Posted on No Comments on References and Credits

References and Credits

Adamns, E. (2010) Fundamentals of Game Design. Berkely, CA: New Riders.

– Barman, C. (1979) The man who built London transport: A biography of frank pick. London, United Kingdom: David & Charles PLC.

– Garland, K. and Garl, K. (1994) Mr. Beck’s underground map. London, United Kingdom: Capital Transport Publishing.

– Green, O. (1999) Underground art in London: Transport posters – 1908 to the present. London: King, Laurence Publishing.

– https://tfl.gov.uk/tube-dlr-overground/status/

– http://content.tfl.gov.uk/design-style-guide.pdf

– http://content.tfl.gov.uk/lu-signs-manual.pdf

– http://content.tfl.gov.uk/station-design-idiom-2.pdf

– http://content.tfl.gov.uk/onl-std-081-brand-iconography- standard.pdf

 

Links to models used within the game:

– https://www.turbosquid.com/FullPreview/Index.cfm/ID/561379

– https://www.turbosquid.com/FullPreview/Index.cfm/ID/501607

– https://www.turbosquid.com/FullPreview/Index.cfm/ID/683306

– https://www.turbosquid.com/FullPreview/Index.cfm/ID/1082051

– https://www.turbosquid.com/FullPreview/Index.cfm/ID/1109715

– https://www.turbosquid.com/FullPreview/Index.cfm/ID/643098

– https://www.turbosquid.com/FullPreview/Index.cfm/ID/1028417

– https://www.turbosquid.com/FullPreview/Index.cfm/ID/464216

– https://www.turbosquid.com/FullPreview/Index.cfm/ID/495444

– https://www.turbosquid.com/FullPreview/Index.cfm/ID/759139

– https://www.turbosquid.com/FullPreview/Index.cfm/ID/1078567

– https://www.turbosquid.com/FullPreview/Index.cfm/ID/1127147

– https://www.turbosquid.com/FullPreview/Index.cfm/ID/975260

– https://www.turbosquid.com/FullPreview/Index.cfm/ID/522761

– https://www.turbosquid.com/FullPreview/Index.cfm/ID/333167

– https://www.turbosquid.com/FullPreview/Index.cfm/ID/764462

– https://www.turbosquid.com/FullPreview/Index.cfm/ID/769728

– https://www.turbosquid.com/FullPreview/Index.cfm/ID/312943

– https://www.turbosquid.com/FullPreview/Index.cfm/ID/336312

– https://www.turbosquid.com/FullPreview/Index.cfm/ID/1031168

– https://www.turbosquid.com/FullPreview/Index.cfm/ID/717693

– https://www.turbosquid.com/FullPreview/Index.cfm/ID/888912

– https://www.turbosquid.com/FullPreview/Index.cfm/ID/1109565

– https://www.turbosquid.com/FullPreview/Index.cfm/ID/688914

– https://www.turbosquid.com/FullPreview/Index.cfm/ID/877095

– https://www.turbosquid.com/FullPreview/Index.cfm/ID/476476

– https://www.turbosquid.com/FullPreview/Index.cfm/ID/1060547

– https://www.turbosquid.com/FullPreview/Index.cfm/ID/475725

– https://www.turbosquid.com/FullPreview/Index.cfm/ID/985393

– https://www.turbosquid.com/FullPreview/Index.cfm/ID/453828

– https://www.turbosquid.com/FullPreview/Index.cfm/ID/490335

– https://www.turbosquid.com/FullPreview/Index.cfm/ID/1105870

– https://www.turbosquid.com/FullPreview/Index.cfm/ID/937407

– https://www.turbosquid.com/FullPreview/Index.cfm/ID/369986

– https://www.turbosquid.com/FullPreview/Index.cfm/ID/499139

– https://www.turbosquid.com/FullPreview/Index.cfm/ID/965233

– https://www.turbosquid.com/FullPreview/Index.cfm/ID/1079985

– https://www.turbosquid.com/FullPreview/Index.cfm/ID/1016934

Posted on No Comments on Reflection

Reflection

Looking back on this project overall, I am very proud of the outcome, however, there are a number of things that I would like to have added, to improve upon the over gameplay, it if I had had the time. At the beginning of this project, I wanted to create a complete fully functioning game. I realize now upon completing it that the due to the sheer amount of work that it takes to make even a demo, it would not have been realistic for me to have made an entire game in the allocated time. With an entire team behind me made up of different professionals taking on different tasks it might have been possible, such as having a separate animator, coder, and researcher. However, because I took on all of the major roles myself, that normally, in an industry circumstance, would be split up into separate roles I had to learn to multitask throughout the entire process. Despite this, I have achieved the majority of my goals and have created a fully functioning demo of a game.

