Unit 4 – Production Management Project & Unit 5 – Working to a brief in Media

Video

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL10dezsuCFL5nsbqSW6-wycuU3LnQuSfZ

Thought Process and Development

When creating our Killer Klowns game in our group, we came up with a lot of different ideas just by talking things through. The first serious idea that we had was that the main character of the Killer Klowns film, Mike, was dreaming all of these events, but we realised that was a bit of a boring idea. The next idea that we came up with was that after the events of the film, Mike was traumatised by what happened, and turned to alcoholism. After causing a public disturbance Mike was put in prison to sleep off the alcohol, but had nightmares about the Klowns. This added more detail to the previous storyline and made it more interesting, but we were worried about the effects of adding alcohol to the game and how that might effect the age rating of the game. Finally, we settled on the idea that the game would be an alternate timeline of the film. Instead of defeating the Klowns, Mike was defeated and was taken by the Klowns, being placed in a candyfloss cocoon to harvest him. After sometime, the Klowns interrupted the process, expecting Mike to now have become a Klown, but instead he became a hybrid Klown/human. He wants revenge, so he goes off to find and destroy the Klowns spaceship, which is where the game starts.

When first designing the game with concept art, I had very different ideas to how the game ended up. For example, I wanted to have a level that was a theme park style near the ocean, with this being the Klowns main base of operations. The problem with this idea was that in order to create a realistic version of the level, we would've had to have create many models in Maya, and we realised that we would not have enough time. I also wanted to have a forest area where the Klowns would be hiding as the level before the theme park style level. However, I found a compromise in the level that I created. I decided that instead of create a whole theme park area, I would take aspects of that and create a level using inspiration from that. My level ended up being a forested area that leads up to a haunted house which has a old rollercoaster around the outskirts of the house. This meant that I got to keep the theme I wanted whilst also cutting down on time and allowed me to focus on getting the functionality of the game working, which was my role within the group.

In regards to models, I did create a Klown model for the game, but when it came to putting this model onto the enemy character in the game we found that the model become too stretched and didn't look good enough to put into the game, which is why we used Kori's model as well. Although the model doesn't look perfect in game, it looked much better than mine, and we felt that it was good enough to include in the game. The reason we both created models is because we wanted to have multiple types of Klowns in the game, but once mine didn't work we decided that it would just be easier to include one type, and work on getting other things working as we felt that we had a good enough enemy for the game.

When looking at the functionality of the game, I am very happy with the way that the game has turned out. I was in charge of this part of the game, and I feel that I did a good job in getting the game to work. I was able to include lots of complicated functions such as an inventory and equipment system that allowed the players to find weapons within the levels and pick them up for use. Furthermore, I added functionality for a stamina system that allowed the player to move faster for a time, which was important in this game as it allowed the player to escape the enemies and hide if they ever got surrounded. I was also able to add the ability to do damage to the enemies using weapons, and gave the enemies a health system where they could die if they took enough damage, along with many other things that helped to get the game to work well.

What I Liked and Things I Would Improve

There are a lot of things that I like about our game. First of all, I'm happy that we have some kind of story line included within the game as it helps to give a sense of purpose when playing the game instead of having no reason to the things that you do in the game. I also really like Kori's inclusion of a tutorial level that actually has information that the players can read so they can easily learn the controls of the game, rather than being thrown in at the deep end and getting frustrated when they don't know the controls. Furthermore, I also like the Klown footprints that Kori added as a guide. They aren't everywhere so that don't make the game too easy, but they give the player a nudge in the right direction, which is great. Another thing I like in the game is within Noel's level, with the use of trigger boxes in order to talk to NPCs at the houses in order to add more story and substance to the game. It helps to immerse the player in the game as it gives them more reason to be playing. I love the level design of Kori's main level, as it uses a small space to do a lot and add a lot of exploration, compared to my level which is very linear and straight. Finally, I'm happy that I managed to add a boss to the end of the game, which also links in with the story line of the game. By having the boss being the spaceship it adds some variation to the enemies in the game and also creates a unique challenge for the player that needs to be overcome to defeat the game.

However, despite all of the good things in the game, there are some things that I would change. The main thing for me would have been to make lots more models to add into the game. It feels that I didn't really contribute much to that site of the project and although that wasn't really my focus, I didn't do much in that area that actually made it into the game. I would also like to fix the enemies animation and models as they still look a bit off. I would like to add an attack animation for the enemies as well as it's a bit rubbish that they just do contact damage when they could swing at the player or shoot at them instead. We were also discussing having objectives and collectables in the game to add more depth to the game than just run through and kill Klowns, which would have been nice. Another thing I would like to add is sounds. We had a lot of focus on the functionality and the environments, so for the most part sounds were just forgotten about which really effects the atmosphere of the game negatively.

Overall, I am incredibly happy with the way our game has turned out. I feel like it has a lot of functionality, along with some interesting and diverse maps that highlight the work of our group really well. I also like how accessible the game is to newer players thanks to the tutorials and the hints given along the way. Most of all, I like how much content we managed to add to the game, with 4 levels and complicated blueprints that make the game feel much more professional. If we could've had more models and sound that would have made the game much better, but on the whole I am very happy with the work me and the group have done and I am very pleased with our final game and the project as a whole

Unit 67: 3D Animation Task 2

The Animation
https://youtu.be/iWZ0AcYA8K8

My animation is around 35 seconds long and involves animations point of view being abducted by a spaceship, and meeting with the leader of the Klowns. Within the animation there are Klowns moving, along with one walking towards the camera before kneeling down next to the camera. There are also hand movements for multiple Klowns along with head motions. Finally, there is also an animation for the spaceship flying down for the abduction.

The first thing that the player will see is that they are surrounded by defeated Klowns, which have been staged to make it seem like they have been defeated by the viewer themselves, to give the sense that viewer is the hero and that they have won the fight, giving a sense of victory. As they are panning around the room, one of the Klowns lifts his head. I did this to grab the attention of the viewer, and make them think that maybe all the Klowns are still alive. Due to the character being rigged and skinned, I used the rotate tool on his head joint to rotate his head round to look in the players general direction. This is also used as a reason to get the viewer to get a better look at the Klowns on the ground, and move closer to the still moving Klown. When the camera moves in towards the Klown, it makes it apparent that they weren't looking at the player, but instead past them. This gives an excuse for the camera to look towards the area the Klown is looking. I further signified that there was something behind the camera by moving the Klowns arm forward as if it was reaching towards something. The Klown's arm mo
ves in an arc to make it seem more realistic. I did this to build tension by making the viewer think that maybe another one of the Klowns has woken up behind them.

When the camera pans towards the area that the Klown has indicated, the player sees the spaceship in the distance. I used pose-to-pose animation to move the spaceship around the sky, making sure it moved around the sky and moved to the correct points. I also did this to make it seem like the spaceship was searching around, before seeing you and moving towards your position. It then moves towards the camera and there is a blinding light as the viewer is abducted.

When the viewer wakes up, they come face to face with a different Klown that looks to be asleep and tied down. I made sure that the camera takes in this fact to build up a sense of safety for the viewer, as they can't be in danger if the Klown is tied down. I used a lot of zooms to make the viewer think that there would be a jump scare at some point, which builds up the tension for the viewer as they think there might be something scary coming but they don't know when or where. As the player turns towards the Klown again, the Klown lifts it's head up. I used this as a form of anticipation, as it foretells that the Klown is now awake. There is also more anticipation as the Klown starts to break it's bonds, which tells the viewer that the Klown is going to break free and they are no longer safe. The camera moving back is there to insinuate that the viewer should be scared and should be trying to get away from this Klown.

The camera tries to get away by turning and moving backwards, which was done to show that there is no escape from the Klown. When the camera turns around they see that the Klown has stood up as is now walking towards the player. In order to animate this I used the straight ahead technique, by animating each frame of each body part in order to make the Klown walk more accurately. Furthermore, by swinging the arms as the Klown walks towards the camera adds some arcing movement along with making the movement seem more realistic as it happens. Once the Klown reaches the camera, it slows down to a stop, which adds realism as it makes sense for the character to slow down before it stops. Finally, the Klown kneels down in front of the player before two of the Klown's minions pop into the frame in order to have a bit of a jump scare and also show that the viewer is surrounded and they are not going to escape. The animation ends there to leave the viewer wondering what is going to happen to them next.

