In Star Collector, you simply must collect 10 white stars to win! On your voyage, you must avoid the dangerous red comets, or if you get hit it’s instantly game over!!
It was fun to watch people play my game. Some found that it put them on-edge due to the speed of the comets, while others found it somewhat relaxing because your own movement is slow as you “float” around in space. This game was much more challenging than the first two…. I used a LOT of Patrick’s code, otherwise I wouldn’t know/remember how to make the speed of the comets random, or to have them generate in random places, etc. I want to memorize more code functions so I can figure out how to write out the concepts I envision for my games, and not feel so lost when starting out. Also knowing more code would be helpful in making my game more complex and interesting.
all the tabs! Thanks Patrick for the helpful tutorials/code as references
demonstrating the random speed of comets
One problem I encountered when watching others play, was I actually needed to extend the range of the comets, because some people encountered the spot in which the comets bounce back. I only had 4 comets, but they move at a speed that is like double or quadruple your own speed, so it looks like there are a lot. In my opinion it ruined the whole “space” feel since it’s unrealistic to see the comets bounce back, although this could be useful in another game. However the only people that encountered that problem are people who continued moving in one direction or tried to explore the ranges of the space. It’s interesting to consider how people approach games differently.
successful playthrough
I received a lot of the same feedback from people who tested my game during critique. Common comments/suggestions included adding a score or something so that people know how many stars they must collect in order to win the game. (Most people didn’t read the ReadMe file haha.) The most useful part of watching others test my game is considering their play-style and game experience, which is incredibly useful. Not everyone plays a game the way I do; I’m the type who almost always reads through the instructions/controls. But many people (like some of my family) always skip through written instructions, or even skip through tutorials that are embedded in the beginning of a game (if there’s an option to), or EVEN skipping opening credits of games (where I die a little inside!). I feel like reading instructions/intros are a way to orient myself to the game or possibly discover something that will be necessary later on, but many people just want to get straight to the game.
Random comet starting positions makes for a different game each time, and sometimes immediate Game Over! One great suggestion was to randomly generate the stars, or both.
In terms of my concept… “procedural rhetoric”…. While I’ve made a lot of abstract paintings in the past, and analyzed a lot of abstract work in art history classes, I was surprised that developing an idea for this assignment was so challenging. I’ve made so many 2D paintings before, but trying to think of a moving game in which interactions (collisions) occur, and there is a way to both win or lose, those things totally changed the dynamic. I was excited for a new game to work on this past weekend while at the same time I found it so difficult to find an argument to convey that involved collisions.
By restricting our use of shapes and textures, I wondered more about the significance of different types of collision interactions. Similar to the games Lim and The Marriage, not all collisions have to be “destroy,” they can create, share, help, stop, etc… Opposed to games that focus on fighting, winner-takes-all, and warfare, my recent research on indie game developer Jenova Chen helped me consider ways in which gameplay can allude to values such as working together, giving, or helping the planet. His approach to gameplay (for example, in “Flower” I don’t think there are any antagonists, and maybe the only negative forces are the dead flower fields in which you must bring back to life) also reminded me of Hayao Miyazaki’s movie Princess Mononoke. I once watched a Miyazaki interview in which he describes that there is no clear antagonist in that movie. The different forces or groups (e.g. forest spirits, wolf clan, wild boar clan, different human villages, etc.) all want what’s best for their own group. For example, one human village cuts down trees to protect themselves from another invading village, but the removal of the trees hurts the forest spirits. It’s not like the people are the antagonist… like how in some movies there is always one thing that is the most evil of them all that needs to be taken down. In Princess Mononoke and in Jenova Chen’s games, there are just many types of interactions between players/game objects, and there doesn’t always have to be one main enemy.
For me, a lot of the fun in game development is envisioning the concept of the game. I hope to use themes like Chen’s and Miyazaki’s in the future!
– Erica Cherrington