GDO750 Major Project - Week 2 - Planning
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This week consisted discussing the project plan for its purpose, as well as development. The project proposal notes from the week before, assisted in laying out the foundations with regards to the overall concept and purpose of the game. To breakdown the idea further, I had my first supervisor meeting review and discuss where my idea stands for a final major project. I found this meeting very useful to get my overall thoughts around the artefact I wanted to create. From this meeting, I had also been tasked with some objectives to consider the project's ideal scope, as well as defintion through a research question to surround the purpose of the artefact. This would be followed up by some relevant research provided by the supervisor to conduct and start piecing together the projects long-term goals.
It was interesting to see the similiarity in a game title compared to mine, using the concept of playability, traversing between two worlds with no dialogue or story to capture the atmosphere that lies within (Julie Muncy, 2018). This made gave me a boost in terms of direction that I wanted to potentially take the project. The provided and intial research made me lean towards an artefact relevant to psychological impacts, through a player/character relationship. This will be interesting to see where the research takes me and hopefully lead towards a research question during my findings. Below you can find some relevant research provided from my meeting.
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Figure 1: Yume Nukki, 2004. Kikiyama. [Online]
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Figure 2: Demo_Disc_2020, 2021. HautedPs1. [Online] https://hauntedps1.itch.io/demodisc2021
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Aside from the research side, I finally setup my project scheduling for workflow, as well as choice of version control. for workflow, I established a project board using the online tool of Hacknplan to monitor my progress and track my weekly tasks as the the development goes on. This all ties in with my personal logbook, weekly blogs and development videos. I have combined the project tracking in to a structure using familiar development methodolgies such as waterfall and agile.
There is a hybrid methodology known as the incremental method that I have used in my previous final major project during my undergraduate study. This method adopts the milestones of waterfall methodology and the sprint structure of the agile methodology. I aim to use 5 stages as sprint milestones which each consist of 6 weeks for each sprint. This enables me to carry incompleted tasks into the followinf week of development, provided I maintain the level of contribution to manage the workload.
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Figure 3: Hacknplan Workflow Setup (Kyle Cornwell, 2022)
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For version control, I setup a repository using Github to ensure the project's security, storing and tracking. This will allow me to add updated developments to the project using the program Github Desktop and commit any progress that I make. This is also very useful if I encounter any issues regarding the project itself that I can revert back to previous versions as a resolve. I followed a useful tutorial that ties in with adding project files to the repository (Brackeys, 2017). My preference of game engine will be using Unity 3D as I find my skillset to be proficient enough to use as my main program to develop with.
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Figure 3: Github Repository Setup (Kyle Cornwell, 2022)
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To visualise the project over the next 6 months. I designed a draft of my project development timeline which highlights key stages that take place as the game progresses. Bearing in mind this was a very broad example since after the discussion with my supervisor, the type of game I want to make may not benefit such a heavy schedule until the scope and definition has been identified.
I aim to amend the timeline to a more accurate design once the artefact has been finalised. That covers the status of the project for this week. Please check out my development video that for further discussion in my choice of tools and outlining the development timeline. See you all next week!
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Figure 4: Condemned: Souls of the Veil Devlog 2 - Workflow & Version Control (Kyle Cornwell, 2022)
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References:
Julie Muncy, 2018. The Mysterious Japanese Game That Took 14 Years To Officially Come Out. [Online] Available at: https://www.wired.com/story/yume-nikki-japanese-game-that-took-14-years-to-officially-come-out/ [Last Accessed 18/10/2022]
Yume Nikki, 2004. Kikiyama. [Online] Available at: https://store.steampowered.com/app/650700/Yume_Nikki/ [Last Accessed 18/10/2022]
Demo_Disc_2020. 2021. HauntedPS1. [Online] Available at: https://hauntedps1.itch.io/demodisc2021 [Last Accessed 18/10/2022]
Bernard Perron, 2018. The World of Scary Video Games: A Study in Videoludic Horror (Approaches to Digital Game Studies). [Online] Available at: https://www.amazon.co.uk/World-Scary-Approaches-Digital-Studies/dp/1501316206 [Last Accessed 18/10/2022]
Bernard Perron, 2019. Horror Video Games: Essays on the Fusion of Fear and Play. [Online] Available at: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Horror-Video-Games-Essays-Fusion/dp/0786441976 [Last Accessed 18/10/2022]
Katherine Isbister, 2017. How Games Move Us: Emotion by Design. [Online] Available at: https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262534451/how-games-move-us/ [Last Accessed 18/10/2022]
Brackeys, 2017. How to use GitHub with Unity [last viewed 18/10/2022] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qpXxcvS-g3g
Elizabeth Henges, 2018. Why RPGMaker Title ‘Yume Nikki’ Terrifies Me More Than Any Modern Horror Game. [Online] Availabe at: https://bloody-disgusting.com/editorials/3524561/rpgmaker-title-terrifies-modern-horror-game/ [Last Accessed 18/10/2022]
Momoka Truong, 2018. Review: Yume Nikki: Dream Diary. [Online] Available at: https://www.relyonhorror.com/reviews/review-yume-nikki-dream-diary/ [Last Accessed 18/10/2022]
Kyle Cornwell, 2022. Condemned: Souls of the Veil Devlog 2 - Workflow & Version Control [last viewed 18/10/2022] Available at: https://youtu.be/ZcnUkDk0BRw
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