Consulted team, created the game, added many placeholders, got character moving how I wanted, added in platforms
90 secs, 5 min, 10 min, 20 min, 20 min
I’d argue they were some of the best, as you can’t really have a platformer game without these essentials.
10-24
Consulted team about how the player should move, playtested game, added solid platforms, created pits, playtested game, begun work on dash mechanic
2 min, 7 min, 10 min, 5 min, 3 min, 30 min
I feel this was a pretty good usage of my time, but I do think I ought to have tried to find a slightly shorter tutorial for the dash.
10-25
Consulted team about their ideas on the dash, completed work on dash mechanic, playtested the dash
5 min, 45 min, 5 min
Pretty much the same as yesterday – Not terrible usage, I just wish I had been a little quicker with the dashing.
10-26
Consulted team to see if the dash worked for everybody, added in placeholder enemies, started to work on the enemy’s movement, playtested
2 min, 3 min, 50 min, 3 min
I do wish I hadn’t paid as much attention to where the placeholder enemies went (given that they were placeholders), but I do think I made some good progress on the basic enemies.
10-27
Consulted team on how they thought it was going, worked on how to destroy the enemies, worked on this blog post
90 secs, 32 min, 25 min
I do wish I had kept a record of what I had been doing beforehand so recalling what happened wouldn’t have taken quite so long, so that’s something for next week.
Personal Comments (Optional)
Remember reflecting on your own choices and work can help you improve both. Are there any other comments you would like to include for your own reflection? If so, please enter them here:
I think I had a fairly solid first week. I feel like my creative juices could’ve been flowing a little stronger to keep me going, so hopefully next week will be able to go a little smoother.
By Oct. 12, as part of team #4 as Level Artist / World Builder, I will have evidence of making a level that takes at least 10 seconds for the average player to get through by following Construct 3 Platformer Tutorial & Construct’s platformer tutorial for Session 1.
PRE-PRODUCTION – INQUIRY
Leader(s) in the Field / Exemplary Work(s)
Hollow Knight gameplay footage
Interview with Ari Gibson, game designer for Hollow Knight
I chose to focus on the opening moments of Hollow Knight, as I believe that even from the beginning the game pushes its elegant approach to tutorials in quite a way that hasn’t really been attempted since something like Super Metroid. To start, the game begins with you, having fallen down a hole, having only one clear path – to the right. Once you start heading that way, you start to figure out the controls. They’re fairly simple – jumping, slashing your nail – but the game figures you know what a jump is already, so they opt to teach you the slightly less conventional one – the nail. After heading to the right for a second, you’re greeted with a door. This door can only be broken with your nail attack, forcing the player to figure out what the other buttons do. This is immediately followed by two more doors so that the player can’t simply brute-force their way past this obstacle. Proceeding onwards, the player is met with the game’s equivalent of a Goomba – mere nail fodder, as you now know how to use that tool. This is followed by more doors, another Goomba-like, and the game’s jumping tutorial. It’s nothing too challenging, but it does teach the player precision will be required even in the opening moments. Once the player reaches the top of the jumping challenge, they are greeted with a falling stalactite from the ceiling. Failing to dodge results in the player falling back to before the jumping challenge, causing you to realize that this is a game of instincts. Even just in the opening moments, this shows how Gibson is able to exploit your previous knowledge of video games as well as introduce an idea or two of his own, all while never uttering a word.
This is our platformer “git gud” game: Toucan Dan: Time For The Turkey. The game is focused around Toucan Dan using his signature dash attack in a mad trek through the jungle to make it to his girlfriend’s house in time for Thanksgiving. It’s pretty boy howdy neato & I think you should go click on that link right now & go play it!
For this production cycle, I was the level designer / main programmer. If you play the game, you can see for yourself how the level design looks. For one example of using best practices, I had to use creativity to create level design for the entire game. It’s a real knee-slappin’ good time!
POST-PRODUCTION – REFLECTION
21st Century Skills
Ways of Thinking (Creativity, Innovation, Critical Thinking, Problem Solving)
Creativity: I had to use creativity throughout in order to create unique level design for the player that could be enjoyed. This was not a simple process & required a fair bit of imagination in order to come up with set pieces that both looked cool & played nicely, so creativity was required.
Problem Solving: I frequently had to solve problems when creating AI for the enemy’s behavior, as it rarely worked exactly the way I wanted it to. For example, one time I just couldn’t get the watermelon’s projectiles to travel how I wanted them to, so I had to check a fair amount of tutorials to figure out what to do.
Innovation: For the user, I had to create new ideas throughout (For example, the jump after Toucan Dan’s dash attack adds new possibilities for movement.). I wouldn’t say any of my ideas were unheard of, but I like to think I at least put a fun spin on them that hadn’t been seen before.
Ways of Working (Communication & Collaboration)
Communication: I frequently had standup meetings with the team (see the weekly work logs) & I was always emailing & talking with other members of the team outside of class in order to ensure they knew what was happening & what I was doing.
Collaboration: For one example, when our project was nearing its end & all of Snok de Snake’s animations had been placed into the game, Alden didn’t have enough time to get all of them properly implemented. When I was in the game, he helped show me how to properly clip out the sprites at max quality, & so with collaboration Snok de Snake was successfully implemented.
Tools for Working (Info & Media Literacy)
Information Literacy: As this project was a new challenge for me, I frequently had to consult online tutorials & YouTube videos & adapt the knowledge that I gained from those & turn it into ideas I had for the game. For example, I was trying to figure out how to make enemies killable via a dash, when I watched a video about how dashing should turn on a variable of the same name. I then applied that knowledge & used it to make it so that if the “dashing” variable was true when Toucan Dan touched an enemy, the enemy would die.
Ways of Living in the World (Life & Career)
One life skill that I learned is how sometimes you need to place yourself lower on the priority list & learn to chip away at something else while what you need to get done is adjusted by somebody else. I learned this skill by learning to work on other vital things like completing the DunDoc while somebody like Alden was implementing sprites into the game. This is an important life skill for any career as it’s important to remember that sometimes you’re not always the boss.
Reactions to the Final Version
Student feedback: “I really like how it improved. Like, it went from a red square on brown squares to a toucan in the jungle.” -Caitlynn
Advisor feedback: N/A
Self-Evaluation of Final Version
Overall, I’d say that I’m fairly happy with what our team was able to produce. Some of the things that I’m most proud of would include getting all the behaviors for sprites worked out, getting all the level design/set pieces from my mind & into the level, & going from knowing not much at all about how good level flow feels to having a fairly solid grasp of it all. Some things that I’ll do for next time will include figuring out how to make the project so multiple people can work on it at the same time, as well as helping encourage everybody on the team to push a little bit harder.
Grammar and Spelling
I used Grammarly’s web editor to check the grammar/spelling.
