Welcome to Flynn Van Stryp's Blog
Greetings! I'll start with a little bit about me first then explain what these blog posts will be about.
About Me
Greetings! My name is Flynn Van Stryp and I am an experienced Game Designer with 2 years of experience so far. I am currently studying at the Academy of Interactive Entertainment (AIE) and am hoping to create games that people will be able to laugh playing, feel invested discovering and accomplished at completing. I am passionate and excited to work in industry and love doing game jams when I have the time. I have experience in being a project manager, lead designer and level designer and am always willing to learn more. I also have a basic understanding of programming as well as some art knowledge to help communication with the artists and programmers that I work with.
I feel my love for games has brought me to the point of wanting to make something that others will be able to experience and enjoy as I do. As a bit of background, I became fascinated with games and computers from a very young age and spent my youth exploring almost every different console there was to offer, playing a wide variety of games and almost always trying to finish them where I could. This fascination with completing games only increased as I got older and now I have become a full fledged achievement hunter!
For those that don't know, achievement hunters are those that like to collect the achievements found in games. These can also be called trophies, awards or milestones depending on what you play on but 100%ing a game is the height of an achievement hunters experience. It is my dream to create games that will have achievements that once completed will fulfill the player and reward them for their effort, accomplishments or dedication to a task.
I feel that this experience with vying to accomplish the hardest, most tedious or often hidden achievements has lead me to analyse the developers intent for a game even moreso. Why they might want me to go in this direction or what might be tipping me off to find this hidden secret or find this lever to open a door. This search for understanding and meaning in these games has helped to lead me to a better understanding of the developers intent and I hope to continue learning more moving forward.
Aside from Achievement hunting I also have other hobbies such as 3D printing, fire twirling, camping, hiking etc. I find that having a broad range of experience to draw from can help to add a unique flavour to the creative tasks that I put my mind to. Additionally experiencing things that are not just in a screen has helped me to draw more influence from the outside world and gain a better and more in depth understanding of people as a whole, which I believe will help in creating games that people will be able to connect with.
Whether this be tapping into a sense of comfort for the person in an environment by creating an open room with brighter, softer colours that help to put the player at ease or playing off a common fear of isolation and unease by making the same room narrow and using harsher or colder colours I believe my experiences in life will help to make the games I work on feel more genuine and less fake.
At the time of writing this post I have completed 1 game jam, 2 minor projects and 1 major project. I'm also currently working on my major project for this year which I will be blogging about for each new development of the process where I can (I don't want to promise every week as we may be stretched for time at some points). I will go into more detail for each new project I do in future blog posts. I plan to do many many more game jams/projects to help build up my portfolio and experience in game design.
Workflow
When starting to create a new project there are a few things that I like to do. To start off usually what I would do is begin a discussion with the team and write down notes throughout the discussion into a google docs document (so that the whole team can see the notes later). These notes will include just about everything that we talk about and will often times be messy to begin with and be jotted down quickly into dot points.
After having discussions with the team and potentially mocking up some concept images or diagrams during the meeting to convey ideas more clearly, I will usually begin writing up a draft Game Design Document (GDD). This helps to nail down the hard points that the team may have decided on in the previous meeting and get the important information down in a more professional, explained manner. In order to aid in this process being as efficient as possible I have created templates for the GDD and other documents to give the team a head-start so that we can focus on the details and not the formatting of the document. Naturally during writing the GDD I will also be on call with the designers if not the rest of the team going through any questions or clarifications I need to get from them in order to ensure everyone is on the same page and the GDD is accurate to the game we wish to make.
At this point I would also begin to create a HacknPlan/Trello board or Asset List for the team (if I was in the role of a producer) and this would be used throughout the project to track what tasks people were doing, how long it would take them to do, specifications they might need to know about those tasks and other important details. It would also be important at this point to create the version control for the project if it had not already been done so. To do this the project would be made and a first commit would be done so that everyone with access to the version control would be able to begin work on the project.
Projects are usually broken down into 3 key milestones. Alpha Beta and Gold. Usually the group would have already discussed prior how long the project will go for and roughly how much time we would have for each milestone.
During Alpha as a designer it would be my job to create a grey-box, this is basically a block-out of the game, it does not look pretty but it is meant to be functional. In conjunction with the programmers I would help to set up and block out the environments/levels of the game. This process also helps to create a more comprehensive list of assets that we think we might need for the game. We then relay that list to the artists and update the asset list and HacknPlan/Trello board. Alpha is all about getting the game as functional as possible. Only the high priority art assets would be made during this time and the core functionality of the game should be working before Beta begins. Often when designing environments I will draw them out first with pen paper and a ruler and will then scan the paper and draw over it in photoshop. After drawing over it in photoshop this gives me a clear map out of where I want things to go and a better sense of direction when working in Engine. I will then sometimes import that image/map into the engine as an object and create my block-out on top of the map, using it as a guide.
By Beta all functionality should be in the game and the job of the designer is to do a few things. In past projects where there have not been programmers on the team I have had to be the one changing the code and fixing the bugs however typically on a full team I would instead be spending my time testing the game and trying to break it as well as making sure that everything is working as it should, making changes where necessary to help the flow or design of the game. Additionally it is imperative that user testing be conducted during this stage of development in order to have a better sense of how users will react to the experience and get feedback from them. In the past this has consisted of myself and other designers on the team having interviews with players and getting them to play the game while sharing their screen or by recording their playthrough and sending it to us. If an interview was not conducted I have also created surveys for players to complete after finishing the game. After all of this feedback and data has been collected from the testers it must be sorted, graphed and the important issues that crop up are addressed to the team in a meeting and then worked on. Often many different versions/builds of the game are made during this stage and testing the most current version of the game is crucial to finding the bugs and flaws so they can be stamped out.
Finally we come to Gold. During this stage of the project all art assets should be implemented already and the game should be completely feature complete. Any changes done now should be bug fixes and rigorous testing to ensure the game is ready to be shipped. No major changes should be made on the game. In previous projects towards the end of this stage I have created an Itch.io page for the game as well as create a trailer for the page to go with the game.
So that's a quick overview of some of the things I do when working on a project! Onto what I'm going to be writing in my future posts...
What It's All About!
For my future posts I plan to talk about the different stages of the projects I work on and some of the things that went well or poorly as well as trying to update this blog with new developments in whatever current project I am working on. These updates will include things like the development process, what ideas were used and thrown out and why, as well as any new features, designs etc. for the game. I will try and make these posts as detailed as possible and apolagise if the format could use a little work, it is my first time writing a blog but I will try my best to make everything fit and look neat.
Closing Message
To make a long story just that bit longer, I'm Flynn, I'm a designer and I'll be posting more blog posts on future projects in... well the future! Thanks for reading!
If you have any criticisms, suggestions, advice or wish to get in touch, please Contact Me. Also if you want to stay in the loop on future projects I'm involved in please watch this space.
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