arcadetylermorgan

[arcadetylermorgan]

5 levels from my Game with each of there code

Main menu:

Level 1:

Level 2:

Level 3:

Level 4:

Level 5:

Game Over Screen:

[arcadetylermorgan]

more background designs for my game

Town level:

Mall level:

Red carpet level:

with this level just incase the characters appeared in front of the bars i will also have a png of the bars on its own and a background without them which are shown here.

Lose screen:

[arcadetylermorgan]

Main menu 

[arcadetylermorgan]

Adding audio to my game (background  music)

To start adding music to my game we need to download some music in the frrst place. This music has to be copyright free so we will be using a source for free music called the audio library in YouTube this section has tons of copyright free music to pick from and there's sure to be something to fit in every game.

https://studio.youtube.com/channel/UCI1MhtSxhbMVNpp4UnxBgwQ/music

Once you have picked your audio you need to click the download button and the audio you have downloaded will be saved to your computer as a mp3 file. Sadly mp3s don't work well with unreal and we will need to change the file and make it into a WAV file. there are many different ways to do this but the way i did it was putting the audio into a program called premiere pro which is a video editing software but it also can export audio as other files. So in premiere pro First i pull in the audio.

Once you have the file dragged into premiere its as easy as going to file->export->Media and then changing the file from mp3 to WAV in the preset box (also make sure to make the source range the entire sequence so that you can export the whole song/audio).

Now that you have the audio in the correct file type you can simply drag them into Unreal from the file explorer. Finally now that you have the audio in unreal right click on the audio samples and press create cue with this you can now place the audio anywhere you want in your game and it will play the audio while in play.

        ^                                                        ^

   WAV file                                       Created Cue

                                                    that you can place

Songs I used:

[arcadetylermorgan]

Space outfit designs

These are some basic designs for my character specifically for my space level background. What i plan to do with these characters is make them spin around the level as if they were lost in space.

Level they will be used in:

[arcadetylermorgan]

Code For A Timer  In a widget

First off open your widget and create a new text box and call it ‘Time’ with this change the text displayed to 00 as placeholder for your timer.

With this you now go into the event graph and create a new variable called ‘timesec’ and change it to an interger. When that is done copy this code into the event graph.

Then you go back to the designer page and click on your timer. From there you scroll down its details panel until you find the content bar with the text bar below it and click bind and the create binding.

You will then be taken to a different tab of event graph called Get Timer Text 0 and in there you will want to copy this code in.

To finally finish off the timer you compile the code and then click on the timesec variable and scroll in its detail panel till you find default value and with that you can change your timer to any number (only in seconds).

[arcadetylermorgan]

Week 5 Blog posts (01/02/21)

Get feedback on my project:

For my feedback i ended up showing a friend who also works on games design my project of what i have so far and he gave me some advice on how to improve and make my game a better experience while also telling me some positives and what he liked about my project so far.

Positive Feedback:

One of the positive pieces of feedback is that he liked the background designs as they were simplistic and were pleasing to the eye. I'm glad that this was received well as i personally also liked the style i was going for and i wanted to make more of them as well. knowing that they will be received well gives me confidence to make more with a similar style but with different locations to make the game look different. 

Second piece of positive feedback was about the colour scheme and the simple game mechanics as it is very easy to understand and play right off the bat. this all ties into making it good for younger audiences as they are attracted to the bright colours and lights while being able to play with game with such simple controls.

Negative Feedback:

One of the major flaws in my game so far is that there are no animations in the characters yet they just kind of slide across the screen without moving. This was the first issue he brought up and its 1 I plan to fix as i work through this game longer and as animation isn't my strong suit it will be a struggle but I will try my best.

The Second Flaw in my game my friend said was that my 3rd of the 3 character does not have his own unique design yet and it just looks default and out of place and this is something I defiantly want to work on. also on top of that i also want to create more outfits for all 3 of them. Right now the first ones i want to do are the character in space suits as i have made a level in space 

Summary and how I could of done better feedback:

Overall i think this feedback is very useful for me and my games future as i now know what ive been doing well on and what i need to focus more attention and i will try my hardest to make my game better and better as time goes by.

