final presentation and research presentation

Final Evaluation

My projects concept was a third person, horror shooting game, centred around zombies.

 

I developed my idea by looking at similar games and seeing how they made their game scarier and more contextually accurate. I also looked a lot at third person shooter game – horror or not – in order to study the physics and logic behind actual gameplay so I could incorporate this into my game.

 

Planning:

To plan for this project, I researched production phases and tutorials to be able to create my game, I also researched games similar to the one I made in order to see the target audience, the things the games have that make them good or bad. I also researched reviews on certain games to see these opinions. I also made a to-do list, a research plan, and a pitch.

 

 

My project followed my plan very closely. My genre and game type stayed the same, I made a horror zombie third person shooter game like I planned, although the setting changed from a city landscape to a forest landscape to add more horror detail and things that were not planned such as the gender, look and style of my main character were decided in the process of designing her. My zombie style stayed the same and so did everything else.

 

I think my plan would have gone more smoothly if I had used a character that came with a gun, it would have saved time for me trying to attach a gun to my character and get the coding right for it to shoot.

 

I found coding the enemy to die when health is lost extremely hard, I couldn’t get it right. I also found getting the animation tree correct difficult but with some research I got it right. Another thing I found difficult was getting the camera in the right position and to follow correctly.

 

 

 

I found designing my main character and the zombie very easy as adobe Fuse was easy to use, I also found scripting the player movement script easy. Another thing I found easy was creating the setting, which was also quite fun.

 

 

Research:

I researched the target audience for my game and games similar to mine, what made them good and what made them bad, I played a few and saw what I liked and disliked as I am part of my target audience (teens and young adults who like games), I also looked at various art works of zombies and tried to recreate something similar with my zombie character and even did some rough sketches of ideas.

 

I used this to help me with designing my characters:https://characterdesignreferences.com/

This for game reviews and similar games:

https://store.steampowered.com/genre/Free%20to%20Play/#p=0&tab=ConcurrentUsers

this for information about methods, processes and designing my game:

https://unity3d.com/learn/tutorials

 

 

and I used the ‘building a game with unity and blender book’

 

my main source was this YouTube series:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sLAyey2WDyc&list=PLB5_EOMkLx_Wa0sRby_krVpglLS7IYH3_

 

The YouTube tutorial series was good because it gave me a lot of direction and help with coding and where to go next. The character design website was really helpful as I used it as reference when designing my characters.

 

The book and the unity tutorials were not good because I didn’t need them and they didn’t give me information I needed.

 

 

 

 

Production:

To create my game, I used Unity for Mac, I also used the internet and YouTube for research purposes.

 

I started by downloading the assets I would need, designing and animating my characters, I then, with a simple plane as my ground, got my player moving, attached to a shooting gun, my zombie chasing her and attacking and that’s when I added in the forest scene where I added trees, water, buildings and got my game to spawn zombies in random places and to restart when she died.

 

I couldn’t attach my gun to my player, I couldn’t spawn zombies at a normal rate and I couldn’t get my game to restart after playing the death animation, so I researched on YouTube and the Unity website in order to fix these problems, apart from the start over issue where I just made it so the animation didn’t play but the game start over as soon as her health got to 0.

 

3 things that went well were:

• The designing part of my charcters
• Animating my characters
• And getting my camera to follow her properly

 

3 things that went badly were:

• Spawning my zombies
• Restarting the game
• Getting my character to shoot

 

To improve my game I could’ve added a better skybox, made the plane bigger, added levels and animated her dying.

 

Post Production:

I used Unity to create my game and uploaded it directly to the college website.

I exported my project to my USB from Local Storage so I could upload it to the website.

 

Overall:

Is it a successful piece of work, why?

I think it’s a successful piece of work because it’s a working shooter game which followed most of my guidelines from the beginning and I’m happy with the final work.

Three things I am proud of are:

• My coding work
• The direction I learned for game building
• Making a game I’ve never made before

 

Three things I’d do differently are:

• Set my setting as something simple from the beginning
• Not focus so much on the art
• Explore the different, quicker, options for doing the same things I did.

how to make a gameplay youtube video

In order to make a gameplay YouTube video I’ll follow some advice from this video (mainly the advice on sound and voice). I also need to record my gameplay from my screen using software installed on my PC. As I play I’ll be recording my face with a camera and voice with a microphone and after editing both different sets of footage using Premiere, I will sync them and layer my face recording over the gameplay but smaller and more into the corner. Whilst gaming I’ll need to talk about the game analytically.

Some examples of YouTuber’s who do this are:

Pewdiepie

 

Shroud

 

and Throneful even has a video of GTA V which is what I want to record

The new Mortal Kombat 11 also has some interesting new fatalities that I will be using as research when destroying zombies in my game

Audience Research

Most popular third person shooter games:

• Hitman
• GTA V
• PUBG
• Rise of the Tomb Raider
• Just Cause 3
• The evil within 3
• Assassins Creed
• Resident Evil
• Gears of war

 

GTA V

GTA V has made more money than any film, book or game. It made $6 billion since being released and has sold over 90 million units. It was made available first on the PS3 and Xbox 360, then the PS4, Xbox One and finally on Microsoft Windows. The game is rated 18 but most of the players are actually underage and the game is targeted towards them. The game is also overly sexualised, and even has a stripper club where you can get a lap dance. This content targets the game at teenage boys, aged around 13-18. In fact almost 80% of buyers were male when the game was first released. The game has a very varied audience based on class, as GTA includes environments of all kinds, suburban, rich, high class and lower class so the locations are relatable and enjoyable for more people.

