Synoptic Project
This is the Synoptic Project page for Games, Animation and VFX Industries and will feature the work I did for the project in my group. I worked in a team of me and two other people, Dylan Flanders and Nicky Emery. As the concept artist of the group, my page will mainly feature 2D Digital artwork and concepts for characters and maps etc.
Technical Skills
WII 5. Know the principles of AGILE and SCRUM as project management techniques
WII 6. Be able to work effectively in a team on a time constrained project
PM 2. Plan the provision of requirements for a specific production
PM 3. Be able to co-ordinate a production process
PM 4. Know how to complete industry standard documentation
PM 5. Know how to organise and schedule post production activities
SP 3. Be able to use traditional and digital techniques to produce a story/playboard
SP 4. Be able to present a story/playboard to an audience
ISIW 2. Be able to use traditional techniques and digital processes to produce art with accompanying sound for an imagined world concept
WII 4. Be able to work effectively to an industry brief
Team Meetings
Here is a link to our team meetings folder to see our progress and communication behind the project. We tried to have daily meetings in pre production, since the project was still evolving it was important to stay up to date each day. We switched towards weekly meetings during production as the tasks being set required more time so it made sense to have meetings less often.
Technical skills I achieved for this work are:
WII 5. Used SCRUM production management techniques when deciding tasks
WII 6. Worked in a team on a time constrained project
PM 2. Planned what was required for the deadline during meetings
PM 3. Co-ordinated production tasks between members
PM 4. Completed industry standard meeting documentation
Choosing Roles
12/11/2021
The first thing I had to do before being put into my group was decide on the role I wanted for the development of the game. The first role was the Programmer who would work on the mechanics and scripting in the game engine. The second role was the Concept artist who would make the designs, models and animations for characters, props and environments. The final role was the designer who would work on the level and game design. I chose to work as a concept artist as it has the work I'm most confident with and what I want to do in the future. Our teams were then chosen at random based around what roles we chose and who wanted to be a team leader. Dylan was the designer and Nicky was the programmer.
Individual Pitch
10/12/2021
After choosing our roles and being paired into a team, we each split off to come up with our own ideas for the game, relating to the brief. I started by gathering inspiration and writing a few idea down just to give myself as many options as possible. From there I had to choose one idea and develop it by thinking about the core mechanics and how that would work to fit the brief. Once the idea was finalised I could begin making the pitch slideshow. I started with the mood board and concept art to further help me visualise the concepts of the game. I then moved onto writing the basic concept and the elevator pitch to summarise the game as simply as possible. For the majority of the writing in the slideshow I wrote long paragraphs in detail trying to mention every aspect of the game on a separate document. I then took those paragraphs and summarised them into short and simple bullet points in order to not overwhelm the audience. After describing what the game is I needed to add how I would actually make it. I needed to make an asset list which contained all the models, sounds and art required in the production. As well as the production management techniques I would use in order to deliver the product to the intended client. I would be using the scrum management system and using Trello and Discord to manage and communicate with my team. Finally I added the timescales and goals I wanted to follow throughout production.
My game was a gladiator fighting game with over the top physics and wacky gore. The main points in the brief were to create a goofy yet fun game with simple levels, characters and controls. I think my game achieves that as the maps would be fairly small and stylized and the characters would be extremely simplistic using simple boxes for limbs. The controls while having to be simple also had to be on one keyboard, the concept being players would have little room to move without being tangled in to the other players fingers, making for a more chaotic experience. The brief also asked for physics based gameplay which is the main focus of my game. The gladiators will have difficult to control limbs and attempt to fight each other and the more limbs the person has chopped off the more difficult it gets. I explain a lot of the details about the game further in my presentation which is linked below as well as a video of me pitching the game.
Reflection
Overall I thought my pitch went well as I spoke loud and clear and wasn't fully reliant on the slides. There were a couple times I stumbled on what to say and confused myself a bit on when to say certain things. This could have been avoided by editing the slide titles, making it more obvious what needed to be said instead of the general term "mechanics" being my only guidance. I also could have practiced pitching it to other people instead of just to myself to see how well I really know it when put on the spot. However I do think my game idea was displayed well enough and by keeping simple bullet points it allowed me to quickly scan what I needed to mention without pausing to read a whole paragraph. Some tutor feedback I received was that I could have added some playboards to help give a visual representation of what the game would look like.
