Final Reflections

Today I asjusted kismet and my level for the last time. I added a light volume around the level to reduce loading times and improve performance. I also reduced jump height via the console command action, to add a more realistic jump height.
During the course of designing and developing this level, my knowledge of UDK and kismet has increased considerably. Infact if I were to redesign my level now knowing what I do now, it would be ALOT more ellaborate and complex.
UDK to me seems like a programme that is easy to pick up, insanely hard to master, but oh so worth it.
Overall I am pleased with the level. It definately could do with more puzzles and a more fluid level design, but for my first attempt I am happy. I will take the skills gleaned from this and start looking into material and particle effects to really increase the immersion factor for the next game/level I build.

Designer Notes

Ok so I have made alot of progression recently. Firstly I have discovered that toggling the HUD off will also hide text displays so I must either find a work around for this (deleting HUD file from UDK) or leave it displayed.
On the subject of logs, it turns out you can only display 35 characters on the log before it is truncated. For the storyline of my game, I had to break the text down into many smaller strings and present them in delayed log actions-

Designer Notes

Level construction is virtually completed and alot of the kismet is sorted. I just wanted to share how I set the materials to allow a photoshop file (in this case a letter) to appear over an existing material.

Designer Notes

The floor layout was finished today. The roof will remain off untill all the matinee sequences have be created and static mesh decorations added.
A few ajustments have been made to my initial plan. Firstly I will not do an ingame tutorial. For such a short game, I feel it will subtract from the experience.
Secondly I will not record voices to implement. I would like to focus on refining the mechanics at this point.
Lastly I have scrapped the stairs from my plan. For the stairs to get to the desired height along the z-axis, coupled with the short y-axis in which i designed to do this causes UDK to crash. Instead I am implementing a slope.
I also discovered when making a static mesh and setting collision type to Block All wasnt enough. It turns out preset static meshes have a collision model attached to them. This is added by double clicking the static mesh in the content broswer and clicking and selecting collision.

Week 10

The main piece of information that strikes me when comparing CPU to GPU usage, it is the GPU that causes the bottleneck of information. It seems wirth quad core technology we have the ability to push games to another level of graphics, we are just lacking the technology with the GPU to do so.
During the tests conducted for Aliens Vs Predators (AVP), 3GHz quad core and even the 4GHz are a definate inprovement to single or dual, however a single core runs the game well, but the GPU is running at almost full capacity.
Alpha Protocal is slightly different. Although the GPU is running at a high capacity, its not as high as AVP but the CPU usage is much higher (Single core in this case is not enough) Obviously this game has more game mechanics than AVP, but slightly less graphics.
Battlefield: Bad company 2 is different to the others, even with quad core CPU and GPU running almost at maximum, it is the GPU lacking for this example with poor framerates as a result.
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 responds really well to CPU performance. There is a dramatic increase in framerate when we move from single core to dual-core. (Strangely quad-core lowers framerates very very slightly, possibly due to the data exchange lag between the cores).
GTA4 is by far the most demanding game trialed. It utilises almost all of the 4GHz CPU and GPU usage for less than 50 fps. Further testing shows upgrading the GPU did bump this up to 64.1 fps.
From this review I have learned its only really worth upgrading graphics card if your GPU is running at full potential with the CPU running with low usage. If CPU is running at full power and GPU isnt, its the cores than must be upgraded.

Week 9

Creative Commons Liscence (CCL) is very versatile and can be used for many formats digital or otherwise. It allows a liscencee to redistribute/edit material around the world for non commercil use.
GNU Public Liscence (GPL) is mainly used for Software. Again it allows liscencees to copy, edit and redistribute code, however the liscensee is allowed to charge for this service. This is soley on the basis the work is not greater than the requirements started in the GPL. Another difference is there can be no hidden aspects to the copyrighted code. It must be supplied with written copies of the source code, whereas with CCL, information can be witheld.

