Introduction

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In this evaluation I am going to be talking about certain points like context, research, planning and production, problem solving, practical skills and presentation and the final product. In each of these sections it talks about my progress and views of what I have done for this overall project. I put greats amount of time in this project and all the sections so this evaluation should cover most questions.

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Context

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The way I came up with my idea was everything but a simple answer. I had quite a few ideas at the start for possible directions like a lab, a warehouse, and a deserted island. I eventually went with the lab as not many games have a lab as their main setting, and I thought that it would be an interesting concept although I had no real idea of where I wanted to go with it. I don’t think I managed to make a product like my original idea because I didn’t have much of an idea when I started, so I think it was better than my original expectations. I have a better understanding of what I wanted my project to be now that it is done because at the start, I did not have a direction that I knew I wanted to go in so now that it is done, I am much happier with what I had done. For my chosen idea (once I realised the direction I wanted to go) my goal with it was to make a sort of semi destroyed/ abandoned look and to give it the look of being abandoned with the feel of a recent disturbance as it is now being engulfed by a fire.

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Research​

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I made a few brainstorms which helped me make my final decision on what I wanted to make for my level. From that idea I realised that I needed to research about games that were based around labs or had a lab level, whether they were destroyed or not. I investigated games like portal 2 where it is based all around a destroyed lab and I looked into some of its levels. I skimmed through the video and found certain levels which I wanted to look closer into and based part of my design on certain aspects of certain levels. I believe that my research was sustained enough but I didn’t note down some research that I had done but overall, most of my research was all about the aspect of my game that I wanted to be done. I had made a form that I sent to people so that I could get feedback, from the results that I had gathered I was able to use those to help in my game design and use their input for what I needed to add like it being in 1st person or to make he level quite cluttered to make it look like it was left in a hurry. My secondary research was also very important as it was the videos that helped me get references and get a base idea od my layout. My research allowed me to gather ideas from videos and feedback through forms to build, design and create my level and everything for it which is why it looks how it looks now.

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Planning and Production

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When it came to planning, I wanted to make sure that I had a general plan set so that I new what to aim for through the weeks so to help with this I had made a schedule to cover the base of how I wanted the weeks to go. The planning tools which were the most useful were the schedule as I could space time out across weeks and see what needed to be done by that point. I believe that the planning was good enough for what it needed to be at that time, but I could have made it better by adding more planning resources. I believe that production went quite smoothly compared to what I thought it was going to be like. In the future projects I am going to improve on my planning by making sure I plan for all the weeks as I have done that already as well as a contingency plan, but it is a good thing to do for all projects.

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Problem Solving

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The major problem I had encountered was with my decals as it took me a while to figure out why they weren’t working. The other problem that I had to deal with was the mass amounts of space that I had, there was too much space that I would have to work with and fill up to give it the abandoned look. The way I got around these troubles was easy and frustrating. I decided to tackle the decals problem first as if the room didn’t look abandoned with textures, then the spacing wouldn’t be a big issue as the level wouldn’t look right. To fix it I had to add the base decals with a specific line of code in this other material called the master material, from mixing these two simple parts it meant that the decals would now be working but there was another minor issue with them and that was that you had to move the decals around a lot to make them appear by rotating it into many different directions. The next problem that I dealt with was the spacing, to deal with this I came up with a simple solution which quickly turned into a not so simple solution. I came up with the idea of having half of the map on fire and adding a system where it would spread and if you didn’t get the objects you needed to escape then you would lose. This had some hidden issues with the main one being that I could not get the code to work as the tutorial I had watched had some missing code that the guy did not include and never talked about because of this fatal flaw in the design it meant that I had to scrap the spreadable fire and make it so that it was just a few static fires with an invisible wall meaning that you couldn’t walk through the fire. I only had a few assets that I had designed as well so a big issue with mine was that I still had a decent sized room to try and fill out, because of this I put a few desks in and tried to put random amounts of objects on them and made on table a store with a display of all my assets on. Through these problems I now know to make sure that I make room sizes correctly and not too big. I also have developed skills with decals and how they work with certain types of walls and needing certain bits of code.

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Practical Skills

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Some of the practical skills that I have learnt are things like using forms for primary research as it is a great way to gather that research which helps with planning and lots of other parts about making levels or videos. Some more are decals which are very important and a lot better for designing the settings in games as it makes it look more unique instead of a basic texture which looks very copy and paste on walls. I hadn’t used any resources for my decals as I had figured out what to do by myself meaning that I was able to develop that skill on my own. My most developed skill was with substance painter as I was able to texture my assets and make them look quite good, my other skill was with designing and using textures to make levels look way nicer and way more unique than before.

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Presentation

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I presented my work by having people test it then complete a form to get their feedback and opinion on the game and hat they think could have been improved upon. The feedback that I gathered from the people who tested my game was very good because there were some good suggestions on what I could have done to improve my game and it was good to see what people thought of my game.

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The Final Product

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I believe that the strengths of my product are mainly the environment and design of my main level as it took me a long time to figure out the decals, but I am very happy that I was able to learn and overcome that challenge without any videos or help. I believe that the main improvements for the level part of this project is that I needed to make more assets and to fill out the room more but one of the other main areas of improvement were the mechanics as if I had more time I would add more as I had ideas that I wanted to implement a HUD with objectives and a health system with the fire that it damaged you or that you would take damage over time with the smoke from the fire. In my opinion there was one major change that I believe made the end of product worse and that was the idea of the fire spreading and doing damage, I really would have enjoyed seeing this feature implemented into my game. I really enjoyed my audience’s response as it was nice to see the good and positive feedback as I am proud of my game and am glad to see what people said that I could do to make my game better. For example, I got two pieces of feedback which were helpful like having my fire give off most of my light which is an idea I was originally thinking of doing but I couldn’t get the right colour to match the fire without the whole building looking off, so I had to stick with the main lights. Another was “making it more clear of what you’re supposed to do”, to counter this I was going to add an objectives which would have helped with this issue and fixed it.