Context & Research

Website Assessment Task

For this task, we were asked to assess each website's quality and decide whether it deserved a distinction, merit, or a pass grade. Most of the critiques for the websites, came down to a lack of blogging, and coherency within it, for example the second one down, which had the grade of a pass. This was due to the publisher having dyslexia, which resolved in some hard to understand moments of blogging, yet it was impressive to see them push the boundaries of what can be done with limited SPaG ability, and it goes to show how you can achieve incredible feats even with a mental disability, which is inspiring.

After talking the grade reasoning over with Frazer, the major reason for good grading was down to relevant and consistent blogging that made the path for the final product that much more clear. This was found during the 3rd website, belonging to Leo Mundin, who made extensive efforts to blog about every aspect of his work, with convincing reasoning behind each work, that accurately depicted the choices for the final piece. This heavily persuades me into having more compelling research that relates to my personal past experiences, and how these will play into the development of my game.

A few people were more critical on certain aspects of my game, with animations, and the replay value having a majority of the 'Okay' votes. This was due to the level not having a complete ending, and overall not being as interesting as many other platformers, yet it still got an average rating, and the animations were slightly janky and my player model didn't have a fuller range of flexibility, and my ladybugs only rotated in one direction without much dynamicity, which would've been a better outcome.

Primary Research - Survey

To help gather information and more ideas based around my game's prospect, I wanted to make a survey to get inclusions from people in my class who have previously been players of platformers. These questions have been tailored so that the answers will directly translate to decisions made in my production phase, as I am yet to have concrete ideas myself.

I got around 5-6 responses on each question, and as these responses are from games developers themselves, it will make the ideas even more valuable, and will give me a good idea on how people who play these types of games want the game to be.

In the first question, I asked to the people who viewed my pitch what they thought of the game itself and if they could see it become a fully realised idea. Cody W spoke about having an interesting environment, and overall an interactive environment to make the game stand out among the sometimes repetitive and formulaic. I definitely want to have an 'examination' feature (where you can interact with objects and cause text to pop up/ an animation to play). But overall, my game seems to be a solid idea from the group.

The second question was more focused around gaining ideas for what I wanted my collectable item to be, as I was debating a few ideas at this point. The fruit suggestion was inspired by Crash Bandicoot, and relates nicely to the idea of a bird protagonist. However, I'm in a slight dilemma of keeping the game thematically accurate, with a bird eating fruit, or having it more true to the conventional stars/ coins of popular platformers. I may add alternate types of collectables, in order to dissolute this issue, and to add more variety in the game.

(mood board from previous project)

(Wumpa fruit - Crash Bandicoot)

(Power Moon - Super Mario Odyssey)

(Chaos Emerald - Sonic franchise)

The third question was used to gain an insight into what people find most important in a platformer game, or which mechanic to get done in Unreal first, as I'm not too great at that yet, and saving time will be essential during the production phase. Sprinting was a given winner for me, and will allow for more skilful parkour and has been used in platformers for years, so its nice to see people agree on that. The gliding mechanic is something I really want to implement, as it allows for intricate secrets and ease for exploration. I would also love to combo this with the highly picked vote of 'Double Jump', where after you double jump, you will have the ability to glide.

(gliding with Rayman's hair - Rayman Legends)

For this question, I was looking for games to get inspiration for, and to open my eyes further to the genre of platformers, as there is a lot of unique ideas out there that have been fully realised. The overwhelming majority mentioned Mario, so I will definitely be researching that to a heavy degree. I really like challenging platformers, like Super Meat Boy, however I don't want that to be the main draw away from my own game (it will be slightly included), as the collect-a-thon aspect is more important for the environment I want to create. Crash Bandicoot is too linear for the game I want to make, and a few others are 2D platformers, but have interesting aspects, like Celeste's wall sliding and the bubble things that you can bounce across.

(wall climbing - Celeste)

This question is the most helpful out of this bunch in terms of giving me solidarity in my environmental design, which is going to be the biggest challenge to face out of everything. Including cliffs will require a bigger landscape I feel, so I will try to include one section when you scale a cliff in the level, or a vertical parkour section with rocky platforms. I look forward to including trees as a higher plane of platforms that will give you a nice overview of the surrounding area, and maybe a tree big enough to have a level segment inside of it, which is also how I would approach implementing a cave section too. Destroyed building will be an interesting inclusion, but I will probably leave this on the back end of important things to model. But the bushes I want you to be able to walk through and to have hidden collectables inside of too, which seems to me, a very simple addition.

