Explain your approach to the THEME, how does your final product link to the THEME.
I wanted to approach the theme subtly, and I featured the theme by making the overarching theme appear in the game world, for example, in the first cutscene being ‘forgotten’ is mentioned, and the fact that the player is trying to remind the NPC villagers of the forgotten legend of the hero.
Another way it links to forgotten is that in the game, the villagers have to live without light and water, that way they won’t be able to preform photosynthesis so they’re struggling, forgotten and left to die underground whilst the weeds spread and kill in the
world above them, their village is forgotten by the humans therefore the weeds are not being taken care of and they need to deal with the weeds them self, the villagers are unaware of the legend, which the players need to tell them.
Another way I linked it to forgotten is that in the UI of the game, the dialogue box looks very worn and torn, I done this so that it looks as if the story which the player is playing
through is in the past and is written down on books which will be remember in times to come, another piece of art which links to forgotten is
in the first cutscene, the image of the legend which scrolls across the screen.
Another way the UI links to forgotten is the player icons, as they have ivy and weed growing up the board around them.
I thought this would be a really nice touch since they’re all representing different plants so the weeds which are growing around their boarders represent that they’re plants in the village which is being taken over.
I also feel like this makes a nice finishing touch to the boarders other then them being boring green boarders around the player.
Compare your proposal to your final product.
This is my proposal for my final project, and I feel as if I stuck to the concept very well
since the game’s story has stayed pretty much the same from the above, the little changed which I have done is I now have the villagers live under the ground, and I have also got a huge portion of the game referencing the hero in my final piece and the proposal didn’t mention this, but the whole concept of the game stayed the same with the weeds taking over the flower’s village, and the flowers having to fight against the weeds to destroy them, one thing which I haven’t implemented into my game yet would be the bees and the butterflies helping the flowers defeat the evil weeds, but that will be put into the game later on afterwards in my own time.
What stayed the same, and what was different?
- The overarching theme
The overarching theme of the plant’s village being invaded by evil weeds, sucking up the water and blocking out the sunlight for the flowers and plants has stayed the same through out the planning, the weeds being the common enemy of the player stayed, and the players being personified flowers remained.
- The character ideas
The character ideas of the 3 main characters remained, they’re all flowers which personalities relate to flowers which are real, when I was planning I hadn’t decided on what flowers I wanted, but I knew I wanted the characters personalities to be based off of what the actual flowers are like.
- Animation on UI
I didn’t really have much planned out for this one, but I know I wanted to have some sort of animation on my User Interface of my game, and that’s what I did.
- Scene focus
In my original planning, I planned to focus just on the first level scene to make it perfect, but then later on in later planning, I decided I wanted to have a start menu and an options menu and a first level, but during my actual development, I ended up having a start menu, a cutscene, a first level, and a dungeon, which was a lot different then both of my planning.
- Focus on UI
In my original planning, I wanted to heavily focus on the UI of the game and just leave the functions of the game behind and compensate by my game looking good aesthetically but perhaps not preforming the best, but throughout development I changed this and adjusted my focus so most of it would be programming the game to work and the rest of my focus would be on how the game looks.
- Energy/Stamina Bar
In original planning, I planned to have a working energy/stamina bar which would get
refilled whenever the player would enter a puddle of water or sunlight, although this is a good idea, I never got it implemented in time, I instead have a static bar which is just there for looks.
- Bee/Butterfly companion
In my original planning, I planned to have bee/butterfly companions to follow the player, like an army which would go and help attack the enemy weeds, I still think this is a good idea, but I never got around to implementing it.
- Weather meter
I originally planned to have a weather system in my game which would either benifit the player in someway or give them a disadvantage, it would be completely random, I wanted, for example, the rain to help them grow but with the lack of sunshine it doesn’t help too much, and if the player is overground whilst it is sunny, they would beable to preform photosynthesis, which makes their attacks stronger, but, if they stay in the sunshine for too long, they will begin to burn, and this would decrease their health, I still think this is a good idea but I never got around to implementing it.
- Pollen
I originally planned to have a pollen system, this would be similar to coins, the player collects chunks of pollen and trades them for bees and butterflies to help them fight off the weeds, or you use the pollen to buy health and stamina potions.
- Options Bar
I originally planned to have an options section in my game but I never got around to implementing it, but I would’ve done so if I had time.