Evalution and Review

Overall, I'm quite happy with the animation that I have created. I think there is a good use of some of the 12 principles of animation. I think it captures the atmosphere of fear quite well, and I think the walking of the Klown is relatively well done. However, I had a problem getting the walking animation done due to the model that I was using, as it wasn't rigged very well which caused the movement to look odd as there were lots of things that had to be corrected between scenes. For example, the joints in the knees didn't move properly which meant a lot of the leg movements had to be done by moving the hips and feet into the right place and then correcting the knee placement. Furthermore, another problem that I found was that by using the camera as the point of view of the animation, I did limit the amount of things I could animate as that only reactions I could use were the movement of the camera. If I were to do this again I would probably use a stationary camera and use multiple characters so I could show more detailed reactions to make the animation much better. I would also use better models so that I could perform much more detailed movements and move the joints in more interesting way. Finally, the render came out a lot darker than in Maya, which works for the night sky, but the abduction doesn't work properly so that's something I would fix as well.
I do think that the atmosphere and the story that the animation tells is good though, as it builds up a lot of tension and has a good payoff at the end. Therefore, although there are things that I would change, I think that it isn't a bad attempt at an animation and I'm quite happy with the result.

Object-Oriented Design Task 2

Blueprinting in Unreal


AI

This part of AI's blueprint focuses on the ability of the enemy AI to act when it sees the player character come into it's field of vision, and do damage to the player if it catches them. Firstly, if the AI character sees the player in it's vision, it uses the AI move to node to start to move towards them. It takes the pawn as itself as that is the character that will being moving to something. The target actor is the player character as we don't want the AI to be moving towards any other character in this situation. If the AI successfully reaches the player and collides with them, it will do damage to the player equal to that of the value of the damage done variable which in this case is 5, so the player character will take 5 points of damage. Finally, the AI character will the return back to its patrol route.

The blueprint for the AI's patrol route uses a flip flop node, which means it performs each action on after the other, which is good for a patrol as the AI is going to be moving from one position to another. Each route uses the AI move to node, with the pawn being itself again as that is the one that will be moving. The only difference on each side of the flip-flop is that one of the target actors is the first location of the patrol, and the other is the second location. That creates the patrol route as the AI is travelling to one point and then the other continuously, unless it sees the player character, it which case the other blueprint will take over. Finally, it returns to it's patrol until it sees the character to chase.

Health and HUD

For starters, the first thing that has to be done is to create the widgets that show the functions and information on the screen. This blueprint does this when the game begins play, then using a sequence node in order to do both actions when the game starts, one after another. The first sequence creates the health bar widget and displays the health of the player character before adding it to the viewport so that it can be seen by the player. The second sequence creates a second widget for that of blood splatter widget, which I'm using as an indicator to show the player that they are taking damage and are at low health. Similarly to the first sequence, it then adds it to the viewport so it can be seen by the player. The health bar update is a function that updates the health and the health bar in the game every tick of the game, which is why it is connected to the event tick node. Finally, the event at the bottom deals with the damage being done to the player. Simply put, it takes the players current health at the time of the damage, minuses the damage from that value before outputting a new value of the players current health and setting that. (Current Health - Damage = New Current Health).

The health bar update function updates the player characters health and then translates that visually to the health bar that the player can see. In order to calculate the players current health it takes the current health and checks if it is less than or equal to the max health variable and then adds that together with the players health regeneration. The regeneration effect is calculated by taking the value of the regenerate variable and the delta world seconds, which returns the frame delta time in seconds, and then multiplying the two values together to get the rate of regeneration per second. These two values added together gives the player current health, which is calculated every tick of the game so that it is constantly up to date. It then updates the current health in the health bar widget whilst setting the health percentage by taking the current health and dividing it by the max health. For example, if the player is at 50 current health and they have a max health of 100, then their health percentage would be 50/100, or 50%. 

Inside the widgets mentioned earlier, there is also some blueprinting being done. For the health bar HUD it is just casting the widget to the third person character so that is updating correctly for the players situation. The bloodeffect HUD is a bit more complicated however, as the majority of the blueprinting is done in the widget itself, rather than in the player character like the health bar. Similarly to the health bar widget, we start by casting it to the player character, so that characters actions are the ones that effect what happens. In order for the effect to occur when the player is taking damage, the blueprint needs to take reference of the players current health and react accordingly. It takes the targets max health, that being the player character in this situation, and the players current health and divides them to find the percentage of health that the player has got, much the same as earlier. This time however, we take that number and do 1 minus that number in order to get a new number. This value now represents the alpha of the image of the blood splatter, which is how opaque the image is. This means that the more health that the player has, the more opaque the image will be, whilst if the player has a low amount of health then the image will be much more pronounced to signify how much damage the player has taken. Examples below show the difference between high and low health.

Health Kit

For the health kit I have, when the player collides with the box trigger surrounding the object, the player will gain health under the right conditions. The blueprint checks whether the player has 75 or less health, and if they do then they will gain 25 health and the current health will be updated to the correct value. The health kit will then be destroyed so the player cannot constantly gain health at the same place.

Stamina bar

I wanted to include a stamina bar in my game so that the character could sprint, allowing them to more easily get away from danger if they were spotted by the enemy. For starters, when the shift key is pressed, which is what I am using for the sprint key, the players maximum walk speed is set to 1000, compared to the normal speed of 600. A timer then starts which decreases the stamina every 0.5 seconds. The rate of decrease is calculated by taking the current stamina and taking away the stamina rate in order to calculate the new current stamina value. If this current stamina value is less than or equal to zero then the timer is made invalid, and the max walking speed is reset to default as there is no stamina available left for the player to sprint. A new timer then starts that regenerates the stamina before it reaches max and the timer is invalidated again.

When the shift key is released, the max walking speed is automatically set back to 600 and a timer is started to regain any stamina that was lost whilst the shift key was pressed. The stamina is increased in a similar way to how it was lost, this time by adding together the current stamina and the stamina rate, until it is greater or equal to that of the maximum stamina value. The timers are then cleared so they don't continue ticking down or up respectively.

Finally, in the HUD for the health and stamina bar there is a bit of blueprinting that takes a reference of the target character, that being the player and divides the current stamina by the max stamina in order to provide the percentage for the visual bar. 

Opening Equipment and Inventory UI

This is functionality of opening some of the UI elements of the game, specifically the Inventory UI and the Equip UI. Starting with the equip UI, it starts by pressing the input key, which for my game is E. The branch checks for whether the UI is already open or not. If it is already open and you are trying to close it, firstly the blueprint removes the UI from it's parent widget, which in this case is the equipment reference. The next branch checks if the inventory is also open or not. If it is not open, then the input mode is set to the game only, and the mouse is hidden so that the player can no longer click on things that are no longer open, before finally setting the is equipment open statement back to false. However, if the inventory is still open, none of this will happen as the player may still want to click on things in their inventory and we don't want to remove the mouse whilst they might still be doing anything, and it will just close the equip UI without removing the mouse etc.

If the equip UI is not open and the player wants to open it, the UI equipment widget is created and is added to the viewport so the player can see it. The input mode is then set to interact with the UI rather than the game, so that moving the mouse around doesn't keep swinging the players camera around at the same time. Finally, it shows the mouse cursor so that the player can click on things in the equip UI, before setting the is equipment open Boolean value to true so if the button is pressed again it will take the other branch route to close it.

The inventory UI works in exactly the same way but instead it checks whether itself and then the equip UI is open instead, and works in the same way as before.

Coding in GameMaker

The three normal enemies in the game have the same actions and events, just with different sprites attached to them. In the create event there is a piece of code that slows down the animation speed of the sprite, then a couple of drag and drop options that set an alarm to 100 steps, and sets the vertical speed of the enemies to 0.2.

In the alarm event, the game takes the probability of 1 in 10 as whether it is going to create a bullet, which means that there is a 10% chance that the enemy will shoot a bullet at the player. The alarm then resets to 50 steps, meaning that after the first shot the enemies have a much higher chance to shoot. This gives the player a bit of time to get prepared for the level before the shooting rate of the enemies increases. In the step event, the game checks whether the enemies have reached far enough down the y axis to end the game, as if the enemies get too far down the screen, it counts as a game over. Finally the collision event with the player bullet plays the sound of the enemy dying, and destroys the instance.