Taking into account feedback and my own personal opinion there are a number of features that I would have liked to have added/changed if I had had the time. Overall I am really happy with the level of research I was able to do prior to developing the game. Visiting the London Trasport Museum was a really valuable experience as they had a lot of exhibitions and models of trains that I could look at for inspiration when it came to texturing and modeling assets. The museum also gave me a lot of information that I could implement into the narrative of the game. I do however wish that I was able to go into even more detail on some of the tunnel segments as far as the history goes. For example, the escalator platform that represents the period of 1910 to the 1930s is a lot more empty than the other platforms. This is because I struggled to find models that would fit within the theme of the platform and also the Underground platforms themselves in real life do not have a lot of stuff on them for health and safety issues to provide room travelers. I didn’t want to add loads of unnecessary models to the platform to fill up space because realistically underground platforms are pretty empty. Ideally, I would have modeled a lot of the assets myself so that they looked exactly the way that I wanted them however due to time constraints I did not have time to make everything myself. Also for generic assets such as barrels, crates etc, it seemed unnecessary to model my own when there were perfectly good free models on TurboSquid. However, when selecting models off of TurboSquid I made sure to check that they were all royalty free, and then the majority of them I retextured myself to make them fit in with my desired theme.

Technically I faced a lot of problems when coding the game. For example getting the character to climb up onto the platform and jump off the platform using the arrow keys was particularly tricky. This was due to the animations I created as they were not ‘treadmill’ animations like the walking and running animations. This meant that when the animations played they moved the character in 3D space however her actual transform position had not changed causing her to move back to her original position on completion of the animation. This was an issue as it meant that I would have to change her transform position manually with code causing a slight glitch/flicker in her transitions due to a slight delay on her offset, caused by not being able to keep up with the movement. Sadly I was unable to find a solution to fix this issue so if I was able to go back and redo it I would make her climb and jump animations a treadmill animation, like the walking and running, then I could move her slowly to the position that I wanted without the glitch. I also had a problem with the real-time update on the lighting and when the character passed underneath a light source it caused the light to flicker, this was another problem I was unable to fix however the effect was not too much of a problem as it sometimes looked like it was supposed to flicker like that in some sort of eerie way.

Another issue that I discovered was after importing all of the audio into the game. The audio was called to play at certain points in the code of the game within either the interactions with the artifacts or when the player entered a specific collider positioned in the game. However, I soon discovered that when running through the tunnels some of the audio clips were so long that the character had already reached another audio point before the previous one had finished. This caused some overlapping and clashing of audio clips. This was in issue because if the player missed the end of one of the audio clips then they were not getting the full context of that particular section of the game. To try and help prevent this we had to cut down a considerable amount of the audio so there is a lot of audio that did not make it into the game at all. The only other thing that I could do to try and prevent audio clashing was disabling the run feature however, this feature was particularly useful when building/evaluating as it was quicker to get through to sections that I needed to look at. I decided in the end that I would keep the feature in but I wouldn’t draw any of the player’s attention to it. In the beginning of the game, there is a GUI (Graphical user interface) image that tells the player that to move they must use the arrow keys however I specifically chose not to include the ‘hold shift to run’ image as to try and encourage the player to walk from one station to the next instead. Minimizing the chances of overlapping audio. Another option might be to give her some sort of stamina/energy bar so that she can only run for a short amount of time before she grows tired and reverts back to walking. I think there could be a lot more improvements made to the GUI itself if I had had the time to fully implement them. Coming up with a way to symbolize an inventory/map system in a small space was probably the biggest development challenge that I faced as I wasn’t sure what would be the best way to do it. Originally I wanted to create some sort of map that they player could open up and see where they had to go to collect each item however due to the smaller scale of the game demo it seemed unnecessary to create a full on map, instead I created a sort of mini map/inventory system at the top to track where the player roughly was in the timeline and if they had picked up an item or not. However, the inventory isn’t very clear and isn’t the best quality and could benefit from a more visual indication of exactly where the player is in the timeline.

