to go around the track and it's just not fun going so slow. So, next week I plan on googling it and seeing if there's anything I can do and if not I'll start fresh with a new car. It definitely went faster at the beginning.

I then had to pause and think about what was the best thing to work on next. I decided to colour the car as it was a comment I was getting a lot on my blogs, not going to lie I didn't know I could. So I googled that and realised it was as easy as dragging and dropping and making the material so that was great. I changed it to red and blue to add a bit of spice. 

I wanted to add an end screen so I was looking up videos on how to do that and was about 20 minutes into looking and watching a few when I realised I should add the obstacles first and then I can code them when they're hit you lose. I realised this as I came across a tutorial with that in it. So I went to find some obstacles to add to my game, I had a few saved on the asset store so I downloaded a chicken and a railing. Both quite random but there wasn't much on the asset store and I thought the chicken would be funny. 

I then looked up tutorials about the obstacles being hit and to come up saying you lost and was working on that until I got an error with that when trying to connect the car to the new script so again a problem with the car so I might have to get another one. I left it there as I had somehow hit over three hours and felt like my eyes were square looking at the screen. 

Below are screenshots from my game!

screenshot from my game

screenshot from my game

screenshot from my game

screenshot from my game

I tried to show movement in the pictures to hit the chicken (if it was coded in it would be game over) and then collecting the coin and it goes up by one! You can also see my cool new car colour.

Hopefully, next week will be better and I'll get it nearly completed! But anyway, thanks for reading and I hope you enjoyed :) 

-Megan

Tech Tip - Quote!

Hello, this week for extra credit I decided to do a tech tip because I find them the most fun!! So I went with a quote maker and had some fun with it. Here is a link to the tech tip if you wanna do it :) 

I find myself saying "It is what it is" because of TikTok so I decided to make it into a little graphic on Canva!

My graphic from Canva

So that is my quote! I had a bit of fun so hey no harm was done! 

Thanks for reading :) 

-Megan

Unity Tutorial 08

 Hello and welcome back. to my blog! Today's post is the 8th unity tutorial. This is a continuation of last week's tutorial and a challenge.

Overall this week's tutorial just wasn't going right for me. Started off fine, but of course, my unity decided to stop working and I still have no idea what happened but anytime I pressed play it wouldn't work it would just freeze. So, that took a lot of my time. I also had a problem with my scripts opening when I clicked on them they wouldn't open. I had to open them a really weird way after I realised I could do it another way. 

In the end, I finished the tutorial, it finally started working after I left it for an hour or two. Which was a pain. But I got it done and that's all that matters. 

A screenshot I took of the game window.

 

Then onto the challenge, of course, this was a disaster. I was so confused even with looking at the code from the tutorial. I think I was just confusing myself as I was going along. I looked for a tutorial but couldn't find one on YouTube. I decided to google it to see what would come up and I found a PDF with instructions about it and how to finish it. Not going to lie it also confused me and in the end came up with errors and wouldn't work so I'm not sure what I did to it. I must have typed something wrong but I just can't see it. 

Overall not a great week for me in terms of unity, I hope that my project will go a lot better than this! Please, everyone, cross your fingers and toes.

Thanks for reading and I hope you enjoyed my failures (lol)

-Megan

Review Week Comments and Feedback

Hello and welcome to another reflection/ review post! This one is based on comments and feedback. Overall I enjoyed both the commenting and the giving/ receiving feedback during this module.

Image Link
Image Caption: Little man with a magnifying glass looking at the word review.

The non-feedback comments I received were really nice, they came in from friends and from people who I've never talked to. It definitely made me feel when we go back to in-person college that I can talk to more people. I got to know loads of people via their introductions. I learned things about people in my course which I never knew before, even from people who I considered friends. I feel like the introductions were probably much stranger this year than years previous due to covid. It'll be mad to look back on them once covid becomes a thing of the past. 