Obj_miniboss and obj_boss

Overall, the majority of the events in the these two objects are very similar to the normal enemies, with some of the values for probability of shooting and the alarms reduced in order to make these enemies fire faster in order to increase the difficulty of these enemies. However, there are some notable differences between these harder enemies and the normal enemies and that is that they can move side to side. This creates some changes in the code as it gives these enemies starting horizontal speed variable. In the step event the code states that when these enemies hit the walls at the side of the room, it reverses the speed of the enemy, thus making it go in the opposite direction.

The only real difference between the boss and the miniboss is that the boss is a larger sprite, and also has a health bar and shoots larger bullets, however, the health is dealt with in another object.

All of these objects have a parent object, which is a spriteless object with no events in it. It is just used when moving on to the next level through the controller. 

obj_player

To start with the player object has some very standard commands, with the left and right keys used to move those ways respectively, it has collisions with each of the enemy bullets within the game that destroy the player and remove a life from the player. The more complicated parts involved with the player come with the ability to shoot bullets at the enemy, as it can't work on a probability basis as the player needs to shoot whenever the space button is pressed. To get around this, I used a variable called canShoot, which is said to true in the create event. This means that when the player object is created, it can shoot a bullet as the variable is set to true. However, when the player presses the space bar, the step event changes the variable to false and sets an alarm to 15 steps, and then creates the bullet. Once this alarm is up the variable is simply set back to true and the player can shoot again. This stops the player being able to shoot a huge amount of bullets and make the game super simple. The player object is set as persistent so that when the room changes the player stays in the same position that they were already in, which makes the game less jarring for the player.

Controller

In the create event of the controller, it sets a global variable for name, which is used later on when adding your name to the high score board. It also sets a variable which makes your last score equal your score, which is used when adding lives when you reach a certain score. Finally, the create event sets the number of lives for the player, starting at three. the step event of the controller is probably the most complicated piece of code within my game; it deals with the progression of rooms, the high score board, and the adding of lives when you reach a certain number of points in the score. Firstly, the game checks whether there are any objects with the alien parent within the room, and if there are none, it moves the game onto the next room. Secondly, the game checks whether the players lives equals zero. When that happens the game displays a message telling them that the game is over, and that they should enter their name in order to be entered into the highscore board. The game then adds that name to the highscore board along with their score. It then sends the player to the highscore room where the highscore is drawn and visible to the player, also setting the score to 0 and the lives back to 3 so that the player doesn't automatically die when they are taken to the highscore room. Finally, the game checks whether the score that you have is divisible by 1000, and if it is then the player gets a life. It also checks that after it does that the last score does not equal the score so you don't get an infinite amount of lives when they have a number divisible by 1000. The escape key is just there in order to clear the scoreboard so that people can start a fresh scoreboard if they wish. The controller object is also persistent in order to keep the lives at the same amount as the room before, as well as the score.

My Opinion on Blueprinting

Having only used GML in Gamemaker, I don't really have much to compare it to, but I definitely prefer using blueprints to more written coding. I find it much easier to work my way through the paths of the blueprints, using the links to work out what's going on and why something works the way that it does. I just find it a lot easier to read and understand rather than having to trawl through all the written code trying to find out why something isn't working when you can just follow the links and lines. However, a problem that I do have with coding is that if there is a mistake and you're not sure what is wrong, it can be really hard to find the issue, especially if there is a lot of interlinking functions and you have just missed one link somewhere. Overall though I find it much easier to visualise the coding using blueprints, but I haven't used anything like C++ so I wouldn't know if I would prefer that or not.

Unit 67: 3D Animation Brief

Creating your Animation Brief

Cutscene
Overview of story: Reach the end of the level and cut scene triggers where the mother ship comes down and the big boss of the Klowns comes out, he then smashes the the building up a little bit and then spots the player character. He then comes over to the player character and roars in his face, and then the boss fight starts as the spaceship flies off in the distance.

OR

End of level and the triggers, the spaceship comes crashing down from the sky and crashlands in front of the player character. Out of the rubble climbs the pilot who crawls for a bit before collapsing to the ground. Then the leader of the Klowns bursts out of the wreckage of the ship, sending debris across the boss arena before spotting the player and beginning the fight.

OR

Mike reaches the top of the building in the level thinking that he has cleared the area of the Klowns when suddenly a ship comes down and abducts him, taking him to the final boss room. Mike stands up and looks around where he sees a large Klown sitting on a throne with strings attached to his arms (like a marionette). Suddenly the Klown sits up and rips off the strings, then stands up and walks towards the player, where the fight begins.

Goals and Objectives, Models and Textures: Need explosions, spaceship (exterior and exterior), Klown Leader, destroyed spaceship, rubble and debris. Needs to feel like the true final boss of the game, needs to be intense, slightly scary, epic music?, sound effects like crashing of spaceship, explosion, destruction of building, clown laughing

Target Audience 16

Analysis of a Computer Game

Final Fantasy X is an RPG developed and released by Square Enix. Originally released in 2001 for the PlayStation 2, it was then re-released for PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Vita in 2013 as Final Fantasy X/X-2 HD Remaster, before finally being released again on the PlayStation 4 in 2015 and for Windows in 2016. Having played both the original and the remastered version, I will be focusing mainly on the PS4 version as it is the version that I have played most recently.

Content wise, the game is heavily influenced by Asian themes, especially in terms of the cultural and geographical design of the game. Compared to that of the previous Final Fantasy games, this was bold choice as it was very much a step in a different direction than the previous iterations of the series. For example, FFVII had a Sci-fi setting, and FFIV had a more medieval setting relating back to earlier games in the series. FFX is set in a world in which nature is allowed to run rampant over the world, with tropical islands and forests taking the place of major cities in the game. The design of the characters within the game, specifically the clothing that is worn by characters, is hugely important within the game, as it allows players to be able to quickly identify which race that character belongs to. As an example, the attire of the Al-Bhed race made them out to be seen as strange and slightly eccentric, which helps to reinforce the fact that they might have different ideas and beliefs to other people within the world, and might be shunned because of their ideas. Combat in the game is also changed up from previous entries in the game, using a conditional turn-based system rather than an active time battle system. This means that instead of the battles happening in real time where characters move when their action bar is filled up, players have turns in which they have no time limit in order to take their turns. This allows players to think out what they want to do without having the pressures of the constant threats from the monsters attacking. This type of battle system does lower the intensity of the fights as you don't have to worry during your turns, and instead have all your time to think, which might take players out of the experience of the fight, although this does help to give players a higher sense of tactics and planning by knowing which character or enemy is going to be moving next, allowing the player to protect themselves, or be able to deal the final blow to an enemy before they get to attack. However, the random battle system in which you can be randomly be put into a battle when you are moving through areas can get frustrating, especially if you are almost at the end and you are low on life. This can cause annoyance with the game as you may just want to get past an annoying area but you continuously get caught in battles that you don't want to fight, which is one of my criticisms of the game. The game also includes lots of ways for players to improve their weapons and armour by defeating enemies and getting new weapons, a lot of the them with different abilities which allow you to customise your load out depending on what enemies you are fighting. This adds another level of strategy to the game as it allows you to take advantages of weaknesses of the enemies that you are facing. For example, there is an area called the thunder plains in which a lot of the enemies are weak to water attacks, so this allows you to plan your fights out beforehand and give yourself a slight advantage. Another way that you can improve your characters is to collect their celestial weapons, which are incredibly strong weapons for each character. To get these you have to collect the weapon, along with the crest and the sigil to activate them. To collect these weapons and parts you generally have to complete some kind of side quest, some of which are fun, but some of which are incredibly frustrating and difficult. The side quest to get the sigil for Tidus involves winning a race in a time of under 0.0 seconds, by collecting balloons that decrease your time and also by not getting hit by birds that increase your time. This is very difficult to achieve and is very frustrating, and is one of my least favourite things in this game, as although it's not needed to complete the game, if you are a completionist it makes the game a lot more frustrating to play.

