Third Week Game Progress

Unfortunately, I became very sick, which greatly hindered this week’s progress on the game. I had planned to work on the game on the weekend, but I was so sick that I could not do anything from Wednesday night up until Sunday. I even missed class for the first time because of this. Despite this I was able to fix up some problems with the models and brainstorm some new ideas. Since I am now feeling better I hope I can catch up on the work I missed.                   

Suikoden Tierkreis Game Critique

The game is called Suikoden Tierkreis for the Nintendo DS. I recently purchased this game at Wal-Mart for only one dollar. Needless to say, I did not have high expectation for this game giving its low price. To my surprise the game received positive reviews online. The game is a turn based RPG which is very similar to Final Fantasy. 

The game play mechanics are very similar to other RPG’s. The player gets into random battles and must defeat monsters in order to gain levels and progress the story. The combat system is very easy to use. There is an option to auto battle, which I find very convent as it saves a lot of time during mundane battles. All of the games menus are easy to navigate and are clearly labelled. The level design is also well implemented. The over world gives you an ability to warp large distances, saving lots of time. The environments contain branching paths which bring in a risk vs. reward strategy. If the player branches off from the main root, they run the risk for getting into more battles, but might find hidden items. The environment backgrounds are hand drawn and the characters are 3D polygons, the game has put little markers to prevent confusion of where the exits are. The game also flows very nicely, new characters and environments are introduced as the player progresses. I personally found that this kept me “hooked” as I wanted keep playing to see what else the game had to offer.  

The story is engaging and the characters are interesting and believable. This is very important for this game as the story is usually a major part of RPG’s. The game is also very polished. All of the background are hand-drawn, and look wonderful. The game also has full voice acting and full motion video cut scene which is very impressive for a cartridge based DS game. I found the music to also be of very high quality as most of it is orchestrated and very memorable.   

On the left is an example of a voiced cut scene, on the right is an example of a turn based battle.

Second Week Game Progress

For this week, I mostly modeled geometry in Maya, I was able to implement some of the concept art into models. I also recorded some of the dialogue needed for the game. I have been working on the Concept Designs and Scope Documents that where needed for the Game Design and Production I class, as well as completing milestone 1.        

First Week Game Progress

For the first week of working on the game I felt I have made excellent progress. I completed the games dialogue, meaning that the next step would be to record the voices. I also implemented a small class within the games code. The last thing I did was draw concept art of some of the objects in the game. The next step is to create them in maya.  

Here is an example of some of the art I did.  

Plant vs. Zombies for 10 Minutes

Upon starting up Plant vs. Zombies, the first action I did was enter my name. After I did that, I clicked the “Start Adventure” button. After an intro the game displayed a tutorial explaining how to plant flowers and collect sun. After the tutorial, the game told me that the zombies were coming. Once the zombies were on screen the flowers began to shoot them. This helped me gain motivation to plant as many flowers as possible to destroy all of the zombies. Once all the zombies were defeated I was rewarded with a new type of plant. The game then gave me a tutorial on the new plant. The plant introduced a new level of strategy into the game as I could now choose to go for an offence or defensive layout of the flowers. Defeating the second level of zombies then introduced another type of plant, further changing the overall strategy of the game. The introduction of new plants altered the flow of the game. I responded to these changes by altering my overall strategy to accommodate the new plants.     

Good game: Marble Madness for the NES

Game Play Mechanics- The game play involves getting to the end of each level before the time runs out. This mechanic works well as it encourages many playthroughs in order to get the fastest time. The player is given infinite lives, but dying cost precious time.    

Sound- The sound is very good in this game. All of the music of the arcade version has been properly converted and is a pleasure to listen to. The music also help the levels come to life as it properly reflects the tone and overall design of its assigned level.  

Game Flow- The game starts off on an easy level. In this level you are able to get accustom to the controls. There are also no enemies or hazards to worry about. Each level after that will become increasingly difficult to complete. Each level will also introduce features not seen in other levels, keeping the game fresh and challenging. 

User Interfaces- The game uses the D-pad to control the marble and the “A” button as acceleration. Despite the original arcade machine having a trackball, the NES version is able to provide quick and responsive controls. There is also an option to modify the angle you are controlling the marble, to accommodate different user play styles.    

Level Design-The level design of Marble Madness is it strong point. Each level is wildly different, each having it own challenges, enemies and colour schemes. Some levels have gravity reversed as other levels have hammers that come up from under the ground to hit you. The different levels are so wildly different that they encourage players to gets there fastest time, only so they progress further can see what levels lie ahead.      

Story/Quality of Writing- There is no apparent story in the game. It is almost meant to be abstract.   

A.I. – The enemy A.I is very good in this game. Out of the other versions of Marble Madness, I personally found that this one had the “fairest” A.I. Whenever an enemy killed me, I felt as if it was my fault, not a flaw in the game. Defeating the A.I also takes strategy as you must try to dodge their attacks and return with a counter attack all when racing against the clock.

Bad game: Pac-Man for the Atari 2600

Game Play Mechanics- The original game play of Pac-Man has been lost in this conversion. The game play is the same on paper, but the horrible A.I. and maze hinder the game play.   

Sound- The sound is absolutely horrible in this game. The wonderful original arcade sound effects have been converted into horrible ones that don’t even resemble Pac-Man. The sound effects in the Ms. Pac-Man conversion were much closer to arcade quality. 

Game Flow- The same maze keeps repeating, the only reward is the high score. This is not a flaw as most Atari games have this type of game flow.

User Interfaces- The game uses a typical control style and works well. The joystick moves Pac-Man.  

Level Design-The iconic level design of the first Pac-Man has been butchered for the Atari port. The maze isn’t as well designed at the original and the warps on the sides of the maze are gone.

Story/Quality of Writing- The story is essentially the original Pac-Man, nothing has changed.

A.I. – The enemy A.I is borderline broken. The arcade version of Pac-Man actually had ghost follow your character. The Atari 2600 ghost seem to only move in random parts of the maze. They also flicker uncontrollably, making it almost impossible to tell where they are on screen. This causes the player to collide with a ghost that they did not see. Some might argue that this is the systems limitation, but Ms. Pac-Man for the Atari 2600 was able to have the same amount of ghost with almost no flicker.    

First Post

Hello,

This is the first test post of my blog! I will be posting information about my group’s game development as well as critique of games that I play throughout the semester.

Thanks for looking!!