Mini Game III

Mini Game III

For this mini game we were to create a game that focuses on either cooperative or competitive game play. The catch for this game is that the all the artists and programmers were split up and put into groups. So what i mean is groups only consisted of only artists or only programmers, no mix up. 

I was placed in artist group seeing as that I am stronger in art than I am programming. My group consisted of two others:

- Josh Garcia

- James Pratt

Who are also good artists.

Process:

Our first meeting consisted of us meeting up right after we were assigned the mini game. We decided that we wanted to create a game the focused on cooperative game play. We fleshed out some ideas of what makes a good cooperative game and what kind of mechanics we could use to make a successful cooperative game. We first fleshed out a game that required 2 players that have to make to the end of a level. However, each player a has a certain ability to help them overcome certain obstacles in their path. In which case one player cannot finish the level without the other because one challenge cannot be complete with the ability type the player is using. 

So then we came up with having a rock and a wind sprite and we started to base challenge we could throw at each character making it so that both players have to work together to overcome. However, seeing as that we didn't have a strong coder in the group we wanted to keep the coding difficulty down so we didn't run into major problems and time crunches.

Our second meeting brought us in a new direction. The problem that we had with our previous idea was that it would involve to adept coding for us and we wouldn't have made a playable game in the time frame that we had. So then, James, came up with an idea of a party game where you have to do specific actions almost kind of like a Heads Up game. So we elaborated more and came with an idea that we would change to competitive game where the whole class would be put into our game and then the game would randomly pick two names and they would have to go head to head.  Then on the screen prompts would show up telling the students what to do. For example, rap for 30 secs. The way we would the winner would be determined is by mob rules. So whoever gets the loudest cheer afterwards wins and gets a point. The students would sit down and then the next names would be chosen and the next prompt would posted.

We really liked this idea and we ran with it because it seemed like a lot of fun and we thought it was quite novel. 

Our third meeting I was not apart of due to pulling an all nighter. So Josh and James went ahead with trying to program and get the art done for the game while recuperated and got ready for the next to help.

The next morning I was informed that they had changed the idea completely from the party game that we had. The reason why it was changed was due to the fact it was just too hard to program. 

So they ran by the idea they had came up with during our fourth meeting. They had an idea where you were magnets and you had to use your polarities to move about to the level to reach the end. I thought this was a great and novel idea. So we ran with this because we literally had one more day to finish the game. So James took the role of being our main programmer. Josh did the background art and some minor programming. And my role was to create a level and do some minor programming as well (which was not implemented due bugs). 

So we finally made ends meet and had a playable prototype which we thought was good enough to play and get across our cooperative game play using polarity.  

                            

Postmortem:

Our game was not perfect by any sort of means due to lack of the programming knowledge and time that we had to create this game. Some things that we need to fix for this game are :

- player movement and physics

- polarity toggle

- platform distancing 

- catching and throwing mechanics 

- interaction with the environment

- 3D?

These are the key things that I think need to be fixed on this game. I believe us as a team could program this no problem given a little bit more time to create a fun, polished game. If we focus on these things and get them firing on all cylinders i think we could have a really great game.

Although there is a lot to be fixed and modified in this game. I like this game better then all the other game I have created in this class so far. The reason being is for these things:

- Game mechanic (polarity)

- Theme

- Level Design

I believe we had one of the more novel mechanics in our game than the other games that were presented. I thought that the polarity idea was very creative and could be taken to a whole new level. however we were not able to showcase the mechanic fully and to the caliber that I wanted. I also thought the theme of two magnets was a very novel idea as well. I have seen elements and and stuff interact with each other a bunch of times. But I cannot recall a game that uses two magnets while using the the physics of toggling polarity to reach the end of a level. And if we could make it 3D and be able to use polarity to manipulate objects and move around the map i think it would be such a fun a game. I feel like even though we didn't make an amazing prototype I think that this mechanic and idea could be brought so much further and feel like we could do do that as group. But we did our best and that is all I could hope for in a group. And a HUGE shout out to James Pratt for grabbing the bull by the horns and taking on the role of being the main programmer. He did a great job. I would love to work with this group again.