futureworkplace

[futureworkplace]

Final Reflection

Hey everyone, this will be my final update for this blog. Thank you for joining me in my journey of creating a game for my research topic. Here's to the future :] 🎮💻

#game design #game development #remote work #senior capstone #senior project #future workers #Final Reflection #Youtube

[futureworkplace]

Progress Update #6

What's been happening

I've been doing final polishes on my demo. I got some worthwhile playtesting done this past week from a couple of peers that gave great feedback. It's gotten me to fix up some parts of the demo that seriously needed attention, either grammatically or outright game breaking (causing crashes and unintended actions), the playtesting was 100% worth it.

What's Next?

Further polishing of code and maybe some last minute playtesting. I want to see if I can get some final art put into the game, but it seriously isn't my main priority. If I can't get it in on time, I did what I could and I'm overall satisfied with what I got.

I also plan on including audio, but it is also not as much as a priority as the coding is, but it is in second place for priority.

Hiccups, Hurdles and AHA! Moments.

Okay, so a major hiccup AND hurdle I came across was a genuinely game breaking bug that wasn't allowing the demo to end properly. The combat minigame I have in the game was looping on itself during THE ENTIRE runtime of the game, so it was causing it to never finish and resulted in an outright crash. It took me multiple tries to figure it out, but that's what led me to my AHA! moment: Stop the "while loop" (which I intentionally coded in at the beginning) and just force the game to loop in a dirtier way that makes the game function better. Maybe if I had more time and knowledge, I could have gotten the minigame finished the way I wished, but the way I fixed it will do.

I ran into multiple hiccups while I was observing my playtesters that I can't even list here without the post going on FOREVER. So, just know that I ran into MANY hiccups and I managed to deal with all of them.

Where I am on my Timeline

At best, I'm still a full week behind. At worse, I'm still a month behind. I didn't really get my playtesting started whenever I wanted, the demo isn't entirely finished or completely in a place where I wanted it, I didn't get to start coding until Spring Break, and I didn't have the knowledge needed to make the game happen until Spring Break. I definitely went into this... ambitiously. I heard somewhere that ambition is an artist killer. While I am not dead, I definitely took some fatal wounds from this entire process. I've had to scrap A LOT of things from my documentation, workback plan, and other things to get the game in a decent place. I hope my demo satisfies in the end.

Some Visual Documentation

I don't really have any visual documentation from many of my playtesters, but I do have some screenshots from one of them at least. I don't want to post so much that it'd reveal a lot of the demo, but here is what they reported to me.

Game breaking crash I was talking about

#game design #game development #remote work #progress update #python #renpy #senior capstone #senior project #future workers

[futureworkplace]

Progress Update #5

What's Been Happening

I'm keeping this update brief because I want to get back to work fast.

I think this past week I focused a little more on my art for the game. I wanted to get it out of the way before really moving on to anything else. I needed stuff that would work in context, but didn't create so many that it would overwhelm me. It's just another reminder that I refuse to do this alone ever again if I'm bound to a timeline.

What's Next?

Polishing on all fronts. Grammar, coding, a little bit of art. I also need to finish up the overall gameplay experience because it's do or die time.

Hiccups, Hurdles and AHA! Moments.

I didn't really run into any hiccups that I can recall. A hurdle I came across was basically the creative process that comes with creating the art for the game. Honestly, creating the art felt like a hurdle itself. I wish I had someone to task this to, like a studio would, so I had more time to develop the game. An AHA! moment I had was realizing I didn't really have to go super hard on the art and I could make it simple. My main reasoning was because I'm trying to create something functional and not something super pretty.

Where am I on my Timeline

By my estimate, I am maybe at least 2 weeks behind. At this rate, it is what it is and I have to cut some losses and cut some corners to get this deliverable in a proper state.

Some Visual Documentation

Here's some of the art I've done in the past week for the game. I got more polishing to do to other ones before I'm fully satisfied, but I'm glad to have gotten this done.

