Semester 2 Week 3 - Reading 3

Week 3 - Reading 3

For the reading this week, I looked over a couple of sources regarding game designers choice over using realistic or animated/'stylised' aesthetics.

Even by skimming over the articles, it's rather painfully obvious that due to a certain over-saturation with the pursuit of realism that players are now more drawn to either stylized art styles or a combination of both aesthetic choices called 'stylized realism' (not very creative here but better than scientists naming things...)

I remember a video talking about the concept of the 'Uncanny Valley'. This is a concept where, a certain individual or thing will look rather weird or uncomfortable if they don't lean towards high fidelity realism or the cartoonish style. It's like a robot with 'realistic' facial movements. Despite how realistic they're trying to look, these robots will always look weird and uncanny. This feeling is what any game designer choose to avoid as much as possible when picking an aesthetic choice for their game as it can make or break it completely.

Recall Team Fortress 2 and the recent Call of Duty. Team Fortress 2 is very stylized with its rather recognizable cartoonish character proportions while the modern Call of Duty achieved a very impressive and believable realism in their graphics.

Photo-realism is very good as it shows the capability of
the game engine rendering realistic faces accurately.
However...

The uncanny valley has a very deep gap where
you have to make things look 100% realistic or stylized.
The 'depth of the valley' never looks appealing to anyone.

After reading majority of these sources, I have a rather clear image as to how designers of the industry and games in the past years approach the use of realism and stylized designs. Surprisingly, many designers and artists are looking into this 'stylized realism' and I am trying to find more sources regarding this aesthetic design choice.

Zhen Li

(Edit) To explain 'Uncanny Valley' in a more interesting and easy-to-understand manner, I would recommend Extra Credit's video on the subject:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9K1Kd9mZL8g

I hope this video expains this concept better than I have. Also Extra Credits is a great Youtube Channel on everything gaming and very eye-opening.

I'll have to temporarily drop the 'Game World Design' research due to a surprisingly lack of peer-reviewed sources on the internet that is readily accessible.

Semester 2 Week 3 - Unity Tutorial 3

Week 3 Unity 3

I. Have. Fixed. Everything.

I finally fixed Unity to work as intended. Needing to reinstall a new version of Unity alone took a few hours (for whatever reason). 
My questionably acquired Visual Studios was re-downloaded in the middle of the tutorial but it worked out in the end.

Let's get on with the tutorials.

This tank model looks better than my first Unity game project by a long shot...

The first tutorials went well without a hitch. The code was very clear on the website and since the tutorial mainly composed of very basic procedures, you can skip the videos and just use the code under each video so speed up your process. This tutorial says it'll take up a few hours but in reality, for Year 2 students, it should only take half an hour. Thanks Multimedia 1...

Here's the best/worst part.

Not gonna lie.
This challenge did get me.
Not for too long though...

'Challenge 1' is just using what we learned (and using the convenient hints offered on the page) to make a "Happy Bird" rip-off. The hints were just either blatantly obvious or just downright sadistically vague.

Just remember: to spin the propeller, just use transform.Rotate(x-axis, y-axis, z-axis * Time.deltaTime);. Change the z-axis and you're good to go. 
I posted this really late in the night so this hint can not be used for your own Unity tutorial. This way I cannot be accused of being 'unfair' or 'scummy'.
You can only cry after reading this and wonder: "Wow, what a dick."

Anyway. Everything went well with the tutorials. (not) Looking forward to the next tutorials.

Zhen Li.

Feedback Thoughts

Feedback Thoughts

After reading the articles, I can see some perspectives that I can fully agree with. 

People make mistakes and people will make mistakes. We will need feedback and criticisms in order to better ourselves so we can improve and prevent those mistakes from happening again. 

However, like in Sabina Nawaz's article: "Silence the Critical Voices in Your Head", excessive focus on those negative feedback and not looking to the positive ones can be detrimental. Such as the story of Rajeev, someone who had the right mindset of asking for feedback for constructive reasons, but didn't understand that majority of the employees he had an interview with had good opinions of him thanks to his abilities and personality. He fixates on the negatives, magnifying them just so he can fix it, dismissing the positive feedback that people offered.

It's good to find your mistakes and fix them, but remember your good traits. People latch onto what the negative things people say and either attempt to fix them with a laser-focus or fall into a cycle of self-doubt and self-conflict. Understand why you're bad and understand why you're good. You will need both positive and negative feedback to work with in order to be a better person. 

Yin and Yang, can't live with one, can't live without one.

