The GAD Pathway I want to start off by saying, in the end, I loved the Game Art and Design pathway. There were rough patches where this class stressed me out more than anything in my life and I almost wished I had dropped it, but there were also beautiful moments of collaboration and self-improvement. I would not be where I am today as a digital artist, have any experience coding, or probably even know what I want to do with my life if it wasn’t for this class. That being said, I honestly have no idea how this class has prepared me for the industry, and I don’t think I will know until I get into the industry. I wouldn’t be surprised if it was great preparation, but I also wouldn’t be surprised if I was blindsided by a lot of things in a real life game design career, whether that’s volume of work, how work is actually split up, or whatever. Obviously, it’s very difficult in a classroom setting to prepare students for the real world, especially one as hectic as the game design industry, so any preparation is better than where I started with zero idea of what the game industry was like at all and with no experience in any similar scenarios. I definitely do have a better picture of what a career in the industry might look like (even if that picture is still a little blurry) and a much better idea of how interdisciplinary the whole process is, and why it’s good to be a bit of a jack of all trades in terms of the skills that you can bring to the table, even if you play a very specialized role. However, I think it would be beneficial to hear more from young game designers just getting into the industry about what they were surprised by after going into the industry after school, that sort of thing would help me understand the industry a bit better (we did have some guests, but they talked more about what life is like once you’re in the industry, not the transition from learning to working). In terms of skills though, this class has been incredibly helpful for me. I was amazed looking back through old work at just how many skills we learned in just the first year (photoshop, 3D modeling and texturing, making a board game, it’s a lot!) and how much we’ve improved since then. I learned a lot about principles of design through the infographics (even if they did feel very tedious after a while,) got better at drawing from 2D art assignments (especially the one over spring break where we had to follow traditional drawing tutorials in our sketch book in GAD), learned so much in 3Ds Max, and got my first real coding experience in Unity. There were also smaller skills like audio and video editing which I had had some experience with, but they were definitely skills that these classes helped me hone. Then there were also some more abstract skills, like how to manage my time, how to work on a team, how to not stress out over an assignment to the point where I am cursing under my breath for the whole class because I am so worried about failing this photoshop test where we have to recreate an image and I haven’t learned any of the keyboard shortcuts yet and how the heck do you make a star with the shape tool!? (Yeah, 9th grade Abi did not know how to deal with anxiety…) All jokes aside though, these more abstract skills are just as important as the concrete ones. I’ve been able to complete a lot of bigger personal projects because of my newfound organizational skills and planning abilities. I wouldn’t say any of the skills that I learned have been unhelpful or a waste of my time (except for how to use Chronozoom, RIP). However, one thing that I really did not like was a lot of the reading that we had to do for this class (I’m talking random articles and The Art of Game Design). I feel like a lot of it was irrelevant to our work in class, and just tedious, and didn’t deliver the information well. Yes, it’s important to know about target audiences, but it was so much more effective to teach about that when we pitched our game ideas, as we can see through experience and learn. I know that Mr. B does not like lectures, but I find a lecture from a fun teacher much more engaging than a book or article. Now, there can be fun articles, and some of the ones that we read were really cool, but overall, I just didn’t get a lot out of the reading material for this course. In the same vein, I feel like doing research into careers in the earlier years of this course wasn’t the best for me personally. I feel like if this lesson had come later, I may have had a clearer idea of what I wanted to do and could have focused in a bit more. However, I do really appreciate the idea of trying to show kids that there are lots of opportunities, so maybe I just would have wanted to revisit the subject in a mini-lesson in later years, but still keep the majority of the lesson early on in the GAD pathway. Luckily, one of the cool things about this class being on computers is that if you want more knowledge on a subject, google is your best friend and will help you learn more about anything. For this reason, I don’t really feel like there were any topics I needed to spend more time on in class because I could always google something if I didn’t understand, wanted it delivered to me in a different medium, or was just curious about learning more. I just hope that most kids are resourceful enough to do so when they want to learn more, otherwise, I’d say more time needs to be spent on understanding coding, because that took me some time and resources to figure out. Advanced Studies Our project this year was creating a 3D model of our school and creating a virtual reality non-violent horror game with the model of the school as the map. I modeled and textured some objects and simplified models so that the game would not be too laggy. It was definitely a struggle sometimes. We had a lot of issues with file format, transferring files, and programs updating so files didn’t work anymore. This was solved through the use of a flash drive, redoing work, and communicating about what files formats would probably work best, as well as just through some trial and error. I personally had some issues in trying to figure out how to work efficiently (not deleting unnecessary vertices one by one) without losing the quality of the original model (the automated vertex merger would sometimes make things look a little funky). Overall, I solved this by using a combination of the two methods, and I feel like, for the most part, I was able to effectively simplify the models without overly distorting them.
