DD710 Development Practice Module - Week 4 - Research
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This week started off with a winding back into some time management which as we know, is a constant thing to consider in any area of development and every day life. The core focus of this week is taking the covered topics from the previous weeks of Creativity and Rapid Ideation, by testing our time and project management skills, through a 2 week period of Rapid Ideation/Game Jam. Myself and other students would be attending our regular study pod sessions over a Webinar where the theme of the Rapid Ideation shall be revealed.
At this point, I was barely managing to keep up with the first three weeks as it took more time than anticipated to understand the topics in detail, as well as the challenge activities that followed. I ensured myself that I would be mentally prepared for the upcoming theme as I want to be better in certain areas of game development, as I have constantly mentioned in previous blogs. One being the ability to program in C# without a sense of scare or hesitation so that I can write a script knowing how the practical side of it works instead of theoretical. It all depends on the choice of theme and requirements to achieve that themes goal.
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Rapid Ideation Theme
"A picture is worth a thousand words." - (Albert Einstein)
Figure 1: Albert Einstein Image (Steven Gimbel, 2015)
When the mid--week webinar came around, we were all excited and scared at the same time as this was the biggest challenge ahead so far in the module. I was eager to get started even before the theme was revealed which put me in a strong position to proceed once released. The theme was broached to us by our host lecturer presenting a video of someone shuffling a collection of artistic cards which come from a greek card game calld Dixit. Dixit is all about surrounding your imagination through enchantment .
You have a selection of 84 illustrations on large cards which allows you to interpret your own story. A storyteller selects one card from a handful and proposes an accurate theme. This then encourages other players to base that theme on an inspiration. Each card is then shuffled and revealed. Players need to find the storytellers card. To score points, the theme must not be too simple or complex (Jean-Louis Roubira, 2008). When the video of hand shuffling came to a close, the random card was chosen and shown to us. Below is an illustration of the chosen Dixit card.
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Figure 2: Chosen Dixit Card (Dixit, 2021)
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The card shown above gave me alot of inspiration in which direction to head towards. At one point I had mixed emotions as there are multiple ways on how to interpret this specific card. The goal here is to develop something based on the content of this card in any way we like. Additional support was given to those who may struggle with breaking down an idea from the card like adding a news article which could either be related to the card, or as an independent source. Seeing this card instantly made me consider how there is a two-sided story being told here. I tend to lean towards bizarre and surreal ideas when it comes to themes, due to my creative nature following a negative impact which I find to be the strongest type of ideas. I sense alot of mixed emotion taking place on this card which in my eyes, will be very beneficial to analyse and carry out as a potential project.
Even though we had a duration of 2 weeks to complete this Rapid Ideation, my other life commitments with work and home prevented me from contributing enough time to my project which only left me with 2 whole days to carry out a fully working game. | was constantly thinking about what I wanted to create out of this card while working as it was the one thing crushing my mind, not having the ability to just drop everything and delegate my time towards a suitable amount of work and effort. I spoke to alot of my peers who were in a similar situation over a Discord meetup. This put my mind abit more at ease since I was able to express my thoughts on where my idea was heading even before I attempted some practical work. They reassured me that my idea was strong enough, which gave me a better perspective over the remainder 2 days I had to complete my project.
Since I had already done alot of mental planning, I split the days into 2 milestones. Milestone 1 would consist of analysis and design, where milestone 2 would be implementing and testing the final product. I generated alot of additional ideas when analysing the card through a range of Rapid Ideation techniques from mindmapping, moodboarding to brainstorming which fleshed out more of my innovative thinking to exploit the chosen theme even further. The information I obtained through these techniques would determine what type of game I wanted to make, as well as considering the scope and time I had to make that chosen game. There was always the same question appearing back and forth which was "Is there one story being told or two?" which got me thinking about a transition between the lady and her silhouette on the wall like a mirror. This is where I analysed further through the chosen techniques. Below are my illustrations of the chosen Rapid Ideation techniques.
