Thursday, 21 March 2013
Tuesday, 30 October 2012
Final Presentation and Summary
Our Final presentation day has dawned on us again, and though it wasnt as smooth going as i might have liked we have finally got everything working and running together. Our exhibition had to be standalone this time round, and we went to quite a lot of effort to sort out an interesting playing space for the viewers. Our exhibition was styled to look like a bedroom, a place that I felt was relevant to the project as it is a place that most children would have been read bed time stories, and thought up interesting worlds and directly linked to our project through the idea of storytelling and immersing people within a new world. It also directly linked to the content of our game being a dream that a child is having as he sleeps in his bed.
All together we have a Bed which mulitple people can sit on to play or watch the game. We have a large monitor which we dressed up with a curtain rod and curtains to make it look like a window, we have a bedside table with a lamp and a toy train on it as well as our keyboard and mouse that you use to play the game. Slightly seperate from this space is our showreel and feedback forms that we are hoping people will fill out, as the project is still an experiment and we are interested in seeing what people think, what they enjoyed, and what could be improved on more.
I was really impressed with alot of the 3D modelling that Nick did for this project as it was really cool to have some of our own models used in the game engine. He put in a lot of hard work to get these done, and though wasnt in studio as much of the rest of us, he more than pulled his weight while working from home, He also put together our final show reel which i thought looked really amazing.
I think it is good that everything came together again at the end and I am feeling really quite pleased with the way everything worked out. I think it is important to note that this project would not have been as successful if we were missing even one part of the team, and even though we had our hiccups, each and every person was crucial to the success of this project.
Good Work Everybody!
All together we have a Bed which mulitple people can sit on to play or watch the game. We have a large monitor which we dressed up with a curtain rod and curtains to make it look like a window, we have a bedside table with a lamp and a toy train on it as well as our keyboard and mouse that you use to play the game. Slightly seperate from this space is our showreel and feedback forms that we are hoping people will fill out, as the project is still an experiment and we are interested in seeing what people think, what they enjoyed, and what could be improved on more.
I was really impressed with alot of the 3D modelling that Nick did for this project as it was really cool to have some of our own models used in the game engine. He put in a lot of hard work to get these done, and though wasnt in studio as much of the rest of us, he more than pulled his weight while working from home, He also put together our final show reel which i thought looked really amazing.
I think it is good that everything came together again at the end and I am feeling really quite pleased with the way everything worked out. I think it is important to note that this project would not have been as successful if we were missing even one part of the team, and even though we had our hiccups, each and every person was crucial to the success of this project.
Good Work Everybody!
Coding Time!
Oh Joy...
One thing that is important to note about our group. None of us, not one person likes to program. It is something we all struggle with, and not something any of us particularly enjoy. However when it comes to using Unity3d ( the game engine we decided to build our game on), it turns out a great deal of coding is needed to accomplish any small task. Me and Tim were assigned the roles to work in unity, and between the two of us i feel like we have accomplished really quite a lot considering our skill level as coders.
We have both learnt a lot about unity's programming script, and i felt that certain things got easier as we went along. We did find ourselves constantly returning to the Unity Answers forums to ask for help with a number of situations but with our final product now complete I feel like in the time frame we have taken a giant leap in terms what i originally felt i could accomplish. Obviously there are a few bugs in the game that we havnt been able to get rid of as the coding to solve the issue is well over either of our heads, and would probably need some serious help in order to fix them.
Overall after seeing all the things that we have accomplished I am quite proud of the work that we have done putting everything together.
GOOD JOB TIM!
One thing that is important to note about our group. None of us, not one person likes to program. It is something we all struggle with, and not something any of us particularly enjoy. However when it comes to using Unity3d ( the game engine we decided to build our game on), it turns out a great deal of coding is needed to accomplish any small task. Me and Tim were assigned the roles to work in unity, and between the two of us i feel like we have accomplished really quite a lot considering our skill level as coders.
We have both learnt a lot about unity's programming script, and i felt that certain things got easier as we went along. We did find ourselves constantly returning to the Unity Answers forums to ask for help with a number of situations but with our final product now complete I feel like in the time frame we have taken a giant leap in terms what i originally felt i could accomplish. Obviously there are a few bugs in the game that we havnt been able to get rid of as the coding to solve the issue is well over either of our heads, and would probably need some serious help in order to fix them.
Overall after seeing all the things that we have accomplished I am quite proud of the work that we have done putting everything together.
GOOD JOB TIM!
Friday, 5 October 2012
Group Dynamic Issues
Recently there have been a few issues with Lucy and myself over both some really small issues, and one or two larger ones as well. Apparently after coming back from China I have been a little too dominant in the leadership role which I can understand, but I plainly put it down to trying to get as much work done now as our deadlines are getting closer, so I am pushing people to try and get things done, but also pushing myself to get things done as well. Apparently Lucy has been feeling a lot of tension over a lot of what she has been writing for the game not being used at all, and is causing her not only a great deal of stress but i think she is getting really quite angry about it. The only problem with this is that she doesn't tell anyone about it until it gets to the point where she lashes out. This becomes an issue, when we arent doing anything to change that purely because we dont know how she feels, or that what we are doing is affecting her this way. After checking her blogs this was slightly more apparent, but without communication it is very difficult to know what is going on.
While I was away, Lucy took charge of the group and obviously became more dominant, but now that I am back she has backed off from that and let me take the role. I was unaware at the time that she had been in a leadership role, as i assumed that because everyone was in such a bad space, no one had taken charge and things had gone pear shaped.