I think i did i pretty good job on choosing who i could get my feedback from being a fellow game designer and friend but I could of done some things to get better research. One thing i  could of done was get into contact with more people so that I would have answers from different places. The other way I would of made this research better would be to ask people who were not my friends but also game designers so i would have a raw response with the person being straight with me from start to finish. Oher than those i think my feedback was very helpful and i will be trying to make my project better little by little. 

Final Evaluation:

What has gone well in this project:

With this project i feel a lot went well for the circumstances we were given and im proud of what I've done. The first thing that went well are the character designs that i have created I will show a few of them here them here.

Even though they are very simple and easy to do edits with photoshop i am still happy with them as i am not very good at the arty side of things and i think that these characters are really good efforts.

The second thing i am proud of are the background level designs that i made again i will show a few.

I think the reason I've very proud of these is because i think that they actually look very appealing with a nice bright colour scheme that i think is very easy to look at. I am also proud of this as again im still new to editing things in photoshop so these are a very good job for me so far.

The final thing I'm very proud of during this project is how my coding skills have improved alot during this project from being able to figure out what to do in the code, to get things like timers and making things disappear and move the player to the next level without help from videos and just using my current knowledge. and also being able to remember easy strings of code that i would not of known about before this project. Here are some of my code bits that i have used in my game

For new software I've mainly been sticking to photoshop but i am finding out how it works more and with that its become a very useful tool that i am using more and more often for things however I did use premiere pro so that I could change the audio file types to WAV and that was a new experience even though it was nothing too advanced.

With tutorials I mainly use Youtube as they have tones of informative guides and tutorials on how the things in unreal and photoshop work but as something new there are lots of forum sites with in-depth guides on how to get the game to work even though there is no video they are sometimes better as they have even the little problems solved there.

 The only Thing i have enjoyed about being able to work in lockdown is that I could get to work at anytime I want without having fixed hours as I sometimes cant work and knowing that I can go back to my work whenever I want is reassuring.

What could have gone better:

I think that the main thing that could of gone better were the animations for my characters as i really wasn't sure on how to get them to work and it was something i already wasn't very confident with so i think that could of gone a bit better. With that the only other thing i wish could of gone better the amount of character designs as i think there were too little in my game and i hoped to come up with more ideas but i only ended up with a couple.

Being at college would of helped because they have people who know how the softwares work and they could of helped quicker than having to search round the web for a long while looking for a fix. but on the side of being able to get the softwares i luckily have a strong enough pc that can run and work everything just fine.

With working at home its had its ups and downs as i feel that it helps in the way that i feel i have alot more time to get things done and i can get to it whenever but on the other side i also constantly feel like I'm not doing enough with the time i have and it just sometimes get into your head but overall i was mostly fine during the lockdown work.

What are you planning to do in the future? 

In the future I want to just keep improving my coding skills while also trying to make my art skills just as good so that i am able to have a bright future in he game development world.

This project definitely hasn't put me off working at home as i feel that i still got stuff that i was proud of from this term and i also feel as if its make me try and figure stuff out on my own more often giving me more confidence in my own knowledge and i think that working from both home and college work perfectly fine.

For my next project i want to keep using the current softwares i am using (Unreal and Photoshop) as i feel that they are very high quality products that are perfectly suited for the work i am doing. But i do plan to try and get more used to maya for the next project as i feel very new to it still and i want to improve at the software.

[arcadetylermorgan]

Unreal Engine work

Main menu screen and its code

making the characters move:

With this main menu screen i want to show people the characters of the game and the leader boards right from the get go. there are 2 leader boards so that the game can appeal new audiences with the daily leaderboard and the people who keep coming back with the All-time best scores leaderboard

Level 1 progress so far:

Level 2 progress so far:

[arcadetylermorgan]

Week 4 Blog posts (25/01/21)

What Media have I taken in this week?:

This week i have been playing alot of csgo with my friends and its been a fun experience. I have been a fan of csgo for a long time and I am on and off with it most of the time. Some times it will be the best time I've had in a while and sometimes it can be wildly infuriating. the main thing i love about this game is its competitive game mode as I love the feel of competing against someone else for a reward. Another thing i That I really love about csgo is the satisfaction you get from killing a player with a headshot. I feel that csgo has done a really good job in making people feel on top of the world if you hit 1 as you know you have completely out done the enemy you just killed.