- Colours of the game
I originally planned the game to use green colours, but in the end, it all ended up being purple colours.
Why did it stay the same? OR why did it change?
- The overarching theme
The overarching theme stayed the same because I thought it was a good idea, and was unique, it was also fun to work with since there is lots you can do, this theme is somewhat easy to link to the actual theme of forgotten as you can say multiple things, for example, how the plants were left and forgotten because people forget about nature these days, another way it can link to forgotten is that the characters are stuck underground.
I also thought the concept of the idea can go further, I will be further working on this game in my own time.
The pros of this is that it is a creative, unique, expandable idea, but the cons of this is that the game has to remain related to plants, I don’t know too much about plants so I had to do alot of research on them.
- The character ideas
The character ideas stayed the same because I thought the concept of the characters
being personalised flowers was good and creative, I got this idea from @Sillvi_Illustrations on instagram, she would characterise objects, for example, fizzy drinks and resturants, so I done this myself with flowers, which allows me to have unique characters.
The pros of this is that it makes making unique characters easy to make, but the cons of this is that they’re not properly embedded into my game yet as full fleshed ‘characters’.
- Animation on UI
The idea for having animation on my UI stayed since I think UI looks boring if it’s just there, not doing anything, animation for UI makes the game look more appealing.
The pros of this is that I learnt a bit more about how animation in Unity works, but the cons is that I still struggle with the animation tool, but I’m learning, another con is deciding what animation I want, sometimes I want my animation to be flashy, but I don’t know how exactly I would achieve that.
- Scene focus
The scene focus changed since I had many changes of mind throughout the games production, but most of my focus was on the first level.
The pros of this is that I made level 1 look really good! And all the scenes interlace with each other. But the cons of this is that my other scenes are lacking.
- Focus on UI
My focus on UI changed because I wanted to challenge myself with programming, and I’m really glad I did since I’ve learnt a lot more, and achieved more then I planned, another reason I’m glad is that it had opened my eyes more to programming, and I’ve figured out that I really like it, and I should pursue down this path if I can, the cons of this is that the UI isn’t as flashy as I planned, but the pros is that there is lots of different functions!
- Energy/Stamina Bar
I thought I would have another bar next to the health bar in my game but I ended up not putting it into the game due to lack of time, I feel like it would be something easy to implement, but the thing I need to think about would be what the bar would be? If it’s a stamina bar, if it’s a EXP bar, if it’s a kill count bar, if it’s a water bar, if it’s a pollen count bar ETC. The pros of this is that I can easily implement this later on, the cons is that I have no idea what the bar would be on and would need to work on my game a bit more before I figure out what the bar would be on.
- Bee/Butterfly companion
I still wanted to implement this into my game, but I never had the time to, I still want to put it in the game but it would be after the project finishes. - The pros of this idea is that it is creative and unique, and allows the player to feel accompanied be the bees and the butterflies on their journey to defeat all the weeds.
- Weather meter
The reason I haven’t got this in my game YET is that I think something along this level would be far to complicated for my level of knowledge of programming, but I feel as if it’s something I can work on later, and I still think it is a good idea.
A weather system would effect a lot of things during the game, so I think it’s a good idea to make the weather system as early as I can when I get back to producing the game in my spare time, the reason for doing it early is because I would need to adjust a lot of things like the EXP bar and how enemies react etc.
- Pollen
I never got around to doing this since I’ve been focusing more on the functions and UI of level 1, this would be fairly simple to put into my game, as I would make it similar to some sort of collecting coins, but instead of coins the currency is pollen, which makes the game more immersive since it is set around gardens and plants, this idea isn’t going to change.
- Options Bar
I never got around to doing this since I’ve been focusing more on the functions and UI of level 1, I don’t think I made a bad choice by deciding to focus on the first level as I need a level which looks good for presentation, so I think focusing on Level 1 was a good idea so I can make it look good.
- Colours of the game
The reason this has changed is because it was last minute decisions, I thought the game would be green and planty, but it ended up being purple due to aesthetic purposes, it looked better being purple then green, so I stuck with purple, perhaps the game could be like A Link To The Past, how the colours of the game change due to what world you’re in.
Reflect on your research and how it informed/changed the development of your final idea.
