Course Reflection

CS/ART 108 Introduction to Game Studies

            As my time with CS 108 comes to a close, I reflect on what I've learned and which material stood out the most to me. I learned that designing a game takes time and that it all comes down to the mechanics instead of the visuals or aesthetics. I was introduced to a lot of indie games that I enjoyed and probably would not play if it was not being enrolled in this class such as "This is the only level", or "Don't S#!t your pants!". Understanding some of the mechanics of various board games helped me realize how much effort it took for some companies to create a fun board game and how to expand it without being boring or repetitive.

            I learned a couple of things while taking this course and the one thing that stood out for me was the Mechanics-Dynamics-Aesthetics (MDA) Framework. Reading the article, it made me aware that mechanics is the most important thing for a game designer to make a game fun and replayable. You can have great visuals, but if the game mechanics are repetitive or clunky, then the game will get boring real quick. It's the reason why indie games with low-end visuals can be one of the most entertaining games you will ever play. I believe MDA is an important aspect when designing games.

           Being able to create an actual game using Game Maker was something I both enjoyed and frustrate over. Making Night Heist (click here for a description about my game and click here for the recent version of Night Heist 2.0) opened my eyes to how much time is needed to develop a game that isn't buggy or bland. I appreciate actual game developers who make full games and the work they put in to fix various bugs. Creating Night Heist, the one important thing that took me the most to focus on was the physics of all the characters and how they interact with other objects. When playing a platforming game like Mario, you assume that when a character jumps, it comes down automatically. Unfortunately adding gravity and the character's horizontal/vertical speed will be needed to make the character move fluently within the environment. The challenging part was to make the game feel smooth with the controls and to engage the user to explore more or want more.

          The class was fun and exciting. I enjoyed the gameplay and game design tutorial videos shown in class and got to play some cool games made by the other students. The biggest challenge in this class was trying to implement a game idea that could stick around the first or second time. As for my board game, it took almost three variations of changing the game rules to actually work and feel like a fun game rather than something that was complex and confusing. What would have made this better was to play multiple games to gain some kind of feedback or obtain ideas that you could implement onto your own game.

From creating my first board game

First Board Game Design

to creating an actual game (with the assistance of the Game Maker software)

Level 5 of Night Heist

Night Heist 2.0 Crew
Top Row starting from Left: Andy Phung, Anacleto Duplito (Me)
Bottom Row starting from Left: Cynthia Sayamoungkhoune, Julia Velasquez

If you are a San Jose State University student that is interested in video games, I highly recommend taking this class. Thank you for reading my blog and you are welcome to leave a comment or question about my experiences taking this class.

Final Project

Final Project: Night Heist 2.0

New Menu background for Night Heist

Night Heist was a game that I helped create using the Game Maker software. It was a platforming game, where you are a robber who needs to rob a mansion by collecting jewelry scattered all over the levels. There are obstacles that you need to avoid as a player such as penguin cops, dogs, and fireballs shot by the penguin cops. Night Heist 2.0 will be an updated version of Night Heist by improving on the visuals and mechanics for the game.

With Night Heist, it was a two person project, Anacleto Duplito (hey, that's me) and Julia Velasquez. For Night Heist 2.0, we have included two new members: Cynthia Sayamoungkhoune (Stage and Menu Graphic Artist) and Andy Phung (Quality Assurance Tester). As you can see from the picture at the top, Night Heist will have a new modernized look. For a taste of what is to come, here are some before and after pictures that will be used for the game background:

Night Heist background (Before)

Night Heist 2.0 Background (After)

For the updated game, our new direction will focus on fixing some of the bug mechanics with the jumping physics and level platforms that many people who have tried the game complained about. We will also attempt to redesign the characters as well to have them fit in with the new background along with more visuals added to the ending backgrounds instead of just having text to read. There will be new levels and some of the levels will be redesigned as well for a new experience for those that already tried the game. I also received suggestions about changing the image of the robber whenever the character receives damage to notify players that there is a health bar and it does decrease.

Things I might consider for the updated game will be to add specific features for each brother in the game (when you die, your brother takes your place) just like in the Mario (which is owned by Nintendo) games where Luigi had a higher jump than Mario. I might also consider adding new mega powerups that will grant the player invincibility for a short amount of time, the ability to shoot fireballs from the hand, use a cape to fly for long distances, or summon a greenish dinosaur that eats things and poops out eggs. I'm just kidding about the mega powerups idea since it is clearly copying Mario and will probably take a lot more time and coding to get it to work functionally with this game, but a person can dream right. All kidding aside, I might include some sound effects for instances where the player gets hurt, jumps, collects jewelry, or reaches a new goal to get that old fashioned platform gaming feel that you don't see too often nowadays outside of Nintendo or indie games.

The controls will remain the same as I have not heard of any complaints from other users who tried the game. For controls, here is a brief description as shown in the tutorial level (which will be updated visually):

Here in the tutorial level (which will be revamped to not look dull), you are given instructions about the controls of the player and what to avoid in the game. In Night Heist, you have the basic controls of moving left and right with the arrow keys. Pressing the up arrow key allows the player to jump and holding the up arrow key allows the player to jump to the maximum height (which is useful later on). You can press and hold the control (CTRL) key with the left/right arrow keys to have the player sprint. Pressing the Space bar will pause/unpause the game.

This pretty much sums up the idea of Night Heist 2.0 and I hope you will enjoy it once it is completed. Here is a list of the new Night Heist staff.

Credits

New Credits with the newly added members

A link for the new game will be posted as soon as crucial updates have been added onto the game.

As of right now here is a link for an early version of the game: link to previous version

Thank you for taking the time to read my blog. You are welcome to leave any comments about this blog or about my game. Have a marvelous, fantastic, wonderful, enjoyable, happy, lucky, insert adjective here day!