I really like the overall aesthetic of the project. It was really fun for me to do as it is a completely different design style than what I am used to. I enjoyed the 2.5D element and experimenting with different depths and dimensions and I really like the dramatic contrast between the player the background. I think the quality does slightly slip in places, for example, I had a couple problems with glitching/flickering ‘decals’ when the character walked past them. There are also a number of models that I would like to have retextured in a higher quality and spent more time on the look of the overall platforms. I struggled a lot with the ending of the game as I wasn’t sure of the best way to end a demo of the game. In light of this, I should have done some research on game demos in general, looking into how long they normally are and how they end. In the end, I chose to just end the game with you completing ‘Level One’ with the idea that in the full-length game it would then follow on there to ‘Level Two’, if I could do it again I would make the ending less abrupt and the level one complete end screen comes on quite suddenly with no prior warning and information about what happens at the end. I do also wish that I had been able to get more audience feedback from a variety of people playing the game instead of just some students that I know, however, I posted my game on a couple forums and haven’t received any feedback at this present time so was unable to include it.  I also really enjoyed working in a small group as I was able to bounce ideas off of my partner and because we had very clear roles within the project were able to work separately but also together. It is a shame that my partner wasn’t able to put all of the audio into the game himself however, it would have taken a lot longer as he has little coding experience and no knowledge of how to operate Unity. So in the end, we decided it would be less time consuming if I put all the audio in. With a little more time management and research, I could have improved some aspects of the game. However, Overall I am really happy that I came out the other side of this project with a fully working demo and I believe that this project has advanced my skills in coding immensely and has also improved some newer 3D skills such as modeling, animating and texturing.

Posted on No Comments on Audience

Audience

With most methods of transport, an automated future is predicted with cars going driverless as well as the replacement of ticket booths at London Underground train stations. With the loss of these people, how will the culture and design maintain itself in a station with no one working there? We wanted to display the amount of historical stories and events that reflect our British culture in a simple and educational interactive environment. In our current day and age, it is important to reflect on the history and culture through artwork and design that sends a message of London’s openness, internationalism, diversity, and commonality. We feel we can do this by creating an interactive story that both educates and entertains the user.

UNDER is a 2.5D dimensional interactive narrative in which you play as a young woman lost in an abandoned London Underground. Accompanying you is Met an artificially augmented personality who has become the voice of all the London underground’s technology. Unfortunately, he has had to reboot for some unknown reason and to do so he must find artifacts sprawled across the tunnels and platforms from the old to the new, exploring the rich history of the London Underground. Doing so will not only unlock more of Met’s lost memories but also real clips from archived material about the objects you find. From the age of steam trains to the automated underground we know today, will they be able to get the underground running again, or is there something deeper and darker going on?

Based on the location of the game and its significance to the British public this game’s intended audience would be those who know of the London Underground. This would limit its release to mainly a UK audience as the game contains language and accents that would only appeal to a user that understood it.

Summary of ‘Gaming Britain’ – Internet Advertising Bureau UK (2005)

32.9 million UK game players

82% of 8-65-year-olds playing games.

27.6 million adults play games

98% of children 8-15 years old play games

24% of time spent gaming is on the computer

8 in 10 would prefer to download a free game with adverts than pay

UNDER’s main demographic however would be children from 8-15 as they would benefit from the educational side of the game. Teenagers would also be a target as, at that age, they are more likely to branch out into playing indie games as opposed to mainstream games.

The London transport museum has an extensive kids section and is always trying to get kids more involved in learning about the history of London transport and even more importantly what the future could be.

Typically in school, children aged 13 start learning about world war two and this is a relevant guide for the development of our game. The game could be a way to stimulate their learning in a way that is educational but also entertaining. Potentially with enough interaction with the game and if we could receive the funding, the game could be published to a mobile platform for an increase in the number of users and the accessibility, especially for children.