(Cliffside collectables - Banjo-Kazooie - Mumbo's Mountain)

This question was used to help me research different types of birds and figure out which one I could model, and look at each ones characteristics. A crow or a robin like bird is what I can easily visualise as the protagonist in my game, and would be my first choice. I think a seagull or a penguin is kind of uninteresting and wouldn't make sense for the type of forest-y based level I am making, but I think a chicken would be a goofy and fitting protagonist for this kind of game. The kakapo looks like a mascot for a game already, so this was a nice suggestion, and would be a cool one to look into and maybe draw concept art for.

(Kakapo)

The suggestion about insect collectables having a different effect based on which insect I pick up is really interesting, but I don't intend on having power-ups unless you include gliding, which could be attained by eating a butterfly(?). And a daylight cycle is something I will probably leave on the back burner as I don't believe it fits with my game idea's current state, due to having a main thematic 'Day' level, but I will have a look on the Unreal Marketplace for sure. The time skip mechanic was one relating to my previous GameJam project, and I don't plan on adding it anymore, although it would add that layer of uniqueness to the game.

(the way to skip time and switch through Day and Night - Sonic Unleashed)

Game Accessibility

To see the bigger picture upon diversity and inclusion within games, I have used this website (https://ukiepedia.ukie.org.uk/index.php/Player_Diversity_%26_Demographics) to understand how to make my own game more accessible to more of the population that may have a disability of some description. There are a few levels of necessity in the region of accessibility-based mechanics and features, those being, 'Basic', 'Intermediate', and 'Advanced'.

(Our group's choice)

(The correct answers)

The basic mechanics ones are the ones that will be implemented first in most cases, and they all seem pretty simple to include. Reconfiguration should be a simple one, with a few codes in Unreal to do those, tutorials will be accompanying the gameplay with text boxes, with easy to read font styles. And the bottom one is just a measure to avoid doing something, which should be simple. Other essential ones are the highlighting of important words, and the subtitles being cut down at the right intervals.

Banjo-Kazooie Research

Banjo-Kazooie is the main game that has inspired the creation of my own game, and there are a vast multitude of different aspects that have been at the forefront of my source of inspiration. Firstly the art style has a beautifully executed low-poly design, and heightened the media's expectations for what was capable in the hardware in the late nineties to early two thousands.

Its very admirable to see how they used such a low amount of poly's to create bustling level designs, and intricate set pieces ranging from the main hub area, to each level created with their accurate depictions of biome/ themes. Some key examples are Freezeezy Peak, Bubblegloop Swamp, and Gobi's Valley, and they all accurately show different terrains.

In Gobi's Valley there is many parkour sections throughout, with each different collectable found within it, ranging from the Mumbo Tokens, which allow you to transform into other animals and objects to get through certain sections, like a crocodile for example. There are also Honeycombs, which have two different versions, the full honeycomb regenerates one of your health points, and the honeycomb frame increases your maximum hit points, found in the picture on the left inside of the cactus ring. Eggs and feathers scattered across the landscape also allow the protagonists to access abilities, to discover new areas.

The main collectable that is most intriguing is the 'Jiggy', a golden jigsaw piece which allows you to progress in the game and plays a cool sound when collected. These types of collectables are the ones I want in my game as they are the most rarely found in game, and hold the most value.

I also appreciate the attention to detail to the environment, and there is almost an essence of improvisation within the game, as seen here with the strange looking cactus with googly eyes, holding a collectable inside. And also the random sinking sand slopes found next to this brick structure, just adds to the wackiness of the situation you're placed in and every area in this game is like this making for a seamlessly fun and interesting game to play and go back to.

The audio is also all cartoony and has that late nineties charm to it, that I would love to recapture.

The 'Jiggy' collection sound effect is something I'd love to have in my game in a similar vein, a recognisable yet triumphant jingle to let you know that you have done well.

Some notable tracks I can take aspects from within the OST that breathes life into the game, start with the Main Title.

The Main Title sets you up for adventure with an exhilarating and fun jumble of sounds to prepare you for the game.

