Mattdrenaline

  This week I was tasked with choosing a specific area of a game to research and write about. I wanted something that nobody else would write about but that I also feel is an important aspect of any successful games life. The topic I selected was " replay value " in games. I believe this is absolutely crucial for games, both single and multiplayer games. Personally I enjoy multiplayer games much more and have seen big franchises capitalize on in game cosmetics that become unlockable through completeling weekly/monthly tasks , live events or purchasable content through ingame stores. This keeps the game fresh and intriuging, keeping players coming back and continuing to populate games.    I have also seen the complete opposite happen. A game which I love, borderline obsessed with "Gears 5" has done a poor job of executing decent replay value in their game. Due to a release of an unfinished game along with prioritizing other elements of the game, the population has fa...

What is the purpose of GDD? A Game Design Document (GDD) is a blueprint for the design and development of a game. The GDD is a way of being creative and documenting the approach to the development of the game. Gonzale (1999) states that “ the important thing is to have something that describes your game project (or any other project for that matter) before jumping into production.( Gamasutra ) It should help to plan out your game. Though it is recommended that the GDD should be short it needs to be detailed enough so as game developers and artists can coordinate the development of the game independently whilst still keeping to the design.  The GDD is a blueprint for how the game is going to be designed and built, similar to a mind map. In conclusion, the game design document is vital to making a game and it is important to have in order to describe your game project. How do we create one? There are a variety of tools that could be used to create a GDD. These include word processing...

  Unity Engine Logo This weeks tutorial we were introduced to objects colliding with one another. This was a very interesting lesson and has opened my eyes to endless possibilities. It was basic, once an item collides it was set to make both objects disappear. This was achieved by adding Collider components to our objects in the game, then writing a CSharp script in Visual Studio. With the completion of the tutorials however, the game felt like it didn't run as well as it could have. There's many speed values I would like to change along with the size of my game. I felt everything was quite crowded and it became difficult to progress in the game as the animals spawned frequently and the speed of the character was just not capable of catching them all.  Another mechanic that we were very briefly introduced to is gravity. By removing gravity from our pizza slice in the game, the slice would fly along the ground endlessly. That's really all the introduction we got, disabling g...

  Here is a current image of my progress in Unity, following the tutorial I have been following. I've really been enjoying learning about Unity and progressing. It most definitely is getting more complex and the code is becoming a lot more difficult to follow, remember and has a lot more to it.  It's worrying me a little bit going from following a step by step video tutorial to creating something original and somewhat unique. I hope there will be further tutorials to prepare me for what is to come in the future when developing my game and am hopeful that Youtube will provide some video tutorials on how to design games, similar to the First Person Shooter that I will begin developing shortly. I've had a similar experience like this. Last year studying web development we began by following easy tutorials that would become more difficult but any problems we had the solutions would be clearly visible. When we were left to develop the sight on our own it quickly became frustrati...

Taken via Google Images (Click for link)  The game I am choosing to create for the remainder of this project is going to be a FPS style shooter. Now, right off the bat that seems complex and, in all honesty I am a little sceptical about the workload that may be involved but after doing quite a lot of research I definitely think it is manageable. I don't plan on creating anything too spectacular my main goal is to have the basic mechanics of the game to work properly along with some basic graphics. If in time I'm capable of creating more detailed graphics and find the time and resources to do so, I most definitely will but the priority is for my game to run as intended. I will begin with the sheer minimum. an open plane, untextured perhaps with some 3D objects to add some atmosphere and to create placeholders for future development. ideally I would like the game to run as a quick response, precision shooter which while having fun and exciting aspects to the game, can be used to ...

  Upon completion of this beginner tutorial I felt very achieved. Although most of the work was done and was following a step by step guide. It's very rewarding to start a project and have it operating properly by the time you finish. I thought I would run into a lot of problems along the way but the software was really quite straight forward.    Coding came easy enough, I did however get an error when attempting to go into G ameview as I forgot to add the ";" at the end of my code. Looking back over my lines of code I was able to locate the problem, mainly because of how many times I've made this same mistake in Brackets while developing websites so the problem was quite noticeable to me. It's great to see similarities like that between modules that I'm doing currently. Web development I'm sure will fit in nicely to future coding that I will need to do I'm sure.    I do feel I will forget a lot of the code in the future, I think that will be my main ...

  Just learned how to add a twitter widget to my blog! This displays as a sidebar to my blog which is linked to my twitter, showing all my most recent twitter posts.  Pretty cool little feature definitely adds a little extra to the blog and people can keep up with me a little easier. Definitely something I would consider using in the future.

Taken via Google images When I think of designing a game I instantly think of the end result and how I want the game to look, it's very easy to overlook the game elements and the birth of the game. I need to take a step back and realise although I've been playing these huge triple A titles for years with countless people and resources there to develop such a game I must first realise that I'm just one person and am extremely new to any game design or development. Reading these articles have enlightened me and showed me the importance of early stage game design. A couple points I found interesting is finding the reason why a player enjoys a game. As stated in the first text, as a player saying you enjoy a game because it is fun is not very beneficial to a game designer, although it's a nice comment you would be happy to hear it gives the designer no insight into what factors of the game are enjoyable. The same could be said for a game being unenjoyable. In-depth feedback...

