Unit 67

Pseudo Code activity

Eat breakfast

1- Grab a bowl from the cupboard and place it on a table.

2- Grab a box of cereal from the cupboard.

3- Open the box (IMPORTANT!! Open from top)

4- Open plastic packet within the box

5- Pour and fill the boll with the contents inside the box about ¾ of the way.

6- Put the box back away in the cupboard

7- Grab some milk from the fridge.

8- Twist the top of the lid off.

9- Pour the milk into the bowl about 50% of the way.

10- Twist the lid back on to the carton of milk and put it back in the fridge

11- Then grab a spoon from the cutlery draw.

12- Sit down with it at the table with a chair

13- Use the spoon to scoop the contents up and put it into you mouth

14- Pull the spoon out of your mouth keeping the rest in your mouth.

15- Then chew on it until its all broken down then swallow.

16- If bowl not finished repeat steps 13 to 15 until all contents of the bowl is empty in your stomach then stop.

If (have bowl) == true {

Variable(requirements)++1

}

If (have cereal) == true {

Variable(requirements)++1

}

If (have milk) == true {

Variable(requirements)++1

}

if (requirments) >=3 {

         Function (make bowl of breakfast) {

If requirements == false {

Print “You fail!”

If (have bowl of breakfast) == true {

Variable(requirements)++1

}

If (have spoon) == true {

Variable(requirements)++1

}

if (requirments) >=2 {

         Function (eat bowl of breakfast) {

If requirements == false {

Print “You fail!”

My thoughts on programming

I wouldn't say its confusing or hard to make a line of code, but it does take some understanding to make it work right.

This all counts for basic actions and there outcomes like to pick something up and notice its there or automatic action when in a certain distance. That is all fine until you want to make something very complicated like an automatically generating 3D environment can be very complicated to make.





GAME ENGINE RESEARCH

Project sparks
project sparks is a simplified game engine on xbox ONE and pc.

Its more of a game about making games as you can be given a world already made in a mode called crossroads and you just pick what happens in the game. like where the village is, what happens to make you go on a quest and where to it is and who you have to defeat.

There is two other modes you can pick. One is to have a blank surface to build a whole world from scratch or another where you choose a type of landscape and texture. Then you can go into the world and edit it and add to.
You have tools to add rivers, mountins, trolls, bridges, buildings etc
You are able to resize and turn objects with the ability  to glue them together to make one.
with all objects you are able to add a brain through scripts of koding that has been simplified from other forms from game engines (its kinda like Pseudo code), But if you don't want to do it yourself you can look at other creations and copy and paste scripts into your own world or use ones in the menus already made.

The interface is very similar to another game engine Kodu, a Microsoft game engine for indie games. Project sparks is made by a different company for Microsoft but they must of worked together for the most efficient lay out.

kodu

              Project Sparks

The game works as both 3D and 2D game engines but requires some koding to make it 2D. People have been able to remake Fable 1 a huge 3d open world to limbo and Tetris two different types of 2D games.  

project sparks is currently in Beta and I have been using it and I do like it. I have still got allot to learn before I make anything big, I have just been messing around with scripts and editing but theres still some problems and allot of the tools haven't been added yet.

i think its a great engine for a beginner who wants to get into this business to get a good feel of what it would be like but in a simplified way.

TWISTED GAMES - THEY MADE ME 3D GAME DEVELOPMENT

3D environment start menu

I made 2 different storyboards for the opening into the 3D start menu with some annotations of what should happen. I then gave these to matt to work on the3D model of the scene to then be given back to me to program the start buttons to go to the right scenes once clicked and animate the camera.
i left a area on the side of the boards so he can jot down some of his ideas and tweaks to the scene to make it even better.

With each of the storyboards i wanted there to be the hanging body swaying in the background in someway as its a big part of the games story.

I made 2 scenes in Unity to test out the script for the main menu links. One scene was the main menu screen where the links of the script were going.
One link to go to the next scene to start the game and a second link to quit the game and close it down.
The test is shown below and they both work, so i can later on develop it and add it to the 3D menu in the game.



I worked with matt and Scott Everett to design the 3d environment to put make into the 3D main menu.





PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT IN GAME ENGINES

AUTO GENERATED MAP - Minecraft style

So i was attempting to make a auto generated map like Minecreft, below is a clip of a early stage test of a auto generated map terrain.
sorry for poor quality.



I then developed more on the script to generate a bigger sized area for the generated terrain without random messy blocks popping up but keeping it at a nice shape.

I did more scripting at home to make it more of a larger terrain with a hill and a bit of flat land but i wasn't able to do a screen shot or record it as i had a script error shortly after.

I was also editing the script to make the the one generated area after generating to duplicate to an infinite size to load in while you travel and thats when an error happened and i got stuck.