The feedback comments I received were great. It really gave me ideas of things to add to the game and overall how to improve my game. I'm looking and thinking of the one game the whole time and you think "God there's no way I can expand this", then you get someone coming in with fresh eyes and haven't heard of your game before and boom new idea. It really helped throughout the process. Also with the feedback comments, you see how people play games if they suggest different things because they say it in another game and it really works. As someone who doesn't play many games, they were really helpful. I think I definitely found the more casual feedback comments helpful when they're said in more of a friendly tone somehow it seems more useful.

I try to leave good comments and feedback on peoples posts! I'm not sure if they're helpful but hopefully even one helped someone out. I really tried to be helpful. I think reading other people's writing really helps me in my own writing and makes me better it. The different feedback strategies we read about really helped me leave feedback if it wasn't for that I think my feedback would be even worse.

I definitely feel a sense of getting to know people with the blogs, as I stated in my last blog I've received comments and commented on peoples blogs of people I haven't talked to before and I feel like I could easily talk to them in person now. Especially as we're doing online college people may find a disconnect but by reading loads of peoples introductions and other posts you get a good sense of the person and feel connected and almost becomes a little community. 

I think my introduction really shows me as a person. The only thing I think I should've added was maybe the music I listen to or the shows I watch, I've noticed the common theme on other people's introductions. I know when I read that someone liked the same artists as me or watched the same TV shows I got excited and definitely went on a rant about the topic (I apologise to anyone that I did go on a rampage talking about an artist or TV show on their blog hahaha). I think it really provides a space for people to get to know me and talk to me.

I think maybe having the feedback comments at 100 words is easier than 150. Sometimes when I was commenting I feel it just wasn't helpful and I just kept writing in order to hit the 150 words. I think my 100 worded feedback comments closer to now we're much more helpful. Apart from this, I think everything works great!

That's all for me now, thanks for reading!!

-Megan :)

Week 9 Reading and Writing

Hello and welcome to this week's reading task! It's a bit different than usual. This week instead of reading papers and writing about them we are to review our past reading and writing assignments. I like this as it lets me look back to see how I am doing with the different readings and writing. 

Not going to lie, I really didn't enjoy these at the beginning and was struggling with them. I think this was just down to I was definitely out of the practice of reading in general. Looking back I should've used lockdown to read more but hey too late now. I got into the swing of them but also chose to skip some. Once our lecturer Shaun started doing them during our lecture time it really made them easier. I was contributing different bits but also seeing how other people did them and what they took from each reading. It was really interesting to see how people understood it in a different way. Shaun was able to give us good tips on how to tackle reading tasks and I think they really help. I think reading the introduction and the conclusion gives you a good vibe of what happens in the reading. Also, to skim through it first to see what point it makes and to take notes!

I think by doing the reading each week they do somewhat help with the game. I wouldn't say every week does but there have been some that do help. I am happy with my game project I feel I've put a lot of work and thought into it, which is a surprise because at the start of this module I was really dreading it. I'm not a gamer at all and I just thought it would be all games games games but it's really not. It's enjoyable and more about the process rather than the finished project which helps. In terms of my biggest accomplishment for this module, I think it would be getting every task done on time and setting out a schedule every week. The schedule is a big help and lets me focus on this module and the other modules with time to spare for fun things to do. That was a big thing at the start of the semester even only a few weeks ago I was spending what it felt like every second of the day doing college work and I had no time for fun or tv etc. It was a balance I struggled with but I think I have it somewhat gotten the hang of it. I'm also proud of how my game is coming along. It might not be the best game ever but hey I've worked really hard on it and I think that's all that counts.

Caption: screenshot from my game

My favourite image from my posts I would say is the image above. I would say it is this one purely because you can see how far I've come in this module. From saying I have no interest in games and have no idea what I'm at to this a playable game (well somewhat). I just think that's super cool.

