Mini Game IV

Mini Game IV

For this mini game we were tasked with  creating a game that was focused around resource management and game economy. The game also had to be multiplayer and could be either cooperative or competitive. The game also had to have an element of chance to give incorporated into it.  I was placed in a group of three. My group members consisted of:

• Maddi McDougall
• Chanel Marino    

Process:

On the day that we were assigned the mini game Maddi and I got together after class to brainstorm some ideas that we could use for our game. We mind mapped some ideas of what makes a good resource management/economy game. So we looked at some games that required the player to manage their resources accordingly. Some the games that we looked at were monopoly and risk  and few others. This gave us a base and ideas to work with to start fleshing out new ideas for our game. We came up with three ideas which included a resource management tower defense type game, an island survival game, and  spaceship game that reminded me of Lovers in a Dangerous Space. With all these ideas we concluded our first meeting. 

Our second meeting we had all group members. We got together and sat down to flesh out our whole game and what we were all going to do to contribute to our game. So Maddi had this idea that we stick with the space theme but switch it up a bit to being so much like Lovers in a Dangerous Space. She had the idea of having an arcade type space game. The objective of the game at this point was having a head-to-head space shooter where the players would have to manage their shields, weapons and special weapons. We all like this type of game and idea so we started to elaborate on it more. 

We started to discuss and we decided that it would be more fun to have 2-4 players rather than just having 2 players trying to kill each other. It brought an element of skill and focus but most of all managing the resources. So we then moved onto the resources. At first we had it so that you could only your abilities when your energy bar reach a certain amount. We discussed and decided that this would not get across resource management effectively nor would it be fun. We decided rather than having an energy bar that determined when you can use your resources (shield, guns) that we would make them each their own separate resource. This seemed and felt better to do it this way. So then we thought how can we make so that the players ave to manage their shields and guns? We decided to make it so that each of them had cool-down timer. So if a player was to shoot their weapon they would lose a counter. The player would have a total of three or four counters. If they fired one bullet it would regenerate after a certain period of time. However we wanted to make it so that when a player used up all their resources, whether it be their shield or weapons, they would have to wait an extended period of time to get back their resources as apposed to a relatively short cool-down to get back one. This would make conserve their resources so that they are not completely vulnerable to be attacked. After all this brainstorming and fleshing out a workable idea we decided to conclude the meeting and meet up again to work the actual game itself. 

The third meeting we got down to it. Maddi was the lead programmer, I was the transnational group member doing both programming and art, and Chanel was in charge of art assets and UI. For the project i set up the controllers and mapped the code to work with controls. Once I had completed that, I  then gave it to Maddi so that we could implement. From there i then worked on the shields for the players. I had to make it so that when the player presses the left bumper of the xbox controller a shield would instantiate and follow the player, since each player is moving. After we got everything implemented into the master copy we concluded the meeting. 

Our fourth meeting was the finalization of the game. and the implementation of Chanel's UI. We fixed up some of the code and made it feel and play better. When the code and UI was being implemented I was creating the start menu for our game so that our game wasn't just a playable but actually had layers. It was a long night but we got it all done.

Postmortem:  

I was very happy on how our game turned out. It was fun and it demonstrated resource management. Some things that I would change or add would be:

• Special weapon
• Free movement rather than fixed
• A game over menu 
• Meteor showers

It think that these elements would make the game more fun and interesting and give it more depth. I think our game was fun but it needed more. With that being said for the time that we had I think we did an amazing job both on programming and art. 

Some of the things that I thought went really well was:

• Game feel 
• art
• music 
• game play 

I thought our game was really fun to play and felt real good. I would love to take this game further because I feel like if we expanded on this game further and implemented our ideas that we left out the game would be so much fun and would be a great party game. 

I really enjoyed working with Maddi and Chanel. They are very talented and great team members and would really like to work with them in the future.