For what I've been watching mainly it has been a show called Naruto shippuden and it is the follow up to the original series called Naruto and I've been loving the series so far. One of my favourite things from the show are the story/characters that are in it. Most of the character all have there own unique personality and they always mash together really well I also love mostly all the character designs as they all have a distinct look that easily recognisable. I also Love the villains in the show as they are all shows as completely badass and scary giving off a aura of fear. Finally i will say that the fight scene animation in the show is some of the best I've seen the sequences are amazing to look at and im just impressed watching.

Polishing something in my game: 

The thing that I have polished in my game is the system of how the game is actually played through as the change made it not only easier to make but quicker to to set it all up from my previous efforts.

So what I did was instead of having my game run through the normal game level of unreal that would of taken a lot longer of a time I decided to switch it up and make my game entirely out of widgets that go from one to another  this allows my 2d sprites and backgrounds to be perfectly laid on top of each other and I can add animation or updates any time I please. I also find that using the widgets are a lot easier on the coding side too as I am able to bind a button to the character the make the button go invisible and finally add some code so that when the button which is now represented by the character disappears when clicked. 

Problem I have solved:

A problem I have solved is when I was putting my backgrounds to my levels in unreal that my characters would not be able to walk on them as they were both flat down 2d art. To counter this problem I made a material that is completely invisible and I added it to a platform that would work out as a path for my character to walk on while making it look as if they are using the level path.

Theoretical problems:

A theoretical problem I have came up with is how I would actually get my game into any kind of arcade as i do not have an idea on how that type of thing works and i also don't have a clue on how to put a game into an arcade machine in the first place. I think the main solution to these problems would be to first look up on the internet how things like this work and test them for myself. i would also put my game up on steam so that it could have some form of publication already when i ask for it to become an arcade game.

How will people give feedback:

People will be able to give feedback to my game through comments on the YouTube video of the game so that i can take those comments and change my game depending on what people like and dislike. I will also be adding a link to a questionnaire that people can do if they want that goes further into detail about their age and if the game appeals to their group. In the end of this they will be given a box to give furrow feedback telling us how to improve the game in more depth. 

Another way I will get feedback for my game is through my friends. Alot of my friends play lots of video games and they will give me honest feedback on how to make things in my game look better and more polished on top of that i also have a friend on the same course who i could discuss ideas with on how to change my game for the better 

Weekly reflection:

This week I am very proud of the work I have gotten done as i have finally pulled everything together and gotten started on making my game So far i have managed to drag in everything and get the main menu Screen finished and also finishing 2 of the levels for my game. with this I have also coded how the levels will change while also coding it so that when the character that should disappear he does while also transferring you over to the next level.

What I think I could of done better this week was implement the timer into my game as I tried for a good while but ended up wit it not working so with that in mind I want to keep trying to get this timer to work for my game as it is one of the main points to my game. I also think that I could of added a few more backgrounds to my game as i only have 3 so far but other than that i am happy with the progress i have made so far for the start of my game.

For next week I plan to wrap together a semi finished version of my game that i am happy with. This will include me making a lot more level backgrounds and character designs. I will also be adding all of the progress i make to my blog so that you can see all the progress and cool stuff I add to the game.

[arcadetylermorgan]

Week 3 Blog posts (18/01/21)

What Media have I taken in this week?:

This week I played a battlefront game for the first time as battlefront 2 was free on the epic store. From my time playing it I found that the graphics Are so realistic and pleasing to look at. On my first game just watching everything happen looked stunning with all the environments sitting peacefully while the combat as well looking so violent and powerful so that if you are the 1 shooting the gun you feel like a true threat.

I have also been playing Rocket league this week with some friends and i have been having lots of fun with it. I feel that rocket league is a game i can always open up and have some fun with friends on as it is just a fun game in general i also love rocket league for the amount of levels of progression there is so you can always seem to be improving and getting better even in the little parts of the game. Finally i think that rocket league has a very well done matchmaking system for ranked as I find myself never playing against opponents that are way too far out of my skill range and neither do I find myself stomping over an enemy team to the point of forfeit.

