Project Blend - Design Document

So as of Friday we have completed and handed in Coursework 1, the Design Document for Project Blend.
It was a really great feeling just having everyone working together to contribute to this massive document. It ended up being  23500 and a bit words!

Personally I'm not sure how much in words... but I contributed mostly to the Story and Narrative section of the document. Re-doing the narrative arc, having a more in depth story summary, talking about how the story had developed etc.
I also as everyone else did, design some of the encounters in the levels. More specifically mine being encounters 4 and 5 in Level 1. We also all did a ton of proof-reading at the end to make sure the document was up to a presentable standard.
Erm... I also collated with Adam in the making of the Research Summary section.
All in all, we've all worked really hard, and I'm really proud of us all.

Project Blend - Encounter Design

Final stretch for the design document now!
This week we all got assigned parts of levels to design. I got encounters 4 and 5 of Level 1, here they are ^^

Encounter 4

                This encounter starts with Master Dragonfruits death. He throws Logan his sword and explains to Logan how to perform a Standard Attack with his final breath.

                A group of fodder appear in front of Logan. He defeats them rather easily and moves forward. By the time he had finished with them however, two more groups have been called over. The higher numbers of fodder offer Logan more of a challenge. Logan can see Helon fleeing in the background

                Logan is now offered a brief respite and moves forward quickly. He is suddenly jumped by a group of fodder. He deals with these fairly quickly despite the surprise and moves forward again.

                He reaches four groups of fodder being funnelled by obstacles, this seems overwhelming at first is made easier by the fact that only one group is faced it a time. It is more of a test of endurance than skill.

                Logan reaches the sink just in time to see Helon disappear down it. He laments by his Masters body for a moment before continuing.  

Encounter 5

This is a short encounter leading to the sink. It starts Logan navigating his way through a small platforming section. He first jumps on to a seasoning cube, and then up to a pepper put that it on its side. He then jumps up onto a rolling pin, which he walks to the top of. He jumps up onto an empty knife block, jumps up the two stages of an empty knife block, crossing it to a pile of cookery books.

                Her he is swarmed with three groups of fodder that he takes out with relative difficulty. He jumps up onto a serial box which he falls through, coming out at the bottom. He fights two more groups of fodder before reaching the sink. Logan see’s fruit from the Bad Kitchen disappearing down the sink hole, and follows. 

Project Blend – Music Presentation

My task this week was to create the presentation for when we meet with the music students on Wednesday, so that Alan can focus on the document itself.
Here it is for now

Project Blend

Although it may change following discussions in tomorrows meeting.

Dissertation Presentation

So I did  a presentation today basically showing I know what I'm doing with my presentation. I was a bit nervous, but think it went pretty well.
Here's a link so you can view the slides online.

Presentation

And here's my notes I used during.

I shall try and expand on these later so they're more similar to what I actually said than just prompts.

Project Blend – Music Groups

Deadlines and stuff coming up soon!


 
Anyways last week was pretty good, as a group we've got most major things decided, as well as prototyped our system.

This week a few people have taken some of the levels and starting to design them. It shall be interesting to see what they come up with.

Personally I have been working with Alan and K as part of the sound team. We made a list of every piece of music that is needed for the game. We then split that list into a number of groups. This was felt to be appropriate as some songs have overlay or similar themes.

Group 1	Menu/Good Kitchen Theme Kitchen Invasion Return to Kitchen	Good Kitchen and Kitchen Invasion themes, should flow into each other. Return to Kitchen should be a reprise of the Good Kitchen Theme. Should be slightly darker, more hardened.
Group 2	Helon's Theme Bin Theme Zomberry Helon Theme	Zomberry Helon Theme should be a combination of Helon's theme and the Bin theme.
Group 3	Bad Kitchen/ Grapevine Theme Blender Boss Theme Grapevine Boss Theme	Blender boss and Grapevine boss theme should share a key melody and flow into each other. Bad Kitchen theme will be different, but shouldn't sound out of place between these boss themes.
Group 4	Battle Theme Sub-Boss Theme Rising Tension Theme	n/a
Group 5	Tragic Theme Revelation Theme Fridge Theme	n/a
Group 6	Credits Song	n/a

I shall continue to work with Alan and K on the sound document which shall be presented to the sound students next week.

Project Blend - Level Breakdown + Now with added sound!

Last weeks meeting contained a big discussion about sound. I worked with Allan and Chris to map out the music that is needed in relevance to the story. 

My task was to combine this with the story breakdown, so that it can be given to the school of rock.

I did this simply by adding a Music heading to each level. These contain a title for every song we need, along with a few key words/themes.

The team shall discuss example music on the forum and in person. This shall be added into this when we have reached a decision. 

