First 2D Lesson

So today I had my first lesson in the 2D Computer Graphics-coruse. I've finishing both the  Introduction Course in Game Design and the Written and Spoken Communication Course last week. This means that we are going to draw lots, and lots, and lots, and lots, and lots of different stuff. And it was a very special day, atleast for me, because our first assignment in todays lesson was to make sketches of a nude model, who swapped poses after a couple of minutes. We learned how to make quick sketcthes through a four-part process:

Dynamics = To paint the subjects movement (aka. position).
Volume/Form = To paint the subjects upper body.
Anatomy = To paint the subjects other body parts.
Details/Execution = Polish it.

I was quite unprepared for this; I only had my little notepad and some dirty pens at my disposal. After the lesson, I and (almost) the entire class went to the art store Ridelius (the oldest store in Visby) and bought a new sketchbook and a kit of pens, an eraser, a sharpener and a ruler. Now I'm prepared!

Gaming Project 2: Magic Writer

On October 7 2014, the freshman class was divided into 16 groups, consisting of 5-8 students. Alexander got into Team 13, consisting of 4 other students. The team previously had one additional member, but he quited very early because of personal matters. Team 13 consists of the following members:

Alexander Nordfors – Producer

Adam Salonen – Lead Art

Daniel Granqvist – Lead Sound

Olle Staffas – Lead Code, Quality Assurance

Sebastian Larsson – Game Designer

All the groups got the assignment of making a Speceshooter PC-game (where the player shoots large amounts of enemies while avoding their attacks) based on two random words. These two words diffirentiate between groups. Team 13 got the words Summer and Thaumaturgy, the capability of a magician or a saint to work magic or miracles. A representative of each group would later present their game on November 5 in front of the class, the teachers and some third year students.

Team 13 would present a paper prototype (a method that helps developers to create their software through testing and user inputs) of the game for our teacher on October 23 (the other groups presented on other dates that week). We would also write a Concept document (CD) to explain our game in great detail, a One-page Design (OPD) to summarize our game on a single page with pictures and bullet points, and, during the last two weeks, write individual Project reports to describe, analyse and summarize your process and role in the project. The CD and OPD would be submitted on November 7, and the individual reports on November 8.

Methodology

Social media

To get contact with each other outside of school, we used Skype and Facebook. Early in production, we started a Facebook group in our name: ”Team 13”. We used Skype to share files and exchange feedback/information. We also used Facebook for the same objective, but not that often since we used Skype virtually every day during the project.

Tools

We used the following programs on our Alienware laptops to develop the game.

• OpenOffice Writer: where we write down our ideas and such on the following documents: Concept Document and our individual Project reports.
• Microsoft Powerpoint: which we used to present the pitch for our game to the entire class.
• Microsoft One Note: which we used to write and design the One-Page design.
• Adobe Photoshop 2014 CC: a computer program that allows users to paint and edit pictures. We used this to paint some artwork for the pitch, the One-Page Design, the Concept Dicument and our individual Project reports.
  
  One of the main side assignments of this project was to make a paper prototype . We used it to test our ideas and see if they would work in our main game.

Theories

We used two video game theories to make this game.

* MDA: A analzying tool where you break down a game into three components – Mechanichs (The game's rules), Dynamics (The game's behaviour based on player imput) and Aesthetics (the player's emotional response when playing the game) – in order to describe the games various aspects and their relationships with each other.

* 8 Kinds of Fun: A theory which help you make a set of game rules into something fun. The different kinds of fun is: Sensation (Game as sense-pleasure), Fantasy (Game as make-believe), Narrative (Game as unfolding story), Challenge (Game as obstacle course), Fellowship (Game as social framework), Discovery (Game as uncharted territory), Expression (Game as soap box), and submission (Game as mindless pastime).

Result

The First Attempt

In our first group meeting, on october 13 2014, we decided which role we would have in the team and pitching our early ideas. I was appointed as the producer of the team. We pitched ideas about the summer aspect. We got the mutual idea about a wizard who's taking a vacation on a summer beach. Our appointed Game Designer, Sebastian Larsson, had a whole list of ideas for a game on his notepad, combined with conceptual images. He presented the idea that this game would be a typing game, taking the game Typing of the Dead as an example, where you defeat zombies by typing pre-scripted words. The typing aspect would be our main core mechanic in the game, by we had to see on how to incporparate it in both our paper prototype and our PC game.