Looking forward I don't think there's nothing more I want to achieve from the reading and writing tasks. I think I've achieved a lot already and I'd be pushing my luck for more! I think I've done well so far and hopefully, my overall grade will show that!

That's it from me! Thanks for reading, hope I didn't waffle on too much.

-Megan

First playable

 Hello and welcome to my blog post about this weeks project task! 

Today I allocated two hours to work on my game. I'm not gonna lie, I didn't get as much done as I would've hoped but it's better than nothing. 

I started off with continuing to watch this tutorial I was watching last week. I started off by following him and making my trees look more realistic which really made it look a lot better. I then wanted to add the timer and he was doing this so I was following along. I was following him for a while and then realised he was adding a lap time and best lap feature. So I coped on that I didn't want them in my game, instead, I wanted a counting down timer and a coin collecting UI. 

I went on the search for other tutorials.  I had a few other saved but none were great. Instead, I found this tutorial which was by the same guy as the first one I linked. His tutorials are great, really clear and easy to understand! I would recommend him! He also added a sound when collecting the coin and I wanted to as well so I went on the hunt for a sound effect for it and found one here. 

I continued the tutorial and finished it off. I have a little bit to fix where the number of the coins collected doesn't go up so I will do this again. 

Really all I have left to do is to finish the coins and add more to the game, test runs to see how long it would take and change the timer, and then when the timer runs out or when you collect all the coins in the time to either triggers the win or lose screen! 

I'm happy with my progress overall so far and maybe even next week finish it?? Who knows!! Below are three screenshots of my game

Screenshot of my game 

Screenshot of my game 

Screenshot of my game 

Thanks for reading! :) 

-Megan

Unity Tutorial 7

Hello! Welcome to this weeks post about the unity tutorial 7. This tutorial was going great, I thought was going fine. I finished it and then realised my game didn't do the same as his game. So when you move the camera the ball is meant to move but my doesn't. I'm not sure why I went through it a good few times to see what I was missing. It's definitely something small like something spelt wrong or the wrong code but I couldn't see it. 

Other than that my game seems to be working fine. I eventually gave up trying to figure it out so I just moved on. I still finished it without that working. So technically can only move back and forth with the arrows. But hey, could be a lot worse! Below is a screenshot of the finished game.

A screenshot of my finished unity tutorial.

There were a good few things in this tutorial that I could add to my game!  I really liked the idea of the power boost, I would really like to add that to my game but it boosts the speed. I think it would be a good element to add. It is obviously different from my game in terms of it boosts the power to push the enemy away in this game but in mine, I would want it to boost the speed of the car but it's definitely something I can. look. into to see if it's easy or difficult do!

I would like to say I'm grasping the coding better now but honestly, I think I'm the same as the first few weeks except I remember some of the terms and somewhat of what they do. Hopefully, I have learned more than I realise and am able to make my game without problems.

Thanks for reading :)

-Megan

Tech Tip: Animated Gif

Hello and welcome to my tech tip of the week! This week I decided to make an animated gif! I was thinking about what I would make a gif of and then it hit me, I obviously have to do it on my pride and joy. Chomp and Zoe my dog and cat! 

Images I took of my dog Chomp and my cat Zoe! 

I think its the cutest! The picture of the two of them together is so cute and it shows their friendship! I used this website to make the animated gif! It was super easy and would recommend it :)

Thanks for reading!!

-Megan

Game Fun

Games can be described by the 3 components Mechanics, Dynamics, and Aesthetics (MDA) or otherwise stated as rules – system – “fun”. The three reading selections this week and the synopsis below all address the term “fun” in relation to game design.

There are eight types of Fun outlined by the MDA. These eight are both a source of reference and player experience that blend together in many ways, and essentially what makes a game engaging and enjoyable.

