All physical work on this topic can be found on pages 7 - 9 of the black backlog. The actual presentation day was on Friday the 29th of November 2019.
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As I have mentioned before, the main premise of Phase 3 was to use the four weeks to:
Firstly make as many general and 'throwaway' game ideas we could think of (or 'hundreds', as Adam put it)
The ideas of which would then be whittled down into three vastly different, solid and viable game ideas
Then, just like the phases before, the ideas would be presented back to the class for more feedback
In truth, Phase 3 varied greatly in working process for me, as the first two weeks were admittedly spent taking a relaxing break from university work, and its last two weeks were nothing but full-on, intense research and development work. It was also the phase where I got my sketchbook and backlog, and spent most of my time working on those for the sake of both the main project and the blog.
I also spent this phase:
Researching into the Western-themed board game Colt Express,
Re-writing up my extensive Western character classes lists,
Researching into existing popular Western-themed video games and the Western states of the U.S.A,
Forming my idea of 'adaptive difficulty' in a board game,
Creating and developing my game ideas from scratch
and -
Researching into Western town buildings and amenities.
Each of these 'activities' came with their own working process and some required a lot more work than others, the main work-heavy subjects being the development of my game ideas and writing up character encounters.
The reason why this phase was so difficult to get my head around when it came to writing about it was because my working process changed so dramatically from beginning to end.
I also believe it personally formed the main body of semester 1.
In other words, there was a hell of a lot to think about in one month, but I feel much more confident and accomplished after its end.
Unlike the other phases, there doesn't exist much digital work. This is purely because of my attaining a sketchbook and backlog, which works much better. However, my presentation can be found underneath, as required to properly finish the phase:
PHASE 3 PRESENTATION: -------------------------------------------------
For this presentation, I didn't create a prompt because I pretty much knew what I wanted to talk about. My plan was just to put up all my current game ideas and just talk through them, as well as the things that were bothering me. I saw no need to complicate this process.
Phase 3's ultimate outcome was to get people to first form what could be good, solid game ideas, and then get class feedback to 'push' them into selecting one idea to move forward with into Semester 2. Most of the phase was spent developing ideas, so this activity was the most important. However, I suspect that most people already had a main idea in mind regardless of what feedback they were going to receive.
This is what I did, anyway.
On the 30th of November, I went back to my instance and physically wrote down all of my presentation feedback in my sketchbook, for the same ease-of-use reasons as before.
Here is that feedback:
It seems like you've already put a lot of thought into your design so far, seems fleshed out already. Have you created any prototypes yet though?
It would be cool to play the card prototypes
I love the class system in a card game setting! Really interesting
I like the idea of balancing moral choices. Sorta like Infamous. What is considered morally wrong and right in the game?
I appreciate that there is a character list, you could flesh them out even further to have strong personalities to aid role-play?
Idea 1: It could be interesting to design this as a single-player board game. Although they're not very popular, choosing a moral standing character with a group could cause issues. Otherwise the use of moral stand points in a game can be sketchy because my views on morals can be completely different from someone else's. Idea 2: Has a lot of potential to hit your gore marks which sounds fun. The art style for this would need to be solid but the general idea actually sounds great. Simple is sometimes better. Idea 3: Could be an interesting theme. Maybe from the viewpoint of the Natives though and the Yanks are the intruders.
There is a game called Mechs VS Minions where your characters unlock more skills as you play missions
Look into the game called Theme Hospital for the second idea
Idea 2 maybe look at Papers Please its solo gameplay done simple is very effective
Idea 2 <3
Idea 2 <3
I actually really like the medic game, I think it could be really different.