During the meeting we came up with the idea to make a typing game where you go around the beach and talk to the people there. In this case, you would tell insults to them. When you start a conversation and tells a insult, it'll start a Pokémon kind of battle mode between the player and the person you talk to, where both eschange insults to each other which damages one's self esteem. Here the player chooses one out of three insults, and one of these can deal greater amount of damage than the rest. In order to choose this extra damage insult, you must inspect the person you're battling with and look for potential weaknesses. For example, you're battling against a fat guy and give a insult about how fat he is. You can also have friendly conversations with other people on the beach and ask them if they know persons that has potential weaknesses, which the player can exploit. Examples of that would be that the friend is afraid of spiders, or have a broken love life.

We also discussed on how the camera for the rest of the game should operate. We choose to have a top-down isometric cameraview when you go around the beach, and then switches to a battle mode-view when you insult people. To give the game its Aesthetic aspects, we used Challenge (since the players will be challenged all the time by selecting and writing down insults fast) and Narrative (since humour will be big part in the players experience in the game). We discussed on how to make the game more engaging and difficult, so we implemented enemy levels, where low-levelled ones (like small children) could be easily defeated in combat, while high-levelled ones (like teenagers, adults and lifeguards) requires that the player levelleles up before combating them. That way we established player progression as the players needs to first take down the low-levelled characters before they go for the higher ones.

We also added a power up (that benefits and add extra abilities to the player character) which the player could use to read their chosen targets mind and find their weaknesses. That way you gain insults that will damage the target even more.

The first paper prototype.

On October 18, we designed our paper prototype based on our core gameplay. We wanted it to be engaging and doable, but it was a bit difficult because we haven't seen a game that has fast-paced typing and decision making before. We wanted to make the typing mechanic fun so that we don't have to come up with a completely new gameplay mechanic. But we didn't find a good way to simulate the typing mechanic, so we mostly figured out on how to make the decision making engaging and inplement the mechanics and other aspects on paper.

We agreed to have at least five characters in our paper prototype. We would write the dialogue and insults to these characters. When playing the prototype, the player will get three insults to choose from and decide what insult deals most damage. We found this to be very shallow, so we implemented a mind reading ability (as part of the magician's magical abilities) with a riddle about the target's weakness, which the player must figure out. At the end of our meeting, we figured out that this would turn out pretty bad. It would be pretty insulting for the players and it would not work in the paper prototype at all. So we scrapped the insulting idea all together

The second attempt

Didn't have the time to write this done because of time constraints.
Summary: Sebastian came up with a new big idea to replace the insult mechanic. Instead the entire game would be a Typing shooter, where the player is a magician who battles against horrific sea monsters emerging from the sea and wants to enslave the magician and all people on the beach. The player fight these beasts by typing tre pre-generated words and throwing these at them. We came up with new powerups, moving mechanics, the idea that the items would have two different properties (that some items can deal more damage than other items), and different kinds of monsters.

The second paper prototype.

Didn't have the time to write this done because of time constraints.

Summary: We implemented the new ideas for the game in a new prototype, which went really well. Sebastian already did some independent work on it, and we helped him to finish it by using paper, cartons and pens from the artclassroom. We fine tuned it during other meetings before we presented it to the teacher, thnaks to player imputs. :

 How did the individual assignments go?

I didn't have the time to write down texts about the second attempt and second paper prototype in this report. It's a big shame...

The individual Project report was the hardest assignment to do in the project, since you must record evertyhing that you've done troughout the entire project. As this was an individual assignment, you couldn't get so much help from your teammates, though you could get writing assistance from the teachers at school. This was very useful so that you could get early feedback and advice.

However, the report was collided with other assignments which would be handed in before the report. This was not good, because we must prioritise the ones that must be handed in first, and then move on to the next assignment.

I think it went quite well, at least for me. There's always room for improvements in the report, but then I would work with this, like, forever. I wouldn't call it perfect, because I've never written a report or text of any kind that can be branded as “perfect”, but atleast it's somewhat readable and instructive.

Analysis (Discussion)

What we did wrong

The thing I did wrong was to not writing diary entries during all our meetings, lectures and other project-related activities, since those would've helped me greatly with writing this report, and also post this on your school blog. I haven't blogged at all during the project, which is a bad thing since it's mandatory to blog at least one day per week.

