BA2a - Week 4 Summary

> (CS) Creating Coherant Worlds Lecture

> Creating UI (Session) > Pitching my Game (Presentation) > Creating my Game (Stage 1)

(CS) Creating Coherant Worlds Lecture

First Lecture Summary

>History and contextual references behind a game

> History of Entertainment and Amusement

> Boardgames, theme parks

> Illusary Worlds

Digital games and transmedia storytelling

How things are connected

Analytical research

Children have a lot of imagination, making the mundane into fantastical worlds.

For example, playing with cardboard boxes. Making small spaces seem large, like playing with lego.

Topics Covered

Charles Dickens

Began his writing career in the 1800's.

He wrote stories/a novel in a monthly/weekly format, and modified plot/character development through feedback. Also represented topical events within his writing.

Lean management structure!

'Building Imaginary Worlds' - Mark (Book) 'fantasy realms, allure, conjuring new wonders'

Circus Charlie

Direct connection to entertainment

Circus theme, looking at bright colour schemes, references

Gameplay mechanics linking to circus amusements and entertainment.

Kingdom Hearts

Collaboration between Square Enix and Disney.

Links with the original story of 'Pinocchio' by Carlo Colodi (1883)

Redesigned by Disney.

Artificial Intelligence (Movie) directed by Steven Spielberg also takes reference from the original story of Pinocchio and incorporates a similar looking 'Blue Fairy' which can be seen towards the end of the Disney movie.

Bioshock Infinite

Environment Concept Art - Similar to Dreamland, Coney Island, 1904 - 1912.

American culture 'the perfect 4th July'

What to think about:

How did people in the past entertain themselves before video games? Example Essay question: How does the video game 'Kingdom Hearts', link the history of Pinocchio in its narrative?

Creating UI (Session)

In yesterdays taught session at university, we learnt how to create a working user interface in Unreal Engine. This included a health and stamina bar which would regenerate over time, as well as ammo and ammo box pick-ups.

I ended up documenting my process through a lot of screenshots, so then I could go back and repeat what I did if needed in the future. I then condensed them into these almost 'tutorial' -like images, showing the finished blueprints for a section and the steps I took to create them.

Pitching my Game (Presentation)

Today we had to present our game ideas to the rest of the group, including the tutors. These are all the slides I used as well as quick notes explaining what I mentioned while presenting. Overall my feedback was positive which was great, as well as recieving some great points to work on within my final 'Pitch Document'! To begin with I felt that it may have been quite difficult to explain, considering it's quite different and not easy to categorize like a side-scroller/third person/first person shooter e.t.c; but I'm glad that people seemed to understand what the game was! Additional feedback is mentioned at the bottom of the slides.

Slide 1 Notes:

> Title of my game: Steam Captains

> Steampunk Canon Shooter

Slide 2 Notes:

> Gameplay as well as what the player will see

> Rough draft I have put together > 4 Canons at the bottom of the screen with different functions (fire, water, hook e.t.c)

> Use the mouse to point and click different ships and items

> Destroy evil ships and save friendly ships

> You have your own captain which has a special ability and cooldown

> Each level is timed and you will recieve a score for each ship you save/destroy

Slide 3 Notes: > How the player will interact with the game

> The layout for each screen

Slide 4 Notes: > Basically explaining what the slide says

Feedback: > When creating my final pitch document, always use typed font instead of hand writing it.

> Don't worry too much about the context of the ship movement, as visually it will look the same!

Creating my Game (Stage 1)

Trajectory and Canon Movement

After a long time of searching, I finally found a tutorial for the mouse movement which would link perfectly with my game!

UE4 Projectile Trajectory Tutorial : Part1 by Mhousse1247 on YouTube

(In this post I have completed all 4 parts of his Trajectory tutorial)

Short Overview of this Stage (before my process):

1. Blueprints and Creating the Beam

2. Creating the Alpha and making it Visible

3. Changing the Offset and Setting the Scene

Problems:

Ball wouldn't hit the target due to the values being incorrect.

> Changed the Intial local velocity from 1500 to 4000 fixed the problem. By increasing these numbers, the ball now hits the target due to the additional force. The values I had set previously were from following the tutorial where he shot at a shorter distance.

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