Graphically, the games Asian influences can be seen in full effect once you reach the Island of Besaid and Kilika, with the areas being filled with lots of forested areas and tropical natural life. Due to the fact that is only a remaster, graphically it doesn't stand up to newer games being created specifically for these next generation consoles, although it is still an improvement to that of the previous versions of the game, with much higher texture resolutions and detail in the world. It is the first Final Fantasy game in the series in which the world and town maps have been fully integrated, with the terrain outside of the cities being rendered to scale. This makes the game look much better than previous Final Fantasy games in which the backgrounds were 2D representations of the area that the player was in. Furthermore, it is also the first game in the series in which used motion capture and skeletal animation technology. This makes the game feel much more realistic as it means that the game was able to include realistic lip movements for the characters when they speak, and it really helps to add to the games ability portray characters facial expressions and emotions, which ultimately helps to create a more powerful story for players to enjoy.

In the sound department, being the first Final Fantasy game in the series to include voice acting made a real improvement to the game as it allowed for more powerful emotions to be portrayed throughout the story, rather than just using text based options. This helped to keep the plot of the game much simpler, as the complexities of the characters are able to be portrayed through the voice acting and rather than having more complexities within the plot itself. However, the use of voice acting does lead to some problems for game, due to the fact that the original voice acting was done in Japanese, which meant that the lip movements of the characters were created to fit that dialogue. For the English version there is a lot of lip syncing issues when characters are talking, which makes the game look poorer as the voice acting and the lip movement don't fit together well it the majority of cases, which can make the game look like someone is just talking over the characters whilst their lips are moving, which can take away from some of the emotions that are trying to be portrayed. The voice acting itself, although sometimes slightly out there in terms of its content, is very good at portraying how the characters are feeling at the time, and really lends itself to the improvement of the story of the game. I don't think would have worked without the added emotions of the voice actors, as the story relies heavily on the relationships between the characters and the dynamic between the group, especially the way that they are feeling and how they react to their situations.

The game takes influence for previous games in the Final Fantasy series in which it is set in a fantasy world where the player controls a party of characters, each with their own strengths, weaknesses and characters that develop as they gain experience through defeating enemies. However, in FFX the traditional experience point system is replaced by a new system called the Sphere Grid. Traditionally, characters would level up when they earned enough experience via winning battles, increasing in strength when they did so. Using the Sphere Grid method, characters would earn Sphere Levels after earning enough AP, or Action Points. AP is earned in a similar way to experience points, as when you defeat monsters, or fiends as they are known in this world, you gain AP corresponding to how strong that enemy is. When you have earned enough AP to gain a sphere level, you can then use that level to move around the Sphere Grid, which is a pre-determined grid of interconnected nodes that contain various stat boosting effects, abilities, and empty nodes. Players can then apply spheres found in the game to these nodes in order to improve their characters. This system allows players to fully customise each of their characters however they want, contrasting them from their starting roles. For instance, this allows characters that are naturally physical damage dealers to become strong magic users or healers. This gives players a huge amount of diversity when levelling their characters and allows them to fully customise the game to play how they want. However, the flip side of this is that a level system this complex can lead to a lot of newer players becoming confused about how to level their character properly, and may lead them to have an under powered character which would make the game much harder, and may make players frustrated at the game, which could lead to them no longer playing the game.

A central theme of the game is that of religion and the impact that it can have on characters and the world as a whole, despite being a fantasy game with magic and monsters. Set in the land of Spira, the game follows the story of Tidus, a star Blitzball player from Zanakand as he tries to find his way back home after being taken to Spira by the main antagonist of the game, an immense creature known as Sin. Beginning in Tidus' home city of Zanarkand, a high tech city filled with machines, we find out that Tidus is a famous Blitzball star. During a Blitzball tournament, Zanarkand is attacked by a creature which Tidus finds out is called Sin from Auron, a man who is not from Zanarkand. Zanarkand is destroyed, and Tidus and Auron are taken to Spira. When he arrives in Spira, he is alone in a ruined temple-like place without food or water, until he is rescued by a group of Al-Bhed scavengers who speak a foreign language to him, which helps to show the player that they are in a very different place to where they first started. He learns from Rikku, one of the Al-Bhed that speaks his language, that Zanarkand was actually destroyed 1,000 years ago by Sin, which makes it seem that Tidus has been brought forward in time by Sin. However, Sin attacks again and Tidus is separated from the Al-Bhed and drifts to the tropical island of Besaid, where he meets Wakka, the captain of the local Blitzball team, the Besaid Aurochs, and also a devout follower of Yevon's teachings who believes that anyone who does not believe in the teachings is a heathen, which explains his hatred of the Al-Bhed. Tidus impresses them with his Blitzball skills, and is asked to join the Aurochs, who are considered the worst team in Spira due to their 10 year losing streak. Once they reach the village of Besaid, Wakka introduces Yuna, Lulu and Kimahri. Tidus learns that Yuna is a summoner who is about to go on a pilgrimage in order pray at the temples around Spira to obtain Aeons, powerful summoned creatures that will then fight for her, before being able to obtain the Final Aeon and defeat Sin, and follow in the footsteps of here late father, High Summoner Braska. Lulu is a guardian to Yuna, someone who protects a summoner on their pilgrimage to defeat Sin, and is well versed in the use of Black Magic, which is the use of damaging spells to defeat enemies. Kimahri Ronso is Yuna's first and most faithful guardian, having known and protected her since she was seven years old. He is not well accepted by the Ronso tribe due to his shorter stature and broken horn. Kimahri met Auron in the city of Bevelle after leaving the home of the Ronso, Mount Gagazet in shame, who asked him to fulfil the wish of Yuna's father to take her away from Bevelle and take her to Besaid where she could grow up in peace. Tidus joins with Yuna and her Guardians, Lulu, Wakka and Kimahri in across the country in order to play in the tournament and also to help Yuna gather her Aeons and defending against attacks from Sin.

After the Blitzball tournament in Luca, the party is joined by Auron, who reveals to Tidus that himself, Lord Braska and Tidus' father Jecht had taken the same journey 10 years ago to defeat Sin, and that by doing that Jecht became the reincarnation of Sin, revealing to Tidus that his father hadn't died 10 years ago like he had thought. Auron and Tidus then officially become Yuna's guardians at the request of Yuna's and Tidus' father. The party continue travelling Spira, collecting more Aeons before being joined by Rikku, who is later revealed to be Yuna's cousin, which makes Yuna part Al-Bhed. The party reach the city of Guadosalam, home of the Guado people, where the leader of the Guado and also a Maester of Yevon, Seymour Guado proposes to Yuna under the guise that it will ease Spira's sorrow of constant attacks from Sin and give them something good to believe in. However, it is revealed that Seymour was in fact responsible for death of his own father, and now aims to destroy Spira by becoming Sin. The group rescues Yuna and in the process killing Seymour, causing them to become branded as heretics as they have killed a Maester of Yevon, and becoming villains to the majority of the world that believes in the teachings of Yevon. After Sin attacks the pa
rty again, they become separated on Bikanel Island, the homeland of the Al-Bhed, Tidus discovers that the Summoners die when they summon the final Aeon, which leads him to want to find a way to defeat Sin without having to summon the final Aeon due to his growing affection for Yuna. The party finds out the Yuna has been captured by the Bevelle forces attacking the Al-Bhed and has been taken to Bevelle in order to be forced to marry Maester Seymour. The group crash the wedding and rescue Yuna and proceed to the temple of Bevelle in order to gather another Aeon. Having done this they are captured afterwards and are ordered to stand trial. They escape from their trials and head towards to ruins of Zanarkand, the place where the Final Aeon is waiting.