Treasure Trove Cove is a great example of how to tackle a beach level's soundtrack, whilst also being a very layered track with instruments like bongos, steel drums and xylophones overlapping each other with a good synergy.

A final example is Clanker's Cavern, which emulates a disgusting, dingy location yet still makes the player intrigued as it perfectly coincides with the dark level design, as it takes place first inside of a mechanical gut, then into a watery trench like area, where a metal shark resides, of which you can explore its grotesque insides.

Assassin's Creed and Viva Pinata Research

These are two games I have played recently that are outside of the platformer genre that have desirable aspects to them.

Another game developed by Rare that has a unique design is Viva Pinata. Within Viva Pinata, a game based around garden design, and collection of animals overall there are lots of different houses that correlate to the design of the animals you collect within the game and will be a good reference point for many of my buildings within my game. These designs inspired my choices with the player character’s house, which is a take on a manmade bird house, with a humanistic design attached to it, like the houses below.

The one on the far right is the one most like what I am aiming to do, but with a more understandable and simple design like the ones on the left and middle. All the houses have a Mexican Fiesta style to them, but I’d rather keep my low-poly Banjo-Kazooie style in my game, as implementing a thematic design choice this late in development wouldn’t be smart.

Another aspect of this game I wanted to look at was the Menu design, and how it sets a precedent for the game, and how it gives life to the game before you play it.

The title screen has a striking text with the name of the game on it, with a more lowkey text design beneath it which shows credits and what to press to start. It’s also set in the garden which the game takes place in and gives the player a sense of the setting where they will be spending their time in and juxtaposes the first interaction you get with the garden, which is this run down and neglected piece of land, and makes the player intrigued to figure out how to make this place look nice again.

I want to have my game’s menu screen sticking out from a piece of my environment, maybe in the side of a cliff or off the edge of the map, wherever has the most striking visual, and unique experience to it, similar to how this game does it.

(Bird house inspired by Viva Pinata's designs)

Assassin’s Creed Origins is a game that I have played recently that had an interesting take on parkour. It seems that almost everything within the world of this game is vault-able, climbable or explorable to some extent. During the first portion of the game, you begin in a desert temple/ chasm/ tomb and are looking to make your way out of it. In one of the sections, there is an array of different ways to approach the environment, and you have the choice to explore in any which way you would like, whilst grabbing artifacts and uncovering secrets as you go along, with an added help of the ‘Animus Pulse’ ability, which highlights points of interest to the player.

(Animus Pulse highlights every secret/ potential route to go to by overlaying the surrounding area in a white digital blanket.)

Once you get past this point, you are thrown into a vast desert area, with little to no sight of civilization, until you reach the first city, where you are tested by a few enemies and use your parkour skills to evade and outsmart them. Every outpost and village area has a dynamic environment with alternate passages of traversal, like hanging signs, stone structures, towers with slight ledges, and hay bales (soft landing areas) that you can drop into from a height to negate fall damage.

Assassins-Creed®-Origins_20171022163304.jpg

Level Design Research

To gain a better understanding on how to layout a level in a 3d landscape, I watched 'Game Maker's Toolkit's' video about how Nintendo uses a 4-step level creation method to make levels in their game 'Super Mario 3D World'. The video is called:

Super Mario 3D World's 4 Step Level Design

and I have made a few notes while watching this video, and some of them can be applied to any game you would want to make from a range of genres.

(Stay conceptually accurate, whilst also having creative liberty to explore different ideas.)

A few key notes about the video that will influence how I approach production of my game:

1. Establish a mechanic, then develop it further later in the level (linear 3d levels)

2. Has a rewarding flag-pole sequence at the end of each level.

3. Alternate collectables locked behind more intricate challenges on the side path of each level.

4. Closing the game out by re-introducing mechanics as they know you've conquered these obstacles in the past.

5. Make sure to let the mechanics mature, and allow them to flourish in different ways.

6. Introduce a mechanic in a way that signals the player how to use it, and that it is essential for the completion of the following sequence.

Note 1 will refer to my gliding mechanic, that will have increased usage later in the level.

Note 2 is something I have on the back burner, as I don't feel it is a crucial or important step for a collect-a-thon, however an animation to play after an item is collected would be a nice inclusion.

Note 3 is something I have already done, being the secret area hidden behind the fence in the test level, which will be a playable area in the actual level itself, although out of the way of the main path.