#future workers #game design #game development #remote work #progress update #python #renpy #senior capstone #senior project

[futureworkplace]

Progress Update #4

What's Been Happening

To put it simply, I've just been working constantly on my game. I recently put in a couple of imagemaps for a few sections of the game, albeit in a drafty stage, and added more code for specific action and story direction. I've added more to my story tree as well, but I think there still needs to be more done.

What's Next?

More work. Not much more past that and not much less, I basically need to go into turbo mode and turn on all my creative fountains to get things done in time.

More story tree additions, more art, and more programming. Just more of everything at this point.

Hiccups, Hurdles and AHA! Moments

A hiccup I had was a power outage yesterday, hindering a lot of my progress and pushing my update back a day. I recovered mostly from it though.

A hurdle I came across, and may not be able to get around, is how to implement a "buff/debuff" system for the player. After toying around with the code, I have led myself to believe that there is no way to do it properly and it'd take either

A) A stronger, more versatile engine

B) A lot more complex coding

And I'm not sure I can do either of those options. In the end, I decided to remove the system and will be continuing development without it.

My biggest AHA! moment was figuring out how to program moving around the living space a player would be in and what it would look like. I created a floor plan for the area and made some pretty alright first drafts for the areas. I'll be linking a video that shows this.

Where I am on my Timeline

Definitely still very far behind. I haven't gotten ANY playtesting done, outside of my own personal playtesting to make sure code is functioning. As for the player experience, I have yet to find out if players would enjoy this game and the mechanics I have laid out. I'm planning on working hard enough that I will have something presentable at least within the week. If I don't, I think I'm going to have to downscale this deliverable once again to meet deadlines/what I want done, and I don't really want to do that.

Some Visual Documentation

Here's some BTS of me doing speed art for a single interactable background for the game. I can't upload more than one video, so here's what I've got

I haven't done the kitchen yet lol

#game design #game development #remote work #progress update #senior capstone #senior project #python #renpy #crunch time

[futureworkplace]

Progress Update #3

What's Been Happening

It's been another month where I accidentally went radio silent on this account. It was both intentional and unintentional. The main reason being I didn't have anything to update, and didn't really do anything new since then. However, since then, I have been teaching myself how to code in Python for the game engine I'm using, Ren'Py. I wouldn't call myself an expert now, but I can at least code in general. To do this, I took Harvard's free online course (thanks to the direction of a tutor I talked to), CS50: Introduction to Programming in Python to obtain this knowledge and apply it. In the past week, I even made some test programs to measure my capabilities with programming. Despite my overall radio silence and time away from production, I think it was worth it to spend all this time learning how to code with Python.

What's Next?

More development in general. Story trees are my main priority right now. Now that I've taught myself how to code and have proven in practice that I can make a game, finishing the story tree is something I must do ASAP. Then I can continue developing the game after that. After that, the game art is something that needs to be done.

Hiccups, Hurdles and AHA! Moments

I had one very annoying hiccup happen while I was creating test programs. That was just getting the bars for Energy, Stress, Task and Focus to show up on the screen. It took me two whole days before I figured out how to fix the code. It was a very small AHA! moment with the semantic errors on my end.

An AHA! moment I had is figuring out a pretty solid way to implement math for the individual bars I mentioned earlier in conjunction with the player's inputs and customized stats. I have to iterate on it further, but I have direction with it now.

Where I am on my Timeline

I am definitely at least 3 weeks to a whole month behind. I am at least in the production phase, but I should have been here much earlier than I am right now. It's crunch time now.

If I had known how to code and knew where to acquire this knowledge I have now, this wouldn't have been an issue. But as I always say, lessons for the future.

Some Visual Documentation

I would post a video of my programs in work, but this is my second time doing this update because Tumblr crapped out and didn't post my update when I did that. I would really like to post a video, but I don't want to do a third try of this update. Here are some pictures of my test programs and small additions I made to the story tree.