Whilst travelling to Zanarkand, Tidus finds out that himself, Jecht and the Zanarkand that he is from are summoned entities much like those of the Aeons Summoners can use. Long ago, the original Zanarkand and the City of Bevelle battled each other in which the former was defeated. The survivors of the battle became Fayth, humans who willingly give up their lives to have their souls sealed in order to commune with summoners and enable the summoning of Aeons. This Fayth used their memories in order to create a new city removed from the reality of Spira, including the creation of Tidus and Jecht. The Fayth, however, are tired of dreaming, and wish to be free of the dream. The leader of creating this Fayth was Yu Yevon, who was the one who created Sin in order to defeat Bevelle, however the mental effort needed to create both dream Zanarkand and Sin effectively wiped his mind clean and replaced it with one final command of summon the dream Zanarkand and also summon Sin, which means that in order for the Fayth to be allowed to rest, Sin must be destroyed completely, or Yu Yevons final command will continue to allow Sin to be reborn by merging with the Final Aeon. Once the group reach the ruins of Zanarkand, they meet with Yunalesca, Yuna's namesake and the first summoner to defeat Sin, as an unsent. She tells the party that the Final Aeon is created from the fayth of someone close to the summoner, hence why Jecht became Sin by becoming the final Aeon and merging with Yu Yevon. Yuna then decides against using the Final Aeon due to the fact that she did not want to sacrifice anyone and that it would be pointless as Sin would return anyway. Yunalesca then tries to kill the party, but she is defeated and disappears, leading the option of collecting the final Aeon being gone for good. The party decides that they have to defeat the spirit of Sin in Yu Yevon, and it's host of Jecht's imprisoned spirit. When Yu Yevon is defeated, Sin is defeated for good, and the spirits of the Fayths around Spira are allowed to rest, which also includes the Fayth that has created Tidus. Furthermore, Auron is also to be revealed to be an unsent, someone who has died, but stayed on in the world due to strong attachments to the world, which was protecting Yuna in this case and he goes to the Farplane, the place where spirits rest. Tidus then disappears from the world due to the Fayth no longer summoning him. The game ends with Yuna giving a speech to the citizens of Spira resolving to help rebuild Spira free from the influences of Sin.

I think the narrative in this game is one of the best that I have ever played, building up complex, strong relationships between all of the main characters in the game, along with all of them having a strong backstory that has led them to be in this position. The world itself is also rich with many different races and beliefs that makes it feel like the world is truly alive, which helps make the world more realistic as it wouldn't make sense for all the inhabitants to all be the same and have the same beliefs. Furthermore, it also deals with some controversial topics that lead the story to become a lot more interesting because it deals with topics that a lot of games stay away from due to the connotations that they might hold. Predominately, the central theme of religious manipulation and the development of the characters through the use of religion in order to build the foundation of the story and the growth and development of the characters. Specifically, Wakka's development throughout the story is a great highlight of this. When you first meet Wakka he is a devout believer in the teachings of Yevon, the religion of the world, and he denounces all of those who do not believe, especially the Al-Bhed who actively work against the teachings and use the forbidden machina, ancient machinery that is said to have been the reason Sin was born. Throughout the story Wakka struggles with his beliefs as he comes to see the corruption among the religion, even being reluctant to fight against Maester Seymour despite knowing of all the crimes that he has committed. As he becomes to realise the corruption of the religion and their leaders, with all the lies that he uncovers as the party travel together, he begins to think for himself and come to his own conclusions about the world, which leads him to grow as a character and finally denounce his prior beliefs, both as a believer in Yevon and his feelings towards the Al-Bhed, thanks to his growing friendship with Rikku. The ending of the game is also incredibly emotional as you have been through this journey with all of these characters, built up bonds with all of them, especially romantically with Yuna and then to finally have the world at peace, but be unable to stay there gives off a sense of satisfaction that you have saved the person that you love, but also sadness that you have to go. Any game that can make the player feel such powerful emotions is a sign of how great the narrative is in this game. However, despite the great narratives in the game, the main complaint I have is that it feels very linear compared to most other games in the series. In previous and future games you have a lot of freedom to go where you choose, using an airship to travel the world, or the use of a world map to move on in order to get to areas much quicker, and you can go where you wish to go. In FFX, you get the airship very late in the game, which is great for allowing you to revisit previous areas that you have been to, but for the majority of the game you are stuck following a linear path, which is a shame from an exploration sense, but it does ultimately make sense as the party is on a pilgrimage to collect the Aeons, however it would have been nice to be able to choose which direction you went and what order the Aeons could be collected in.

Character wise, the only real negative I have is with the main character who can come across as annoying and childish. Other than that I think the game has a lot of strong characters, especially in Yuna. She is a strong female character who instead of relying on being particularly athletic and strong in a physical sense such as a Lara Croft type character, she instead uses here strength of will and belief to continue on her journey. This is typified when she agrees to marry Seymour despite knowing the crimes that he had committed, so that she could put a stop to him without endangering any of her friends. The rest of the characters all have really interesting backstory, from Lulu having been a guardian to other summoners and failing, to Auron dying but still living on to fulfil his promise to his friends, and Kimahri being shamed and sent away from his home and then returning stronger and better than he was, I think that there is a character that everyone can relate to in their struggles and growth, which lends itself to having a great story.

 I think the target audience for this game is probably any fans of RPG games, especially turn based games due to the change in combat. Being a Final Fantasy game, it already has a committed audience that are going to by a play the game, yet the story and gameplay are strong enough to enitce other RPG fans to play the game. Furthermore, there is very little need to have played a Final Fantasy game before as it is own contained story, and you don't miss out on everything, you just might not know as much about the stereotypical Final Fantasy tropes than other players, such as the use of Chocobos for travel. Although it does deal with some complicated themes, it is generally quite a tame game with no cursing or sexual content, with the only real issue being with violence and fighting, giving the nature of the game there isn't really anything that can be done about it.

Overall, despite some of the flaws that the game has in terms of some poor lip syncing in the non-Japanese version, and some annoyance with the main character, I honestly think that this is one of the best games of all time, with a fun combat system and a great story with an emotional ending, I don't think there are many games that can do this style of game better. It looks great for a game that was originally made over 15 years ago and has only been remastered, it has one of the best soundtracks of any game which adds to the intensity of boss battles and also the more emotional side of the game. It also takes a huge step forward in changing the shape of the RPG genre as a whole as it was one of the first to include fully animated characters with full voice acting, along with fully rendered 3D backgrounds. It represents not just a great game but also a big leap in the genre as a whole, which is why I think the game is great, despite it's few problems.

P3: Understand how Media Audiences Respond to Media Products - Task 1

Violence in Video games is always portrayed by mainstream media as one of the leading causes of overly aggressive behaviour in people under the age of 18 years old. While it is true that the impact of violent video games does have an effect on people, both positively and negatively, it is a massive oversight to say that it is to blame for a lot of the major crimes committed by teens that play these games in their spare time. Indeed, research suggests that there is very little to no correlation between major crimes committed and violent video games "Yet it is not at all clear whether, over longer periods, such a habit increases the likelihood that a person will commit a violent crime, like murder, rape, or assault, much less a Newtown-like massacre. (Such calculated rampages are too rare to study in any rigorous way, researchers agree.)" (1)

When looking at the impact of video games on under 18 year olds, it is first important to consider audience theory, looking at how an audience consumes media and why they decide to consume this media. One model that is used to define the relationship between an audience and the media is the Hypodermic Needle model, which states that the audience is passively fed the information that is being displayed and are therefore unable to resist the message that is being shown to them. This theory helps to reinforce the fact that video games have a negative impact on an audience due to the fact that there is the belief that when people under the age of 18 consume violent video games, they are unable to resist the effect that these games have on them, thus normalising them to violence and making them believe that violence alright. However, the issue with this theory is that there are a lot of people that do consume violent video games and are unaffected by the content that they are consuming, which renders the fact that the audience is passive and cannot resist the flow of media to them completely void of merit. Due to this, there is another theory that is used to help define the way that an audience uses media, which is the Uses and Gratification Theory. This theory is the opposite to the Hypodermic Needle model as it states that the audience is active when consuming the media, and uses the media instead of being used by it. Furthermore, this theory states that the audience uses the media for it's own pleasure and gratification. This is important as this theory believes that the audience is free to choose how they react to the media that they are consuming, and whether they believe the message that is coming across to them. In terms of violent video games, this theory strengthens the argument that video games aren't necessarily bad for the consumer, as they are able to play these violent video games, and then be free to make their own choices regarding how they feel about the scenes that they have witnessed, instead of being blindly guided by the game that they are playing and then having no choice in the actions that they might commit due to playing these games. (2)

Taking this into account, the big question is how do these violent video games actually have an effect the people that play them. There have been studies into both the positive and negative impacts of violent video games, although mainstream media tends to only pick up on the negative aspects as it helps to fit the narrative that they are trying to tell. The Washington Navy Yard shooting was reported by the media as being caused by the perpetrator being obsessed with the video game Call of Duty, and that this was the main cause of the rampage that occurred on that day (3), without citing any other factors that may have caused this tragedy to occur, such as mental health issues. (4) The issue with this is that it creates the narrative that all violent video games cause heightened aggression which will cause the players that play these genres of games to all become violent towards people in their real life activities. 