Note 4 is something that I won't be worrying about, as my game will be short, and snappy and may not a have a definite conclusion.

Note 5 will refer to the glide mechanic, as this will be prevalent in the entire game as the main draw from the game.

Note 6 is a good reminder that I might need to add a tutorial hint to show the player that they can glide/ jump.

Issues and Debates

Within the genre of platforming, the main target audience is garnered towards a younger demographic (3 - 12). Companies cater to this demographic by making their game as marketable towards parents, as they will be buying these games for their children, so having graphic content surrounding the game is never a good option to make. They tend to limit the amount of violence and strong language in these games, and Nintendo are a great example of this, as they consistently develop games that have bright visuals, recognisable mascots / characters (Mario, Pikachu, Donkey Kong etc.), and little to no combat based systems that could be interpreted into a real life setting. The cover arts for the games they produce are colourful, and usually designed simplistically/ easy to understand to draw as many in as possible. They have also been known to rarely make these games have 'online' functionality, which covers a lot of ground in terms of endangering young people (cyber-bullying, swearing within lobbies, overall toxicity, and experiencing hackers/ cheating of some kind). Below are examples of negative impacts on the children-focused type of genre conventions, and ways that a company could excel at marketing games towards this younger group.

A game that caused demographic-based issues on release and even far into the future was 'Conker's Bad Fur Day', developed by Rareware in 2001, for the Nintendo 64 console. This console was primarily for children, as this was where you could pick up and play any Mario title at the time, which is a vast juxtaposition to the content found within 'Conker', as it parodied movies, pop-culture and had darker humour that wouldn't be ideal for children. The game starts off with a drunken squirrel in a tavern calling up his girlfriend over the phone, proceeding to exit the building and throw up over a magical being, causing Conker to be knocked unconscious and be awoken in an unknown location. You wake up next to a swearing scarecrow, and are taught the fundamentals of the game in a crude manner, which happens all in the first 5 minutes of play time. Later in the game, you can find oversexualized anthropomorphic characters, more swearing, heavy violence and other 18+ design choices. There is a scene where you wake up on a battlefield, and are forced to shoot your way through nazi-like animals with bloody and grotesque visuals accompanying all of it. Combining all of these controversial design choices, with a charming and simplistic design on the box art, and also being developed by 'Rare', (known for making the Donkey Kong Country games, and Banjo-Kazooie, also playable on the same console) was never going to end well for Rare. To read more about how 'Conker's Bad Fur Day' provided a game to the likeness of cartoons that contain the same type of graphic content, this article will explain the issues in a more light-hearted manner and why this game with a design more suited for young people has entertained many of the older demographic - Conker: Why Nintendo's Most Controversial Game Is Still One of Its Greatest (ign.com). Whilst the game did have a borderline adult box art, with Conker holding a mug of alcohol and a provocative squirrel alongside, it could be easily misinterpreted by parents as a game to get their kids as it is made by people that make games specifically for children to enjoy.