Some people tends to hang onto the negative feedback and experiences because to a degree, it was in our evolutionary trait to react more to negative stimulus which was what our ancestors needed to survive, but now it just seems like an unnecessary human function. 

In the article: "How to Get Past Negativity Bias in Order to Hardwire Positive Experiences", Katrina Schwartz explains how periodically, we need to instill positive memories and experiences into our psyche as much as we do with out negative ones. She explains how this process is quite necessary in order to grow our inner strength. By reinforcing positive feedback and experiences, we can improve our motivation and well-being (kinda wish this was done earlier).

Many people have received positive feedback and have had some great time in their lives that become overshadowed by the negatives. Having greater understanding of ourselves and being self-aware of these feelings happening in our minds can help us to find ways to enrich our lives, even if by a very small margin.

Are feedback good? Yes. They act as a mirror from which we can learn something from, whether it's our mistakes, flaws, etc. and can help us improve in the long run. It's the fixation on the negativity that damages us. In this sense, it's our human brain that really does the damage, not the feedback itself. On the light note, it's just being self-aware about vibe-checking every now and then to ensure good work and relationship habits. 

Now I need to end this blog before my non-stop philosophical rambling and excessive drowsiness sets in. Narcolepsy is just not fun to have.

Have a nice day.
Good night.

Game Brainstorm

Game Brainstorm

For game ideas, I have several and of different genres as well.

Each idea will require different amounts of work and expertise but I will provide these ideas regardless of scope.

Idea 1: First Person Shooter

With the introduction of Unity in this semester, I have a feeling that a FPS shooter will be a nice idea as it will require a 3D engine like Unity to run with the best optimal experience.

I have an idea for a zombie shooter on a small, open-world landscape where the player will need to scavenge resources, craft weapons to survive against a never-ending zombie horde. 

To make the game as easy to make as possible, corners will be cut in places such as graphics, polygon counts, model quality, etc. However, a simple player and gun model will do the job. For the zombies a replica of the player's model can be used except with a change of colour, either grey or green. For the different zombie types, we could just use size to differentiate them.

The inspiration of this idea is a mix of a few games, such as Ravenfield, a solid battlefield shooter and Unturned, a zombie survival shooter.

Ravenfield's Official Steam Poster  (game link)
A low-polygon, straight-forward simple battlefield shooter with huge team size on each side.
I remember last time I played it, there were 30 bots on both side.

Unturned's Poster in its Steam info page.
Another low-polygon game but with zombie survival in the mix.
A strong emphasis on PvE and PvP gameplay in the community.
Almost like Roblox but with zombies.

Many of the assets can be implemented on the Unity easily as they will all be in 3D mainly. There should also be some unique landmarks that offer the player some change in strategy when dealing with the zombies, eg. Bridge provide choke-points but will also trap the players on the bridge if they don't move fast. Hills are difficult to climb but can offer a high-ground where players can pick off zombies with ease.

In the end, it will be a simple run-and-gun, scavenger style zombie shooter with the survival element of COD Zombies to some degree.

Idea 2: A Dungeon-Crawler RPG

Do you like Role-Playing-Games?  Do you want more challenge in your garden-variety RPG? Then I have the solution for you!

An RPG game where you lead a band of your chosen units to go treasure hunting in dungeons.  There will be dungeons of various themes. For example, the first and easiest dungeon will be Undead themed, consisting of skeletons and zombies. The second dungeon being Forest themed, consisting of enemies like wolves and spiders that despite being similar to the Undead, will cause status effects like bleed and poison if you're not prepared.

The units you can recruit are split into classes. Like the usual: knights, thieves, mages and clerics. Also the unusual:bards, barbarians, necromancers, archer/gunners, etc. Each will provide a different tactic and strategy to use while each having strengths and weaknesses that you have to be mindful of.

The max amount of units you can bring with you is six and you can place them in various positions with different formations. On top of this they will all have equipment that you can either buy from shops or find in dungeons.

I have played a lot of games that probably has inspired me to come up with this idea. Such examples are Darkest Dungeons and Etrian Odyssey Dungeon series for the best comparison.

"If  we're all going to die, let's at least enjoy it." What a downer. -_-''
Darkest Dungeon is not forgiving in the slightest bit. It's a harsh, rogue-like,
dungeon-crawling game with a grim aesthetic throughout.
Play at your own discretion. (game link)

The game that's probably closer to my idea. Etrian Odyssey was known for its First Person Dungeon crawling style, but I like the Mystery Dungeon series just slightly better. A tile-based approach is a lot more player-friendly, design-wise.
'ALsO, iT Is in ANimE sTYle.'