The technical skills I achieved for this work are:
WII 5. I planned out the production management techniques I would use through the scrum technique.
PM 2. Planned out the requirements for the project
WII 4. Created pitch relating to industry brief
Team Pitch
14/01/2022
After finishing and pitching our individual ideas we came together and decided which idea we all liked the most. We decided to go for Nicky's idea which was an arena brawler with ragdoll physics and weapon power ups. We decided to go for this as it was the most flexible idea out of the three and by the end of the team pitch the game was quite different. After developing the idea and it going through numerous stages we ended with an arena brawler that utilised a dash mechanic as the main combat system. We abandoned the weapons idea in favour of powerups that effect the trail of your dash ability. For example a fire powerup would leave the opponents on fire for a few seconds after a direct hit which would do damage over time. We had thought of multiple powerups that are displayed further in the pitch. After deciding what the game would play like we split up the slides of the pitch between the three of us to work on. I worked on the mood boards for the levels and characters, the user journey, the concept art and the playboards. I started with the mood boards to gain inspiration for the art style. We decided that a cartoonish art style suited our game best so I began working on the concept art for some character designs. I also worked on some rough level designs, the user interface and a playboard for the dash mechanic. After doing that I made a user journey which showcases the actions the player will take from starting to ending the game. We then put everything together and practiced delivering a pitch of our slides to each other as practice for the real pitch.
Our game fits the brief of the project in many different ways. It will have multiple game modes and maps as we are trying to make it a true party game. The controls are on the same keyboard and with multiple players it will get quite crammed and chaotic. We leaned into the chaotic fun element when designing the maps and powerups as well. Their will be a lava map that forces you to be careful where you step as well as a spinning wheel map that will be disorientating to play on, but hopefully not too much. Some of the powerups will change the way you play the game in order to keep the gameplay fresh and exciting. For example some that slow down time or flip the camera or swap the controls around forcing peoples fingers to get tangled between each other. We put a lot of effort into making a game that fits the brief in every way and the pitch explains a lot more of the details below.
Reflection
I think the pitch went fairly smoothly and I delivered my lines clear enough. It was an easier experience than before as this time you have other people backing you up if you stumble on your words. The tutor feedback I received was that the slides I worked on were presented well, except the concept art one which you couldn't see very clearly. Next time I pitch with photos of drawings I will try to make the more clear by highlighting them in fine liner or drawing them digitally. Overall, the pitch went well and was boosted by the inclusion of a prototype gameplay video that visually displayed everything that we might not have made clear when describing.
The technical skills I achieved for this work are:
WII 6. Worked in a team on a time constrained project
PM 3. Co-ordinated tasks between team members
SP 3. Used traditional techniques to create a playboard
SP 4. Presented playboard to audience
WII 4. Created pitch relating to industry brief
Early Concept Art
20/12/2021
During the production of the team pitch, I worked on some rough concepts for how the game would look and play, that were then shown in the concept art slide. This gallery showcases designs for the main character, level maps, the UI and a playboard for the dash in closer detail. It was important when designing the character that I kept to the cartoonish art style we had planned, we knew we wanted the character to be small and look quite silly. I experimented with having some different expressions and head shapes for the different players to help them understand which character on screen they are. I thought this could lead to possible customisation options once the final concepts had been made.
Reflection
I think the early designs worked quite well for visualising what we all wanted the game to look like. It showcases each major aspect of the game being, the art style, the type of levels, the dash mechanic and how powerups work. Some tutor feedback I received was to go over the drawings in a fine liner to help them stand out more in the pitch. Also to choose one design from the characters and do a more detailed final drawing just to showcase which design we are leaning towards.
Technical skills achieved for this work are:
WII 6. Completed task with a strict deadline and had assistance from team
SP 3. Used traditional techniques to produce concept art and playboard
SP 4. Concept art was in team pitch and presented to an audience
Game Design Document
14/01/2022
This is the game design document for Zewm that we all contributed on. To make it we used a website called Nuclino. We did this because it was very helpful in giving us well structured guidelines to follow as non of us had created a GDD before. It also is presented in a tidy and more interesting way compared to a google doc, which allowed us to find specific parts much easier than scrolling and manually trying to find it.