The thing I am most proud of with this project is just the amount that we were able to get done. We had a functioning game (for the most part) and a whole building of the school modeled (for the most part). While we had had some big dreams in the beginning and would have ideally liked to accomplish more, for 4 high school kids we did a pretty great job getting done as much work as we did and bringing 4 different people’s work altogether in one game. This project taught me a lot about time management, working on a team, and how to not be a complete perfectionist and still be proud of my work. In terms of technical skills, I got much more familiar with Trello, and learned some new 3D modelling tricks. I think in anything I do in a group setting now, I will be able to communicate with others a lot better. I feel like I have improved at knowing how to praise and respect other people’s work while still being able to address any flaws that need to be addressed, and how to ask people to get things done by a deadline. As for the perfectionist part, our game was not perfect whatsoever, and past me would have been incredibly bothered, but current me couldn’t be happier with our game. It was never supposed to be perfect and never will be, games, and experiences in general, rarely are. They’re always works in progresses, or pieces of art with something that could be improved, and this project has helped me not only accept, but appreciate that. I didn’t learn as much about my independent work this year (though I have from all other years of GAD) but in a way, I did learn how I function as an individual in a group, and how that has changed from the last group project we had in AGAD at the beginning to the year. I do feel much more confident working either independently or in a group now though, I feel like my work is useful and like I can actually produce amazing things. My biggest takeaway from CTE Advanced Studies personally is just that I, with a group of people can do things. This may sounds like a lame take away, but it’s really not for me. This year really proved to me that I have what it takes to accomplish things, maybe not on my own, but I can certainly contribute to big projects in meaningful ways. Before this year, all of the assignments in my Game Art Design classes had been things I HAD to do. If they didn’t get done, I would have a bad grade, and they were all set out by Mr. B, he expected us to be able to do them. This project was different. Yes, I would have a bad grade if it failed, but it was no longer an assignment that I HAD to do. It was a project that my group WANTED to do. There was no expectation other than that we go for it. It’s no longer “complete these parameters,” it’s “what could we do?” The lack of a “read the rubric,” was incredibly freeing for me and created a space about just experimenting and going for it, and trying to make the most awesome game that we could, and we did it, we really made something that I am genuinely proud of, that I had had no idea whether or not we could realistically create and we did it. I was part of that. We are capable of doing things, not because they are expected of us or because we have to, but just because we have the ability, the willpower, and the passion to do things. I know that’s really cheesy, and sort of rambly, and pretty abstract, but I really am glad for this first opportunity to work in a creative space with others to do something big. It’s what I want to do for the rest of my life, and now I feel like that’s possible for me.
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This is it. The end of the year. Time to say goodbye to high school. So I'm not sure that I have time to really get into the sappy stuff properly in this post, so instead, I'm just gonna talk about my main takeaways from this class.