When looking into different studies, it is fair to say that there is evidence to suggest that playing violent video games does lead to heightened aggression levels in the players. For example, a study that was published in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology had participants either play a violent or non-violent video game for 20 minutes per day for 3 days. At the end of this time period they were then asked to compete in tasks where if they were the winner, they would be able to blast their opponent with an unpleasant noise. The researchers found that when the winner of the competitive task was the person who played the violent video game, they tended to blast the loser with an unpleasant noise for a longer time period, and the researchers interpreted this as an increase is aggressive behaviour. (5) However, another study which was conducted by Seth Gitter and his colleagues found that context was massively important when looking into the effects of violent video games on people. This study showed that when players were asked to play a violent game in which there was a positive goal in mind, such as saving and protecting a friend in a zombie game, they showed decreased levels of aggression compared to those who were just asked to kill as many zombies as they possibly could. This study helps to show that it isn't just the act of playing violent video games that dictates whether they have a negative effect or not, it's the way that the games are played instead. (6) Many similar studies have been conducted that have found similar results to those found by the study posted in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, such as the study conducted by Christopher Bartlett, a psychologist at Iowa State University. Bartlett led a research team that had 47 undergraduates play the violent video game Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance for 15 minutes. After they had finished playing the team took various measures of arousal, both physical and psychological. Furthermore, they also tested how aggressive the students were after playing the game, by having them dole out hot sauce to a fellow student who they were told did not like spicy food. The study found very similar results to that of the previous study; that those students who had played the violent game were more aggressive across the board, giving their fellow students much bigger proportions of hot sauce. (7) These studies give evidence to support the fact that playing violent video games do give players a heightened level of aggression, at least in the few minutes after playing these games. However, they do not provide evidence that playing violent video games increases the aggression of players in the long term. 

When looking at the long term effects of violent video games, psychologists at Brock University in Ontario found that longer periods of violent video game playing among high school students predicted a slightly higher number of such incidents over time. However, a study by Oxford University suggests that the content of video games is not the true problem, rather that the length of time that young people spend playing video games could have an effect on behaviour of school performance. The study, published in the journal Psychology of Popular Media Culture, researched the effect of playing violent video games on primary schoolchildren and concluded that the fears that a generation that played these violent video games would grow up with an impaired development were no more likely to be true than the other moral panics that occurred over television and other media. This study also found that there were positive effects to playing violent video games. For example, they found that children who played online video games were more adept at relating to other children than those who played alone, while those who played alone were more likely to perform better academically and were actually less likely to display aggressive behaviour. However, these effects were small and overall video games were a minor factor in shaping children's behaviour. The study found that Overall those who played for less than an hour a day were less likely to have problems such as aggression than those who did not play at all, but those who spend more than three hours a day displayed higher levels of aggression and were less academically engaged. This evidence suggests that rather than violent video games being the cause of a higher level of aggression in the long term, the real reason may be the amount of time spent playing video games in general, which is a counter intuitive finding to the studies that focused on the violent content of video games as the sole cause of increased aggression levels. The study also adds that these findings do not support the idea that regular violent video game play is linked to real world violence or conflict. (8)

There are some studies that conclude that playing video games does have some positive effects on the players, contrary to some peoples beliefs. A study conducted by scientists at the University of Rochester, New York has found that playing fast paced action games helps to increase the speed in which people can make decisions, and also the quality of the decisions that they are making. The scientists conducted a series of test to gauge whether regular playing of high speed video games could help to improve cognitive abilities. Taking dozens of 18 -25 year olds who were not ordinarily video gamers, they split them into two groups. One group would be playing fast paced video games such as Call of Duty 2 and Unreal Tournament, action games in which players move around arenas shooting each other in a competitive atmosphere, whereas the other group were given the Sims 2 to play, which is a more sedate life simulation game that mimics the pace of everyday life. After playing the games for 50 hours, both groups were tested to see whether they could make quicker decisions and the results showed that those who had played the action games made decisions 25% faster than those who played the Sims 2, whilst also answering as many questions correctly in that faster time. This study shows that playing these violent, action-packed video games appears to improve the ability to make fast paced decisions at the same time as being accurate in their results. (9)

Surveys and Conclusion

When asked about violent video games we found that in a survey of 19 people, 17 male and 2 female, that the majority of those had played a game rated 18+ before they were 13 years old. This may imply that there may be a problem with the people buying violent video games for children before they are mature enough to play them, although maturity levels can vary from person to person. This could lead to an early desensitization to violence whilst still developing, which may cause the younger players to act out to they still don't fully understand their actions. When playing competitive games, 11/19 said that they get very competitive when playing, which could also be another reason why people might be more aggressive after playing video games, as the frustration over losing a close game could boil over to outside the game, although in my experience that rarely lasts longer than a few minutes after the game before the player returns to normal. Finally, 13 of the participants said that they have not been shocked by a violent scene in a video game. This may lead to a bigger problem as a whole that everyone is getting increasingly desensitized to violence in general, which is emphasized by the fact that the majority of the participants said that they are okay or have no issue with violence in video games. Due to the rise of the internet and social media, it is now easier than ever to be faced with violent media. Scrolling down Facebook or Twitter can lead people to seeing things that may include violence, which a lot of people now see as normal these days. Along with the increase in news reports being shown in violent places, it is now harder than ever for anyone to get away from the violence that has become part of everyday life. I believe that is a larger reason for aggressive behaviour in teens who play video games, they have already become so normalized to violence and distressing scenes that when playing these video games it doesn't really have as much as an effect on them as maybe it should. I think that the aggressiveness comes from general frustration with the game, especially in a competitive environment where everyone wants to win and do their best, when things are going wrong that's when the aggressiveness comes out and people start to act out, rather than due to the violence in the game. When the game is over these feelings generally subside after a few minutes, which shows that while video games may have a short term effect of increased aggressiveness, it is very unlikely that they will cause long term effects, unless they are coupled with other contributing factors, such as mental health issues or problems in the home. To liken it to a competitive football match, when one team is losing they may get frustrated and make a bad tackle. Just because they did something wrong in the moment doesn't mean that they are an inherently violent person, just as playing violent video games doesn't make you a violent person just because of the things that you see in game, chances are there are larger factors at play, but these will get swept aside by media outlets as it doesn't fit the story they want to tell. 

Survey Results

2 Female
17 Male

1 = 14 or under
6 = 15 to 17
12 = 18+

11/18 people played an 18+ game before they were 13

Average number of hours per week = 20

11/19 competitive games and they get quite competitive

16/19 get frustrated at video games

8/19 said that when they play violent video games, it affects their mentality when playing other types of games

13 people said they have not been shocked by a violent scene or been in distress.

The majority of the survey takes said that they feel okay or have no issue with violence in video games.

Sources

(1) (7) http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/12/science/studying-the-effects-of-playing-violent-video-games.html?_r=1&

(2) http://www.slideshare.net/robertclackmedia/audience-theory-powerpoint

(3) http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/10314585/Aaron-Alexis-Washington-navy-yard-gunman-obsessed-with-violent-video-games.html

(4)  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washington_Navy_Yard_shooting (See Mental Health Issues)

(5)  http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022103112002259

(6)  http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ab.21487/abstract

(8) http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/2016/03/12/study-finds-no-evidence-violent-video-games-make-children-aggres/ 

(9) http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/shoot-em-ups-are-good-for-you-say-researchers-2078435.html
https://www.theguardian.com/science/head-quarters/2013/sep/19/neuroscience-psychology

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/shoot-em-ups-are-good-for-you-say-researchers-2078435.html (9)

http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20130826-can-video-games-be-good-for-you

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-33960075

Unit 71: Object-Orientated Design for Computer Games

Concepts and Principles

Simplified Understanding - When using blueprints and other coding methods, all the different parts can get very confusing to read and to understand. By making sure to make all the code as simple as possible to understand, it makes the whole process of creating a game much simpler. One way of simplifying someones understanding of the code used is to leave a comment on the coding method showing what that code represents, so that if something goes wrong with that aspect of the game, it is much simpler to find that piece of code and then edit it to make it work.