I'm quite a reticent and empathetic guy who rather wants to listen to others rather than spreaking with them in person. I wanted to change that by taking the role as the producer, the guy who has the last word and serves as the group's leading figure. But I think my leadership was handled pretty poorly, since the rest of the group was more talkative than me. I wish I could've been more present and open during the meetings and the project overall. I would say that our Game Designer was the giant mastermind in our group and would serve as an excellent producer and lead artist. But I digress.

What we did right

I think the very best decision we did for this project was to remove the insult aspect of the game. Because if we would still use it, I think most people will get very upset when they play the game. And it wouldn't work in the paper prototype at all.

For the pitch presentation at November 5, I was choosen to present the game. But because I'm a pretty silent guy and can't speak in front of an audience in english, I decided to back out and chose the Game designer as the new presenter, as it was he who came up with most ideas for this game. During the pitch presentation, he gave us an awesome show, and one of the best presentations that day. I wonder how bad it would be if I would have standed there.

What i've learned

Being a producer for this assignment, I've learned much about responsibility. Your role as the one that has the last word in all discussions and meetings.

I've learned how to prioritice different ideas, instead of having all ideas that you can come up with implemented into the game. I've always thought that all ideas would be useful for something. But here, thanks to the restrictions and feedback from the teacher and the teamates, you need to you use the best ideas and scrap the rest.
I've learned that a paper prototype is a extremely good tool to test your ideas for the game and see wether they could be implemented, or get scrapped.

Thoughts about the project

I thought this project went very well. We did a very smooth job by having meetings both in person and on Skype nearly every day since the start of the project. It was also good that we had restrictions on certain parts so that you don't have make a overly complicated game, which would require more explanations in the presentations and writing on the Design document and One-Page Design.

The team I was part of must be one of the best of all teamworks that i've attended to. Unlike in previos teamworks where there were some who didn't do any kind of work or effort at all, here is a team that is 100% focused on the work and make serious efforts on it. And if you get stuck on the way, you can always ask your teammates for help and advice. And that's true teamwork. I would really like to work with Sebastian again. He was the big pillar of the team, a mastermind with artistic hands. The other teammates were also pretty good to work with. Olle the QA and Lead Code was a big help with fine tuning our texts and analysing the different aspects of the game. Adam the lead art and Daniel the Lead Sound gave some interesting ideas about certain parts.

It's a little bad when at same time you do the project you have an another course to attend to; Written and Spoken Communication where you write different texts and having a speech. Although it's nice that the course is game orianted, it's still a pain in the ass to write these long texts for several days, and then for further more days after you get feedback from the teacher.

The lectures was both very useful and interesting to listen to. These showed us how we should write the texts and how to present yourself and your game for a wide audience. It was also really good to get pitch-help from the teachers, because without it I think that both my and the other groups would've had really lousy presentations. The paper prototype was really fun to do.

Overall, this was a really fun and educating assignment, and I would love to do something similar in the future.

Feedback from others

Before we presentet our paper prototype to the teacher, we allowed students from the other groups to test it. They thought it was fun and engaging, and gave us new and interesting ideas on how to fine tune the game itself.

On October 23, we presented our paper prototype it to our teacher, Marcus. He liked our game very much and gave us useful suggestions to use for the PC version.

• Adding several monsters coming from different lanes so that the player would need to move left and right to defeat these.
• There could be smaller monsters that can be defeated with just one item, and greater monsters that requires players to expose their weak spots in order to defeat them. That, both the moving system, would greatly improve our simplistic weakness sytem.
• He suggested a new power up which enlarges the item which the player is about to shoot, hitting multible monsters at once.
• He suggested that we should showed more about the aesthetic aspect of the game, on how the players would feel when they play the game. He explained that the design decisions for the video game Resident Evil were made to further promote the games aesthetic aspects.

Feedback from the pitch was mostly positive. The third-year students was very excited about the game and asked many questions about the different aspects. And the teacher was pleased with the presenttion.

Our teacher got this to say about our game and presentation:

"One thing that was really good was how you went through how the game works. That's really great. There are so many terms and genres thrown into the presentation, right from the start. The game is described as a top-down RTS, Tetris, typing, etc. There are so many different genres to describe what the game is, so I get confused. I've played your paper prototype; it worked really well and I thought at that point what your game is. But now I'm really confused, now I have no idea anymore. As a stakeholder, I gave you the task that I have ordered a space shooter game. We come back and get a top-down RTS Typing Game. That's not a direct link to me.

