Week 6

Right lads,
You should be fresh and invigorated after your trip to UUC!
This week I want you to harness your energy and spend approx 30 mins designing a logo for your game.
This could be the main character, or the title in fancy graphics.
You could use Word Autoshapes, Paint or Photoshop to produce 3 different drafts.
Don't worry about making a definite choice this week - just get the drafts drawn up.
When you are happy with your Logo design, I will distribute tshirt transfer paper for you to iron the logo onto a tshirt, (school?) shirt or baseball cap.
Later in the year you will give a presentation about your game (which will be recorded) during which you will wear this tshirt / baseball cap. Anyone who is keen enough may also wear their tshirt to the next UUC Games seminar on Nov 7th!

When you have completed 3 draft designs, work on at the actual game you have thought up.

Good luck!

Week 5

You should have thought up a game to work on with your partner(s) last week.
For the first 15 mins this week you must create a short 5 slide presentation about your intended game.
Include:

1. Background to the game (scenario, objective etc)
2. Main Character(s),
3. Enemy / Enemies
4. Game Environment (e.g. forest, castle, space, inner city)
5. Draw out a sample gameplay screen using autoshapes (or Paint / Photoshop if you prefer)

You will make a brief presentation about your proposed game, starting at 4pm

Take screenshots of your slides and upload them to your blogs.

After that you may begin working on the actual game! (Hint: keep the game simple for now. Better to complete a simple game, than get tied up and frustrated with an overly complicated one).

PS Ensure you get your permission slips back to me tomorrow morning ASAP.

The bus to the Games Programming Seminar will leave approx 3.40, or earlier if we are all there in time.

Dunno about you, but my favourite game is...

Today you will work in pairs (or three's if convenient).
Together you will agree on a video game you all like, and then analyse that game.
You will break each game down into the following parts:

1. Main Idea
2. Main Objects (characters, vehicles, weapons, baddies, collectables etc)
3. Use of sound
4. Control methods used
5. Game Flow (environment(s) , progressive difficulty, interaction with Non-playing characters, interaction with other playing characters, use of cut scenes etc)
6. Evaluation (why is it a good game, what is it about the above factors that make it fun / successful)
7. C0nclusion

Divide the work out fairly between yourselves.
Once this is completed (no more than 30 mins allowed), you must plan out a simple maze / platform game yourselves, to be designed from scratch.
Use the SimpleGameDesignTemplate in the Gamemaker folder as a guide.