Re-usability - Using Object-Orientated design means that you are able to take assets and then re-use them in different parts of the game, or in different projects all together. For example, once you have created a door you can take the behaviour and state of this object and then use it in different places in the game, even re-using the behaviour of the object and transferring onto different objects, such as opening a chest instead of a door.

Maintenance - As with any creation, there will likely be some problems with the blueprints or coding the first few times that the project is used. It is important to be able to fix these problems both before the game is released, and also to be able to fix any problems that come to light when the game released. A lot of the time, there will be bugs and glitches that will have been missed by the testing time, therefore the game will continuously need to be maintained by fixing the problems in the code, and updating it in order to make the game run better and without any problems.

Efficiency - Game development is now such a time restricted industry, with fans always wanting the new game as fast as possible for the developers to release it, and for it to also be at a high standard when it is released. Being able to work efficiently is the key to getting games out on time, which is why when possible, it is useful to re-use assets that are very similar to each other, such as doors and windows, instead of recreating everything individually, which would take much longer to do, and wouldn't be an efficient use of time considering that it would be much quicker and easier to take other assets and then tweak their state or behaviour slightly so that they match the new role that they need to play. Furthermore, by having a good team in place to test the game well in order to find and iron out all of the bugs and issues in the game helps to save time in the long run as there would have to be much less maintenance when the game is released, and the developers can focus on improving the game as a whole, such as balancing certain characters in team based games such as Overwatch, instead of being stuck fixing bugs that are ruining the game.

Real-world modelling - When creating a game, unless it specifically isn't meant to work with certain physical interactions, should usually have aspects that are modelled from the real world. Things such as doors and windows are all going to work in generally the same way in which they work in the real world. With doors, they are generally going to open when you interact with them, by pushing them open, or by using a handle. With things like sliding doors, they will open when the player stands in front of a sensor that will then trigger the door being opened for the player. In the example below, if the player stands in the boxed area, which is the sensor for the door, the statue will slide back and reveal a secret area for the player to explore. Another aspect of real-world modelling is that of when the player is walking around, you want to world to feel real and immersive for them, so making sure that any of the objects have the correct collision is important, as you wouldn't want players to be able to walk through things like walls or chairs, unless that was specifically a mechanic for the game, as you that isn't something that you would be able to do in real life.

Collaboration and sharing - A lot of the time there will be more than one person working on a game, which means that working together is important to get everything done in a good time. For example, members of the artistic team, such as the concept artists and the 3D modellers and animators will create these models, and then they will be passed onto the programmers who will input the behaviour of the created object, and then this object will be passed onto the developers who will add it to the game. It is important that all of the teams are collaborating together in order to help the workflow and help to speed up the process, as the programmers can't really get started until they know what they have to programming from the creative team.

Quality assurance - Whenever a game is created, it is important for it to be continuously tested throughout all the stages of it's development, in order to find all of the bugs and glitches before the game is released, so that the game can have a successful launch and not be ruined by complaints of bugs and glitches that might put people off buying the game. The QA team is in charge of testing the game extensively to find these bugs and report them so that the programmers can fix them before release. An example of a game that had a lot of bugs at release was Assassin's Creed Unity, which was so buggy and broken on release that Ubisoft had to offer a free game to any of those who purchased the season pass as compensation for releasing such a broken game, which shows that they clearly didn't test the game sufficiently enough before release, or that the QA team didn't do a great job in finding these bugs.

Game Objects

Sprites - Sprites are 2D bitmaps that are a form of pixel art. They were generally used in older video games due to that fact that they weren't as graphically intensive on the weaker consoles that were around, although they do see use today in massive successful 2D games such as Terraria and Shovel Knight.

Characters - These are the ones in the game that display some sort of personality and are generally the objects within the game that can hold the most importance within the game, especially in games with a lot of emphasis on story and narrative. They are generally the ones in the game in which the players will have the strongest reaction to seeing, both negatively and positively. The person that the player controls is their character, and in a lot of games now they are fully customisable in order to make them feel unique to the player that has created them. There are also non-playable character, or NPCs which generally make up the rest of the characters within the game, with these being the other characters that you interact with in the g
ame, such as quest givers or companions for the player. These characters have their own personalities and mannerism in order to differentiate them from everyone else and make them unique. This can help players to form an attachment with these characters, which can help with story purposes as it gives the player something to care about within the game, and can be a good motivator for the player if something were to happen to a character that they like.

Weapons - Weapons in video games are incredibly varied, with a lot of that variety firstly being based on the genre of game, and even then weapons can come in all different shapes and sizes, from futuristic weaponry to swords and bow and arrows. In any game in which the player has to deal with enemies, there is almost certainly going to be some kind of weapon available. FPS games have guns as their primary weapons, alongside secondary equipment such as explosives and knifes. If the game is based on a historical event, such as CoD: World at War then a lot of the weapons were based off of the same weapons used at that time, which helps to add to the games authenticity. In games such as Bloodborne, the majority of the weapons have their own distinct animations and are able to change forms into different states, which changes the animations of the weapon to something different. This allows the players to change up their play style mid-fight so they can get an advantage over their opponent. The game allows includes ranged weapons that allow players to parry their opponents strikes by shooting them in the middle of their attack, which again affects how different weapons will affect a games play style as some players will decide not to use this mechanics, whereas others will use this mechanic as the main way to defeat enemies. In games such as this weapons have a massive impact on the game as they directly affect the way the game is played and they allow different players to have their own unique experience of the game, whereas in games such as the CoD campaigns you are generally just given a weapon to use per level and are very much directed into when you should use a different weapon so many players will have a very similar experience when playing.

Rooms - Rooms are basically where everything happen in the game, and in Gamemaker they are generally the levels of the game. A game needs at least one room to function, although in general games will need many more in order to be a game of decent size and content. When creating a room in Gamemaker, there are many different factors that need to be considered when creating the room, such as the size of the room, the objects that are going to be placed within the game and the general design and layout for these object. The background of the room can also be changed to fit the scene and atmosphere that you are trying to create. It is also important for rooms to be able to transition between each other so the player can progress through the game. This is generally done by having an object that the player can collide with, such as a door, or an end goal such as the flag at the end of a Mario level that will then  move the player on to the next level.

Walls - These are the objects that help to create buildings and other rooms by giving areas boundaries that the player cannot pass through. They can help to lead players through the level by limiting the places in which they can travel, forcing them to traverse the level in the way the designer intended. This also stop players entering areas that they shouldn't be in, using invisible walls in order to stop the player in outside areas without having to add huge walls that may impact the scenery of the level and make it look worse.

Scenery - The scenery is objects that have been placed within the room that help to create and set the scene within the room. This can be done using different objects in order to create a scene, or by using sculpting tools in order to change the landscape or the room in order to create hills etc.

Instances - These are created from objects, with variables that are pre-determined. They are copies of objects that have been created and can be placed inside rooms, where you can choose where they are placed, along with changing their variables among other factors.

Rewards -  These are generally given out to players when they have done something in the game, generally in a positive manner. In a game such as Hearthstone the player will get rewards whenever they complete their daily quests, usually in the form of gold or a card pack. This gold can then be used to purchase things in the game such as arena runs or more card packs  to increase their collection. Furthermore, Hearthstone also gives out rewards depending on how well you finish in ranked play, with better rewards for players who finish higher in the rankings. All of this helps to incentivise players to come back and play the game and get rewarded for doing so, which helps the game continue to grow expand with more players continuing to play daily in order to get their rewards.