It was very cool that you went through exactly how the game works. You talked slower (than the other presenters) and had a focus. You didn't try to describe it as something completely different."

Other third-year students got this to say:

"You said it was an educational game and that you have to write. But how do you balance the writing aspect and the words that you should learn from it? "

"What has the game to do with Tetris? It looks more like Space Invader or 'Typing of the Dead' to me. Because it's like what Marcus says; it is the different video game terms and genres that makes it very giddy. It was much clearer when you described the gameplay. "

"The main idea is that you write words on a keyboard. But how do you control the characters? How do you get this game to work on mobile devices? There are quite a lot of mechanics. You have both the need to write the word in time pressure, you have to choose the right words and you have to think on what shoddy properties the word has that can give a potential critical damage against monsters. As an indie game geared towards the casual market, it's a fairly complex gameplay."

"This question may not be that important, but there were two girls in the last two slides. May you be able to change avatars? "

I think that certainly the theird year students was interested of our game, though it was only them and the teacher who asked the questions for our game and to the rest of the groups. But I don't see a problem with that, and I think that the other freshman students was interested in our game as well, because I saw a lot of people handed up after the first questions were answered.

Summary

Overall, the project went really well for Team 13. We've managed to create a game with intresting and deep gameplay, cute artstyle and global rankingboard which I'm sure will attract a lot of players. I'm lucky that I was a part of this successful team, I think this is one of the best groups that I've worked with. Thanks to all the discussions that we had on Skype, the meetings at school were we eschanged ideas and built the paper prototype, helping Sebastian to train his Pitch-presentation, the positive feedback from the teachers and students alike, we've managed to create a successful piece of work.

My great advice for future game developers is to have a team that is 100% focused on the assignment, to contact each other in person or via internet about ideas and such and test this by making a paper prototype. Make sure that everyone has something to work with, and if a teamate has a difficult obstacle in his way then the team will come to his rescue. Everyone must particiapte, no one gets left out. Though keep the discussions on the internet when everyone is awake, do not have nighttime discussions like my group had, it's a pain to scroll through every single slide of comments since the last time you logged in.

Also make sure that you choose a role that is best suited to your abilities. If you're a good artist, then go for the Lead Artist-role. If you got lots of interesting ideas and can describe them really well, then go for the Game Designer-role. If you can program stuff, than go for the Lead Code-role. If you can record music and/or sound, then go for the Lead Sound-role. If you can analyse texts and ideas and change these for the better, then go for the Quality Assurance-role. If you're a guy with experience and with the ability to lead and represent a team, then go for the Producer-role.

You choold defininetely not work in a team with just some incompatant morons who don't care at all about their duty and role, and therefore won't do any progress and will be a worthless asset in the team. You chould consider to work in a team which you feel most confident och comfortable with, a team that sits on the same boat and always count on them in order to sail from Sweden to China with a small sailing boat. It will be a long journey, but you will be greatly awarded when you finished your journey. And when you do work, you do it with the team and not by yourself. That's what game design is; teamwork and collaboration. And if you got the right team for the job, you'll might create wonderful pieces of work. Or atleast have a fun time with those who share the same passion as you do: playing and creating games.  

Japanese guestlecture

Two days ago, me and my class got a guestlecture from three japanese sounddesigners and music composers. One of them presented his composed music and the programs that he use. One of these were Sonar X3, which we tested after his presentation. In their studio in the D-bulding, we students were divided in teams of two-four who shared the four available computers in the room.

The assignment was to compose Pyotr Tchaikovskys piano concerto no. 1 with Sonar X3. Me and my team only had the time to compose one quarter of his opus. We got an instruction guide from the teachers on how to navigate in Sonar X3 (adding instruments and how to write down vocals). One of the teachers also displayed this with the studios giant LCD-TV. We used small usb-pianos to add the vocals for respective intrument.

They only had time with us for one lecture out of four that they previosly planned, because these would otherwise collide with our other lectures in Written and Spoken Communikation and in Game Design/Team Projects. It's a shame, because I'm very interested to know on how to create sound effects and music.

However, this was not a mandatory lecture, thus not affecting our grades. And we got a big one -month project to deal with, plus the scientific article and speech in the Written and Spoken Communikation-course.

Nevertheless, it was a fun day for me and the few of us who attended their lecture.