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Mindmap
Figure 3: Rapid Ideation Mindmap (Kyle Cornwell, 2021)
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Brainstorming
Figure 4: Rapid Ideation Brainstorming (Kyle Cornwell, 2021)
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Moodboard
Figure 5: Rapid Ideation Moodboard (Kyle Cornwell, 2021)
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From this mixture of techniques, it allowed me to sum up what I was trying to breakdown into an idea from the chosen card. This came to be a potential game where there is a two-sided story where one is reality and the other, an imagination. The split between the struggling pregnant lady and the perfect version of her silhouette tells another side of life that is not clearly to others, or herself. I was constantly labelling about the concept and value of memory in how it can be interpreted like a mirror. You may see one version as the all-seeing perfection in life, whereas looking deeper in the background lies a hidden deception. In such a weird way, I had a flash back with this particular theme due to its relevance of looking back at ones self from what I had analysed. This made me think back to my second year at Solent where I proposed a game for Game Business and Production Management called "Nocturnia".
This was a visual based novel about loss and recovering memories between a daytime and nightime period. Sounds familiar with the two sided scenario I am depicting from the chosen theme? An idea was starting to come together, only to decide the best course of action for content and mechanics. I only had a day and bit left until the Rapid Ideation deadline at this point, which made me consider about how I wanted to push my capabilities in programming. This lead me to the decision on making a text-based story game using a console application written in C#. it was ideal due to the amount of pressure and time I had left, as well as the generic idea in making a retro-like text game that gives a selection of choices when certain input methods are entered, that will take the player to different endings as they reflect upon themselves.
Now knowing what I want to accomplish with this idea, I decided to enter a design phase and draw up a range of wireframe mockups to portray how the text-based games appearence and functionality would look. I went through 3 stages to ensure I was on the right track as this would be a non-grapical interface with text appearing within a console application. Below is a few illustrations of my Rapid Ideation mockups.
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Mockups 1
Figure 6: Rapid Ideation Mockups 1 (Kyle Cornwell, 2021)
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Mockups 2
Figure 7: Rapid Ideation Mockups 2 (Kyle Cornwell, 2021)
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Mockups 3
Figure 8: Rapid Ideation Mockups 3 (Kyle Cornwell, 2021)
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As you can see from the mockups above, it is a simple design structure for the text-based game since the majority of output will be printed command line text. This makes it readable and user friendly when inputting answers to questions. I will need to consider a counteract method if an answer is inputted incorrectly, but continue the relevance of the game and loop it back to that incorrect input. I have mixed feelings about this approach for the game as it has been a while since I attempted any sole programming without using a built-in game engine to function with. My last experience with using a solo C language was developing a text-based monster arena game using C++ during my first year of university. If the functions and methods are similar using C#, then I will feel less pressure when attempting to program this text-based project. The scope is manageable with the remainder of time left.
I must ensure I include a standard amount of content enough to feel like a story is being told, as well as uncovered. I am glad that I switched programs for scripting as I was originally using VS Code, which is similar to VS Community only more code-based. I would have had some complications not being able to execute a console application, without it being integrated in VS Code that does not appeal to my project criteria. It was certainly going to be a challenge programming this game, but at the same time I was excited since its been a build up starting from scratch and finally attempting to follow my rough off the back idea through. Regardless on the outcome of the game, I will still be happy with what I have accomplished so far in terms of knowledge and contribution within such a short window of time. The final push eventually paid off when completing my text-based game to a playable state. Below is a video of my text-based creation titled "Reflection".
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Reflection
Figure 9: Reflection (Kyle Cornwell, 2021)
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Personal Thoughts on Reflection
Considering that I had 1 day out of the whole 2 week period to complete my game. I would say it was a standard, but triumphant success. I did not believe for a second that I was going to produce such a simple little story that has 5 areas of questioning your own existence and reflecting upon yourself in a way you think twice when looking in a mirror. At first, I felt misguided since i was out of experience with using C# solo without an interface to display functionality. Once I got use to the console methods such as "ReadLine" and "WriteLine, the majority of the code became clearer as I was mainly inputting dialogue that would print out as if a computer was asking you questions. Admittingly, it was a challenge coming up with the story side of the game as I just barely scraped getting the mechanics to work. Because this whole application was text-based, I wanted to give it some style using ASCII font designs to resemble an 80s retro feel when running the application. This was made possible using a text to ASCII art generator (patorjk, 2007) where I selected a font suitable for the main title. Below is an illustration of the Reflection title in C#.
