Today I submit my various items of work for DE4106. Slightly unsure how to submit all the items, so to keep things simple, I have decided to keep everything in one place on my blog (seeing as all of the work is linked anyway). I have added tags and made the titles reflect the submission pieces. I hope this okay..!
Existing and Intended Areas of Research
Looking back on the research and work I have carried out so far I can compare this to the key areas of research I set out in my Learning Agreement:
- Current Exploration games, and the design rationale and methodology behind them. An analysis of these games and a reflection of the designers in terms of success compared to what they set out to achieve.
- Partially done- Although I have been looking at various Exploration games and attempting to gather insights into the rationale and approaches behind their designs, I have not posted a specific set of blog posts for each case-study. This is something I may very well do so that it is easier to compare the design of these games in a single location.
- Current game design fundamentals, including rationale.
- I have begun to cover this in a good amount of detail through my Designer Guidelines segment (I prefer this to the term 'User Guide'). You can find this elsewhere on my blog. I will continue to add to, and develop this as the project progresses.
- In turn, investigate how most practicing designers would approach a Exploration game if they were tasked to make one. Main considerations should include their perceptions of the genre and what they consider to be important factors/ components when making a game of this type.
- I have started to explore this through my Practitioner Questionnaires and associated interviews. This is something that I can continue to investigate once I open up the model to game designers who are interested in developing prototypes based on the design model. As part of this, potentially I can also attempt to develop my own prototype(s) in order to compare and contrast my work to theirs.
- Toy design fundamentals, as products that are designed to invoke emotional responses in those who use them. This should include key emotional triggers such as exploration, empowerment etc.
- This is an area of research that I still need to investigate further. As I begin to move towards the game prototype stage, I will begin to research how to design a product that intends to trigger emotional responses and subsequent connections with the user. In theory, if the findings of this research are implemented into the design of the prototypes that are created, this should help them to deliver a more powerful / meaningful game-play experience. This is something that I can then include as part of my design model.
- How games can invoke emotions depending on content and game play?
- I have already started to consider this in the research I have carried out. However, this is an area that can be explored in far greater depth than I have currently covered. Testing prototypes that are designed to invoke emotional responses will provide the most valuable feedback I can obtain in this area.
- The psychological differences between work and play and how this effects how experiences are perceived.
- An area of research that I am aware of through the research carried out in my Literature Review, but that I now need to consciously include in my practice.
- How players perceive Exploration games as game play experiences. In what way(s) they appeal to the player and the rationale behind this?
- I have started to look at how Game Designers, as players of these types of games, perceive them as game play experiences. A wider field of research can be carried out here before and after prototypes are made that are designed using the principles and guidelines set out in the model.
Areas of Practice and Development - What I Have So Far and What I Intend To Do Next
As previously mentioned, before I can get to the business of game development, I have had to begin to use the research I have gathered to inform the creation of a Designer Guidelines document to Exploration games, in order to inform the designs of the games that are to be developed. This is still very much a work-in-progress and will evolve as I entwine practical game design and development later on in the project. So far I have created a general breakdown of the various game elements, but have tailored the description and explanation of these towards Exploration games. In addition, I have considered how best to visually represent my game design model. I have started to create basic flow charts and mind-maps as two possible ways in which I can achieve this. From the work I have carried out so far, I believe a visual diagram alone will be insufficient to convey the large amount of information required to the game designer. This informed the necessity to accompany the diagram with the designer guidelines I am currently creating. Ultimately, the format of the game design model will be dictated through its use by Game Designers: if it is not user-friendly it will have to be re-designed so that it becomes user-friendly.
Once the basic model has been constructed, I can then begin to use it to draw up a summarised (or extended) set of guidelines for use on short game development projects (ie. Prototypes developed at Game Jams or prototypes developed collaboratively over a slightly longer period of time than Game Jams permit). As part of this, and to develop my own practice as a designer, I intend to become more familiar with the level design and scripting elements of game engines. I intend to focus on the recently released Unreal Engine 4 as my engine of choice as it appears the most powerful and flexible with its new Blueprint visual scripting element. Other engines that are noteworthy are UE4's predecessor UE3, as well as Unity 3D.
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| Fig 1. Epic Game's latest game engine, Unreal Engine 4 (Epic Games, 2014)
Reference
Fig 1. GiantBomb.com, 2014: Unreal Engine 4 (Epic Games, 2014) [Image] [Online]
Available at: http://www.giantbomb.com/images/1300-2231753
[Accessed on 5th May 2014]
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