Concept Challenge - Robots in Space

Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you...

Robots in Space

The game will be a 2D top-down space shooter and RPG. The player controls a robot who fights alien mutants. This will be a modern 16-bit game with a long and developed storyline; a large world and with a great replay value. The game will run on Windows 7 and Mac OS X, and will be in English.

Story

The game's story has taken inspiration from movies like Alien and 2001: A Space 0dyssey. The robot moves/looks like a human. The robot comes from Earth and is working on a space station, which will be attacked by mutants. The robot is given the task by the humans to defeat the mutants and save the space station crew. During the adventure, the robot will learn more about its origins. There will be a lot of small mutants, and some larger ones, which will be branded as bosses.

The robot will maybe be named OSSR. I may allow the player to rename the robot's name. I have not decided the names of the bosses. The usual enemies in the game will just be called mutants.

Gameplay

You'll see everything from the sidelines, like in the Zelda games. The robot can go forward, backwards, left and right. It is armed with multiple firearms, and there will be a tool inventory. The firearms can be found in different places in the game, and can also be purchased by a shop, where you also can buy ammo for the guns among other things, like armor and health packs.

The game will be divided in multiple levels in different sizes. You meet different kinds of mutants with unique attacks. There'll also be some turrets in the station, which the robot can hack through to put to good use against the mutants (it will trigger a puzzle-event, like in the BioShock games).

Graphics

The game will be built in 16-bit 2D-graphics. I chose it to get a retro feeling to it and it's fairly easy to draw the pixel graphics. I have designed the tiles (in the size of 64 x 64), with a space-themed, futuristic sci-fi design. I have not taken inspiration from any specific game, except some design-ideas from the video game Tibia, on the looks of the walls. Since the game takes place in a space station, the game world is divided into rooms of various sizes and designs. There are large rooms where you meet several enemies simultaneously, and smaller ones where you can find collectible items like ammo, armor, keys and health packs.

Many games have a futuristic setting with robots included, such games are nothing new. But no game is identical to any other. I don't know if there is a RPG game set in space with the kind of graphics that my game has.

Target Audience

The target audience are mainly young adults between 20-30 years, therefore, probably still studying (with no income) or working. Probably good thing to focus on people born during 1980s is that they might have children who want to play a game like this. The game focuses on people who do not need to think about their spending, but those who are economically independent (thus many adults) may not be interested in the game.

Without being considered too sexist, I can probably conclude that mostly men would want to play this game rather than women. It depends of course on who they are, and I may blame the gender norm. The game will be for PC, but you'll hardly need to classify yourself as a PC gamer for wanting to play it.

You might also be interested in retro games and the sci-fi genre, because no one else would want to go out of their way to buy a game like this.

Marketing

The game would be focused on the western market (ie Europe and America), because the western people can buy mostly anything.

I'll post shameless plugs on Reddit and Facebook. The internet is full of gaming fans and you can reach out to many people in an instance, especially if friends share your status, where you can write what it is we focus on (the target audience) so that the people may know about how the game will feel. One positive thing with Facebook, Reddit and other forums is that you can send direct messages.

I have looked at the name of the game, and I've found nothing. The name is easy to remember, both for me and for the consumers. It is a very exciting name, and people will understand how the game will be. The title describes the game better than I ever could. More specifically, in a space station.

I've not found a game similar to mine yet (at least in the gaming forum Indie Games Tooth). I've seen some games that have the word space in their names, but the gameplay is not at all similar. They're mostly strategy- and puzzle games, like Ultimate Space Commando. 

Impending Doom

My idea for an Impending Doom would be the following...

What is Impending Doom?

Impending doom is a apprehension, a feeling that something bad is about to happen. In this case, in a video game. 

The Setting

The game takes place in a dark, seemingly abandoned castle. When player starts his journey, and he will soon find out that this isn't an ordinarily castle, but a cursed one when he sees magic portraits on the walls (this is an optional section where the player can press the left and right arrow buttons to look at the portraits). The portraits tells the story about a witch who was imprisoned in the castle by the warden, and flees the castle by casting a spell which drowns the entire castle in shadows, infested with ghostly beasts and humanoids who kill everyone who steps their foot on it. The shadow also seals all gates, preventing any one from escaping the castle. Most of the castle guards gets slaughtered by the shadow creatures, and only a few, including the warden, escapes the shadow by standing beside fires and torches. The witch frees herself from her shackles, kill the guards standing in her way, go out through the main gate of the castle, and seals it tightly. The shadow-spell , the survivors would later die by hunger, thirst or commit suicide. The fate of the warden, however, is unknown.