- Programming
My research helped me a lot since I didn’t have knowledge on most things programming related, so using Unity Documentation to guide me really helped me understand how programming works and how I can implement certain functions into my game, another way research has helped me is it’s helped me understand a few more things Unity related, for example, how to use the Post-Processing Unity plugin, which in my opinion, made my game look better, it’s like putting a filter over my game to make it look nicer, another thing which research helped me with is lighting in 2D games, I now know how materials work in Unity and how to get lighting to work, and this has made my game look better.
- Art
My research on plants and flowers has really helped me
understand how my characters personalities would be like, for example, Cirnum Macowanii, a medical flower from Africa, this information on the flower has already helped me structure a good character, this person could be a healer.
My research on health bars helped me as well as I wanted the game to have health bars which look good and relate to my theme, research of health bars helped me come up with ideas on how I wanted the health bar to be laid out.
How well did you manage your time? What methods did you use to manage your project? Explain answers.
We got recommended to stick to the week-by week planning we did on our proposal, but in the end, I never managed to do that, because I feel as if I work in a different way, what I did instead was I made a Trello board of everything I need to get done, and then ticked off each one when I got it done, so I done whatever one I felt like doing that day, whether it be working on my UML diagram or working on programming or art, this made me work quicker and made it feel more successful when the checkboxes were almost all ticked off.
I also feel like using Trello is a good idea as you can write down every little bit of work you need to get done and go through each and every one of them.
What skills did you use?
The skills I used in this unit would be my programming skills, my art skills and my determination!
I needed to stay determined to get my work done throughout my project and thats what I
did, although at the start I didn’t have much programming skills, I’ve learnt a lot throughout the way, and doing this for my final project has really opened my eyes on what I want to do in the future, I used my art skills to make sure the game looked good, like the health bars and sprites and my presentation boards.
What problems did you face?
The problems I faced throughout my project was issues with my game not functioning, but this was a quick fix as the console in Unity really helped me fix my problems as it tells you whats wrong and how to fix it.
Other problems I come by were stuff like my headshots not looking good enough, so I was remaking them again and again until I’m happy, and eventually I made one which I’m happy with.
Other problems I came across were productivity problems, I feel as if I could’ve produced a lot more work, but instead I worked at a slow pace.
What have you learnt during this project? What would you do differently?
I’ve learnt so much about how to use Unity, I’m comfortable with using it now, and I know lots of new tips and tricks which I didn’t know before, I’ve also learnt more about scene transitions in Unity, animation in unity and how to make a UML diagram!
If I were to do anything different, I would ditch the week-by-week plan and have a checklist of everything that needs doing, another thing I would do is ditch all the extra stuff which took up time it didn’t need to, like the dungeon in my game, since it isn’t fully functional and there’s no point in it at the moment.
Reflect on peer and tutor feedback.
Peer Review 1
This is my first peer review and it shows me that I need to pay more attention to my mind map section of my game, and I know exactly what I need to do to improve my mind map since my peer review has stated that I should link all of them together but only one ones in the areas which I like.
Act on peer feedback 1
Peer Review 2
This is my 2nd peer review, it shows me that I should focus more on test programs, prototypes and colour ideas.
Act on peer feedback 2
Peer Review 3
This is my final peer review, I also got some review back from my tutor Rob saying that I should add more combat to my game, so I’m going to work on that now, I’m going to get my enemies to attack and I’m going to state that the version of the game is a sandbox version in my final piece so people know it isn’t a fully finished game.
Act On Peer Feedback 3
- Audio issue
I fixed the audio issue with the villager as you talked with them, previously before, the LetterFX sound resumed when the audio box was closed, and this was a really simple fix I just needed to add a LetterFX.mute = true/false bool to the sections of my Dialogue Manager.
- Cut scene issue
And to fix the cut scene issue, all I done is shortened the animation so it would be faster at the beginning.
I’m not sure I like this change, as it feels faster and less atmospheric, then I realized my issue, perhaps I need a longer image to show more content as the story goes on, perhaps a fade in to the paper already being on the page and then going along as the dialogue progresses.
- Exit button for dungeon
For this exit button I didn’t want a straight up exit button in the corner of the screen to exit the dungeon, I wanted the player to collide with an object in the scene to be sent back to the entrance for the dungeon.
Since my dungeon isn’t fully functional yet, I was thinking, I’ll add this collider, but later on in the games development, the collider will be enabled when you beat the final boss in the dungeon.