Technical skills achieved from this work are:
WII 6. Worked in a team on a time constrained document
PM 2. Planned every asset and feature of the game in detail
PM 3.Co-ordinated production of document
PM 4. Completed industry standard GDD document
WII 4. Creating GDD was part of industry brief
Art Bible
14/01/2022 - 06/05/2022
This is a link to the Art Bible for our Synoptic Project that. Given that I am the concept artist for the group I took the responsibility of making the Art Bible and have been updating it throughout the synoptic project. It features all the 2D art made by me throughout the project and some of the inspirations I used when making them.
Technical skills achieved for this work are:
PM 4. Completed industry standard Art Bible
WII 4. Art bible is a part of industry brief
Character Concept Art
20/01/2022
This is the final concept art for the character. We have decided to just focus on one character for now but we plan to add some customisation options later. I made this in photoshop primarily using the shape and line tools. The design is based of one of the sketches from the early concept art that we all preferred the look of. I used a soft pastel shade of green for the body. I did this instead of lime green like I originally thought as the pastel shade brought out more of the facial details as well as making it look less shiny. I wanted it to feel silly yet cute so implying the right texture was important. This was also a factor in deciding the mouth. I tried a few mouth designs but settled on this stitched design as I thought it implied that the characters were toys or puppets. Although the game is supposed to have no story and is very stylized, I still think its important when designing characters to make them feel believable in the games world. That's also the reason I gave them no arms, because I wanted it to make more sense why they would dash instead of just punch for the combat. This gallery showcases the character from different angles to help the modelling process, as well as what the character would look like in-game.
Reflection
I am very pleased with the way the character design turned out. I liked making the character seem believable and its something I'm going to think about when I create the levels or any other art. I received some tutor feedback after creating the front view saying I should add different angles to help with the modelling process and to visualise how it would look in-game. I would have made some different designs at this standard but we already had chosen the design from the rough concept art and were very pleased with the final result it.
Technical skills achieved for this work are:
SP 3. Concept art displayed art style and how it would look while playing
Project Update
09/02/2022
It was at this point in the synoptic project we held a team meeting and decided it would be easier for me to focus on the 2D art and for Dylan, the designer, to do the 3D models for a number of reasons. Since we could only have one person working in engine at a time and Nicky was very confident in using Unity he handled all of the programming and engine based work. I was tasked with making the 2D and 3D assets and since our game was a mix of both it was quite a lot of work that would end up slowing down production. Dylan didn't have too much work to do other than blocking out the levels and sound design which were things we didn't need need to prioritise at the time. Dylan was also more confident in using 3D software than I was so was very happy to work on the 3D models, which is why I will only focus on the 2D art from now on.
User Interface
16/02/2022
This is the UI design for the game I made in photoshop reusing the character asset. The UI was something that we had discussed from the beginning, as shown in the early concept art. During the conception phase in the team pitch I said I wanted to have aspects of interactive UI through the characters health bars being shown through their faces rather than a health bar. I kept that design when making the UI so the lower health a player has the more damaged the character will look. I also indicated this through colours, having green, amber and red for the different stages. There is an icon for which power up you currently have and also the number of lives you have. I also made separate UI for the other game modes, 'coin rush' and 'who's the king' that show how many coins you've collected and who currently has the crown. Finally, there is a timer at the top which will display how long is left of a match.
Another element of the UI that isn't displayed here but in the character itself is the amount of jetpack fuel you have. There is a liquid in the jetpack model that lowers the longer you fly and recharges after you stay on the ground for a while. We all agreed on this as we didn't want too many icons and bars that block the screen and we thought it might make the players loose focus on the game as they have to keep track of too many different things.
Reflection
Overall I like the design of the UI, its simplistic but for the games style I think it works well. I really like how we incorporated interactive UI elements into it as it makes it feel more fun and cartoony which is what we wanted. I am slightly concerned for how the UI will have to be adapted if we do decide to add customisation into the game but for now everything works well. Its helpful that Nicky can change the colours of the characters in Unity and swap out all the powerups easily so I don't need to make hundreds of versions of every profile. Maybe something similar could be worked out with the customisation. The tutor feedback I received was to add in the background colours to indicate health just to make it even more obvious from a glance how much health you had.
Technical skills achieved for this work are:
SP 3. Art displayed aspects of gameplay and mechanics
Customisation Concepts
02/03/2022
These are some concepts for different customisable hats for Zewm. My team came up with a list of hats that we each most wanted in the game and I chose the most wanted ones and made some concept art of them on the main character. I tried to stick with the same softer colour palette and make them in the same style of the character art. I'm not sure if we will go ahead with this idea because it would require a lot of models to be made and it would also complicate the UI and character model. Since there has been quite a lot of issues with how the character model will look I think we are going to leave this idea for now and maybe come back to it or think of a different way to incorporate customisation.
