Written on 11/08/2022
It has been 2 weeks since my last post. That post was made at the beginning of our new project and this post is now being written at the end of the Pre-Production stage. This blog post will be going in depth specifically on what I've done as a designer throughout this stage of the project.
Elevator Pitch
“My Mythical Mate” is a 2D side-scrolling bullet hell where you fight against the evil Organization who has captured your friends and is using them for their nefarious plans! You play as various mystical creatures throughout the game accessing a variety of abilities to shoot your way through an army of robots and rescue your friends!
So if you've read the previous blog post I made you may notice that this elevator pitch has changed quite a bit. As we worked on the project we began to gain a better understanding of what we wanted the game to be about and how would accomplish these things. This included making the game 2D instead of 3D to keep a more consistent side scrolling shooter atmosphere that didn't clash with the 2D UI and sprites used for characters.
Additionally we decided to shift away from the idea of the game being a pet simulator and lean more heavily into the side scrolling shooter aspect of the game. This was done primarily because of our 15 week scope for the project. The team believed it was the best option to try and cut down on some aspects to ensure we could better focus on the core experience that players would be interested in without trying to do too much with the little time we have.
Another change to the elevator pitch was that we removed the idea of playing as a witch for the game. This was due to the player never actually seeing the witch in the game and leading to the conclusion that it would take too much time and resources to implement her as a character into the game. Instead we opted for allowing the player to directly play as the mythical creatures (no longer called familiars).
We kept the main antagonist for the game as the organisation as it played heavily into our themes of nature vs technology. This also later lead to updating and changing the enemies to better reflect fighting against robots and also partially humans instead of natural creatures as it would counter our main theme for the game.
Game Design Document
Throughout pre-production I worked on various documents but the GDD was always the biggest one I kept coming back to all throughout to update it and make changes as the team narrowed the idea of the game and specifics were decided. It is the document that I am most proud of as I had a large part in filling it out and ensuring that everything was clear for whoever may read the document in future.
Additionally concept images/GIFs were beginning to be made and so inserting them into the relevant areas also helped to better communicate the ideas expressed throughout the document. If you would like to compare versions I have included an earlier version and the latest version of the GDD here.
These Versions are 1 week apart from each other and so should demonstrate clearly some of the major changes that were made. For a comprehensive look at my input on this document please look at the "Change Log" in the Current Version of the GDD where all my changes and inputs are documented.
Industry Game Pitch Presentation
This presentation was worked on for the better part of 3 days in preparation to send many industry workers our game pitch for feedback. On the first day the team roughed out the presentation. My contribution to this presentation was ensuring that each slide worked on by members made sense and flowed well with the others. I also wrote some of the script for some of the slides. On the second day unfortunately my power went out and I was unable to work with the team that day. The team in my absence created a draft video of the presentation which I could view later to help when I returned the next day.
On the final day that this pitch was needed I managed to get my power back and the team and I spent the entire day tidying up the presentation. However, we unfortunately were not keeping an eye on the time and it was to be submitted by 3pm that day. We also had to have the video be under 5 minutes long and unfortunately could not manage to cut it any shorter in the time we had and so ended up submitting the pitch an hour late and 20 seconds over time.
In future I will pay better attention to the time I need to submit things. For this final video, I was the one recording and editing it in Adobe Premiere Pro. Unfortunately due to having to rush to get it done I did not have time to test my audio and so when I am speaking the quality is not the best and I am a fair bit louder than the others. I tried to minimise this issue as much as possible with editing in Premiere Pro but unfortunately did not have enough time to make it perfect. Despite this issue I believe I did the best I could considering the circumstances and while with more time it could have been better, I believe it turned out ok.
Asset List
During the last 3 days of the pre-production we had just about finished most of the documentation and so began work on an asset list so that when production began the team working on the game would have a better idea of exactly what assets they would need. I created the template for the asset list and then split it into 3 separate parts. The designers asset list...
The artists asset list...
And the programmers asset list...
I primarily worked to fill out the designer asset list however also had a large part in creating the art asset list. The programmers handled their list. While this list is not completely extensive and will likely change slightly it helps to have a rough outline of how many tasks the group will have to undertake throughout the project as well as grasping what the game needs to have to be playable and what is a lower priority.
Final Thoughts
So that's basically it, these were the things the team and I needed to do for pre-production. This project did not end up getting past the "final cull" which is where the teachers get together and choose which games so forward for final production, so next week I will be working on another project for the next 15 weeks. I'll keep this blog updated with the developments that occur throughout the final project.
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. Thank you for reading!
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