Finally i went back to an old game that i had not played in ages that game being Geometry dash its was very fun to go back to a simple platformer game where the goal is simply reaching the end of a level what i really liked about geometry dash is the community created levels as they were all so unique and had there own style. I also joined in on this and made my own levels which were never any good but i had lots of fun just creating things and learning the editor.

From this weeks experience I want to take from geometry dash and have my game look nice and simple but then also have that fun side of it with the replay ability for it to stand on its feet for a while.

Audience Needs:

- First they expect  my game to be a quick and enjoyable experience that they can replay a few times 

- Second the audience expects my game to have leader boards as it will be in a arcade where people can track the best scores

- Third they want the game to be very simple with easy to understand controls that they don't need to be told on how it works

- Fourth a up-beat and catchy background music that the player can listen too while playing and not get annoyed 

- Fifth and finally we need a simplistic art style that's easily recognisable and nice for the eye to look at and will attract younger audiences to your game.

Planning Presenting Your Final Outcome:

I am planning to present my game as a video on YouTube as I feel its the easiest way to show the work I have done. I will also be trying to post my game onto a website so that i can get some actually feedback from some real people. 

Test Making Something (part 2):

This week I wanted to start testing what i could do to The characters so that they could fit to my game for this I'm going to use Photshop and my plan is to put them in various different shirts and jumpers so that there can be a easy way to distinguish which match the player is looking for.

 These are the basic designs:

Princess chilli design:

Prunkley design:

Pablo design:

Win And Lose States:

In my game they way you win is not by actually winning but ending the game (losing with the highest score possible and with that score you will be added to the leader board with this it will create a reason to keep playing so that you can enter your name at the leader board and have you achievement shown to everybody else. With the leader board I will have a all time leader board and a daily leader board so that people who got a truly impressive score can come back and see there achievement while all the new players can still have a chance of seeing there name on the board because of it resetting daily.

Losing my game is very simple as it will end when the player runs out of time they lose time by taking too long on levels and guessing the wrong match this results in  -3 seconds to there total time.

How have you implemented your win and lose states?:

When you lose my game you will be greeted with a screen totalling up your score and placing you on the leader boards. under it it will give you a message which will tell you good job and to to try and improve your score and under it will tell to play again with the amount of money it is for the next turn. I will be making this screen with a widget  and using many text boxes for animation of the number. With that i will also be using dafont.com to get myself a nice looking font for my Lose screen.

Weekly Reflection:

For this week I feel that I did very well with some unique and cool looking character designs for the characters inside my game and I'm hoping to make more as time goes by with this project im also happy with the ideas I have heading into the next week and i just need to place everything together for it to work.

What I think I could of gotten better is that i could of finished all 3 of the character instead of just 2 but despite that i am still very happy with the results of the characters I have done so far. Also i wanted to come up with more outfit design ideas but nothing has came to mind so far but i believe i can think of some cool concepts.

Next week I plan to start putting all the pieces I've made into unreal and start making my game. For the first week i just want to set up all the basics and figure out what code I will want to use for my game to work. My idea would be for my to use widgets and have the character as buttons that  when clicked disappeared and transferred you to the next level but that is all i have in mind so far. 

[arcadetylermorgan]

Week 2 Blog posts (11/01/21)

What media have you taken in this week?: One of the main things i have been i have been playing is NSUNS4 with is a fighting game based off of an anime called Naruto in the game you fight with various different opponents untill one or the others health reaches zero. I personally really enjoy playing this game as i feel that its really easy to pick up and have fun with and im enjoying being able to play as many of the characters i know and love from the show. Finally i think this game is very good as i can have battles with friends anytime where we can have a good laugh together. 

I have also being playing alot rust during my week on a newer server that had opened up with the game rust you run around a open world inhabited by many abandoned environments, roaming animals and other online players. the goal of the game is simple just to survive but its when you put other player in a area with other players where anything goes that's where it get interesting. from finding guns in monuments and hunting other players down for their loot. while you make a base to protect all of your valuables for it to later that night be raided by some enemy player lurking around. The main reason i enjoy the game is because of the rush i get from killing someone or just being in a fight in general there's just so much tension because you know if you die you will lose all of your progress and have to start again.

From these experiences one thing i really want to take from these and put into mine is the rush feel and i plan to achieve that by having the game a constant race against the clock. 