1. Anxiety Ok, yeah, this one is a little unfair, because I definitely had anxiety before this class, but let's just say, those photoshop and illustrator quizzes in 9th grade? They taught me what real panic is. But what I really mean by this is that this class has shown me a new kind of anxiety that I'm going to be very familiar with assuming my career goes as planned: anxiety over meeting deadlines of creative projects. And for this, I'm really grateful, because if I hadn't experienced it for the past four years, it would hit me like a ton of bricks in college. Also, providing these stressful situations has allowed me to see my improved anxiety management as I've gotten progressively more on top of projects and less worried about perfection. GAD has honestly been one of maybe three major things in my life that have helped me with anxiety. 2. Mad Skillz When I started out in GAD, I had used blender in a summer camp, but I had never touched ANY sort of programming (other than maybe one day of code class,) any of the programs we use like 3DsMax and Photoshop, or even really thought about what it truly takes to make a game. To have gone from essentially nothing to working in VR in 4 years (especially those years being highschool) honestly is a little wild to me. I don't really think of myself as very skilled since I still have so much to learn, but actually I have developed so many skills in this class that i may not have even tried to learn if not for GAD. Not all of them are skills I will definitely use, but the majority are, and most of the rest are ones I would love to continue using, even just as a hobby. I like being able to make digital art, 3D model, sound design, edit my own videos, manage my projects, and program things, and because of GAD, I can, at some level, do all of these things, and I know where to find other resources online to learn more. 3. Friendship This one is a bit sarcastic but also in another sense very genuine. I don't know if we, the advanced studies kids, will actually stay in touch after high school, but I can say it was really great to work on a team, and it taught me a lot about working with other to create collaboratively. So, it's sarcastic in the sense that, I may or may not take my current friendships with me, but I will take the people skills that I've learned here with me, and that will help me both in professional settings and casual ones. I started out high school being very quiet, not really fully believing that anyone would want to be my friend, and GAD in part has helped me in being a space where I can belong as part of the team, which does wonders for a kid's self esteem. I feel much more confident presenting my ideas to others and knowing that what I'm saying is worth others hearing, and that didn't come from teacher praise, it really came from the unique environment that GAD creates in having such a tight knit community of peers who are, for the most part, incredibly supportive. Overall, I'll glad I was in the Game Art and Design pathway. I had my regrets in the middle for sure, but getting to create on a team this year has been so gratifying, and I really think the class has dramatically changed me as a person and helped me figure out what I want to do with my life. If you made it this far, thanks, Mr. B. I've been playing Dungeons & Dragons for almost 5 years now, a few times as a player, but recently only as a Dungeon Master. Since 8th grade when I started playing, it's always been a big part of my life, from being the way I connected with my friends outside of school, to the being the club I go to every other Tuesday, to being a key component in a podcast that means the world to me, to again connecting me with friends. It's helped me develop closer relationships with people, improved my improvising and leadership skills, and has just been really fun. It's also very closely related to game design since it is a game where you get to do a lot of the designing, so I'm going to talk about some things that I've learned from the game. This is the first post, but I hope to make more.
This first lesson is "Who's Playing?" or in other words: Audience is EVERYTHING. Ok so this one might be because I'm a weak little man without a backbone (aka a doormat, a pushover, what have you) but truly, the players that you have can really change the game. A stricter DM may not experience this at all if they try not to be flexible to fit their players needs, but I certainly try (maybe too hard) to be accommodating to the players and the story that they want, so my games do change depending on who is playing them. I especially have been able to see this through running the same (or a similar) campaign twice with two different groups: one composed of my close friends, and the other at tabletop club. My group of close friends are much less combat-oriented than the tabletop group (possibly because they know that I hate running combat) and are more likely to explore and investigate, and MUCH more likely to talk at length with NPCs to ask about what's going on. At tabletop club, intimidation is the name of the game with NPCs, who are often ignored, and no questions are asked as they rush into potentially dangerous areas. This past Tuesday at tabletop was the smoothest combat that I've ever run, and that's because these players are really into it. All (except maybe one) were constantly paying attention to what was going on, and so it moved very quickly. Usually, combat drags on forever and doesn't feel so consequential, but here, they were using high level spells to stay alive, and while some of this can be attributed to me improving as a DM, I also really believe that it's because of who my players were. It's a little bit like how if you throw someone who is bad a videogames into a racing game, they're not going to be able to go very fast - similarly, my friends, who are catching up after being months apart, aren't very good at focusing in on combat. In contrast, the tabletop kids are like pro racers, they have more knowledge of the Official D&D rules than I do, so once their turn rolls around, I don't even have to tell them that it's their turn: they already have their entire move planned and ready to go without any prompting from me. This leads to very different combat scenarios, the first feeling tedious, and the second being a core component of gameplay. I'm not trying to say that the tabletop group's way of playing is better though, I actually typically prefer the way my friends play, as is outlined by the tavern scene. I had set up a tavern with 6 different NPCs who would supply different plot threads so that the players could have a bit of choice in what kind of game they wanted to play (I would develop the overarching storyline based on who they chose to do a quest for). With the tabletop group, after talking to the first guy, they rushed to get a horse and carriage and got outta there! (they went to complete his quest). My group of friends however talked to 4 of the NPCs (we ran out of time in the session to talk to more) and they had a nice scene where they deliberated which quest to follow. It allowed for some good character development, and set them on a path to a quest that they were all interested in. There's nothing wrong with impulsively rushing in, but I personally appreciate careful deliberation as well. Overall, I'm trying to say players choose which direction the story is heading, but also affect the energy of each encounter as well. There's no style of play that is inherently bad, but there may be a style of play that's a better fit for the game you are creating, so you need to take into account who is going to be playing, how they play, and if you can work with that. It's exactly the same with all game designing. If you want to make an FPS, your players are probably not going to appreciate long, unskippable cutscenes, unless you are specifically advertising to an audience that likes both FPS and narrative heavy games. Knowing what kind of game you run, and who your target audience is can really help solidify what challenges and features you create for the game you are making. Trello is a free program that lets you plan projects out. While it is not something we've ever really gone over in class, it is a tool that Mr. B highly recommends and that I've used for two different projects in the past and will be using for this upcoming year as we create a VR model of our school. I wanted to talk about some of the things I really like about it, and some things I struggle with.