Figure 1: Eight kinds of Fun

Both Oxford and Merrian dictionaries define Fun as an enjoyment, delight. But within the context of a game it refers to a form of pleasurable entertainment. MDA papers define the '8 kinds of fun' sensation, fantasy, narrative, challenge, fellowship, discovery, expression, and submission, remain a source of reference and possibly the most popular list of player interactions combining in various forms to attract each player to a particular game.

Nicole Lazzaro presents four types of fun that are involved in defining how fun a game can be for different players.

• Easy Fun: This is essentially for players who are new to a game who want to satiate their curiosity.
• Hard Fun: It is essentially for people who love a good challenge.
• People Fun: Amusement from competition and cooperation. Meaning Co-op.
• Serious Fun: Excitement from changing the player and their world.

Figure 2: From A Theory of Fun 10 Years On: Fun Is Just Another Word for Learning

Flow also has an influence on the feeling of “fun”. The concept of Flow is characterized as a balance between skill-challenge and the individual's enjoyment. When in flow the player is focused on the activity they are participating in. This gives a sense of reward and promotes further engagement in the activity.

Flow theory provides a good framework for analysing motivation in gaming activities, in particular enjoyment, engagement and positive affect.

Figure 3: Graph showing the flow zone, where the game is not too easy where the players abilities are very high (Boredom), but also not too hard that the player is unable to complete the challenge (anxiety).

Fun has everything to do with learning. “Fun is just the dopamine in our brains firing when we are presented with a new situation to learn from” Koster (2005) discussed about this saying that the different patterns that we take in helps our brain especially when it comes to enjoying a video game cause once you understand the many patterns that it offers you your brain has nothing to feed off making it unenjoyable to play anymore. Fun provides the brain with feedback of the game allowing it to observe and learn different patterns/sequences within.

Games help people to become more imaginative, engaging with their creative side of the brain and creating new ideas/designs that can be implemented in games.

Being more creative when developing your game will help you see what challenges the player may face and what ones will help further improve the progression and also add to the player's determination to complete the story.

Balance is an even proportion or distribution of elements to keep them at a steady rate. When playing chess, we learn about strategy, tic tac toe teaches us about reading people’s mind about their next move and when we play games like civilisation or sim it teaches us resource management. When playing games we should be provided with a balance of fun and challenges. These are called either type 1 or type 2 games and these have their own unique way of being played. The type 1 games involve strategy and thinking to complete these games such as in Chess or Poker whereas type 2 games mainly involve quick reflexes and combo memorization in games such as “Mortal Kombat and Call of Duty”

The GameFlow model shows that the inherent structure of games is associated with the experience of flow and enjoyment during gaming, at least for strategy games.) As stated by Kaye and Byrce (2012) “a large body of research has investigated the negative effects of playing video games” yet “there has been less examination of the psychological experiences associated with the activity”

We come across different types of fun in games that fulfil our amusement. Fun in games is provided in many different ways for example through socialising with friends or exploring the game world. People experience different emotions when driven by gameplay. Gameplay creates opportunities for “Flow”, “balance” and “learning”.

References:

Velev, A., 2016. Gamification Design: What’S Fun Got To Do With It?. [online] Megamification. Available at:<http://www.megamification.com/727-2/> [Accessed 16 November 2020].

Kaye, L. and Bryce, J., 2012. Putting The “Fun Factor” Into Gaming: The Influence Of Social Contexts On Experiences Of Playing Video Games. Available at: <https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/9632557.pdf/> [Accessed 16 November 2020].

 

The Game Overanalyser., 2020. A Theory of Fun for Game Design | Raph Koster and The Art of Designing Fun Games. Available at: <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6sZJYA06z7Y&feature=emb_logo&ab_channel=TheGameOveranalyser/> [Accessed 16 November 2020].

Prototype - Drive Baby Drive!