Some issues that have been associated with online platforming / gaming targeted at a young audience, are also prevalent in 'ROBLOX' a game where creativity, imagination and having fun with friends and strangers alike is the main reason kids play, yet this can unfortunately be a front for criminal activity and is morally incorrect behaviour. Gambling is an issue in the game, as players that create their games in 'ROBLOX' advertise services and loot box systems with kids using micro-transactions to gain access to these items which enhance their experience with whatever game they play. Many kids have been known to take their parents credit cards or other forms of money to purchase said services, causing issues across the board for adults. An article I have read about this can be found here - Gambling In Roblox - Is This Videogame Safe For Children? - GamingZion . A few paraphrases that support this are "Roblox has been accused of not being safe for children. Because the developer is using modern technologies to create more than just a simple game. They wish to introduce programming, stock market, and art for the players with their features. Because their Roblox Collectible Shop has a stock-market-like graph system that easily hooks both children and adults into trading these things. The question is: Is it good or bad for children? Because it can help them understand trading for the future. However, kids shouldn’t be exposed to a gambling sensation. Because in their mind, they are winning ‘highly valuable art’. Gambling in Roblox is not bad, however, it makes it weirder that the majority of players are young children." This also raises the issue that kids can interact with adults in the same region of gaming, which isn't as obviously advertised on the front page for this game as it is mainly propelled that it's a fun experience for kids that want to be creative and have fun with friends. It also can be confusing that NFTs and crypto currencies are being advertised to this demographic, as again this is objectively an activity that adults partake in. It does state above that Gambling in Roblox is not bad, but it definitely raises a dilemma for parents due to gambling being a morally wrong thing to indulge in as a young person. This does have a silver lining I believe, which is the improvement of a parent's suspicion and the ability for more care to be taken in order to make sure they understand what their kids get up to online. Looking further into the prospect of children interacting with adults in the same game reveals some different types of issues. These range from, 'grooming, explicit content being shown, gang violence/ activities, etc.' A game inside of Roblox that promotes this type of behaviour is found in 'Da Hood', which is a mock-up of what living in an area where gang violence and activity is a common occurrence, containing guns, weapons, and allowing for voice chat among players of this game (old and young, which can be linked to grooming). Some players take the name of 'Rogangsters', which antagonize people playing the game for the first time or just players in general. The developer's of 'Roblox' have promoted this game on the front page, which allows for people of any type or age in this case to access this game, which can be worrying. Overall, the developer's at 'Roblox' haven't made many major efforts to prevent these themes being accessed by a younger demographic, showing that having a game with an online feature could cause undesirable issues for parents in terms of endangering their kids. An article going further into 'grooming' and how the game's positive presentation has caused issues for a parent is - Roblox: 'I thought he was playing an innocent game' - BBC News .

A game that I believe has done well with the 'online' aspect is 'Rayman Legends.' A 2d platformer with a cartoony and sometimes obscure design that is targeted at people aged 7+, and published by Ubisoft. While the game has a mainly local co-op type of gameplay in its main story mode, it has an online 'challenge mode' where players from around the world can go against each other's time trial ghosts, without ever having to converse with one another. This makes it so that parents don't need to monitor what their children do on this game, as it has a more restrictive type of online mode, which has its pros and cons. With the pros being stated previously, and the cons being that children aren't able to talk to people that enjoy the same game as them, and that they may not be able to enjoy the online mode as much as having the more risky types of online mode found in predominantly competitive game settings that have similar designs to Rayman Legends. This is a turmoil between developers, as having a more interactable online game mode will drive up sales and cause more talk about the game outside of time playing it, but having the inclusion of the said risks previously in this text and creating controversy with safeguarding of children.

In conclusion, I feel that developers of games need to take extra precaution when designing, and presenting games. As much as they would like to target games at willing parents, and market it towards kids, they may need to evaluate their steps in making these games. Platformers have mainly been targeted towards young people, yet over time they have been introducing darker themes, mechanics, and visuals. I feel that certain developers should advertise the actual content within their games and not provide just a sugarcoated and broader appealing front to covet attention. But each of these companies are their own businesses, and they are able to decide what kind of publicity they want surrounding their game, and whether addressing it will be a profitable option for them, or whether it's worth sacrificing the time and resources to please everyone.

Final Survey

This survey was made after people had play tested, and watched over the gameplay video provided on my Presentation page, and was made to gain feedback and an insight into how well my game performed, and where I could improve. The first question asks how well my game represents a low-poly 3d platformer, and got a positive 8.25 in its average rating.

Below are a few aspects of my game that people favored over others, and named their favorites. I'm glad that the house I modelled and the environment were things that people highlighted as their favorite parts, as those were the aspects I hoped to get praise for, due to my game wanting to be as accurate to a 3D platformer as possible, with thematically accurate collectables, set pieces, and designs. The character movement and animations were something I thought I reached the bare minimum on, and I feel they could've been improved on if I managed my time better.

In the final question, I got some good ideas on how to improve my environment (foliage, grass which I would've loved to include), my bird animations, (as previously stated, they were kind of underwhelming, although the time it would take to make would be a detriment to my work.) and the jump mechanic not fitting too well without the inclusion of a glide mechanic. I'm upset that the glide mechanic couldn't make it into the game as I failed to manage my time in the late stages of production. It definitely would've fit well into the parkour sections above the void on the pallets, and jumping from tree to tree. The double jump didn't fit as well as anticipated, but I feel it still worked in my favor to make a competent project although it was a shortcut.

I'm glad that the majority of the feedback was positive, and shows that with enough polishing up of my game it could've been an incredible product, however not discrediting the quality it has.