Atari 2600 VCS

Released in 1977 at the low price of $50, there are plenty of reasons why this console was a huge success.
Firstly the price, according to http://www.measuringworth.com/uscompare/ the value of $50 dollars, nowadays equates to $160 or just under £100 is a VERY low price compared to current console on the market. Considering many parents would be shelling out coins for theyre children to go to the arcade and play these games, naturally it would make sense to own them at home where they can be played for free.
The top selling toys of this time was "Slime" and Playmobile. Slime, although fun at first, is very restrictive as to what you can do. Playmobile had more options, but to change the experience, parents had to buy more sets leading to lack of space and funds. The beauty of computer games is each playthrough is varied.
Last of all, 1977 was the year of Starwars. Suddenly the world was thrown into a new galaxy, obsessed with computers and lazers, naturally the 2600 VCS would be highly saught after as it was the closest piece of technology to this!

Designer Notes

I have decided to scrap my previous idea of adding the fire globe that ignores the need to light braziers, I feel if anyone did stumble across this, it would greatly subtract from gameplay.
I have developed a character diamond for my games protagonist. Since he doesnt say anything himself, the main dialogue will come from the voice in his head, that will help/guide him, then slowly take his mind over.

Week 7

Character diamond for medievil non-fantasy npc.

A cut scene where the npc is sent to negotiate terms of surrender with the french. The NPC is both diplomatic (perfect choice) but can also be murderous. Ingame choices dictate if he settles the terms and you gain currency, or if he brutally slaughters them gaining notoriety.

The fact that the character is both loyal and impatient, it can lead to a point where your inaction/waiting for opertune moment will cause the npc to question his loyalty to you, and maybe even turn on you!

Week 6

The poem I wandered Lonely as a cloud is about a lonesome character, who is moved and cheered by the sight of a daffodil feild stretching of into the distance. The character comments that he often revisits this memory to inspire him.
Whilst reading the poem, instanly the green hills, daffodils and clouds remind me of Springtime and Wales. The clouds themselves also conjuor images of sheep. Spring moves across brittain at 4 miles per year.
How does this occur? Have there ever been any games where you controll the weather or a cloud?
Start with a peacful spring time soundtrack, give the player control of a cloud. It is up to this "lonely" cloud to bring about the cheer of springtime by locating patches of earth and precipitating upon it.
Bringing the cloud low to the earth (but still in the sky) will allow the player to rain upon patches of earth causing spring to sprung, creating daffodil fields in a set time limit. There will only be certain patches of ground that this can happen to.
The cloud will have limited amount of rain fall. After this runs out, they player must move the cloud higher into the sky to take on more liquid. From here the player will be able to see the stars (conjured image from the poem).
The player will have to micro manage moving low to locate the fields and going high to recharge the rainfall, within a set time limit.
For extra challenges they will have to fight against varying winds, and locate rarer daffodil patches in built up cities later in the game.

Week 5

How the virtual world has affected the real world.

http://www.foxnews.com/health/2010/03/04/couples-baby-dies-raise-virtual-daughter-online/

This disturbing article highlights the dangers of neglect due to online games. A korean couple were so preocupied with raising a virtual child, they actually neglected their own baby until it died. Admittedly the mother was admitted to hospital with mental instability.
I believe this is down to two game mechanics. firstly the realism of games are ever improving. An online child can have so many realistic interactions coupled with the fact that feeding, cleaning and general care of an online baby takes seconds, with no mess or physical exhurtion, I believe someone who is obviously not ready or mature enough to handle raising a child would gravitate towards the "easy option" totally engrossing themselves untill they believe the online baby is their actual child.
Secondly I believe this game lures people into the same trap that most MMOs do. Progression is a very addictive mechanic for gameplay. Humans can strive years vying for promotion at work, getting rich, or even public recognition. Most people will rarely achieve any of these criteria, whereas online these are all common occurances. It is little wonder why we as a race, we crave this form of progression in (a virtual) life.

Designer Notes

There are two items I need to address/ research for my game.
 Firstly, after submitting my Design Document stating that the characters internal voice appear as text I am beginning my research into recording and importing this as a sound file to play alongside the text to add for depth to the character. The voice will be very dark, sinister with an echo effect to portray the internal monologue.
Secondly I wish to address the third puzzle. This is the floor with text tiles that must me walked in order to avoid falling down. I must look into creating a lettered texture in GIMP then convert this into a material in UDK.