Reflection
I like the design of each of the hats and I think they all work well on the character. If we were more sure about this idea then I would've definitely had different angles of each of the hats and tried to make concepts of more of them. Some of the hats designs are based off already existing hats in television shows as we wanted the game to feel personal to us and add some Easter eggs for the players in the process. However I'm not sure if there are any legal requirements we would have to meet in order to have these in the game if we were ever to publish it. We would have to either contact the companies with the rights to the shows or alter the hats to be based off them instead of direct copies.
Technical skills achieved for this work are:
SP 3. Concept art displayed game features clearly
Different Character Concepts
16/03/2022
These are some concepts for different characters in Zewm that you can choose from for customisation. This is a different approach to customisation than the hats as instead of adding something it changes the character itself. This idea came from looking back at the original rough concept art we used in the team pitch. I wanted the characters to be different colours so that the players can tell who they are playing on the screen and makes the game more personal if you get to choose what colour you want. This was combined with the different player expressions idea I had in the early concept art to make these different characters. I tried to give each one a different recognisable emotion which gives them the cartoonish style we wanted. I think this would be more achievable than the custom hats idea without losing any of the charm.
Reflection
I like the different expressions and colour palette of the characters as they feel separate to the standard design while still fitting the art style. At the moment we aren't sure if this is something we will be able to do. We all think that it will be easier to do than the hats idea but there has been some issues regarding the character model so we want to focus on that first before making any changes to the design. I received some tutor feedback saying that I could have made the emotions match better to the colours. The red one works for anger but the others just seem random. Nicky should be able to adjust the colours in Unity and the textures haven't been made yet so ill take this feedback into consideration.
Technical skills achieved for this task are:
SP 3. Concept art displayed game features clearly
Menu Background
30/03/2022
This is the background design for the main menu I have been working on for a while. When I was coming up with an idea for the menu I wanted it to be interesting and not just a still image. I decided it would be good to have an animated background but nothing that was too intense or distracting. I thought it could slowly pan along and then loop back around, which is why the artwork is so wide. When deciding the design of the background, we hadn't figured out what the levels would look like so I couldn't copy them or use them as reference. Because of this, I chose to make a more simplistic style background that would work with whatever levels we decide to make which is the characters flying through clouds in the sky. I thought this would be a good theme as it showcases aspects of the game before you even play it, like the different characters, the jetpack movement and I even added in some of the different dash powerups to showcase the combat. I also added in some of the coins from the 'coin rush' game mode. I was going to add in a crown for the 'who's the king' game mode but at this stage in production we weren't sure if we could still add that game mode in time given all the more important tasks that needed doing. Because of all these additions it turns a rather vague background into a good visual display of the games main features that is interesting to look at with the animation it has.
Reflection
I'm very pleased with the menu background as I like the style of the clouds and how I was able to incorporate gameplay features into it. Since its the first thing players will see it was important to me that they get a sense of the games personality before even playing it. I received tutor feedback saying that they liked the animation idea and the consistency of the art style. Also that I could try adding some animation to the characters even if it is just them slowly panning up or down.
Technical skills achieved for this work are:
PM 3. Co-ordinated production of art and animation between me and Nicky
SP 3. Art displays gameplay elements clearly
Alpha Prototype Gameplay
31/03/2022
This is a short demonstration of the current alpha prototype. Work by me that is present is the menu background and the user interface. This showcases the slow panning effect of the menu and the UI working properly thanks to our programmer, Nicky. Besides what I did, it shows the cell shading texture on the character block outs and the jetpack fuel canister fully functional.
Technical skills achieved for this work are:
WII 6. Worked with team on creating prototype version
PM 3. Have been co-ordinating tasks to produce prototype
WII 4. Producing prototypes are part of industry brief
Lab Level Design
01/04/2022
To start off the level design we needed a block out for the platforms before I could design how the background would look. I thought this would be the best method in creating the level based on the mixed 2D and 3D style of our game. Having a 2D background will not only look better, it will be easier to stylize and it will cost us less time modelling various background assets so Dylan could focus on the important ones. Me and Dylan collaborated in this task as we felt the block out and background were heavily linked.
