Well, I guess this leaves our game in second place. It was really fun designing it. I also had a good time working with Scott. He is probably one of the best students in this promotion. Such a smart guy even being so young. He had the initial idea. We want to make a mixture between cards and board games. Something like Card Hunter which I think was a pretty functional game. I took ideas from Yu-Gi-Oh! and HearthStone to design the cards in general. While Scott used Magic The Gathering as the main reference. We also took some ideas from the games we played in class (specifically SmallWorld and Catan). The innovation supposes to be the movement and how the whole game will build above this mechanic. As you have to break through the battlefield until your opponent Heroe to kill them without forgetting to build your fortress to protect your own Heroe. The first step we took was made some sketches to try out by ourselves and see how it goes. As we really enjoy it Scott started to write down the rules while I was making the board (I really liked how looks in the end, by the way). Then, we started to making the cards and quickly found out what a real challenge achieve a fair balance really is. It is too easy to make a overpower card so the only way to avoid that is test our creations countless times. When we finally played with the whole set we found out our mistake with the board dimensions and the amount of charging manas (another key element). Scotts tried to solve most problems by adding more and more rules while I was really worried about it. Like Miyamoto says: the best solutions are those that solve more than one issue at the same time. In the end, we managed to come out with a couple of elegant solutions.
Although the game was fun to us I don't really know if Leo and Nate actually enjoy it. It indeed has too many rules. It is also, complex and requires concentration from the players but that doesn't mean it is as deep as should be. Either way, It has been one of my favorite all-time class because now I don't have any doubt: I want to be a video game designer.
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For me the winning game in our class. Simple and fun at the same time. Loved the pirates thematic and the aesthetic as a whole feel it that way. The just had to sail in circles until gathering enough gold to land in Tortuga Island (no references to Pirates of Caribbean around here). Simple as role 2 dice to move, see if your ship end in a gold square, event square (pick a card to see what happens), treasure hunting square (pretty much the same as the event but with gold) and pass across another ship to battle (with the possibility of stealth their gold). The fact that lots of events cards changed the direction of the ships what also happen if anybody throws a 7 add emotion to the game. Everybody was always excited and paying attention to what was happing on the board. We all wanted those 50 gold...
Although there were (as always) a few things to improve. Starting from the board itself seems awful they really should have painted it or at least put more effort in its appearance. Also, the game needs another mechanic different to roll the dice. Every event on the board was conditioned to random by those dices (from movement to how much gold you will stealth from your opponent). I felt they abuse of random mechanic and that why they only had a few dynamics. Besides this, I didn´t see any other big problem (maybe work a little more on event cards effects). In the end, I really like this game and I am sure my classmates too. Leo and Nikki game (I don't know the name of the other weird guy, sorry) was a good idea. They were obviously thinking in one of those party game like Nintendo used to make for Wii. The concept was built some kind of story starting with an archetype card (tragedy, joker, etc.) you have previously chosen (way too easy, It should definitely be random to push people away from their safe zone). Then everyone should answer questions (in turns and within a time limit) trying to follow their archetype and keeping their story with some sense. Finally, there this role "the reporter" who will ask the question and choose the best answer. In order to do that, there is a criterion which is just avoids contradicting your archetype. Sounds good here but there was a few problem in the practical. First, I don't know why the Super Hero thematic, they could use any other plot and the result would have been the same. The archetypes (as Scott said) were unbalanced, you could have pretty specific ones in opposition to others way too subjective. Also, the reporter role was dreadfully boring. The only thing you have to do in that round is read the question and choose whatever you like (nobody followed the criterion they just pick the funniest one). Although answer those question in a creative way was fun, after a few rounds start to feeling repetitive. The game needs more interactions between the players (more mechanics and dynamics as well) and more rules so the experience stops feeling vague (we never use the board for example). In conclusion, I think they had an interesting idea but they also could make it a lot better.
This is it. The final class. It has been a hard but interesting travel. I have learned the basis of programming which I never thought I could actually understand. I must say this wasn't my favorite class but one of the most challenging. I liked Lerpz Tutorial because was intuitive and dynamic at the same time. Making the game, on the other hand, It wasn't so nice. In any case, here we are, James has some kind of beta working... somehow. I spent the last hours trying to find a way to move the background in a loop to make the sensation of movement. I did it! somehow. Unfortunately, we never could import it to the final game because when we attached to it the whole program crashed for some reason. No even Michael could find the way to fix it. So we end with a beta which didn't see too good... On Friday morning we had our Demo Day presentation. I feel so frustrated because I had an incident and could arrive on time. Fortunately, James was there (the only one) and explained our misery through the whole process. I hope Michael didn't care too much about it. The only thing left is the peer review. I am prepared but no so satisfied.
After 2 classes struggling against the start menu scene in Unity (which James told me was the only issue he needed help) I finally made it. I started following the Lerpz tutorial and then making appropriate changes to our design. This technique works until I tried to link our "start" and "quit" buttons with Lerpz coding. That "solution" simply didn't work out. So I had to ask Michael and he sent me a button example. Which it and a little researching I finally found the way to edit the coding to actually works (but not without a little help from James too). So yeah programming is very difficult to me but this time I made it!
After the last review, Daryl told me that I should take out some slices of our presentation. Although they are valuable information to us as a company and for internal communications, they don't really need to be there. To accomplish that request, I extracted almost all of then and only end with 4. The most important info: how are we going to slicing the pie, our initial expenses, all the explanation related to the game price and finally, Customer Acquisition Cost, Customer Maintenance Cost, and Life Time Value. Those numbers, by the way, are the only ones need to finish all Finances slices before the final presentation. But I have the same problem I had before (or even worst): I need to know marketing final numbers to fill out CAC, CMC, and LTV. Fortunately, George call for our final meeting on Wednesday 15th in the usual spot (Gran Avenue Mall). So I hope that day (a few hours before the class) we could complete our work in a proper way.
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AuthorI want to study Video Games in a theoretical way. Archivos
May 2018
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