Object Properties

Colour - This is the colour of the object in the game, which can be used to differentiate between two similar enemies of different strength, of in some cases to signify that the enemy that you are fighting is getting stronger. Different colours on objects also help to signify weak points on an enemy, or whether you are doing any damage to an enemy, or whether you as the player are taking damage, such as a health bar changing colour from green to red when you or the enemy has taken a lot of damage. For another example, in the Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, when you damage enemies they flash red to indicate that you are doing damage to them, which is useful as a confirmation that you are doing the right thing.

Size - This is the physical size of the object in the game. In terms of characters and enemies, the generally rule is that the bigger the size of the enemy, the stronger the enemy will be to defeat. Enemies can also grow in size in order to indicate them getting stronger as the fight goes on. This can be shown in the Ornstein and Smough fight in Dark Souls. The fight starts by fighting both of the bosses at the same time, but when you manage to deplete the health bar of one of them, in this case Smough, the other boss will absorb his power and grow in size, as well as regaining all of the health that he had lost in the fight phase of the boss fight. This helps to both progress the fight into another phase, and also helps to show the player that this enemy is now stronger than it used to be.

Speed - How fast an object is moving within the game. In games such as racing games, different objects are going to have very different speeds, depending on what car you are driving and how powerful they are compared to others in the game. In Mario Kart you can collect items that can increase your speed or decrease the speed of the other races in order to give yourself an edge in the race at that moment, especially when you are further behind. In a lot of games such as RPGs there are usually a lot of ways in which the player can increase the speed in which they travel through the world, usually increasing in effectiveness the more the game has been played. Generally the player with start off by only being able to walk with a limited use of sprint, before acquiring some kind of vehicle, such as a horse in Skyrim in order to move faster. In certain games like Warioware: Smooth Moves for the Wii, speed is also an indication of how difficult the game will be, where the player will have to get through a few levels, and then the game will speed up in order to increase the difficulty.

Movement - This is how the player or other characters move around within the game. It some stealth games enemies will have a set path that they will patrol unless an outside event triggers a change in their behaviour, such as seeing the player. Other enemies will not move until the player comes into their line of sight, and then they will activate and move towards the player.

Sounds - In terms of background music, this is used to help add to the atmosphere of the game, and to help keep the player interested in player, as a silent game would quickly lose a players attention. It also helps to keep the player immersed in the atmosphere, especially if the music is relevant to the situation the player is in. Leading on from that point, music is also used in order to signify to the player that something is happening that they should be paying attention to, such as the fact that they have just entered a fight, which is helpful if you aren't sure where the enemies are as it lets you know that you should be on your guard in this area. In horror games in particular it also helps to build tension for the player and helps to increase the fear levels that they are feeling. Sound effects also play a large part in video games as they help to reinforce whether the player has done something right or wrong by playing upbeat sounds for doing something good like completing a level or winning a fight, or sad and depressing sounds for things such as death or some kind of failure. A famous example of positive sound effects in video games is the tune that plays in Final Fantasy games when you win a battle, which a lot of people know just because of how catchy and upbeat it is, which helps show the player that they are doing the right thing.

Health - Health is generally considered to be the amount of damage you as a player can take, or how much damage an enemy can take before they die in the game. In game, health can be represented in many different ways, the most popular being a health bar on the screen somewhere, although this can also include different variations such as hearts from the Legend of Zelda series. Some games don't have any kind of representation of health, instead relying on visual cues on screen to inform the player how much damage they have taken, such as the screen slowly getting more red as the player takes more damage, which is popular in the Call of Duty series.

Lives - Another representation of how long you have to live with a game, lives represent how many times you can die before you have to restart the level, or in some cases the whole game. Lives are a massive part of the Mario franchise, with players being able to collect extra lives in the levels that they play through, and every time they die in a level they lose a life and restart from a checkpoint. If at any point the player loses all of their lives they receive a gameover  and are returned to the hub world where they can try again from the beginning of that level.

Actions and Events

Mouse and keyboard events - These are events that are triggered by inputting a command using a mouse and/or a keyboard in order to activate these events. Using the mouse, this could be done by clicking one of the buttons such as the left mouse button in order to select something in order to find out more information about the object. The player could also hold the button down and drag the mouse in order to drag and move objects around. In terms of keyboard events, in gaming generally the keyboard is used for movement and general actions, whereas the mouse is used to control the camera, and in shooters, to fire the weapons. Most games use the WASD keys in order to control the player, and then have varying controls for the other actions that the player can perform. In a MOBA such as Smite the player uses WASD to move, and the mouse to aim and fire. They then can select which abilities they would like to use using numbers 1-4 in order to select a specific ability, and then use the mouse to aim and fire that ability. This means that the player has to know which ability is mapped to which button in order to use the ability that they want to use, which is why it's important to have simple controls for games such as this in which the game easily corresponds to the key mappings or players are going to get more confused when playing the game.

Create - This is the event in which objects are made within the game. In a game such as Space Invaders when the player presses the shoot button, the game will create a bullet at the position at which your ship was when you pressed the button which will then move towards the enemies that are moving down the screen. Another example would be after a certain time duration the game may create more enemies for the player to deal with, perhaps shortening the time period each time in order to make the game harder.

Destroy - This is the event in which objects are removed from the game. Taking Space Invaders as the example again, when the bullet that you shoot collides with one of the alien spaceships, that hit will destroy the ship, along with the bullet so that the bullet doesn't continue moving through and destroys aliens behind the ship that was hit.

Collision - This is what stops the player from passing straight through objects, such as tables and chairs when they are moving around. This stops players from passing through walls and getting to areas that they shouldn't be in , along with making the game feel more realistic and helps make the game more immersive. In some games, when you collide with an object with enough force, it will break into smaller pieces, such as in Nioh where you can break boxes and lights when you hit them, and they will smash and break.

Timers - These are events that work by when being triggered to start some kind of time based mechanic, such as a timer, countdown or a stopwatch. Timed events are used in all sorts of ways, such as in racing games where when the race starts the game starts a stopwatch that tracks the players time for each lap and then the whole race as a whole. This is especially important in time trial style races where the player has to complete a race or a lap in a certain time in order to succeed and get a reward. Another example would be during the first mission of Mass Effect 1 where you have to disarm 3 bombs before the timer reaches 0 and the bomb explodes, resulting in a game over and having to restart from a previous save. Once you deactivate all the bombs the timer disappears and the player doesn't have to worry about a time limit anymore as the trigger for ending the timer has been activated.

Scoring - Scoring systems within games are generally the best way to make a game competitive, both between multiple players but also for single player games as well in which the player can compete against themselves in order to improve and get better. In games such as FIFA or Rocket League the scoring system is pretty simple where every time one team scores a goal they get a point, and the team with the most points wins the game. For single player games the scoring system could be I
n the form of a high score in which the player will try to beat in order for them to become better and give them something to aim at. In games such as Call of Duty you can get points for more different things within the game, the most obvious one being when you get a kill on an enemy player. However, you can also get points for capturing objectives such as in the domination game mode. Games such as Overwatch keep track of many different scores that players compete over in order to have the highest score in that category at the end of that match, such as amount of healing done or amount of damage done to the other team. Being top of these scoring categories gives players rewards such as extra experience at the end of the game, which gives players a reason to try and be the best in these areas, which helps to add to the competitiveness of the game through scoring systems.

Inheritance - In object-orientated design, inheritance is when one object is based on either another object, called prototypal inheritance, or another class, which is class-based inheritance. This allows this new object to take on the properties of the existing object, which can then be modified to undertake different behaviour, or modified in some way whilst keeping the same behaviour of the object in which it inherited from.

Parent - The parent in inheritance is the object that is used for the basis of the inheritance. This can also be called a superclass or base class.

Child - The child in inheritance is the object or class that inherits the properties and behaviour from the parent. This can also be called a subclass or derived class. The child will be the one in which behaviour will be modified to perform different actions to the parent in order to allow for these new objects to perform a slightly different role in the game. For example, in Dark Souls 1 there are multiple types of skeleton enemies, in which the different variants will all be children of the one parent enemy, and then modified and edited so they behave slightly differently, and also look
different to the original.

Overriding events - These are the events that the child will override in order to do something different to the parent, such as one the parent being able to walk off of ledges, where as the child can only stay on the ledges.

Inherited Behaviours and Properties - These are the events that the child will gain from the parent that don't include anything extra that will be added to child from other sources, it is just the code that carries over from the parent.