We made it in Blender using basic shapes and seeing how we could incorporate different traps. We decided a good theme for the level is a Lab setting with moving platforms, teleporters, laser blasters and electric traps. Once we had a theme for the level it was much easier deciding the type of traps that would be found in it. An idea I had was to add an electric box that when using the lightning dash would power on a gun. I wanted to add more interaction and purpose to the abilities other than them just being used for combat. I thought you could also use the mist power to avoid the projectiles of the gun, acting more as a defensive power which gives the combat more variety.
We thought a lot about utilising the space of the level and making players want to explore it as opposed to just dashing at each other repeatedly to win. That's why we added the electric box up high and gave multiple ways to get up there, being the moving platforms and the teleporter. We wanted the traps to be worth activating but also have some risk to it, that being you could end up hurting yourself instead of the other players. An example of this is the lever which when dashed through will activate an electricity trap that repeatedly switches on and off for a short amount of time before resetting. You could just as easily get caught in it yourself as the other players could as the traps don't necessarily reward the person who activated it, they are just there to cause chaos. After finishing the block out I made a rough background that showed the general colour scheme and some of the assets that would be featured.
Reflection
Overall I really like how we were able to incorporate some interactive gameplay elements into the block out and I like the general theme of a lab. When making the final background I want to make it more unique to Zewm than just an ordinary lab by adding more things like the septic tank with the character in it. I also want to make it feel less flat, maybe by adding more details to the walls or some shading. At this point we received some tutor feedback about the game saying that we should adjust the positioning of the gun and try to balance the speed and frequency, which we can do by having people playtest the game. They also said that it would be nice to have multiple levels and more game modes but that it would be best to put full focus on this level before trying to add quantity over quality.
Technical skills achieved for this work are:
WII 6. Worked with Dylan to create level block out in a given amount of time
PM 3. Worked with team member on task and co-ordinated tasks with all members
Final Level Background
27/04/2022
For the final background art piece I deviated from the rough design by making the room look 3D by using perspective grids. I did this as I feel this helps merge the 3D and 2D aspects of our game quite well. It also made the room more interesting and allowed me to add in more assets. I designed the layout of all the assets based around the level block out. That's why there are sections with little to no detail as I didn't want the background to be too busy and make the game difficult to focus on. I experimented with lighting and shadows quite a bit and decided that having a darker background made the glowing assets stand out more and would make it easier to tell where the characters are when playing. I also tried to make the background feel more unique to Zewm than just a generic lab. I did this by adding the main character in the septic tank that is also being monitored on the computer screen. The blueprints on the wall are also designs for a robot version of the main character. I feel this helps add humour and charm to the game which I thought fit very well with the fun party game brief. As well as this it adds interest to the background and makes the players want to explore and look at every detail which I think is the most important factor in designing levels.
Reflection
I am very pleased with the outcome of the lab level background and how I was able to make it feel unique to our game. I wish I was able to work on more levels like we originally planned but considering we don't have long left until the deadline and this took the longest time out of any art piece to make it just wont be possible. I knew that this was going to be the case when making it though so I opted to put much more effort in to have one really good level over 2 or 3 mediocre ones. The tutor feedback I received when making this was that I need to think about the scale of the level in comparison to the character. I thought about if I wanted it to be the same scale as them or make everything bigger than them, especially so when I was making the septic tank which had one of the characters in it. In the end I think everything worked well enough in terms of scale and design and after seeing it in engine it looks even better.
Technical skills achieved for this work are:
SP 3. Used digital processes to create art that compliments gameplay and character design
WII 6. Had deadline to finish task and worked with team to produce it
Beta Prototype Gameplay
29/04/2022
This is a short demonstration of Zewm from the Beta prototype. Work by me present in this clip is the lab level background fully complete as well as the level block out implemented to scale. Other work showcased is the character and environment models created by Dylan. As well as the animations for the character and electric pylon effects done by Nicky.
Technical skills achieved for this work are:
WII 6. Worked with team on creating prototype version
PM 3. Have been co-ordinating tasks to produce prototype
WII 4. Producing prototypes are part of industry brief
Final Tasks
04/05/2022
Some of the final tasks I had to do as the artist of the group was make a permanent app icon to replace the one we had for most of the project as well as make a better title logo. For the app icon I reused the sky background assets as I thought they would make a better background for the icon than the lab level would. It also blends nicer into the main menu. The title font was something I actually didn't finish in time for the synoptic project deadline but my plan was to have fonts based on the powerups of the game and either have 1 letter of each or have the font change when you reloaded the page. It also would have been nice to add animations to it but I wasn't able to finish it due to more important things that had to be prioritised, like helping my team members and getting people to playtest in order to fix any bugs.