The Gameplay

Throughout the game, the player is controlled by an A.I.. The player can't move the player character what so ever. The only thing the player can do in this game is to observe (controlling the camera by moving left and right with the mouse) and doing quick-time events (by pressing certain buttons on the keyboard). If the player would fail these events, then the player dies. Every time the player dies, he must restart the game.

Like in the beginning of the game, the player wakes up in a cell with a broken door. Here, the player must press the space button to bust up the door, while the A.I. controls the player character's movements. There will be long corridor-sections in the game, with obstacles which the player can stumble upon, where the player tries to run away from the shadow behind him. Here there are a lot of quick-time sections with various buttons that the player must press, and in the same time, the player must press the space button as fast as possible. And if the player should not hit one of these, then the shadow comes and kills him. There will also be sections in the game where the shadow won't hunt you down, instead it just stands still. Here the player will choose one of several paths to go through, highlighted by numbers which the player must press on the keyboard (if you want to go through path one, you press 1 on the keyboard). One of these paths is the only way out, while the rest are just traps where the player gets killed.

There will also be a section later in the game where the player stands in a corridor and suddenly hears a roaring beast in the distance, from a room on the other side of the corridor. Here the player must tap the space button, faster and faster. The sound goes louder and louder for every step the player takes. And when the player opens the door to a another corridor, the sounds stops. But then suddenly, as the player takes some steps forward, a beast rushes through one of the walls just behind the player and starts to chase him. The player must, again, press the space button fast to run away from the beast. He comes to a big wooden door, and closes it behind him with a quick-time event. When the player thinks that the horror is finally over, the witch appears just behind him. She cast a spell which paralyzes the players body, except his head. The player, unable to move, collapses to the floor. The witch opens the door for the beast. The beast slowly walks towards the players head, and when the beast strikes the player with his jaw, the game ends.

Discussion

When I wrote this essay, I got a new idea for a game. And this idea spawned several new ones, which I then decided to write down so that these would not be forgotten. I tried to explain all my ideas as good as I could and focusing on the essential ones (the quick-time events, the castle, the shadow and the witch, the beast etc.). I also wrote some ideas of the story, but I chose to edit it out and save it for later, since this assignment is not to convey the story and background of the game. When I get feedback from this, I may present new and even better ideas of this game, or maybe even for an entirely new one.

I followed the theory about 8 kinds of fun; which consists of sensation, fantasy, narrative, challenge, fellowship, discovery, expression and submission. This game follows nearly all of these, except for fellowship (since this is not a multiplayer game, nor a game which you would like to play with a friend), expression and discovery (since you are unable to move and, therefore, just an observer). This is essentially a horror game that focus mostly on sensation. The challenging part would be the quick-time events, where the player must press the right buttons displayed on the screen, and if he fails, the player would die and is forced to restart the game. The narrative parts is mainly the portraits, and also the castle itself (the narrative is conveyed solely by the environments, not by dialogue and/or text).

So basically, I wanted to make a game that is a visual experience, where the environments tells the story and the quick-time events are the mechanics. Dynamics, however, don't exist since the player can't do anything else than to move the camera and performing quick-time events. I chose quick-time events because I want to make a game based upon the game that which was screened during our lecture about Impending Doom (I don't remember the name of the game), where the player only can press one button to move forward, and if he fails to do so, then the player would die. I want to make a similar game, but with multiple buttons and with an environment that can convey a story much better than with dialogue and/or words. A game like Journey (the PS3 game), but in a horrific environment and with no chance to survive (or change) the ending.    

My First Jam

Yesterday, I and my most of my class participated in a gaming event called "My First Jam". Here both new and older students come together and in groups of 5-6 people develop a computer game based on the theme "addiction" with a game-development application called "GameMaker". Me and my group (called "Gotland Wikings") came with the idea of having a man being totally obsessed of milk. So we put him in the air, with a jetpack, and he must collect milk bottles and in the same time try to avoid flying cows and goats. If he would get touched by these, than he would die and the player must restart the game. We named the game: "Milkaholic".