Posted on No Comments on Feedback

Feedback

Patrick Williams – University of Lincoln psychology masters student.

Patrick really enjoyed the multi-dimensionality of the game. The combination of 3D and 2D made for a really interesting gameplay. Overall Patrick really liked the concept and enjoyed learning new things about the London underground as he played.

Patrick also picked up the controls really quickly. I gave him no prior information to playing the game but he understood perfectly how it worked. Initially, although you are told to ‘Press space’ in the beginning to pick up the radio, I was worried that it would then translate that you have to use ‘Space’ to interact with other things in the game such as the valve to turn the steam off. I was considering putting another indicator over the valve that the player had to ‘Press space’ to turn it, however, Patrick knew what he had to do straight away reassuring me that the player would not need the additional prompting.

Patrick did, however, notice some of the errors that are in the game. For example, he noticed that the lights sometimes flicker weirdly when the player passes under them, this is due to the real-time lighting and is a problem that I was sadly unable to fix however he did say that initially, he thought they were supposed to flicker to add to the eerieness of the platforms, until I told him otherwise.

IMG_2811 IMG_2813  IMG_2808

Ben Adams – University of Lincoln 3rd year Media Production student.

IMG_2819IMG_2818IMG_2815

Ben noticed some of the errors that are in the game. For example, he noticed that the lights sometimes flicker weirdly when the player passes under them, this is due to the real-time lighting and is a problem that I was sadly unable to fix however he did say that initially, he thought they were supposed to flicker to add to the eerieness of the platforms, until I informed him otherwise.

He really enjoyed the tube map style inventory system at the top of the screen to help you keep track of whereabouts you are in the tunnels and when you have picked up an item. He did, however, suggest that it might make it easier for the player if there is a visual indicator of what item they have picked up. More like the traditional inventory system.

Posted on No Comments on Budget

Budget

THEORETICAL BUDGET

For a professional company to produce a game it would be considerably more expensive. The typical salaries for in-house professionals are as listed below. Information gathered from glassdoor.com.

Artist: £32,000 – £34,000

Animator: £31,000 – £34,000

Senior Designer: £39,000 – £43,000

Audio Designer: £27,000 – £29,000

Script Engineer: £29,000 – £31,000

(Taken from the company Rockstar)

The company would also pay for licensing of their products so that no copyright can be infringed. They would pay for all of the licenses for the software to make the game. Unity plus is $35 a month and Unity is $125  a month.

ACTUAL BUDGET

Because this is a personal project for mainly educational purposes Unity is free to download and use. All of the workload for the game is being shared between two people, this minimizes the cost, however, does mean that there will be a lot more work for each of us to cover. Below is our schedule with a rough budget breakdown for each section:

Research and planning: 2 weeks (Week 3 & 4)

Researching the London Underground and its history. Extensive research into the design and architecture and how it has evolved. Research into ‘side-scrolling’ games and other indie games to inspire conceptually and technically. Research into the best software to build and animate characters and create the side scrolling game. Begin to produce a narrative and storyline for the game.

– Travel to and from London £60

– London Transport Museum Ticket £15

Planning and testing: 4 weeks (Week 5, 6, 7, & 8)

Create a script based on the narrative and storyline. Begin character and background scene concept designing. Producing lots of sketches through trial and error to achieve my final visual style and characters. Begin experimenting with the chosen software and practicing games development by producing several drafts and versions. Begin to 3D model the character and practice animating it. Overall experimenting and producing assets to create a segment of the game.

Development: 4 weeks (Week 9, 10, 11 & 12)

Produce the majority of the game to a fully functioning standard, ironing out any problems or initial bugs. Produce branding for the game such as its logo and title sequence. Potentially think about producing a trailer for the game. Implement any sound designed and created by my project partner. Produce more assets to complete the game entirely and work towards the completed final artifact.

Actress expenses (i.e. travel and accommodation) £33

Finalizing and reflection: 3 Weeks including the Easter break (Week 13, 14 & 15)

Finish the final digital media product/artifact. Use the information from my blog to create a digital portfolio containing all relevant documentation from the project including a detailed reflection on the piece. Create a digital press pack for the LSFM degree show. Finally, write a critical evaluation of the finished artifact.