Reflection
Given more time and better production management I might have been able to make a more unique app icon and finish the title fonts. Although they were quite rushed I'm still happy with what I did for these two tasks and for the synoptic project as a whole. I didn't manage to receive any tutor feedback due to it being rushed and not finished.
Technical skills achieved for this work are:
WII 6. Work done with strict deadline
SP 3. Art produced compliments gameplay elements
Final Game
13/05/2022
This is the final prototype of Zewm. This showcases everything me and my team were able to produce throughout the synoptic project and overall I'm quite happy with the result. There were definitely a lot of features missing from the final cut compared to what we planned in the GDD but I'm still proud of what we did manage to implement. The final game looks very similar to what I imagined in my head towards the beginning of the production phase so I don't think its a huge loss that we didn't finish everything. This clip will show some of the bugs that we were unable to fix before the deadline like players being unable to move after respawning as well as the red hit detection box staying permanently on the player after being hit. Luckily these bugs don't seem too common and only appear in the coin game mode but we still would have liked to remove them before the deadline.
Technical skills achieved for this work are:
WII 6. Worked with team on creating prototype version
PM 3. Have been co-ordinating tasks to produce prototype
WII 4. Producing prototypes are part of industry brief
ISIW 2. Art produced is accompanied by sound
Playtesting
Me and Dylan created a form that we asked people to fill out once they had played the game for a while. It displays how players would rate our game in different aspects as well as asks them to give us their positive and negative feedback. We thought it was very important to playtest the game before the deadline not only to find bugs but to see if, despite lacking a lot of planned content, the game is actually fun. The results show that people find the game quite fun and replayable, especially with 3 or 4 players, but it can get repetitive after a while and could use some final polish. Since we were near the end of the synoptic project there wasn't much we could work on that utilised this feedback other than bug fixing. However, if we were to continue working on the game or if I was to ever work on another game this is feedback I would take into consideration.
Technical skills achieved for this work are:
PM 4. Used industry standard documentation for playtesting
PM 5. Organised post production playtesting
WII 4. Playtesting is part of industry brief
Group post Mortem breakdown
19/05/2022
At the beginning of the synoptic project, our group had a vastly varying understanding of what our game would actually end up being as we did not plan the game to the best of our ability. Instead of choosing one of our individual ideas we ended up making something new which took a lot more time to develop. Because of this, we thought it was a good idea to have Nicky try and create a prototype to collect our thoughts as a group. The prototype that Nicky created perfectly fitted our vision for the game and gave us an amazing idea of what we were going to create. It was a great headstart as no other group had any sort of gameplay to showcase in the team pitches. The main issue we had throughout the synoptic project was sticking to a consistent project management system. Although we had a strong headstart it actually had somewhat of a negative effect on our work ethics, as we believed we were a lot further ahead than we actually were. If we had made more use of this head start at the beginning we might have been able to save more time at the end for implementing more features. If we were to do this project again we would set specific sprints for finishing and implementing assets and gameplay features.
Shortly into the production phase, we realised it would be a good idea to split up the concept artist role into 2D art and 3D art. We did this because of the very cartoonish art style of Zewm. There would be quite a lot of work for just one person to do and because of the simplistic level design, there wouldn't be very much work for the designer role. Jake would become the 2D artist and Dylan would make the 3D art. It also helped that Dylan was slightly more confident in 3D modelling than Jake so it worked out for the best in the end. We are very happy that we made this decision early on as it definitely benefited our management of the project.
Despite the lack of consistency in our production management, we had a very healthy work environment and always solved issues as a team. There were very few conflicts or confusing moments and if there were we communicated with each other and made sure everyone was happy.
If we were to continue to work on Zewm and release it as a full product on Steam then we would definitely add all the features that we originally planned. Most of the features we planned in the GDD were cut from the game, not because they didn't fit the game but because we didn't have the time to make and implement them. This would include more game modes like ‘Who’s the king’ and ‘Hot potato’ as well as add customisation options like the hats or different expressions. We feel that what we have at the moment is fun but it gets repetitive after a while so adding these features will give the game more variety and replayability. There are also a lot of improvements and quality of life changes that could be added and fixed if we were to fully release it.