It took us approximately 7-8 hours (from 10:00-18:00) to complete the development of the game. The brainstorming took about an hour and during the rest of the time we programmed and painted some stuff. I took the time with painting the animals and the milk bottles. We ate lunch from the school cafiteria, and got some free snacks from the teachers (chocolate, lollipops and juice). After we uploaded the game on Dropbox, we presented the game to the rest of the students. During the evening, me and the other students spent the time to test our games, eating free pizza and having a great time. We also did some voting on the games based on three categories: Best Interpretation, Best Execution and Most Fun. My game didn't get any of these, but our consolation prize was pizza and snacks (that was left).

It was really, really fun and I would gladly do all of this again.

Here's the link to Milkaholic: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/86v0cwcpzq7qcx1/AAAOYKICY4mgISb_k9GvTUrka?dl=0

You need to save the file at Dropbox, and then download it from there.

One month

Now I have stayed in Visby for one month, studied together with 95 gamerstudents, had assignments, group work and other activities. I have walked along the city's streets, around the wall and to Galgberget north of Visby. But I mostly chill at my flat, surfing on the internet, studying, reading student literature, playing video games and watching movies. Three weeks ago I was an a guided bus toar to the northern part of Gotland. Two weeks ago I was visited by my mother and her mother. We rented a car and drove to the southern and eastern part of Gotland.

My first time here in Gotland was in the summer of 2009. My family rented a cottage in Vibble south of Visby, not far from Villa Villekulla, the home of Pippi Longstocking. We drove around the island all the way to Fårö, to the grave of Ingmar Bergman. We walked around Visby several times, buying clothes and stuff, and ate good grub. The time when my mother and grandmother visited me rekindled my visit in 2009. It was really nice. I miss my family back on the mainland.

Here is some pictures that I took last month. While I were at it, I listened to some Skyrim tracks.

This is a magical place,

SissyNeighbourhood

Yesterday, me and some of my sissyfight-team (which we created two weeks ago, I think) tested a new version of the game called SissyNeighbourhood. It added a lot of new cards and rules. During the beginning of the test, we felt that the new rules was utterly complicated and cluttered. Because of this, it is required to have a game master, forcing one player not to play the game and instead count all the players markers and tell the rules.

The cards was really unbalanced. One card, called "Plunder the store", is a example, as you do not know if players lose markers. There was also one card called "Menthos bomb", which causes a no-win scenario. When most the players chose the "Party" card to attack one single player, it is more of a chance than a negotiation. If one single player is not choosing the party card, then the player who is targeted can use  a redirect card, which I don't remember the name of, to fend off the party cards and steal the markers of the player who did not choose the party card.

The cards where simply too many to remember how they worked, so you always needed to check the rule list on how they work, and the description can get very confusing at times. The implementation of 20 markers for each player, and not having a maximum amount of markers, is ridiculous. All the players can use the "Plunder the store" card to get more markers, which means that the game goes on forever. And even though the players use various cards to attack/steal players and defend their markers, the game would still go on for a long time if the players use "Plunder the store" card a lot. This is painful both for the players and especially for the game master, who must erase and add new markers for all the players on the marker list.

Fortunately, one of us got the "Menthos bomb" card so that this abomination could finally end.   

SissyNeighbourhood sucks balls. 

Gaming Project 1: Tetris: The Board Game

Between monday and tuesday (22-23 sep), I was in a group of five students where we, along with the other gropus in our class, would make a board game based of a video game. We chose Tetris, because it was very easy to know what the game's aesthetics and mechanics were, and thus know how to design it. 

We began with analyzing the different components of the game, in order to construct the game we had to deconstruct it first.

We agreed on that the core experience of the game consisted of: stress, management and problem solving.

The "risk versus reward choises" was in our oppinon: the correct position, vertical acceleration, rotation/correct angle.

As for the aesthetics we decided that puzzle-solving, challenge, submission, sensation and stress was the main factor.

The mechanics consisted of horizontal movement, rotation and time.

In our case the time was the main issue. The Translation of time from a digital game, to a board game is not an easy task. We tried different versions such as involving action points, dependent on x amount of rounds. We also tried to use dice to deteremen time and space. The last method that we used was the use of timers. With other words we took use of actual time.

The use of time was our way to simulate the falling blocks in a paper form.

When it came to the blocks, for a time we discussed the use of a dice, but due to the lack of a matching dice to the amount of blocks, we decided to instead go with a deck of cards turned upside-down with the blocks represented on them. As such, each time a player took a card, the card was pseudo-random and hard to predict.