#game design #game development #remote work #progress update #python #renpy #senior project #senior capstone

[futureworkplace]

Progress Update #2

What's Been Happening

These past few weeks have been very lackluster and disappointing for me. I've been busy with other aspects of my life, including general distractions, and didn't have much time to work on the project. The most I did in recent time was start on story-trees for the individual routes of the games and their characters. I also created a master document containing the characters, mechanics, and narrative of the game. I can definitely say I'm very behind on my plans and will be playing some MAJOR catchup in these coming weeks. I thought it'd be best to just be honest about what's going on in my life instead of providing no update at all. I think embarrassing myself in this update about my lack of work will be a great motivator from now on, so I believe this is the right move. Also, I'm kind of realizing I don't really have to make these updates as long as an essay, so these might just be more cut-down in the future.

What's Next

Further development of the story trees. Although I only just started it, I have been making some decent progress with it.

Hiccups, Hurdles and AHA! Moments

A major hurdle at the moment is the story-trees. I am seriously stumped with how I wanna move the story routes along. I feel like I'm getting more in my own head than anything, and that's a very familiar feeling with my creative works.

An AHA! moment I had with the story trees was to use Canva as a means to represent the decisions and story in a visual medium. This makes it easier for me to create the trees without overcomplicating it in something like a google-doc, or struggling in Clip Studio Paint to make things uniform.

Where I am on my Timeline

Still in the pre-production phase and quickly falling behind my schedule. I need to have all of these things I've mentioned in this update done at least before the end of February. Like I said, it's major catchup time.

Some Visual Documentation

Here are some screenshots from the documents I have been working on. I have yet to transfer the mechanics written in my notebook to the master document. Maybe when I've got more work done on the google document I will share a link for people to view it.

#game design #game development #remote work #progress update

[futureworkplace]

Progress Update #1

What's Been Happening

Since the last update, I have been defining the mechanics and narrative for the video game demo. I've developed and designed many mechanics in concept, but have yet to put it into practice (due to not starting the coding of the game). Once I start doing things in practice, I can begin iterating on the mechanics I've created and improving them, or removing them if they aren't gelling with the game in the end.

In current concept, I have 3 jobs the player may choose from: Artist, Game Designer, and Teleworker. I want to give the "Teleworking" job a more specific title. In my research, there was a lot of Nurse and Hospital teleworking being observed and experimented with regarding work efficiency, satisfaction, and productivity. Hopefully I can create mechanics that can work around that specific route I wish to offer the player. I'm more likely going to focus on the Artist and Game designer routes over the teleworker, because it is something I relate to and understand more than teleworking.

What's Next

After I finish making the narrative and mechanics, I will begin scripting the game. I need to get the game functioning fast and early so I can be sure that I'm on the path to success.

Hiccups, Hurdles, and "AHA!" moments

A few hiccups I've come across is how to make the game experience a customizable one that the player may enjoy. Trying to make the core mechanics work with a customizable experience was quite stunting. My Aha! moment with this was creating special skills that the player can collect and improve on to enhance their experience. This has the potential to make the game more replayable and enjoyable for the players.

One major hurdle I have to overcome right now is creating the narrative for this video game demo. While I believe that I have the capacity and skill to do it, it is something that is always very difficult for me to piece together.

Another major hurdle I'm going to have to overcome in the coming weeks is how to make this all functionable in the RenPy engine I am planning on using for this demo.

Where I am on my Timeline

I am definitely still in the Pre-Production phase. My first milestone is to create the World Bible, or the Design Bible, for the game. After I've created a narrative and have the basic mechanics on lock, it will be time to start scripting the game.

Some Visual Documentation

Here's a peak at some of the notes I wrote down for the mechanics and a sketch of the visual layout I have planned for the future. Not all of my mechanics are in this update due to still being works-in-progress.

#Game Design #Game Development #remote work #progress update

[futureworkplace]

Welcome to the Blog

#game development #game design #game demo #demo #the future workplace #remote work #Future Workers