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Figure 10: Reflection Title in C# (Kyle Cornwell, 2021)
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Initially I wanted to have a two-sided ending with the game as it would question which side of the mirror you are once you have finished reflecting. I did overall end up with two outcomes, only the way it is programmed is by certain choices and you would have to restart the game to attempt the correct ending. This does create some confusion but at the same time, misleads players down the wrong path that may be the right one. That is where the deceptive side of Reflection comes in. I was very happy with how the choices themselves worked out. This was made possible by following a Youtube tutorial similar to what I ended up with, but explained through the various functions within C# that can assist in question making. there were three different functions I used. A Switch statement, an If statement and a While Loop.
Switch statements are a multi-branch system that provides an efficient way to transfer and execute areas of code based on the value of the expression. The expressions themselves are matched through each statement made and are executed if matched like inputting the correct data (GeeksforGeeks, 2020). If statements are based on boolean conditions between a single or multiple line of code blocks to be executed. They run on a true or false scenario and will execute depending how a function is written (TutorialsTeacher, 2020). While loops on the other hand, are a continuous and recursive execution within a block of statements until a specific expression equates to a false value. The expression is then evaluated each time the loop occurs and if the value results ends up true, the loop block will execute. Below are a few illustrations of the mentioned functions | used for my program my choices (Net-informations, 2021).
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Switch Statement
Figure 11: Reflection Switch Statement (Kyle Cornwell, 2021)
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IF Statement
Figure 12: Reflection If Statement (Kyle Cornwell, 2021)
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While Loop
Figure 13: Reflection While Loop (Kyle Cornwell, 2021)
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There is alot to take away from this Rapid Ideation. Better allocation to time being one of them. Not to say I did my fair amount of work to still develop something innovative, but to give myself more benefit in applying time, as well as project management even if I am restricted to such small scheduling. I am very content with how Reflection turned out, especially with the whole rush up to the deadline. I had just enough time to implement some sounds as well as a slow print text function. Due to console application limitations on sound input, I added a chip tune that plays at the end of each scenario like when an old television goes onto standby. It was better than just the application itself closing in silence. I believe this to be a small victory towards greater beginnings in this course knowing that if i literally play my cards right, I will accomplish thel long term goals I have set for myself. I look forward to the next Rapid Ideation in the next couple of weeks to see what else I can conjure up, but in an improved and timely approach.
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References:
Jean-Louis Roubira, 2008, Dixit. [Online] Available at: https://www.libellud.com/dixit/?lang=en [Last Accessed 20/08/2021]
Kyle Cornwell, 2019, Nocturnia. [Online] Available at: https://www.kylecornwell.com/nocturnia [Last Accessed 20/08/2021]
Kyle Cornwell, 2021, Reflection. [Online] Available at: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1mq7zXahPt5vYm_Zwmhbk3gruRn9iRXV2/view [Last Accessed 20/08/2021]
patorjk, 2007, Text to ACSII Art Generator. [Online] Available at: http://patorjk.com/software/taag/#p=display&f=Graffiti&t=Type%20Something%20 [Last Accessed 20/08/2021]
MrStormUMA, 2017. C# Text Adventure Game. [Last Viewed 20/08/2021] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3foH7ZfC-Hk&t=8s
GeeksforGeeks, 2020. Switch Statement in C#. [Online] Available at: https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/switch-statement-in-c-sharp/ [Last Accessed 20/08/2021]
TutorialsTeacher, 2020. C# - if, else if, else Statements. [Online] Available at: https://www.tutorialsteacher.com/csharp/csharp-if-else [Last Accessed 20/08/2021]
Net-Informations, 2021. How to use C# while loop. [Online] Available at: http://csharp.net-informations.com/statements/csharp-while-loop.htm [Last Accessed 20/08/2021]
Kyle Cornwell, 2021. Rapid Ideation Moodboard Image Links. [Online] Available at: https://docs.google.com/document/d/14izmO7XUGohKzpqxhH4vUVnK1EOI6voN/edit?usp=sharing&ouid=101194890834228832035&rtpof=true&sd=true [Last Accessed 20/08/2021]
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