Cultural Sources 

I have chosen these games and books as sources for my game as they all pretty much have the same concept idea of matching things together. They are useful in research as I can find out how these game worked and were successful and with the information I've been given will use all the techniques together to make my game fun and replayable.

Another thing i want to add that these games have a increase in difficulty as the player goes through using making way more things happen on the screen so that the player will be pulled in to take more attention on what's happening immersing them in the game alot more making them play longer. And a final thing i would add are very high numbers for completing stages etc so that the player feels like there doing really well making them confident and eager to beat there previous score while also trying to make the leader boards.

Further Audience Discussion

*  Use Of simplistic design models  

*  Bright colours and effects 

* Simple mechanics and rules that anyone could understand

* Catchy music to keep the player on the game while also interesting other players to come and join

* Simple game mechanics with a feeling of needing to feel quick so that the player is always tense 

* A big score number that quickly increases so that the player thinks there doing well keeping them liking the game

* solid bright colours attracting young audiences 

* very simplistic instructions and easy to play 

* recognisable main character 

What research are you implementing?

From my research the main game play mechanics I want to add are as follows:

1. A timer that ticks down while the player is playing and he will gain and lose time (+3 and -3 seconds) depending on if the player chooses the correct match or not

2. Score points for every time the player gets a match will be decided on how quick the player finds the pair. I will also make the score numbers very big like into the 10,000′s so that the player feels as if there doing well and beating the game easily.

3. leader boards and high scores so that the players will want to compete again each other and especially there selves so that they spend more money. I think the best idea for the leader boards would be to go with a overall leader board for all the best of the best scores and on the side be a daily leader board so that the average players can also feel as if there name can be shown on the board

Tool List

The tools i plan to use for my game will be Photopea and Gimp to do the art for my game And for putting it all together i will be using Unreal engine.

Test Making Something:

For this week i want to start on making the background environments for my game my ideas are A park, Space, Elevators/Escalators, Shopping mall, Park Square, High Street and many more. With these environment's my characters will be able to walk around while the player tries to find the match 

First test area (park):

Finished park level:

Finished space level:

Weekly Reflection: 

Overall this week I feel like I have made great improvement in my head of what The game is going to be and i have finally matched the pieces in my head to have a full idea of what I'm going to do and how I'm going to make it work. But on the other hand I feel like I didn't make enough progress creating than I could have and i hope that i can start getting quicker as time moves on.

Next week I want to make a start on the character designs for my games so that they can be told apart easily making my game easier. My ideas so far are changing there colours completely mainly using primary colours so that they stick out and are instantly caught by the player. Other than that my other idea would be too add coloured clothing to the character to make them easily distinguishable.

[arcadetylermorgan]

Game Blog week 1

Discuss your target audience: My target audience for my game will mostly be for kids and teens ranging from 6-13 and 14-18 as they are the most likely ones to be spending money on arcade games without thinking about how much they are actually spending. I have also done it for this age group as if our game is placed at an arcade loads of kids that visit arcade have lots of money that there willing to spend as they are most likely there while on the family day out. because of this age group I am going for I will need to make may game pg rated with no swearing or blood so that all age groups can play it. i also will make sure to use very vibrant and flashing lights as it will attract eye attention to the game itself and what will be in it.

Name of My game: 

1. Match!

2. Odd ones out

3. Find the pair

4. Match em!

5. Hidden in plain sight

6. Catch the odd 2 

7. Spot the difference 

8.  The Missing pair

9. Where’s the pair

10.  Find the problem

Chosen name: The Missing Pair

Planning my work:

How will covid affect your project: Covid will affect my project quiet a lot as i will not be able to attend college Because of this it means that it will be a lot harder for me to learn how things in unreal work for this project. On top of that i will also struggle with art work as i have none of the programs for advanced artwork at home capping the looks of my project. However I will over come these problems by first looking for helpful forums and YouTube videos so that i will still be able to learn how to work and code unreal at home at a steady level and for the art I will look into how to properly use the programs I have been given and how to maximize the quality I get out of it  

[arcadetylermorgan]

Looking at scientists

Hugh Everett: 

  Hugh was an American physicist who first proposed the many-worlds interpretation of quantum physics, which he termed his "relative state" formulation.

