Drake Duck

The new character

My own creation can be used to support the project and make easier to demonstrate certain things using my own animation....

Super Smash Bros.

Video Game Play Footage

You can see here what the game is like, manic open space battling, just how I want my game to be. I want my final video to show the relation between the video game and my physical game as much as possible to help prove what I have achieved. I need to consider how to make the physical game as much like the video game as possible without it being to complex and it still being fun.

Mauro (2011) says, “Simplification means once users have a relatively brief period of experience with the software, their mental model of how the interface behaves is well formed and fully embedded. Simple does not equal engaging. It is possible to create a user interface solution that is initially perceived by users as simple. However, the challenge is to create a desire by users to continue interaction with a system over time. What makes a user interface engaging is adding more detail to the user’s mental model at just the right time.”

So adding to the complexity of the game or difficulty of the game once players are up to scratch and are coping well with the level they are already on, is how to make a fun and engaging, therefore it will be useful to have different difficulty levels for the game, this will broaden the market for the game and will allow different age groups to take part, it will help people learn how to the play the game. Different options are also good in a game so people can choose how long they plan to play, for example, choose the number of rounds depending on how long you wish to play the game.

Mauro, C, L., 2011. Why Angry Birds is so successful and popular: a cognitive teardown of the user experience. MauroNewMedia. [online] Available at: <http://www.mauronewmedia.com/blog/2011/02/why-angry-birds-is-so-successful-a-cognitive-teardown-of-the-user-experience/> [Accessed 25th April 2011].

Software

Programs I plan to use:

• Gimp/Photoshop/Inkscape/Paint - Create the art for game (cards).
• Blender - Character modelling, rigging and animation.
• Windows Movie Maker/After Effects - Edit the video footage.
• MS Word for the write up.

I want to improve my skills in all of these software packages in order to develop myself and my project.

I want the final video to use some animation and effects but it will be mostly a demonstration of the game hopefully more actual footage rather than a virtual representation.

The final video will be the main final article of work.

Research and Discussion

I have always enjoyed video games and board/card games. I think games that are more about skill rather than luck are more fun, but some luck is also important I think especially in board games because you usually use a dice, and some luck aspects make the game more exciting and not so thought out, the situation is always changing for example in monopoly you cant always predict your next best moves because it depends on how much money you will have unlike something like chess where the are strategies and moves that can be very planned out. In this case I think using a dice would be very appropriate for my game.

Card games like Pokemon cards are exciting because so many cards are available which is the case in many card games and it means so many future possibilities and also continuous income for the company. This is another aspect Sony talked about, how game can release new ideas that alter the rules of their games slightly and people will pay money in order to get new game pieces and rules that will change the playing environment. This is also relevant to Super Smash Bros because there are different fighting arenas in the game. Of late similar ideas have been applied to video games in the form of DLC (downloadable content) this is where you download extra parts for a game such as more maps to play on often for an additional cost, DLC has proved a very clever way of making even more money from games.

The video game and physical game markets are both very large, the video game market still continues to grow, but the board game market seems to have stagnated. Board games and card games still sell very well especially classic ones; they are still very popular, and new updated versions such as Trivial Pursuit 21^st anniversary addition, and completely different versions such as Monopoly Nintendo addition are released all the time.

There are not many board game based on video games though. Pokemon cards was a very popular kids television series that also had many different types of games, they all did vary, but the basic premise was usually Pokemon battles, they also battled in arenas and is even more related to my game because there playable Pokemon characters, Pokemon items and arenas. I can look at the trading card game and others for inspiration. Card games are and have been very popular, the first successful battle card game was Magic the Gathering, but they all have similar concepts of battling and damaging your enemies health level until you defeat them.

The key difference between board/card games and video game is they tend to be more sociable, “usually the fun part of older board games was the player interaction, not the game play itself.” (Yehuda, 2008). So if you combine the exciting game play mechanics of a video game and the interaction of a board game you should have the elements for a very fun game.

It was pointed out to me that my game sounds very similar to a board game called Marvel Heroes, so I will have to look more into that game and maybe draw some inspiration from it.

Week 3

Brief

In our first lecture for this module, instead of having an ordinary lecture we had an interesting presentation given to us from a representative of Sony.

The presentation was about what game designers actually do and the industry itself. Which was relevant to the optional task they then set us, which was to design a physical game based on an existing video game.

I was very excited and keen to pursue this idea, I discussed it with my 3D character animation teacher (Steven Harris) and he seemed to like the idea, so I started to plan it out in note form. I then later discovered after chatting to my Portfolio lecturer it was possible to use this project for this assignment. Which would be killing two birds with one stone, which I was pleased about. But designing the game and researching the market may not be enough, so I may also create a short animation to promote the game.

I plan to create a physical game (e.g. board or card game) based around the popular Nintendo game Super Smash Bros.

The key to the design of the game is to capture the essence of the video game and put it across in the board game, if this is successful then the board game should be very likeable just like the video game is.

The game is an extremely frantic fast based fighting game. With many options, characters, items and levels.

Specification

• I must research the area of physical games.
• I must create a finished concepts of all parts of the game.
• The game must represent parts of the video game style and mechanics.
• A log of my work must be kept.
• Like always the game must be tested during development and the final product by me and others to see if it works.
• Care will be taken in the design of the game play as well as the game imagery but the game play is the most important aspect.
• Other than the board game concept work and art, other things that can be implemented to support this project are animations which can be created from the help of such software as, Blender, After Effects, Photoshop and Windows Movie Maker. This will develop my skills in these areas and with these software packages.
• An animation to demonstrate how the game works could be created, or an animation of an advert for the game could be created.
• In order to promote the game further, my own original character could be created to be used in the animation and in the game concepts, this will also help avoid more copyright issues than necessary and will mean a proper character animation could be created without having to copy or find a Nintendo character model.
• I can use the Disney style character I am also developing for my 3D character animation module.