 

GTA V Trailer Analysis

The music used juxtaposes the action which makes it so the trailer isn’t overdone with crime. The use of best scenes from the game and cuts of the storyline make it so people want to play the game for both the action and the storyline. We are introduced to the 3 main characters but not told how they are connected (except for Trevor and Michael) so viewers are interested to see how Franklin comes into play. The trailer also doesn’t look like a game trailer but an action genre movie one instead, which makes it more targeted to people who enjoy action movies, like teenagers and young adults.

 

GTA V Advertisement

In 2011, Rockstar tweeted a link to its GTA V website and shortly after released the trailer causing over 3 million pre-orders of the game. Rockstar also made a parody website of FaceBook called ‘Life Invader’ for GTA V that players could access in real life and in GTA V. The accessibility of this social network site promotes sharing of the game and gives the players a platform on which they can share their actual interests and interact. The use of a parody social media site promise the game to social media users, aka teenagers and young adults.

 

 

Resident Evil

Resident Evil (known as ‘Biohazard’ in Japan) is a multi media franchise, composed of comics, movies, games, animations, novels and audio dramas. The story is about an outbreak of zombies and other monsters and is a survival horror genre game which is what I am hoping to create hence why I’m researching it. When the remake was released in 2002 critics praised its improved graphics and overall gameplay and it’s often describes as one of the scariest and most visually impressive game in the series.

 

Resident Evil Trailer Analysis

This trailer includes key gameplay from the game from a different perspective, giving us a taste of what the gameplay is actually like. Almost like watching a horror movie trailer, similar to the GTA trailer, this one tries to grab horror movie fans attention and makes viewers wonder what a fresh perspective of the gameplay will actually be like, as it’s definitely going to be scarier. This trailer targets older teenagers and young adults as it’s a genre more enjoyed by that group.

 

Resident Evil Advertisement

The marketing and production team of Resident Evil realise that their original players got older when newer versions of the game were released which means that less of the original players are still playing. Due to this the marketing needs to be constantly developed for newer, younger viewers as, according to pew research centre, most video game players are white men aged 18-29 so the marketing needs to be filtered to this group. In order to do this Capcom have decided to start marketing to younger people by partnering with fashion brands as well as opening a ‘scare zone’ in a theme park in Japan and opening a bar and grill restaurant in Japan.

 

 

Bibliography

Linhnamiz. (2016). Grand Theft Auto V and its advertising campaign.Available: https://mpk732t12016clusterb.wordpress.com/2016/05/09/grand-theft-auto-v-and-its-advertising-campaign/. Last accessed 03/04/2019 .

cap com database . (n/a). Resident Evil (2002). Available: https://capcom.fandom.com/wiki/Resident_Evil_(2002). Last accessed 03/04/2019.

Brown, A . (2017). Younger men play video games, but so do a diverse group of other Americans. Available: https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/09/11/younger-men-play-video-games-but-so-do-a-diverse-group-of-other-americans/. Last accessed 03/04/2019 .

Sarkar, S. (2013). Capcom explains how it markets Resident Evil to grow its audience. Available: https://www.polygon.com/2013/12/27/5248936/capcom-resident-evil-marketing-growing-the-audience. Last accessed 03/04/2019 .

FMP production documents

Concept art:

 

projected timeline:

 

character descriptions:

 

setting research:

user interface:

FMP pitch

Concept Art (characters)

zombies

distinctive features:

• hollow eyes
• cracked skin
• dead expression/expressionless
• green/blue
• blood
• missing parts (no nose, teeth etc)

reference:

drawing:

reflection:

I need to work on my angles and proportions (e.g the eyes are too small and so is the mouth)

 

reference:

Drawing:

reflection:

I like the fact that I made him look more angry and more like he was roaring, I could use some improvement on the neck placement and sharpness of the teeth. Also using a pencil so I can erase the sketch lines.

 

reference:

drawing:

reflection:

I’m very proud of this drawing although something quite so detailed probably will not be able to become digitalised easily but i will attempt to create something close to it.

 

From this work I’ve learned what I need to improve on and some of the key features included in zombie art.

 

 

 

 

Bibliography:

n/a. (2018 ). how to draw zombies . Available: https://www.wikihow.com/Draw-Zombies. Last accessed 25/03/2019.

d1m4xd . (2017). demon dog . Available: https://www.paigeeworld.com/post/5a216182ba938e1b0f69357d/demon-dogs-demondog-penart-scary-drawing-by-d1m4xd. Last accessed 25/03/2019 .

FMP research plan

Reflection

Overall I think my research plan includes extensive examples of research methods which will effectively help my develop my own ideas and will greatly improve my ability to physically create my game. It gives me a clear layout of what I need to do and the timeframe I need to stick to.

FMP proposal