I have earned the title "Queen of Organization" simply for being able to press a few buttons. Literally. The program is incredibly easy to use, I just happened to be the one who put the time in to use it, and for that, I became "the organized one". You make a board for your project and then you can make multiple lists of different things within that board. Each list has cards which can hold information, checklists of things to do, pictures, and more, and you can put due dates on each card. This is my first qualm with trello. Each card can hold an entire checklist, but yet, you can only put one due date per card instead of being able to put a due date on each item in the checklist. Usually this isn't a problem, but if you have a team who is really bad with time management it would be really useful to give more specific due dates for little steps. The best alternative to the checklists would be to make each item on the checklist its own card, and use the sticker feature to put a sticker on each card when it's done. That way, they can each have a due date and still get checked off. The other thing that I wish Trello had was an easier way to share files through it. It is a free program so this may be a lot to be expecting from it, or maybe I just haven't found how to do this yet, but every time I've used Trello I've also had to have a Google Drive folder set up for us to share assets. The nice thing about this is that the link to this folder can be in a card on the Trello so that it's easy to find, but it still would be easier to have everything in the same program. Another feature that I think would be nice is a "calendar view" type thing. If you have multiple lists, it would be easy to miss things. With a calendar view it would be much easier to see which due dates are the closest, and then go to that card. I could always set up a separate calendar, but again for the sake of convenience, it would be nice if it was in the same program and just automatically set up. Overall, I think I would recommend Trello to others though, because for a free program, it is very good, and I don't know of any better free tools (though I may start looking into some other ones just to see). It has been very important in past projects, especially for our Durham game, in keeping everything organized and making sure we were getting things done in time and not overlooking any necessary components of the game. Working with audio and video - while it does share many similarities in principles - may seem a step away from game design, until you consider game trailers. Advertizing games, especially in today's world, is incredibly important, and a fairly effective way to do so is by creating a trailer. The Mario Odyssey trailer released by Nintendo at E3 has over 22 million views, with the "music video" they made as promotional material coming in at 14 million. Of course, Nintendo isn't a gauge of how effective this form of marketing is for the average game maker, but anyone can post on Youtube for free, and even if only 20 people see it, that's 20 more people who know about your game, which could be 20 more conversations about it or 20 more copies sold.