Welcome to this weeks blog post :)

This week for the project our aim was to spend about 3 hours working on a prototype of our game. This was scary to start off with, it was just daunting to actually start our own game. There has been so much talk and this was just going to make it very real.
To begin with, I started by watching this tutorial and following along. It's 7 hours long and goes through all you would want in a car game. Although, I don't plan on using this fully as I want my game to be unique. I ended up watching an hour of it and following it along when I needed to. It was to get the basics and that really helped me get off to a good start. I started off by making a track for the car to go on I raised the edges of the track so the car has a specific way to follow. I used the terrain tool for that. This took me far too long as I was also colouring the road and the edges different colours. I also did the track three times before being happy with it. The first time I did it, I hadn't brought the car in yet and it turned out to be too small and the second one was hard to turn quickly with the car.


I got the car from the standard assets package on the Unity store. It was really handy! Here's a link for anyone who needs it. It includes water, cars, trees, a rollerball and so much more! I brought the car in and it worked straight away which was really handy! I started to use it for testing the game and it eventually worked!


I brought in trees from that package to make it feel more like a real game and I think they really added something to the game! I might get rid of some in the future though I'm not too sure! Finally, I attached the camera to a cube above the car instead of the car so it will be more stable. Below are some screenshots of the game!

A screenshot I took of my track.

A screenshot I took of the car on the track (The green is so I know when I do one lap, I will change this in the future).

A screenshot I took while testing the track.

So far no major difficulties and this is purely because I didn't code much. I know when I start to properly get into coding and adding objects and collectables it'll become harder! I messed up the little coding I did do and it was a mistype. They seem to be my worst enemy!! I know there's much more to do in the future but I'm happy with how much I got done in three hours! It just looks more possible for me to actually finish this!

Thanks for reading! 

-Megan

Tech Tip - Twitter List

Hello, welcome to my blog post! :) 

This is about a tech tip I did this week. This week I decided to do make a list on Twitter! Here is the link to my Twitter link. I created this list to have all my classmates that I follow in it so I could see their tweets in it! This makes it easier for me to see their tweets. 

A screenshot of the list I made!

On my personal Twitter account I  mostly just use one list I have made which has Irish journalists/ politicians in it to keep track of what's going on! I am big into politics so it really helps me keep up to date. Instead of me looking them up each time I can just go to the list, it's very handy! 

Thanks for reading! 

-Megan

Unity Tutorial 6

 Hello and welcome to this week's blog post about the unity tutorial!!

Okay so it went great, the first part went all as planned and I was surprised at how easy it seemed to add music and sounds to your game. These will definitely come in handy when it comes to my game as I plan on adding different sounds to it. 

The challenge, of course (story of my life), wouldn't work for me. I again couldn't figure it out, I really don't think I'm getting this whole gaming thing. It just seems so complicated. So, again I looked up a tutorial to follow and found one that actually had the solutions and I followed them but mine didn't work. 

I'm really not sure where I went wrong I literally spent what felt like years looking at my code, then looking at his code and examine the differences and I couldn't find any. There obviously was some differences because mine wouldn't work and his game was working fine. I then tried to compare my code with the previous tutorial I followed and that just confused me more. I know what's wrong with it that it's saying PlayerControllerX doesn't seem to exist?? It's in both my move left script and the spawn one. 

It got to a point where my head started to hurt so I gave up. I know it's definitely something stupid I did or something that makes perfect sense I just couldn't do it.

I just hope when it comes to my actual game that I can figure this stuff out or even google have an answer because I tried googling it but I didn't understand what they were saying, it's like a different language to me haha. But hey could be a lot worse, I got the tutorial done at least. 

A screenshot of the unity challenge that I took.

Hopefully, next week will be better. Thanks for reading!

-Megan

Games Decisions

“In order for the player to be optimally engaged, challenges should be presented at a level equivalent or slightly higher than their current skill. Not too easy, not too hard”(Gigity McD)

The word 'flow state' was coined by Csikszentmihalyi (1975) also known as being “in the zone” This is when the player is fully engaged in the game experience. Csikszentmihalyi put a lot of work into observing and analyzing various groups of people. This theory is focused on the idea of how people should balance their skills and the demands of particular tasks. An example of Flow would be a challenge in a game that interests the player such as a puzzle or a boss battle meant to keep the player interested and not get bored. Csikszentmihalyi also states that flow is related to an ideal psychological condition when a person engages in a challenge-skill activity, often resulting in concentration and a focused emphasis on a task.