Overall, we are all very happy with the amount we were able to achieve and learn. The synoptic project opened our eyes to aspects of game design we hadn't thought of before so it was a great learning experience.
Individual Breakdown
20/05/2022
To conclude the synoptic project I want to start by saying that I am very happy and proud of the result of Zewm and have learnt a lot about game design, more specifically the different stages and interactions between roles required while making a video game. I have had a great time working with my team as we all worked really well together and there weren't many conflicts between team members at all. If there were any problems in the group or someone needed help or advice we would stop and help each other and solve any issues present immediately. This has resulted in a game that is surprisingly close to my original wishes and ideas for it.
At the beginning of the project I decided to be the concept artist role as it's what I'm most confident in and what I would likely do in the future. Once being paired with my team members we each created an individual pitch to present our ideas for a game. Although at the time I was quite fond of my gladiator style fighting game, in retrospect I'm glad we didn't as I'm not sure how the physics would have really worked and been programmed. When it came to the team pitches we decided to go with Nickys, although we changed it quite a bit so at the end they were only slightly similar. We struggled for a while to come up with a solid idea as the game kept changing almost everyday and we each had different perceptions of what the game was. Our only real conflict throughout the entire project was whether to use Unreal Engine or Unity as both me and Dylan were only used to Unreal whereas Nicky only liked using Unity. In the end it was Nicky's prototype that solved all of our problems and made us all understand what the game was and we also decided to use Unity after seeing how good the prototype was. Looking back I could have been more considerate to using Unity but I was just concerned that only one person would be able to work in engine. After now knowing how projects like these work it makes a lot more sense to only have one person in engine in a group of three.
Moving onto production we decided that the roles of the project didn't really suit the management of our game so we split 2D and 3D art between myself and Dylan. This was because there would have been a lot of work for the artist and not much to really do as the designer, since our levels were so small and simple. This worked out for the best as I was more confident in 2D and Dylan worked better in 3D than I did. Towards the start of production I was afraid that I wouldn't be able to show my artistic skills due to the simplistic character design and the fact that a lot of my work just reused the character concept art piece. However towards the end i was able to create larger scale pieces like the menu background and level background that allowed me to display my digital art skills. I think that there was definitely more art I could have made but the main thing we all struggled with throughout the project was production management. I feel that if we had planned out what we were going to do more in the beginning stages by utilising the scrum method then we could have had time to implement more features like more game modes, maps and customisation. Because of this lack of foundation and direction, the amount of content I thought would make it to the final game kept decreasing and I found myself taking longer on tasks than was really necessary. If I was to do this project again this is something I would pay more attention to and try to not let the strong headstart we had influence my productivity.
If we were to release Zewm as a full product then there would be a lot of things I would like to add other than just polishing the game. From playtesting we learned that the core gameplay of Zewm was enjoyable enough it just needed more variety in how you play it. Thats why adding in the ‘Whos the king’ and ‘Bomb tag’ game modes would be essential for the gameplay loop. We could then have it play a random mode per round instead of having to pick which one you want. I would also have loved to add in some element of customisation whether that be the hats or the facial expressions or even something completely different. I feel this would give the game a lot more options for players and give them goals to strive for, that is if we made the customization elements be unlocked rather than just available from the start. To make Zewm truly a party game it would also need multiple maps spanning across all the game modes. The work by me that I'm most proud of is the lab level background as it's the task I put the most time and effort into. However we originally planned to have multiple maps and even had an early prototype for the lava map at one stage, so adding in more maps would be my number one priority if we were to continue this project. I made the decision towards the latter half of the project that having a single high quality map would be better than having two or more lower quality ones. This is because I wanted to make something better than my previous concept art pieces and something I could be proud of and remember the project by. I believe I succeeded in doing this and don't regret my decision since the goal of the synoptic project was to create a vertical slice of a game and not a full end product.
Overall, I'm really proud of everything me and my team accomplished. I do wish that we were able to have more to show in the end product and if we had a better understanding of production management then I believe we could have. Next time I am the concept artist in a team I will try to do some of the 3D art as well, with hopes that it will broaden my skills as a technical artist. However, in the end I couldn't be happier with the result.