Starting this game I was able to get rolling on the foundation of building the level, while following the tutorial of the professor. I was able to find a model online that had this really cool piece of land created. It had the feel of a clay town with bright colors, a modern almost futuristic plastic trees and rocks, as well as other objects. Very pop like.
Going through this process of creating a randomly generated game was very beneficial to support the opportunity to apply this to future games. The function alone of randomly generating the placement of a tree every time the level loads allows for a game to constantly provide a new challenge for the player. If I were to add this to my project 3, I would be able to make the game unpredictable by applying this randomly generated function to the placement of enemy bots.
Within in this game I created a game loop that the game was completed after the player found the cloud that is located somewhere within the level. Everything within the level is randomly generated, so the player will have to relocated the cloud each time played.
For a future improvement I would like to add sound to this game. Sound that will have a steady beat to provide a sense of rhythm to support the journey of the player seeking to find the cloud. Additionally I would change the sound of the footsteps to be the sound of walking on grass, fresh grass that was watered early in the morning.
If I were to Adda timer to the game, this would increase the engagement with the user. This would decrease the chances of the player getting board just walking around a map trying to find an object. Along with a timer would be a score count out of 1. This would be added so the user would know what is needed of them for them to complete this level of the game.
First, I want to say thank you to the professor for his help throughout this quarter. Without he helping me to debug my code, I wouldn’t have completed making my game. Also, thank you for you all’s feedback! I have learned a ton from you all not only by listening to your feedback but also by seeing all these great examples of games that you all made. I surprised by how different each game is and how many varieties of games we made.
My game, Illuminated, is an optical illusion game that provides players this unimaginable, amazing experience through the 3D illusion created in the game as well as the strong color contrast in each scene that achieves a visual impact. It’s a short game that is mainly targeted at providing an enjoyable experience to players. I wanted my players to enjoy the “journey”, rather than just winning the game.
Image 1: Starting screen
Image 2: Second game scene
Image 3: Going through the tunnel (Illusion)
Image 4: Particle system
Image 5: Ending scene
I hope you all will enjoy playing my game! Feel free to comment below asking me questions about my game and giving me feedback so that I know where to improve next time. 🙂
Coming into this week, I had two big projects to finish and one 10-page paper to write. I had a whole thing typed up here, talking about being really sick, having the worst period pain of my entire life, pulling a bunch of all-nighters, feeling so fragile and close to breaking down that, when I went to Target for some final materials for my other project, I picked up some baby socks and a stuffed animal in the dollar section and just walked around holding them for an hour or so because they were soft and I needed some small soft thing to help me feel safe. I’m not sure I really want to write all that down in any more detail, because part of it feels like I’m trying to prove that how bad of a state I was in, maybe as some sort of an excuse, and I shouldn’t have to prove anything, nor am I really trying to make any excuses. I also had to cancel my appointment with my therapist this week, because I wanted to go to The Play’s The Thing, and my appointment was during the event, and it feels a little weird to talk about some of the serious things that happened this week in a dev log/blog post before I talk about them with my therapist. I’ll just say that I was in a really bad place, psychologically. That made working on this game kind of strange for me.
I mentioned in my last post that a number of the figures are actually me. These 8 are all the “me”‘s in the game.
On the one hand, I wanted to get it “perfect,” I wanted to feel proud of it, I wanted to get the best grade possible on it. On the other hand, how ridiculous to be sacrificing my already really compromised mental well-being for the sake of a game about my mental well-being.
One of the new trees.
I’m not sure it’s appropriate to talk about this here, but a couple of my games have touched on how isolating mental illness can be, and how harmful that isolation can be, so, again, it feels a little ridiculous to be making games about isolation and the feeling that I can’t or shouldn’t talk about my mental illness, and then, in practice, to not talk about my mental illness. It’s more complicated than that, of course, and more personal, and ultimately I have to act in the way that feels right for me at any given moment, and sometimes that means not talking about my mental illness, but I have been working over the last few years on pushing myself to talk about it when it feels comfortable and healthy and safe to do so, and this is, to a certain extent, one of those times.
One of the benches.
For the version of the game that was played in class and at the event, I changed and added a few things. There are more people, and different people. There are more speechbubbles. There are trees, and the sky and ground are different. There are benches that, when you collide with them, say one of two things: “We all love you so much,” or “It’s ok. You’re not the only one.” When I decided to add the benches, I was thinking about bench dedications in public parks. The plaques on those benches are so frequently messages to loved ones. They’re sweet and full of love. I don’t know that I want to explain further (because I don’t know that I’m in a good place to do so) the mental gymnastics that led me to want to include benches and their dedications in my game, beyond that I wanted to include messages of love and, in this case, messages of support.
I added some more difficult questions, as well, in among all the favors and small requests.
For the version I publish next Friday, I might change a few more things, maybe adding in some animations, or more people and speechbubbles. I consider the version I turned in on Thursday to be the final, completed version, and the one I assume will be graded, but I’d like it to be more polished before I put it online. I would also like to polish and then publish several of my other games from this quarter.