A practical technique for improving Flow is to look at what players like and find interesting, it is an invaluable resource as this will give you a better understanding of how to structure your game in a way it flows naturally without affecting the players’ experience and enjoyment. If the player has a high skill set and the game is not a challenge, the player will become disinterested and lose interest in the game. The game must allow the player to grow and learn with each challenge or obstacle so as to stay motivated to continue.

If the player has little to no skill set and the game is too challenging, then the player will become frustrated with anxiety and lose interest in the game as well. A flow chart helps to prevent the game from being too boring or too difficult(create anxiety) which makes the game more successful in terms of achieving Flow.

Image source 
Caption: Image shows a learning curve for games in terms of skills and experience

The x-axis is the player's skill and the y-axis is the challenge. When the player starts off, the challenges are easy in order to introduce the player to the game system. Over time, this will increase the player's skill. After the player has progressed through the game the challenges get more difficult. This is known as the flow channel and is the ideal place to maintain the player in the flow state. If the challenges are too easy the player will become bored with the game. If the challenges are extremely difficult for the player, the player will get overwhelmed, frustrated or fed up with the game. This is the point where the player reaches the anxiety state of the flow map.

Studies have found Cook (2008) that there are both positive and negative consequences with game flow. The positive representing cognitive flow “composed of challenge-skill balance, clear goals, and unambiguous feedback,” and a negative element viewed as the emotional flow “composed of action- awareness merging, concentration on the task at hand, sense of control, loss of consciousness, and time transformation.” In the development of computer games, designers must be aware of these two characteristics when developing games.

References

Numinous.productions. Dan Cook 2008. Building A Princess Saving App. Available at: <https://numinous.productions/ttft/assets/Cook2008.pdf> [Accessed 9 November 2020].

McD, Gigity (14th June 2018). What is FLOW THEORY in game design? - The Basics - (Part 1). Game Design with Michael, <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3H8pQyyXxHg>[Accessed 9 November 2020].

Sanjamsai S, Phukao P. 2018 Flow experience in computer game playing among Thai university students. Available at: <shorturl.at/rtvGM> [Accessed 9 November 2020].

Tech Tip: Blogger Template

Hello everyone! 

I have changed my theme on my blog, this took me so long to decide as I tried to fit different images as the background but didn't like them.

Eventually came to this one and really liked it! I love the layout too you can see much more on it and I think my blog just looks great! 

Here is a screenshot of my blog!!

I used this link to help me :) I would recommend everyone to check it out and change theirs!!

Thanks for reading, hope everyone is good!

-Megan

Games Design Document

 This week for our project task we had to do a Games Design Document. The reading task on Monday was really useful for this, it really gave me a great understanding of this. 

This is the link to my GDD made on Dundoc! I found Dundoc hard to get used to at the beginning but after exploring it I got the hang of it. Dundoc was very useful and I'm glad I used it.

I used Miro for the game flow chart. The game flow chart was the only thing that confused me, I googled it and asked a friend and I then completed it on Miro so I hope it's right.

There will be plenty of edits made to this when new things become available for me to put in like images and screenshots. 

A screenshot I took of my Games Design Document.

Thanks for reading! 

-Megan

Unity Tutorial 5

Hello and welcome to this week's blog post about the unity tutorial!

I enjoyed this week tutorial, with a few moments with an exception. Overall it was really enjoyable as we were learning new things we haven't done before like the animation! I found this really useful and it really made sense to me by the end.