We solved the problem of removing falling blocks from the game by adding a dead zone where blocks would be removed from when completely inside. This was since in a paper game, removing an entire row at the same time is not always possible. Earlier attempts included things such as using individual pieces constructed to mirror a picked card rather than using complete blocks. However, this would be too complex for the player and take away the stress of playing the game, as too much time would be spent placing the individual blocks.

As of 6 pm, we started to print out the prototype game for testing. We continued the printing at my flat.

At around 8:30 pm, play testing started.

The play testing revealed an issue in the game that required us to change the rules of the game. From now on, blocks will not be removed. The blocks stack and the game will end when the player is unable to place a block due to space. The filled rows will at this time be counted, giving the player their final score.

At around 10pm, the work for the day was finished.

At 11 am, the group came together again and we started the final work to improve the game for public game testing. After about 30 minutes we decided to try cardboard boxes to improve the integrity of the blocks. Later, we also discussed about the point system, where one full line would equal 1 point, and four full lines would make a score multiplier, which equals to 8 points.

Between 14-16:30 am was the testing period for the class, where we all would test each other's games. The groups designed board games based on Skyrim, Terraria, Mario Kart, FTL, Guitar Hero and other video games. A total of 13 people tested our game, including our teacher. One of these even played this game 3 times! We also added a high schore list; the best test player got a total of 19 points. Most of them got the sense that the game was very (VERY) stressful. Some were also confused about the colors of the blocks and (because of the short time) couldn't put the blocks in correct order, so they would often pause the game fix that. But all of them thought that the game was fun to play, and was true to the original format. It was difficult in a good way, and the pause ability (which we added during the beginning of our testing period) was a good addition. The teacher liked the game, that it really captured the Tetris feeling and felt authentic.

So to sum it up: me and my team did a absolutely fantastic job. The feedback was positive all around, and the reaction matched with the core experience that we previously analysed. We learned much from the testers and got some intersting new ideas, like blocks made of magnet and/or wood. We gave our board game to the teacher and then we seperated to go and work on other projects.

Tuesday was a goooooooooooood day. :)

The Lectures

So now I'm two weeks and two days into this course and I must say, it's really hectic and a lot to process. These takes approximately 2-4 hours until the day's done or we go through a another lecture (during thursdays and fridays). Most of these have group assignments where we students have the chance to get to know each other and learn to cooperate. And then there are the ones where we just sit on are arses and try to concentrate as much as you can to take in everything the teacher says and understand his context. And during those lectures, some of the students pops up and ask questions and opinions about certain things. Most of them are relevant to both that which the teacher's saying and to the course itself, but then there are some who do these quite lengthy monologues about games that they've played (most games that I've never heard of before). While these may be intressting for some (like for me), I think these should instead be discussed to the teacher after the lecture so that the lecture won't take too much time when many, like me, are trying to take in and elaborate everything the teacher says.

I think we should have an assignment where we can write an essay on one or many games within a genre. Or having a group discussion about a certain game (or several ones) that we all have played before, and then gather all our thoughts and present these to the teacher. That might be nice, I think.

But then, of coruse, this is the first period of our mutual education. It might be tough, but then you will get used to it over time. And this is a new thing for many young students, like me, who never have been studying at a university or college. And if any one would need some help, the school will always stand by you.

My New Blog

Hello, and welcome to my personal blog!

My name is Alexander Nordfors, a freshman student at Uppsala university -Campus Gotland, where I study Game Analysis and Game Design (graphics). I chose this university partly because of its reputation and resources, and partly becuase i recently studied Game Design (graphics) at Fryshuset gymnasium in southern Stockholm, within the Social Science Programme, which gave my basic knowledge about the game-industry, which programs to use and how to work as a game develoupment team.

I have now moved to Visby Gotland, with the purpose to expand my knowledge on Game Design in a academic level and learn new ways and programs to create a game. I also want to get new friends here and explore this new home.  

I was born in Stockholm in 1994 and grew up on the island of Ekerö, west of the city. I've been playing video games since I was 4, and am a huge Playstation fan though I've also played a lot of other consoles. Today I own a PS3, a PS4 and a Gaming PC. I also like to watch movies and TV-series, reading about history and video games, edit movies on Sony Vegas, paint in Photoshop, traveling and go out with firends.