Since then i have fixed the problem but have not been able to get the infinite duplication to work again.

Clash of Thrones

Concept

This is a quick sketch of ideas i had before detailing them on the second image where i showed the layout of the game.

Unit 61 Interactive media design

Nintendo board Clock 

It meets the rational of the brief as it uses recycled electronic parts to then design a product that is useful for the consumer.
With this designed product the parts and pieces can easily be replaced or fixed if broken without having to throw away the parts and if so will used recycled parts again keeping the circle going.
I don't know if it uses a battery or not but it could easily be redesigned to use one like most clocks do.
I like how its something that is so simple and not anything too complicated to make but uses the parts in a great way. I would maybe add a few interactive extras like a setting of an alarm to wake you up.

Portable charging station

This product doesn't meet the full rational of the brief  but it can be redesigned to do so.
It could be designed on the inside to use batteries to charge the devices or be plated with solar panels to charge the devices with batteries to store charge.


Bin Recycle Censor

So my idea is a box with a censor inside which can then be hooked onto the inside of a bin. Now when something is thrown into the bin it is noticed by the censor and it triggers off audio clip reminding the person to recycle.

I wanted to keep the design nice and simple, just a box what can hook onto the bin and the lid to be placed on top to keep it in place. Then all of the components on the inside like the on and off switch, battery compartment, arduino, speakers and the censor.
There would be cut open parts on the box for the censer to pop out to work and also another on at the top for the speaker.

The aim of this is to spread the awareness of recycling not only for what people would expect of cardboard, paper, plastic and cans but also E-Waste. As these can be set on pretty much the majority of bins everywhere outside or inside people would hear them quite often and with the mixed messages reminding to recycle various things it would slowly drum itself into peoples heads and they would just do it.

Equipment list

• 9v Battery
• 47K Resister
• Slide switch
• Speaker
• Motion detector
• Breadboard 

Design Research
There are many different types of bins out there with there own size and shape. Most bins though are round or square.
Taking this into thought i could make 2 different designs for each of the bins, making one design curved and the other just a box.

But the better way would be made one design to fit both shaped bins using a hinge to bend the box. Then larger versions could be made for bigger bins.

Something very useful that could be added to the design to link to the lids of bins that open. I was looking at break switches in alarmed doors. That could be great to only turn on the device when opened to be able to make the battery last longer.
This could also be built into bins to be sold as a whole as well as the device which could be useful for bins for the government to place around cities.

TEST CIRCUIT RECORDING

MY CIRCUIT

This is my drawn up circuit with the motion detector and the speaker.
I couldn't test this out on the software used above as it didn't have those two pieces of equipment.
that is why i drew it, so i researched the extra symbols to add in for the speaker/buzzer.
I couldn't find a symbol for a motion detector so i designed two symbols of my own to represent it.














PROTOTYPE

Legal and Ethical issues

I cant see there being any legal problems with this device other than if the was a contract for it to be built into government bins.

Ethically i think its great, The device can be made out of recyclable plastic  and the component inside can easily be accessed and replaced with recycled pieces. The device also saves battery with the breaker circuit and even when they go they can be replaced and recycled.
Even after all that the device reminds you to recycle every time you chuck something into the bin.

Unit 68

Research Doom to CoD (FPS)

Maze War was the first game to start of the FPS revolution in 1985 but Doom is always the game that pops into peoples heads when thinking back to the roots of the genre and where they first got the thrill of death-matches in a LAN party in a room with friends in 1993.

There have been more version of these games but never came quite up to match with its predecessor but its always the game that everyone looks at as the start of the biggest genre there is and other FPS to be inspired by.  

Since then the FPS genre has been dominating the gaming industry with many of the biggest gaming franchises spawning from it like Golden Eye, Counter Strike, TF2, QUAKE, Medal of Honor, Halo, battlefield and a HUGE amount more.

The biggest FPS in the genre in history is the Call Of  Duty franchise starting in 2003 and since then made 21 different titles on a mix of consoles and mobile devices. The franchise has even been awarded the Guinness world record for the best video game series ever.

There have been huge changes to the FPS genre over the time period of these two franchises, over time the Story's and worlds have become richer and the hardware of new consoles have made things possible that Doom could never achieve in its time, one of the biggest things being Xbox live making it possible to play and talk with people around the world for the first time without them needing to LAN together in the same room. 

Its not so much a run and gun game anymore but its become much more, its a whole world you can immerse in and enjoy with others around the world.

TWISTED GAMES

All of us in the group worked together to come up with the idea of the game and what the story was going to be. We went through multiple different versions with everyone throwing in different ideas and mixing everything together, which was then structured and refined by Tyron.

I did write the background story for the main character for the 10 page document. We all had a basic of what happened but never when to detail in the main story write up, that the farther was abusive and killed the mother but that was all and i just expanded on that keeping tabs with Tyron to see if he liked how it was within the story.