Link to source (Google Images)  Jumping into Unity I was excited and a little bit nervous. I love games and have always wanted to see the workings and the background of developing a game. Once I opened Unity at first I was delighted to realise that the layout is similar to a software I've used in the past, Cinema 4D. I have some experience in Cinema 4D creating 3D objects, some for graphics and some for motion graphics such as Intros. Below is one of my early pieces est. 2016 (Personal Video) By following the tutorials it made navigating much easier. I was playing the videos at 1.75-2.0x speed as I had a good understand of the software early on. The navigation of Unity was much easier compared to Cinema 4D in my opinion although I do prefer the colour scheme of C4D. The light grey feels like things blend into eachtother but that's okay. One very useful tip I discovered from the tutorials was the ability to change the colour of the software when in "game view" this is ...

  When I think of game design, I immediately think of triple A titles and how much work goes into the storyboard, character development, textures, graphics everything and am overwhelmed but after my reading of the below text I've realised that I need to take a step back and focus on simpler projects. 2D games, indie game and more of that nature. I'm very excited to begin the development of a game no matter what size and it something I can definitely see myself be interested in the future s gaming is such a huge part of my life. First and foremost, I must understand what a game is!   In summary, according to Ian Schreiber a game is; t Games are an activity Games have conflict Games have rules Games have goals Games involve decision making Games involve no material gain Games have an uncertain outcome Games are representation or smiulation Games are a form of art  For the most part I agree with everything said but, "games have no material gain" I do not agree with. We...

Taken via Google images "Assignment" My first impressions of this module are very optimistic. Possibly the only module so far that the work has been clearly presented to us and is easy to understand. I have no prior experience with Unity but am an avid gamer and have been all my life. I'm extremely excited to learn about game development. Before coming to TUD Blanchardstown.    Game development was what I wanted to pursue after leaving school. I glanced at a PLC course related to it in Blackrock but decided that Graphic Design may be more suited to me as I had experience in it. I'm very happy with the decision I made. It seems like my other modules are very difficult to follow and quite clustered. I understand due to COVID and it is difficult not only on students, but the teachers also. It's not the ideal situation and I can respect that although having all the work played out for the entire semester has been the best thing to happen since I began year 2.   In ter...

  Growth Mindset (Taken from Google Images)       Key Points NOT YET GRADE GETTING THE NEXT A PROBLEM WITH EASY DIFFERENCE WITH FIXED AND GROWTH MINDSET -LOOK SMART AT ALL TIMES -LEARN AT ALL TIMES This is my first time being introduced to Carrol Dweck and the Growth Mindset. During my time in secondary school I would definitely consider myself to have a fixed mindset. I felt those who were smart and did well were just wired that way and people, like me who never enjoyed school and felt it was a waste of time as nothing really interested me were stuck feeling out of place in school. That does not mean I felt this way in all avenues of life.     I definitely had more of a growth mindset when it came to passions of mine. A big one being the gym. Growth is everything when weight training and I understood consistency and work would get me to where I wanted to be this applies to gaming, another passion of mine. I didn't realise the impact consistency had un...

  Hi! I'm Matthew, An up and coming superstar. Mark my words! I've just turned 22 and am currently in my second year of college studying Creative Digital Media at TU Dublin Blanchardstown. School was never really for me. When I was young I was a "bad kid" constantly getting in trouble and never listening or participating. Primary school I enjoyed while I was young but once secondary came along I absolutely hated it. I would dread going into school in the morning, constantly trying to pursued my mom not to send me in. I missed countless days during school as I just felt I was never learning anything as I could not find interest in anything. I would sit there drawing or try to listen to music from my phone. I'd do this by putting an earphone through my sleeve, holding it in my hand and leaning my head on my hand. Anything to occupy me until I could go home. I fell behind so much to the point where there was no catching up. I just simply did not want to be there and ...

  T his image was found via google search "Gears of War" My all time favourite franchise is the Gears of War titles. Since I was the age of 8 I have been playing Gears of War. It began with my brother picking it up with the Xbox 360. My brother, 6 years older than me was much more active when it came to playing this Rated 18s title. I would sometimes watch and wait until I could get the chance to play myself. There has been 5 titles since the original Gears of War which was released in 2006. Still to this day I play the Gears franchise, the current title being "GEARS 5" a small rebrand from it's prior titles. Over the summer and during lockdown I have began livestreaming on Twitch.tv/mattdrenaline where stream playing GEARS 5 almost every day anywhere between 4-8 hours. I've been in the Gears community for many years and have competed on this game in tournaments in the past. Unfortunately not winning any but have attended international events to play. My str...