Obviously demos are probably the most effective way to show off a game since it allows the player to experience a taste of the game, but that means that you want a completed, bug free section that they can play that out of context will represent and hype up the rest of the game. Thus, video trailers can be more effective for displaying games that take place in multiple environments that greatly vary, or for aspects of the game that are still a little buggy some of the time but will be fixed before release. Of course, this isn't to say edit the video to make it look like you have a non buggy game and then release something that won't even run, but it is saying it gives you control over what you get to show and lets you give the player a taste of the whole game's atmosphere rather than an in depth look at one specific moment of game play. Again, as stated earlier, distribution is also easier. People are more likely to view a quick online video than download a shady link in order to demo a game that they've never heard of. Of course using both methods in tandem is also possible, and probably the most effective route, although it may be a bit more time consuming seeing as you have to edit a whole video and create a demo, which most of the time won't end up in the final game in the form it was in for the demo. Whatever way you choose, advertizing is so important because game making is becoming extremely popular, and ads are the best way to prove to people your game isn't just another weird app store game that doesn't function. So talking about A/V, what makes a good game trailer? This article from Games Radar talks about some professional game trailers and the things that they do well. First, the author emphasizes that a good trailer sells the idea of the game, and doesn't waste time on anything that isn't going to grab your attention. In all of the examples that he uses, he focuses on how the trailer appeals to the target audience, again, only pointing out main features that are going to get that audience interested and not wasting time on smaller aspects that are still in the game, but just not the focus. I like his statement of selling the idea of the game, because that's what really makes people want to experience it. It values both the concept and the execution, which is really cool. I kind of hope that we get to create game trailers because I think it will only continue to be important in the game industry, even just as an exercise for solidifying a game concept. We're nearing the end of our board game production. We have one more week to bring everything together into a (somewhat at least) cohesive game. Making a game is hard. It takes a lot of work to make every single piece of a game. If teamwork isn't your thing then I would not recommend game making because it relies heavily on that. That being said, teamwork isn't really my strongest suit either seeing as I often get frustrated at other group members even for little things, so making this game has been a real challenge. As I mentioned above, teamwork has been a big problem for me. I've been realizing that I've done a poor job of communicating my thoughts as well as making sure I understand everyone else's thoughts, especially since I am the team lead. I need to learn to ask more questions, get specifics, and monitor things a bit more closely. Work wise, I struggle a lot with design layouts for things such as ads and instructions. So far, I am happy with how these documents are turning out, but it takes me a lot of time and experimentation to get them right, the kind of time and energy I'm not sure I'll be able to afford over the next week if we're out for snow many days. White space and balance are two things I really need to work on in my design. I unfortunately forgot to download the ads (which are much prettier than the work I do have) I made for the game, but I have pictures of some of the graphics that will be included in the instructions, which is currently a work in progress. The communication issue isn't only my fault though. As a team, we are all not the greatest at all staying on the same page. For instance, our player pieces ended up much bigger than the board spaces, meaning extra work to try to balance this out. I would also say that we are all dreamers and not very practical with our ideas, so I am a little concerned about our group finishing by the deadline. Our cards were originally going to have the elemental symbol in the middle of the card be cut out, but due to lack of time, I think that idea will have to be scrapped. I am very nervous about how the game will come together, and scared that due to miscommunication, my instructions won't match up with the game pieces at all, making the game unplayable. I actually also have very little idea of what my group members actually have accomplished. One of them has been good about checking off things they have done, but I have not seen many of the finished products from either of them, which- call me paranoid, but- makes me worry a little bit. I feel like it's almost too late to fix the communication/ unity issues within our group at this point, so I'm just hoping that we have most of this week to pull it all together and hopefully create a decent game. Wish us luck.
So up until January 13th two other students and I will be working on designing a board game. Our game is called Combistry, (combining and chemistry) and I'm my group's writer and production manager. This pretty much means I have to keep people on task and work on written aspects (such as the game instructions, advertisements, etc.). I've finished revising the game design document, and it's gone through a lot of changes since the beginning, but I think now we as a team now have a clear idea of how the game functions. It's not the prettiest document, but it contains enough information for us to all have one at least similar idea of what the game is going to look like. However, I don't know if our group's chemistry (ha get it?) is the best. I'm a little concerned about how the game is all going to come together. Since one of my group memebers already posted their post, I can tell that they feel as if they're on schedule but the rest of us in the group is behind schedule, which I was unaware of. I think that we all struggle with communication, which is extremely problematic. I think we need to really utilize team meetings as well as maybe just make a schedule for the entire process so that we know what's going on. I think we've made pretty good progress this week though. It's a little difficult because our work is all interconnected and we have to wait for each other on some things (ex. I have to wait for a card to be designed to be able to finish the instructions). I still think though that we've gotten a lot of work done so far, but we still have a lot more to do.
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AuthorHi, I'm Abi, a DSA student who likes games, drawing, writing, and acting. Archives
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