Bartender idea <3
Cannibal idea reminds me of the multiplayer jason game which is very fun
I am not sure how I feel about the game ideas. The first one seems like D&D American frontier edition, the second reminded me of that educational surgeon game for children where you pluck out things out of organs. I'd suggest picking out the essential experience of the theme, the American frontier. What is essentially interesting about -
I like how you have a lot of mechanics in mind
Backlog (pages 7 - 9)
(page 7)
Thursday 28th November 2019
I spoke with Adam about my concerns for tomorrow's presentation and he informed me that, thankfully, I don't have to fill the ten-minute time slot completely.
Therefore, I will spend today writing up a presentation clearly setting out what I want to do and simplifying the ideas I have so that other people can understand.
I will not make it complicated because that will only serve to make the situation worse.
16:14 -
From doing this activity, I have realised how much substance I have for my main game idea and how many facets there are.
I then proceeded to create my PowerPoint presentation in the evening, finishing it at about 22:00. This was useful for me as it allowed me to see how my ideas linked together and what I was missing from this backlog. Elaborating on this, I mean that thoughts I haven't logged are shown on the PowerPoint.
Should have added constraints (to the presentation) though, for another topic to talk about.
Friday 9th November 2019 (End of week 9)
PRESENTATION DAY
Presentations started late.
To give a better talking point, I presented with my sketchbook.
I gave my presentation, I thought it went well, although I missed out a few talking points.
Notes were written down on the Vue thing Adam set up.
My instance is: 'wildwest' (all lower case, no spaces)
I have saved all these to Paint as a screenshot.
As other peoples presentations were written down, I wrote down some ideas in a Notepad document inspired by what was being said about other presentations. It's good to do this so that you don't forget ideas you have.
These are those notes:
Remember to include an essential experience for your game
What TYPE of board game is it? (Defeat/failure/chance/co-operative?) Look into these themes again
What place does your game have in the market?
What art style does your game have?
Consider the idea of creating a choice-based game, where different cards lead to different situations
What problems are currently facing you?
Think about (and research into) Western dry towns and 'Last Chance' saloons
Create several colour palettes from other games to get your game's visual style
(page 8)
I believe my presentation went well as I simply talked through my ideas and left my general thoughts in so people could hear them and give feedback.
My presentation was made with a day's notice and simply featured my parameters, my current game ideas (with emphasis on my main idea) and what thoughts I have about them. I featured some of my work process and my questions and problems as well.
I should have added my constraints.
I then reviewed my game feedback notes. Most were positive, some were critically constructive and some people were asking questions and some were referencing other games.
Adam then introduced Phase 4, saying that the end is in sight for this semester. I made notes in my sketchbook about this new phase.
It would seem that this phase is all about creating and playing, and completing the Game Project Proposal.
Feedback was given to everyone, and I wrote mine down.
THOUGHTS NOW:
I am a lot more settled now that the presentation is over, and that I have chosen my main idea to go forward on.
Adam said that my ideas are the most developed out of all of them (the rest of the class)
I feel confident that I have somewhat of a solid idea now and can easily make mechanics out of it, and can work on character design.
I need to start making my project proposal document.
I'm feeling confident that this can all work, but I'm still worried about my blog (which I have since started working on)
THINGS MISSING FROM BACKLOG:
I have decided to make a card game, board game or both in the theme of the American frontier because I can't code and although I have done animation, it would take far too long.
If you assumed the role of a civil war surgeon, you would have more scope for a game idea as you would have setting, good mechanics and story, as well as landscape.
Saturday 30th November 2019
Backlogged some work from Friday.
Some feedback was given to me on Friday about changing my game from a D&D style by having fleshed-out characters with striking personalities, and having them be 'selectable' instead of choosing
(page 9)
a character from the outset and going on encounters.
During the evening, I wrote down my presentation feedback whilst drinking tequila for documentation reasons (the feedback, not the tequila)
29/11/2019 - Presentation Day
26 - 27/11/2019
End of Phase 3
Week 6: 04/11/2019 - 10/11/2019
Week 7: 11/11/2019 - 17/11/2019
Week 8: 18/11/2019 - 24/11/2019
Week 9: 25/11/2019 - 01/12/2019