Max Tegmark:

Max is a Swedish-American physicist, cosmologist and machine learning researcher. He is a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the scientific director of the Foundational Questions Institute. 

Brian Greene:

  He is an American theoretical physicist, mathematician, and string theorist. Greene was a physics professor at Cornell University from 1990-1995, and has been a professor at Columbia University since 1996 and chairman of the World Science Festival since co-founding it in 2008.

Neil DeGrasse Tyson:

Neil deGrasse Tyson is an American astrophysicist, planetary scientist, author, and science communicator. Since 1996, he has been the Frederick P. Rose Director of the Hayden Planetarium at the Rose Centre for Earth and Space in New York City.

Stephen Hawking:

Stephen was an English theoretical physicist, cosmologist, and author who was director of research at the Centre for Theoretical Cosmology at the University of Cambridge at the time of his death.

[arcadetylermorgan]

What are Muliverses

The Cosmological Multiverse: This theory suggests that with the big bang the universe expanded at a crazy fast speed in a fraction of a second as this happened there were quantum fluxuations which cause loads of bubble universes each one left on its own to develop with different laws of physics and even other dimensions 

String Theory: String theory is a theory that try's to connect the universe under a set of very complicated rules and it end with a prediction of a ridiculous amount of universes existing each one with slightly different physical pyrometers 

The Quantum Multiverse: The theory here is that quantum effects cause the universe to constantly spit meaning that things we do in this universe can effect ourselves in parallel worlds 

The Backwards Universe: the backwards universe is a multiverse that goes back in time the theory is that the big bang created 2 different univereses 1 made of matter (our universe) and the other being made of antimatter. which is a mirror of our world just backwards in every way meaning that positive is negative up is down and time is backwards instead of forwards.

My Opinion on the multiverse:

I think that the multiverse isnt real but an idea that is very interesting and has many cool things that go with it as there are so many possibilities of what can happen. It is also interesting because of how we can use it in our video games as it is a very broad thing where anything is possible which is a great environment for our games as its has infinite options 

[arcadetylermorgan]

Other Ideas for Arcade game

Discuss idea 1: My first game idea will be a match game where our 3 characters will be bundled together in a map and you will be shown an image of which one you will have to find the pair for and you will have to find the pair before your timer runs out (you start with 60 seconds) when you match the pair you are then awarded 3+ seconds to your total time as you move on to the next level where the timer will start again. To make the game more challenging for the player as they get to higher levels there will be more characters placed and with those character we will also change there outfits so that they have to find a specific suit on a specific character.

Discuss idea 2:  The Second idea for my game will be a shooter where you will be trying to save the characters from aliens inside of a UFO’s trying to abduct them. The goal is to destroy all the UFO’s in a level while losing as little people as possible and the amount you save will add to your total score. with you passing levels the UFO’s will get faster and there will be more of them. The game ends when you have lost all of the character to the aliens. The ship will move in a way like the ship from space invaders but you will be able to angle you gun to shoot in diagonals so that you don't hit the character you are trying to save. you will also have the ability to bounce your bullets off the wall as anther way of being able to hit the UFO’s.

Discuss idea 3: My final game idea will be a top down game where you are in a spaceship and you must dodge and destroy the many monster and creatures thrown at you ( these monsters design will be based off the character we have been given) you will have 3 lives and gain score for every time you destroy something. The game will not end as it will constantly throw things at you and the longer you live the faster the projectiles will get while also spawning more. this game has mostly taken inspiration from the game asteroids with a pretty similar basis but with mine I want to make it look more modern and have my character as enemy's instead of asteroids.

Discuss Chosen idea: I have decided to choose my first game idea as the one I will peruse further on in this project. the reasons I have chosen this idea are 1 its the one idea I fell I will enjoy making most with all the level creation and character model I will have to make and the other reason I want to do this idea is that I believe it works in an arcade as someone keep wanting to get a better high-score. 

The software and programs I want to use to make this idea work will be unreal engine of the whole game to be made from this will also be where all the code and widget Hud design will be done. For the art side i will be using maya and photoshop as those are the ones we have been learning to use.

[arcadetylermorgan]

Some ideas for the arcade game