I was mid-way through it and suddenly I got an error and was so confused as the man in the tutorial didn't get one and I swore I had it exact! I literally spent 30 minutes re-reading his and my code and I couldn't figure it out. I even googled it hoping for something, but I couldn't find anything. Turns out I had written gameObject instead of gameOver... I have no idea how I didn't see it; I was about to give up and all. It's strange how the smallest of things will make your game unplayable.

I then had another problem to do with another mis type that I can’t remember now but it didn’t match up and I actually figured it out myself. I thought okay so if this doesn’t work it has to be in the spawn controller and it was! I was delighted that I could see this from just a bit of code not working. That is what I needed to realise okay maybe this is actually going into my head! Before this I was sure none of this was actually sticking, so who knows maybe it is now. Saying that I don’t think I would be able to do it again alone but hey little steps.

Apart from them two small problems I flew through the tutorial and I am really happy with the outcome. I definitely learned things in it that will be useful in my game! Hopefully I can implement them correctly! 

Screenshot of my game from the unity tutorial

Thanks for reading!

-Megan

Games GDD

 

Link to image
Image Caption: Visual of a laptop with different tools around it representing games design.

What is the GDD for?

A Game Design Document (GDD) is a blueprint for the design and development of a game.

The GDD is a way of being creative and documenting the approach to the development of the game. Gonzale (1999) states that “ the important thing is to have something that describes your game project (or any other project for that matter) before jumping into production. ( Gamasutra ) It should help to plan out your game. Though it is recommended that the GDD should be short it needs to be detailed enough so as game developers and artists can coordinate the development of the game independently whilst still keeping to the design. 

The GDD is a blueprint for how the game is going to be designed and built, similar to a mind map. In conclusion, the game design document is vital to making a game and it is important to have in order to describe your game project.

How do we make one?

There are a variety of tools that could be used to create a GDD. These include word processing tools, visual tools like Powerpoint, or new web-based tools such as DunDoc. Each of these tools has its advantages and are a personal choice. Many of the examples shared via the internet are in Microsoft Word format. Romero Games(creators of Doom) favour a more visual tool such as PowerPoint. Whichever tool is used they should support the development of the game in an open and transparent manner.

What should be in it?

The GDD should be simple enough to read through details about your game design and concept. Schubert (2007), who was at the time lead designer for Bioware Austin, gave a GDC talk in about how to create design documentation, some of the most relevant elements include:

1. Know your target.- Have a clear vision and understanding of what you want to make. Make sure your game is suitable and fits your target audience.

2. Keep it short.  Keep it to the point and clear, the shorter they are, the easier it is to read, write, and maintain.

3. Prioritize the design.  - Divide your game in order of importance e.g have a functional game. Concentrate on core mechanics and visuals, and then expand 

4. Illustrate. - Draw sketches of your plans that make it easier to structure and implement. Present what your game would look like as it’s important to have a clear idea of the visuals before you begin creating.

5. Use user stories.- Describing the game through the player’s vision (Similar to what we did in the game vision statement).

Take into account the games users, their ideas may help develop future storylines or ideas.

6. Invest in a good format. Take the time to structure your work so that it is easy to navigate.

7. Use clear terminology. Don’t over-complicate the document. Make sure language is concise and accessible.

8. Kill redundancy.  -Recycle your code - use variables, not hard code). Always reference the new section on your page to have a clean document. Avoid copy and pasting sections.

9. Capture your reasoning - why did you make the choices you made? What led to that thought process?

References

Nachen, Lennart. 2014 Communication and Game Design Documents accessed 02/11/2020 http://acagamic.com/game-design-course/communication-and-game-design-documents/

Ferns, Shaun (2020) Readings Week 06 accessed 02/11/2020 https://cdmonline.ie/multidev1/reading-week-06/ 

Gonzalez, Leandro. 2016 How to Write a Game Design Document accessed 02/11/2020

https://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/LeandroGonzalez/20160726/277928/How_to_Write_a_Game_Design_Document.php