Designer Notes

Today I wasconsidering and developing an easter egg for my game. Hidden in a wall will be an enchanted flame that will not only light up the halls and rooms, it will dispel the claustrophobic effect.
After creating a moving flame and light source, I noticed when the player looks down, there are two floating objects I couldnt remove. After altering the set up I still couldnt remove it. Thinking it was because I set the flame physics to NavMeshWalking (thinking this meant the mesh for the flame would then follow the players walk) and considering I later realised it is a particle effect, not a mesh, I figured it could be that. Even after changing this, the objects remained. Convinced it was due to my particle/mesh mix up, I remade the level.
After remaking the level and setting the physics to fly, this did infact remove them.
From this I have noted that if i am to implememt this, I must NOT click NavMesh, otherwise it will mess up my level. If I want an object to move, I must add a physics effect,

Week 4

Colossal Cave Adventure- RPG
Turn Based- Moving one square at a time similar to board games is turn based. However, once on a new square, you are not limited to the amount of actions performed.
Single player exploration
Player vs Environment
Symmetric gameplay- Player starts in same location.

NetHack- RPG
Real Time- Regardless of player movement, when in a room, a monster will still move towards you.
Single player exploration
Player vs Environment
Positive Feed back loop- stat increase with levels gained. Level cap prevents player becoming too powerful, some items such a potions can negate stats reducing feed back loop effect.
Asymmetric gameplay- Random dungeon generation.

Week 3

As priviously stated, I plan to use level loaded event to toggle godmode and the HUD. A vast majority of my puzzles will involve trigger volume initiated matinees.
When walking down a corridoor, a trigger volume will initiate a matinee to move the walls in around the player. I want the player to be guided towards braziers that will can be switched to activate a toggle hidden action to create fire and light (these wont be able to be turned of after). If I attach a boolean value to the matinee action, I hope to have the walls snap back to their origional position to give the illusion that light dispells the feeling of clautrophobia.
This of course will be coupled with a sequence using the player and a directional moveable spot light. Using the actions Get actor location and Set axis and roatation with a delay of 0.001 I can make a moveable torch effect in game.
Inside a moving Matinee enabled maze I will play a key that will be destroyed upon the player touching it. This, coupled with a boolean variable on the next matinee enabled door will force the player to fully explore the maze.
I will be placing various log actions with long delays to introduce the game (where the character is) as well as hints or commands set through the level at appropriate positions.
I will of course have appropriate play sound actions across the game. It is my intention to have a quiet eerie background tune to be activated upon level loading.
After play testing I may decide to add a console command to slow the character down to add to the tension.

Week 2

There is a wide variation in game design documents as there is no "correct" way of presenting a game. Every single game differes in mechanics, presentation, software and games platforms, that each game must be looked at as a single entity, publishing the details that are relevent to the concept.
The amount of Technical information differs in the 3 example documents. They can all be considered foundations for the game development, where by a programmer can take a look through the information and start to develop the concepts/ideas needed to excecute the game.  However I believe programmers will still need to sit down with the development team to discuss what the goals are and how they can be achieved. Developers will have a basic concept of programming, and therefore, discussing the avenues available with a skilled programmer will help evolve a game. A programmeer would be able to create a form of game from these documents, but how close they will be to the desired game is another matter.
I feel adding information about the lighting  to the design documents is a good idea, as well as the feel of the game, architecture and the decor (such as barrels). It shows the developer has really build an intriguing image in his mind and is converying that on paper, allowing others to share his vision. I also like how some documents have put the actors lines into the document. If the concept is green lighted, it allows the voice acting to go into development sooner, allowing the characters expressions and mouth movements to then be animated. Where presentation is concerned, some documents had nicely spaced, numbered text, allowing for a much easier read.
On the other hand, I found all the documents to be long winded, some had clumped up text. As with CVs, if a company is shifting through plenty of documents, I feel a more concise list would be more appropriate. One document I reviewed had many spaces for jokes, philosophy and humourous one-liners. This would only be ok, I feel, if you already work inside a company. My document will get straight to the point, clearly labeled and spaced appropriately, detailing all the information needed to create my game, be it myself, or someone else.