I realise that I may not be the perfect leader for the group and I am trying my best not to confuse my own oppinions with that of the groups but at times, like everyone else, i do make mistakes. I find this is a little more common when tutors randomly show up and I feel like I am put on the spot a bit to try and come up with something to say. It just means that i really need to make sure i think a little more about how everyone might be feeling when discussing the group. Again though a key component to this is communication and knowing how everyone feels, if nobody puts things out in the open how am i supposed to make a fair call on that. Im not a mind reader.
I felt at times that Lucy was a little bit immature about how she reacted to some of the decisions that were being made by the group. Not everything someone writes gets used 100% of the time and if it doesnt get used because the majority of the group doesnt like it then it is probably for the best, i felt at times that she would really throw a tantrum when things didnt go entirely her way, i think that at times she forgets that we are working on a group project and we all have goals that we want to accomplish from it.
I have nothing against people stepping up to take a leadership role, in fact i feel i encouraged it fairly well right at the beginning of the project, but in order to be a leader there needs to be good communication with everyone, and you need to be able to make a call that works best for everybody. Communication is really not one of Lucy's strong points. She is however very efficient in terms of time management and organisation, she always draws out timeframes in which things need to be accomplished by. Personally i think she fits alot better into the role of an organiser than that of a leader, purely because i feel that good communication is one of the most important things about taking on that role.
While I was away, Lucy took charge of the group and obviously became more dominant, but now that I am back she has backed off from that and let me take the role. I was unaware at the time that she had been in a leadership role, as i assumed that because everyone was in such a bad space, no one had taken charge and things had gone pear shaped.
I realise that I may not be the perfect leader for the group and I am trying my best not to confuse my own oppinions with that of the groups but at times, like everyone else, i do make mistakes. I find this is a little more common when tutors randomly show up and I feel like I am put on the spot a bit to try and come up with something to say. It just means that i really need to make sure i think a little more about how everyone might be feeling when discussing the group. Again though a key component to this is communication and knowing how everyone feels, if nobody puts things out in the open how am i supposed to make a fair call on that. Im not a mind reader.
I felt at times that Lucy was a little bit immature about how she reacted to some of the decisions that were being made by the group. Not everything someone writes gets used 100% of the time and if it doesnt get used because the majority of the group doesnt like it then it is probably for the best, i felt at times that she would really throw a tantrum when things didnt go entirely her way, i think that at times she forgets that we are working on a group project and we all have goals that we want to accomplish from it.
I have nothing against people stepping up to take a leadership role, in fact i feel i encouraged it fairly well right at the beginning of the project, but in order to be a leader there needs to be good communication with everyone, and you need to be able to make a call that works best for everybody. Communication is really not one of Lucy's strong points. She is however very efficient in terms of time management and organisation, she always draws out timeframes in which things need to be accomplished by. Personally i think she fits alot better into the role of an organiser than that of a leader, purely because i feel that good communication is one of the most important things about taking on that role.
Tuesday, 2 October 2012
Post Feedback
One thing that was refreshing to come back to was the amount of drawing that people had done in terms of creating characters for our world. These provided great help in establishing the feel for our world and our story. Apparently though according to the tutors we need to stop focusing quite so much on the game side of things and work more towards our main question, which is "Can you use games as a method of story telling".
We already know from our research and through previous experience gaming that this was true, but needed to elaborate a bit more on this. This is where our project really took a change for the better in my oppinion. We stopped trying to make a game that told a story, but became more focused on the way in which games told stories. This gave us a greater understanding about how story telling was achieved in games and gave us an idea for our final project, an experiment that tested the different methods and tools that were used within a game, and how effective they were for achieving both enjoyment through gameplay, and enjoyment of the storyline.
We already know from our research and through previous experience gaming that this was true, but needed to elaborate a bit more on this. This is where our project really took a change for the better in my oppinion. We stopped trying to make a game that told a story, but became more focused on the way in which games told stories. This gave us a greater understanding about how story telling was achieved in games and gave us an idea for our final project, an experiment that tested the different methods and tools that were used within a game, and how effective they were for achieving both enjoyment through gameplay, and enjoyment of the storyline.
Sunday, 30 September 2012
Back Again!
After arriving back in New Zealand, I found that a lot had changed since I had left. The story we had previously chosen to start had been scrapped and all the work leading up to that point was now reasonably pointless. Instead we had a new story, very different and rather dark and twisted. Though the concept had changed in terms of actual progress not much had been done in the 3 weeks I was away in terms of moving forward from where we were when I left, in fact we were basically in the same place, only with a different story. I didnt mind this too much, but no one was really able to completely explain this new concept to me at all, maybe due to some miscommunication amongst the group. I guess from this point I started to become a little more pushy to try and get people to break apart the story for me not only so that I could understand what it was that we were doing and in turn needed to be done, but also so the group was more clear in what we we were doing.
The overall morale of the group seemed pretty low when I arrived back and basically none of them were really all that motivated to get anything done. (This isn't a stab at the group, just an observation). This really made moving on from the point we were at very difficult because I dont think any roles had been assigned in concrete and I question if anyone really knew what it was they were needed to do. It felt really disorganised and a quite unpleasant atmosphere for the group.
It was at this point I felt like I needed to put back on my leadership hat and try and fix some of the immediate problems I saw around me, firstly by establishing what exactly our story was about, and how we planned on telling it.
The overall morale of the group seemed pretty low when I arrived back and basically none of them were really all that motivated to get anything done. (This isn't a stab at the group, just an observation). This really made moving on from the point we were at very difficult because I dont think any roles had been assigned in concrete and I question if anyone really knew what it was they were needed to do. It felt really disorganised and a quite unpleasant atmosphere for the group.
It was at this point I felt like I needed to put back on my leadership hat and try and fix some of the immediate problems I saw around me, firstly by establishing what exactly our story was about, and how we planned on telling it.
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