 I want to make a dungeon crawler more akin to the mystery dungeon series, where players move through dungeon from a top-down view, with plenty of loot and classes to choose from. While also having unsuspecting scenarios which keep the stakes high. But until the idea has been finalized I will have to leave this idea be for the time being.



Idea 3: Anime Story Game RPG

Ok, hear me out. This is not one of those explicit pornographic games you see in the ads of some shady website where you wanted to download the Megamind Movie from. 
Do you recall the project we had for Shaun last year? A choice-based story with multiple endings? Well this is similar but with a slight twist.

Instead of it being text-based, it will be in a more RPG format where you are playing as a character and influencing his/her actions through different interactions and choices. Character art, sprites, scenarios, and background art and such is the aesthetics while the story itself is the content.

I have a story idea, about a fungal spore outbreak on a space station. Two couples have to find a way to escape the station unharmed while avoiding and fighting those affected by the spore outbreak. Depending on different scenarios, the ending will be entirely different, from the best of the best to the absolute worst.

Corpse Party on the PSP.
Anime? Yes.
Terrifying? Also yes.

Quite a horrifying game by itself. The supernatural, gore, horrific imagery. You name it, it has it. The multiple endings from the game come from its 'Game Over's where the characters meet their end in horrific ways.

The mechanics of the game itself is what inspired me to make a multiple-choice story in the first place. Because technically, the death of a character is the end of a story, these multiple ending stories can raise the stakes a bit.

The game's mechanic is entirely RPG-like, but it's only for interacting with the environment and such. Occasionally, a detailed picture of the scenarios will be displayed with all the horrific details implied, shown, or otherwise.

I wanted a story-based game, in RPG format, where the endings are affected by the survival of the characters, choices, consequences, etc. all in glorious Anime fashion. I can dream, can't I?



Idea 4: Dodgeball Game.

Yes. A dodgeball game. A dodgeball game to the DEATH!!!

Two teams of four will be standing on platforms, separated in the middle by a wide ditch. The only way to KO the opponent  is to actually KO them, by dropping their HP to 0. 
Each team member will have their own stats and skills, along with a special attack to unleash on their enemies. You can also freely change the team members to change your play-style.

You can throw, kick, even punch the ball to hit the enemies.
While dodging, jumping and catching the balls to avoid being hurt.

Once the entire team is downed, the team that survived wins.

There wasn't a particular game that inspired this idea, it was more or less a game 'mode'. In DOTA 2, the modding community made a custom map called Pudge Wars where one the playable characters called Pudge was the central focus of this game-mode. Two platforms, a ditch in the middle, two sides have to use their hooks to pull the other team to their side and kill them. The team can also help their friends using their hook to pull them back to safety. An interesting game-mode and great concept for a dodgeball video game.

Here is a link to a Youtube video of the gameplay of this mode: Dota 2 Custom Games - Pudge Wars
in case you want to see what it looks like. I hope I explained it the best I can.

This the simplest game idea I came up with (and probably the one I'm actually picking) and has the most bare-bone concept that I think will be fun to make.


That's all the idea I have came up with so far. I hope when the production phase of this project comes by that everyone will have fun making the game.

Thank you for reading.Have a nice day.

Unity Tutorial 1

Unity Tutorial 1

Tutorial One:
The basic of basics. Understanding how to move the camera, changing the perspective, etc.
Also learning how to bring in objects into the world and moving them about. All the standard things. No big deal.

Tutorial Two:
Here is where things become more engaging. In this tutorial we learn how to create landscapes using the brush tool and applying terrain effects such as smooth and jagged hills and mountains. Also applying texture to your brushes directly so you can paint your landscape directly, giving them much needed colour and natural feel (as much as Unity will offer with its limited texture).

Tutorial Three:
In this tutorial, we get to a few of the essential parts of game creation and that's terrain assets like trees and grass, player models and items and objects on the terrain we created. We also get a peek into the coding aspect of using C# on this software.

Doesn't look too bad, if I do say so myself.

I just remembered after uploading this image that I had to turn off an auto lighting to prevent my laptop from turning into an oven. This might result in Unity looking slightly off to some people. 

For the conclusion, Jimmy Vega's tutorials are decent in the way that it's clear, but the fact that these tutorials are for an older version of Unity and we have to use this version probably will pose some issues in the future. As long as no issue arise from the laptops or softwares, we should technically be fine.