Background:

He grew up with his older brother and sister. At a very young age there farther was a very abusive alcoholic drug addict and he used to come home after a night and beat them, especially the mum when she tried to protect the kids.

One day he came back and went too far and killed the mom by beating her bad and knocking her off her smashing her head into the corner of a side, the older brother went for the dad swinging at him while the sister ran to the kitchen and grabbed a knife and ran back to the brawl.

She shoves the knife into the fathers back and he falls to the floor, she pulls it back out and stares in horror then looks up at the older brother who is staring at the knife. He demands the knife from her and she looks at him confused of why. Then he walked over and took it from her hands and walked back over in front of the farther and looked at him straight in the eyes, staring at him with pure hatred. He enjoyed for a minute watching the pain her was in then grabbed the farther by the hair and smiles right at him just before lunging the knife into his stomach over and over laughing and enjoying the moment he gives the pain back the one who did so much to them.

The youngest was just at the side watching all this in horror; too young to do anything about the scene that just happened in front of him that will scar him for life.

The three of them kept quite of exactly what happened between the older brother and the dad and mad it sound like it was under self-protection. After this they were put into care and every home they were put into and being pulled apart in some cases they never quite fit in and was always put back into care. When the brother was older enough he became the guardian of the other two and moved back into the house that was left to them.

In the group i was in charge of the character development concept art and there information sheets.

This concept drawing is of the older brother Erin Blakely. I was inspired by a character Draven showed me of Daniel from amnesia, i liked the way his hair was long, dirty and messy and how his skin looked pale as if dead and i wanted to interpret that into my character.

I also did an information sheet for him.

This is the main character who we have given no name or face as it is a first person game and we really wanted to make it feel like you are the character and that all this happening to you to help the player immerse and feel more within the story.

i wanted to keep a similar structure of the older brother head though to be as there related but gave him medium length messy hair.

Kyle worked on making a 3D interpreted model of this character from the drawing i did above.

Kyle's 3D model

Here is the information sheet i did for this character for the 10 pager document.

We had this idea that the player had to find items of past victims, something that was personal item. This was in the mind of that if he found them and link them with what he did he could in someway find redemption and i drew a few ideas below.

I also helped design the logo for Twisted Games with a few sketched ideas. The below one then inspired Tyron to make a final logo with that style of type.

For the 10 pager document i also worked on the character controls which we all decided to do for PC.

Game Pitch - They made me





Concept pitch feedback

1


•Nice logo at the beginning
•Good intro.
•Nice concept, nice voiceover and people working combination.
•Video at end is slow to start but has impact, maybe need to think about using it more effectively
to get same / more impact.

1, Is the concept viable and deliverable (in its 
current form?)

Good concept, I don’t know how feasible, but could be

2,Would you ever consider backing the idea 
financially? whether this be via crowd funding or 
individual investment.

Maybe via kickstarter.

3,How professional the pitch is compared to 
pitches you may have seen as part of your role?
It would be good if you could comment on 
presentation, delivery and technical approach to the 
presentation.

Yes fairly good for the resources available.

4,Please comment on whether you feel the concept 
also has potential for starting a crowd funding
campaign.

Yes it does.





2



1, Is the concept viable and deliverable (in its 
current form?)

Another brutal and disturbing story. One that I think would struggle to get a PEGI rating. I like the
idea that the environment is somehow the characters mind

2,Would you ever consider backing the idea 
financially? whether this be via crowd funding or 
individual investment.

I would not back it in its current form, as the story is too dark and disturbing


3,How professional the pitch is compared to 
pitches you may have seen as part of your role?
It would be good if you could comment on 
presentation, delivery and technical approach to the 
presentation.

The pitch was clear and the video good. It would need more visual concept drawings.

4,Please comment on whether you feel the concept 
also has potential for starting a crowd funding
campaign.

It has potential to be a crowd sourcing campaign,
as it will connect with a large audience who like

dark subjects.




3


1, Is the concept viable and deliverable (in its 
current form?)

It’s a bold concept and I think it has definite curiosity value.

2,Would you ever consider backing the idea 
financially? whether this be via crowd funding or 
individual investment.

I think with the info provided it felt more like an interactive art concept than an actual game,
so a little more explanation of gameplay features would be cool.

3,How professional the pitch is compared to 
pitches you may have seen as part of your role?
It would be good if you could comment on 
presentation, delivery and technical approach to the 
presentation.


The pitch was good, and they detailed some very nice ideas – the house changing to reflect
the mood stands out as a great feature, just need to make sure the gameplay isn’t lost under the weight

of the concept.

4,Please comment on whether you feel the concept 
also has potential for starting a crowd funding
campaign.

I definitely feel it has potential. A little more concept art and design detailing would be

good.