Claustrophorias feel

The character will be making his way through an unfamiliar, unusual environment. Feeling alone and on edge, the lack of light will only add to the mood. The player should be constantly on their toes, not knowing whats around the corner, whilst scouting for beacons of light to gravitate to. Whilst away from the light, the music will become louder and more tense, and the player will become more and more aware the passage ways are becoming smaller and smaller.....

Claustrophorias look

The game will have a very dark, techno-archaic feel to it, fusing technology with well used gothic backdrops As the name suggests, the locales will be in tight rooms and halls such as dungeons with little light available.

Design Notes

Working title for my game will be "Claustrophoria". At the moment I intend it to be a puzzle thriller, using a Torch and various Braziers to illuminate areas to stop the character from losing his grip on reality. Using Kismet and Matinee I intend to add movement events where the walls will start to shrink around the player in the dark corridoors (not to a point where he will die) but add extra dimension to the atmosphere. Only by lighting Braziers will this sense return to normal.
Whilest researching I discovered that the World Information tab can be selected to have no inventory for the player. This coupled with Toggle HUD off and Toggle GodMode on achived upon player spawn in kismet will fulfil the no gun or death criteria set out for the game.

Designer Notes

I have recently been thinking about my project. I want to create a level, where the user must navigate and solve puzles to escape a Castle. I am toying with the idea to use KISMET to have the environment "react" with the character rather than using leavers etc. The reason for this is to add a different play style. I want the player to fully explore the environment to find what moves and what doesn't. However, just because it moves, doesnt mean it will help them!
My first port of call is to start creating modular components as static meshes and experimenting with KISMET.

Week 1

Colossal Cave Adventure
This game was cetrtainly different to anything else I had played before. I am a large fan of the fantasy genre, and as such, I am used to having a pre fabricated world laid before me. What I liked about this games was that to explore the environment, I found myself picturing it, making it my own world.
The down side of this is when my creativity is in full flow, I come across "End of the road messages" which destroys the illusion slightly. Not being able to know whats in the adjacent square is rather annoying, as i found myself running in the wrong direction half the time! I then became very aware Im just looking at text and alot of complex commands.
I think the game was designed this way because it was the first of its kind so it had nothing to live up to. There were no benchmark graphics to live up to. The graphical technology was no where near sophisticated enough to display the details and actions.
I think this game was so popular for two reasons. Firstly there was a whole land that could be explored and was not directly visable, unlike other arcade games that had a visable boundry. Secondly, the diverse controls. You couldnt just go left/right, you could go up/down, north/south, jump to locations etc.
I believe the diversity of the controls made up for its lack of graphics, giving a user that many commands allows them to fully immerse themselves into the game.
In terms of player experience, apart from the "old school" gamers, I dont see this game giving any benefits. I can see this game as an important foundation in the fantasy world genre, giving rise to games like Final Fantasy, but I dont see any advantages over its moden counterparts. The basic functions, mechanics and commands of the game have be refined, explored, and mapped to keys for easier user interaction.
NetHack
This game is a predecessor of linear dungeon adventure games, such Baldurs Gate or Gauntlet. What I liked about this game is being able to explore zones with obvious boundries. It allows one to fully explore a zone, and all its branches and corridoors, leading to a more adventurous experience. Also this game implements a level up system, leading to the feeling of progression and sucess.
The downsides of this game are the interactive items. When you walk into a room and see a character/symbol you dont know if its a dagger, or a goblin until you are on top of it.
The fact the game is designed as this, again, shows the restriction of graphical technology at the time. Gaming was still a fledgling idea then, with few developers with the skills or knowledge to produce detailed aesthetic games. The groups that did design games would undoubtedly be small without much funding.
The popularity of this game relied on the fact you had multiple explorable zones, with visual interactable objects. This was a large step in RPG development.
One element of gameplay in NetHack that is lacking nowadays is its top down view of exploration and its linear construction. Not everyone wants total immersive worlds to explore, after a long day, the last thing you want to be doing is checking every single rock of a massive field for a potion. I also think some games are better off in with 2D levels eg. Sonic. In my opinion, some of the best dungeon games have a top down view whilst exploring and fighting.