Level  1

Setting

Good Kitchen

Plot Points

• Good Kitchen is attacked by fruit from the Bad Kitchen.
• They kidnap the Raspberries .
• Master Dragonfruit is Killed by Horned Melon.
• Horned Melon flees to Bad Kitchen.
• Logan follows for revenge/ to save the raspberries.

Music

• Good Kitchen Theme – Calm, Happy.
• Invasion – Dramatic, Strong. (Must lead in well from previous song.)
• Helon’s Theme – Boss Fight, Strong, Punk.
• Tragic Theme – Tragic Sad.

Level 2

Setting

Bad Kitchen – Kitchen Side

Plot Points

• Enters Bad Kitchen.
• Grapevine is introduced, they explain the situation the kitchen is in.
• Stealth’s way through kitchen.
• Blackberries are introduced.
• Caught and thrown in bin.

Music

• Bad Kitchen Theme – Dark, Seedy, Edgey.

Level 3

Setting

Bad Kitchen – Bin

Plot Points

• Rotting Fruit – Fight Zomberries.
• Meets traitor Blackberries.
• Finds out that Logan is a Loganberry.
• Meets Helon – she tells Logan that the Raspberries are in the Fridge.
• Fight way out of Bin.

Music

• Bin Theme – Dark, Eerie, Death.

Level 4

Setting

Bad Kitchen – Fridge

Plot Points

• Stealth way past prison guards.
• Fight Captain/Boss.
• Logan saves the fruit trapped in the Fridge. The Raspberries are not there.
• Open the Fridge door, see’s the Raspberries in the Blender.

Music

• Fridge Theme – Cold, Icy, Desolate.

Level 5

Setting

Bad Kitchen – Side

Plot Points

• Stealth/Fight way across kitchen to Blender.

Music

• Rising Tension – Tension, Fast, Stealthy.

Level 6

Setting

Bad Kitchen – Side

Plot Points

• Showdown with Blender.
• Blender is defeated.
• The Raspberries are blended.
• It is revealed that The Grapevine are the real bad guys.
• They possess the Blender, Final Boss Fight.
• Grapes are defeated.

Music

• Blender Boss Theme – Dark and stealthy.
• Grapvine Boss Theme – Epic battle music.

(Both tunes although very different should share a key melody.)

Epilogue

Setting

Good Kitchen

Plot Points

• Logan returns to the Good Kitchen.
• Harmony between Good and Bad Kitchens.

Music

• Good Kitchen Theme (Reprise) – A reprise/remix of the Good Kitchen theme, to show harmony.

Additional Music

• Menu Theme – Short, Repetitive, Memorable.
• Fight Theme – Fast Paced, Hyper, Deadly.
• Sub-Boss Theme – A more epic fight theme.
• Credits Theme – Perhaps another reprise of another song?

Dissertation

Heya all,
I'm gonna start keeping this blog up to date with the progress of my Dissertation.

So far I have had a meeting all three of three of my lecturers, and they have helped shape my question, which for the moment is this:

How Do Hidden and Visible Encounters Impact Exploration in JRPG’s? 

Research Context

• Egenfeldt-Nielsen’s Exploration in computer games - a new starting point.
• Looks at exploration. Exploration is important to people’s lives, helps them make constructs/theories about the world around them.
• These constructs are the rules of everyone’s world. So exploration is key to people’s lives.
• Personal Construct Psychology – George Kelly
• This can also be applied to games.
• Project will examine the exploration of the player, and the constructs they make about the world.
• Leads into affect.
• Feel It, Don’t Think: the Significance of Affect in the Study of Digital Games by Eugénie Shinkle.
• These constructs talked of by E-N are what informs a person affective response.
• Looking at affect will mention Teresa Brennan and Don Norman.
• Tracy Fullerton, Game Design Workshop. 
• Theory on information structures.

Methods

• Tracy Fullerton. Playtesting very important.
• Three Dungeons.
• 1st and 2nd will have identical numbers of encounters and pretty much the same areas, just in different orders.
• Starting these dungeons – chest at beginning, told there is a boss.
• Chests will contain part of a set of armour. Reinforce the collection.
• Start with the ‘cloth’ set and get an upgrade. i.e Iron.
• 1^st dungeon will be ice dungeon, enemies can be seen.
• 2^nd dungeon will be fire dungeon, enemies cannot be seen.=
• These two themes will reinforce the difference between them.
• Third dungeon, choice between fire or ice. Shall show which prefer.
• In each one will be rooms/ paths coming off of the other type.
• Will see players willingness to explore other once made choice.
• Will be asked to think out loud, Fullerton.
• Exploration percentage will be shown at the end.
• Post-test questionnaire to see if data correlates. 
• Questionnaire will include ‘pre-test’ questions.
• Player type.
• Game examples, what type of games they like.
• Make own categories.
• Will perhaps create another prototype dungeon based on the feedback.

Every time I do some major research or have a meeting with my tutors I shall post.