Uploading our Project and Project Evaluation

 Itch.io -

ArtStation -


Research-

For the research section, I definitely think there were equal amounts of strengths and weaknesses throughout. In terms of strengths, I think my research into PEGI and target audience for our game was quite good, I tried to look into not only the age range, but who exactly would be playing our game, as well as looking into generally why its important to identify target markets in general.  For the art style benchmarks of our game I think you can really see the influence of monster prom and life is strange throughout, we tried to capture that bubbly and eye catching sprite style of monster prom that appeals to younger audiences whilst also incorporating the almost nostalgic, dreamy feel of life is strange into our game.  However for gameplay benchmarks, I realize I could have included some coverage of the game Class of '09 which was also made on Ren'py. I did bring it up briefly, explaining some details about the UI within the game, as I only thought it  necessary to look that aspect as opposed to the whole game due to the game's age rating and content being unsuitable for our game's age rating and generally nothing else about the game being beneficial to our game to research. I am also quite pleased with my research into GAD and SAD, I think I gathered a lot of information from reputable sources and it is my hope that I translated my findings into our game well. However, on this note, I will admit we didn't go too heavy into the topic of mental health. Personally, this came from fears of handling the subject poorly and in a way that could be interpreted as distasteful. Mental health issues wasn't really a topic I was personally too comfortable delving into, as I am not formerly diagnosed with any mental health issues I didn't want to accidentally misrepresent the topic through only researching medical websites, although I have my own experiences with anxiety [once again, this is not any sort of formal diagnosis] I don't know if implementing my perspective of what I think anxiety is in the game would be offensive to others. Although limited in our approach to the subject, I do feel happy with how we handled it and I we did get some positive feedback from people who do suffer with generalized anxiety disorder that we covered the subject very accurately.

Asset creation / Team job role -

For this project, I pushed myself to do something I'm not confident in, that being environment art. I figured I will never get better at this if I don't try, and I'm very glad I did decide to push myself out of my comfort zone. Throughout this project I learnt a lot and enjoyed trying something new at the same time. I built up my skills in 3D draw overs, lighting, texturing skills and also got to dip my toes back into coding which was actually really nice to get back into. I didn't realize how much I kind of missed the problem solving aspect and feel quite inspired to go on and make more visual novels in the future. I admit it was a bit frustrating to debug my code, but honestly it was rewarding to see it all come together in the end. I definitely have a lot to remember and learn, but I'm very proud of the work I did. Taking my teams ideas and putting them together was incredibly satisfying to see, I really hope they are as happy as I am and I hope I did their ideas justice. I think regarding asset creation, the pipeline went well, concept ideas given to concept artist, then passed on to myself and Niamh, implementing Nathan's script went well, and I tried my best to implement beta testers feedback well. I do think that I could improve on optimizing script, though I will learn from my errors in this project in the future. Finally when it came to time management, I'm glad I worked on this solidly throughout the year so that we could have a finished game, I didn't feel too overwhelmed at any point and I honestly quite enjoyed the process of making our game.

Teamwork -

When it comes to working in a team, I am going to be completely truthful, in my opinion I think we had a bit of a rocky beginning, there were issues with communication and understanding where we wanted to take this project. It was quite stressful and frustrating, however we rectified this through 
weekly meetings that helped us be clear with everyone's ideas for the game and what tasks we were going to be completing over the following week. This really improved towards end of the project, with everyone working well together, and getting work out on time. I will say though, I wish we had some way to track everyone's tasks, wish we used kanbans or the gantt chart I created, as I did still feel a bit left in the dark, I also wished there was a bit more communication from some members of our team over the discord. A big however though, I worry I took over the director role. I really wanted us to get a finished game out, I knew we could do it, and we discussed plans on doing it, but things weren't getting done. I wouldn't have minded if people had talked about this, yet again I felt really in the dark. I did not mean to come across as controlling or bossy, and I hope I haven't made a bad impression on my team, I wanted us all to make something we could be proud of and I think going forward I really do need to be more considerate of others, I feel pretty terrible about this. This project has given me a big opportunity to reflect on myself and how I treat others. It was never my intention to make others feel overworked or to dread this project, though looking back I think I might have been a bit too eager, I definitely will work on myself and improve on being a bit more chill when it comes to project work. Aside from this, I'm very glad I was given the opportunity to reach out to Amiya, its been nice to talk to others outside of our course and I think its good practice of being a client and keeping professional contact with people

Our game -

At the start of this project, I had a lot of fears of our game being quite unoriginal, though I must admit in the end i feel we did developed it into something more unique and immersive. We put the player in the shoes of the MC by having them remain mostly faceless and looking from their POV, it gave a closer feel to the game and a better look inside the mind of someone struggling with social and generalized anxiety. I also think that Niamh's suggestion of the custom name mechanic helped a lot in making our game feel more personal. I love our games art style, although inspired my monster prom, it feels unique to our IP. Overall I think our game has a unique feel and look which is almost quite dreamy and nostalgic. It feels  peaceful  to look at, even if the topics are somewhat stressful,, which in turn helps those who suffer from anxiety feel more comforted when playing our game. We got a lot of good reviews, lots of people who played it had very little negative things to say, and the constructive feedback we did get, I tried to implement as much as possible. On the promotion front, we got a lot of good interaction on Instagram, even with a small following on my account, a lot of my followers seemed interested in our game. Artstation & itch,io have proven to be good sites to promote our game, excited to release the final game [hopefully get everything fully finished for submission]. Overall, I'm very proud of what we made, I think we worked well in the end and came together to make something really great.

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