The other tree. There are two types, repeated in the space of the game.
Making the games from this class has been a great exercise in quiet exploration of a few topics I’ve been trying to work through lately, like reflections on my mental health as it stood this time last year, and recent attempts to feel comfortable asking for help when I need it. I’m excited to make more games, and I’ve really enjoyed seeing everyone else’s this quarter.
This is a gif, I promise, there’s just a tiny little delay at the beginning.
Sorry about the cursor in the .gif I took that like 6 different times and finally got it the perfect length, only to discover that the mouse is front and center. UGH. Whatever, I’m letting it go and hoping it’s not too annoying to other viewers.
Please check out the soundtracks I chose for the three different scenes! They are FREE! The songs are listed below, just follow the link (below the song titles), and were produced by Cleenscreen (AKA Jamendo) on an album called “Meliza.” I fell in love with this instrumental music about a year and a half ago when I discovered it.
Song titles: “01 – Meliza Wake Up,” “03 – Meliza Crying,” and “08 – Meliza Forest.”
I took out the particle system because I decided it is too much for this simple game, and takes away from my rainfall mechanic. It is so cool though, I hope to use it for other work in the future!
I was super worried about writing the code that would make the puddle grow this week but it all worked out thanks to the extra lab hours we scheduled this Monday, yay! I’ve never coded before in my life so learning to code this game (and all the games) has been quite the challenge to overcome. But success has been found nonetheless!
This week we’ll be showing our games alongside software by other students at UC Davis at a public exhibition and book discussion in the ModLab at Cruess 234 this Thursday, December 7 from 4:30-7PM!
Please feel free to invite friends and family to check out what we’ve been working on. You can also tweet at #PlaysTheThing and find the event on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/events/856973917760600.
Here’s a short description of the event:
From the stage to the screen to the street, embodied forms of performance and protest are changing the way we play in the 21st century. Investigating playful media from a diverse range of contexts including performance studies, literary theory, art criticism, and game studies, new books like Darshana Jayemanne’s Performativity in Literature, Art, and Videogames (2017); Anne-Marie Schleiner The Player’s Power to Change the Game: Ludic Mutation (2017); Gina Bloom’s Gaming the Stage: Playable Media and the Rise of English Commercial Theater (forthcoming), and Stephanie Boluk and Patrick LeMieux’s Metagaming: Playing, Competing, Spectating, Cheating, Trading, Making, and Breaking Videogames (2017) point toward new ways to engage the embodiment, materiality, and history of games.
Made possible by generous support from the Cinema and Digital Media Department, English Department, and ModLab at UC Davis.
So i changed my mind and i actually don’t wanna make this text-based game that deals with my trauma right now.
Instead i’m gunna work on it over the winter break, or at another time when i am feeling stronger to deal with rereading my detailed written accounts of trauma. I have added more scenes to the original prototype but i had to put it down again for a while because it got to be too much for me.
I hope to still combine it with Puddle for a completed text-idle based game of some sort. I think it might keep the name Puddle still. Or combine What The Fuck Why (WTFW) with it.
This game has been difficult to develop mainly because of the content. Also because I do not think that I am prepared to hear critiques about a game that involves my trauma. I am conscerned about taking people’s critiques personally on some level, and that could hurt me more. I am trying not to be disappointed about having to put this text-based game away for a bit because to me completing this game would mark an achievement in my healing process of some sort.
But i know whatever game it becomes will be that fulfilling progress mark for me, and i know that Puddle will come out well without it too.
I have been working on developing the procedural rhetoric game, Puddle, lately. I have been trying to get the spheres to change color, as if they are raindrops falling from the sky and hitting the ground and eventually drying up. As well, I have sounds to insert but haven’t completed that either. Also I need to add a title page and I’d like to have a cool moving banner for that along with the instructions:
You are a small body of water trying to grow,
make connections to other small bodies of water,
though you are stuck, stagnant in your place
eventually other drops of water will come near
and help you grow into a big puddle.
I added a particle system to this. I just need to figure out how to make the particles look like the other water drop objects.
In the end, for a final thought, I drafted a similar poem:
I have so many ideas for the development of my game Aerium that I almost don’t know where to begin. Right now I’m just working on what appear to be the most exciting aspects, and from there I usually end up coming up with the next step. I have a Google Doc of notes I’m keeping (things I debugged, things I need to add, etc.) and it’s nearing 3 pages now. This post mostly talks about two different staircases I’ve made. In this GIF the placement is a little awkward since they’re both right near each other but I had just gotten it to work and here it is!
A constantly generating square staircase! And a cylindrical staircase that rises with your actions!
If I were to Add a timer to the game, this would increase the engagement with the user. This would decrease the chances of the player getting board just walking around a map trying to find an object. Along with a timer would be a score count out of 1. This would be added so the user would know what is needed of them for them to complete this level of the game.
