Now that spring break is over all of the confusion of school is back and I'm lost again for what I have to do. I've heard from several people that the next two weeks are essentially a half spring break in which teachers aren't allowed to teach new material, set due dates, or give any kind of grade for assignments. I'm left in a great pit of confusion by this because several classes had already assigned work prior to the corona cancellation and now I'm not sure if it will be due then or after these two weeks, because either way a grade can not be given until then. The primary issue with this is that it is not a large enough concern with me to ask whether or not assignments will be graded or accepted late because I don't want to go through the extra work and every assignment will have to be done at some point. So I figure I'll just work on all of my assignments as usual and finish them when I can, which for this class works great, we've already been working at our own pace following the tutorials for the majority of our recent assignments so I should be able to continue doing that, but now I'm not sure when the quarter ends. If work can't be graded for the next two weeks then there's no way the quarter ends on the 29th, but it is marked on the calendar to end then and it causes me to wonder when our large project is due. Essentially, while the sudden spring break and school closure has been quite confusing and unproductive I'll try my best to stay on top of these assignments, which I'm not even sure will be graded.
Main Points
0 Comments
This year we've mainly focused on creating games as well as improving our art skills on paper to aid in the production process. Overall I can say that my artistic skill on paper has increased tremendously, and though not all of my drawings turn out great they are at least distinguishable and detailed at this point. As for the work we've done with coding I'm pretty sure I now have a pretty solid grasp of basic coding, at least enough knowledge to be able to build my own simple game. I may not have mastered it yet but I'm sure with time it will come, as long as I continue to practice my coding skills. As for the cancellation of school, I'm not too sure what we're supposed to be doing right now in any of my classes but at least for this class I can work from home with Unity. Luckily my experience with the tutorials has gone rather smoothly so far and I hope it continues to stay that way especially when working from home where there are no classmates or teacher to help me if I run into issues. I'm also trying to up to date with all of the deadlines for these assignments, I know I'm ahead of some of my classmates but even still I'm somewhat behind compared to the recommended due dates. I'm sure in the end all will be fine so long as I work and spend my freetime wisely in these coming weeks. I may even spend some of my freetime drawing on paper, though I won't start any of that until I'm sure I know what is going on with all of my classes.
Main Points
It's hard to believe that it's already the third quarter of school, it feels like just yesterday was the first day but I suppose time flies sometimes. Now realizing that the year is already over halfway over, I figured it would be beneficial to see how far I've come and what I can do with what I've learned. Early this year we primarily focused on careers and the various aspects of games that come together to make them, though I still didn't expect us to get much experience actually making games for some reason. At that point, actually being able to design and create a game seemed like a far away goal I'd eventually achieve at some point in my life, but not this year. First quarter was also when this class was most different than the years prior. Instead of assigned blog posts as well as our own personal additions to our portfolios, we started to focus more on drawing assignments. If I have to be honest all of the drawing was somewhat grueling as it wasn't something I was necessarily used to, but I came to accept it as a way to improve my art on paper that I otherwise don't practice much with. I'm glad we changed up the process of turning in the drawing assignments though, as it made my life a lot less stressful. Often working on the drawing assignments was either a multi-day or several hours in one sitting kind of task, that even when I looked on the bright side, still burnt me out. Now with only having to turn in the final drawing I can focus more of my efforts on that drawing in particular, as the templates become repetitive rather quickly and whittle my brain away. I still find the provided resources extremely useful in understanding exactly what I should focus on, but the template work was always numbing. Aside from being relived of my stress regarding the drawing assignments, I'm glad that we are now able to move along at our own pace in the class. After second quarter I got a good understanding of the exact process used to create games and now with my knowledge of coding from this quarter I believe I can apply all of what I've learned to actually create a game. We don't always get to move at our own pace with learning, but I've always enjoyed it as I find it helps me to understand the content better when I can move quickly through things I have a deep understanding of, and take more time on things I find more difficult. Overall this year has been great so far and now looking back I'm starting to see all of the pieces coming together that will aid us in creating our games.
Main Points
Now that we have practiced with the fundamental mechanics that make game concepts feasible we are finally moving on to actual game development with code. I've always looked forward to coding, in fact the primary reason I'm in this pathway is because I wanted to learn how to code, and now we're finally doing it. We may just be following simple tutorials to teach us the basics of coding for now, but I'm fine with that, as long as I will someday be able to code on my own in order to achieve what I want to accomplish this course can take as much time as it needs. So far based on what I've been working with it looks like coding will be easy, it all follows a logical flow which all makes sense except for a few parts that I'm sure I'll understand the reason for later. Obviously, as I've only been coding for about a week now, I still don't really know what options I have if I were to code on my own, only what has been covered in the tutorials, but even with just that basic knowledge I could make the framework for a simple game. I hope to one day create my own game from scratch, as I often play games created by small development teams and have created a few of my own low quality games using software that works out the coding for me. Of course I never get a true sense of accomplishment from creating these games, as I don't even know how the code works that allows them to function, and knowing I didn't entirely create everything I'm seeing when I play the games I make causes them to feel like they're not mine. I hope to one day be able to understand not only the code that goes into the small games I've created but also how to create games so that I can have a project I can entirely call my own.
Main Points
As I stated in my previous blog post we have been working with the pre-production of games recently in GAD. As my group has worked on the creation of several documents such as pitches and GDDs, our perspectives have differed on what our game will actually be. I personally disliked the name my team chose for out project, which was the first spark in creating my own interpretation of our collective ideas. I decided to implement some of my own ideas in the creation of the storyboard and GDD I created. As it turns out my team actually favored the secondary perspective I brought to our project, as it allowed us to mix and match the best ideas. The title for both of our interpretations of the project aren't the greatest, but they are just placeholders until a recognizable game is created. The original project name my group came up with was Ennui, but because I didn't know what it meant and still didn't understand the connection it had to the game after looking it up I decided to call my project Reimpression. The title made more sense to me as the story is essentially a character attempting to redeem their reputation after being detained by the police and marked as a criminal, or in other words they are trying to redo the impression that society has of them. As far as gameplay elements go my design idea also differed in a few ways. First off I never planned on having turn-based combat in my game, though apparently both of my group mates had come to the consensus to include it in Ennui. I feel that turn-based combat takes away from the immersion and the vibe of the impressionist painting old-time criminal aesthetic. Instead for my version of the game I planned for everything to be the result of choices made by the player, as it would fit more with the story being the main focus of the game and not the combat. I see the value in both ideas, as mobile games often don't have in-depth stories and could use rinse-and-repeat style scenarios such as combat scenes to extend the duration of the game, but I personally think it would be innovative to create a story-based mobile game. Overall we have each come up with a different interpretation of the game and don't really have a solid consensus of what the game will turn out to be, but with all of our ideas we have been working to compromise in order to create the best experience for the player.
Main Points
Recently in class we have been working on the conceptualization for the first game we will have ever made for this class. First playing games, now making them, this year has been pretty satisfying in terms of what I would expect from a game design class so far. That's not to say the two previous years were a waste though, they taught me the fundamentals of programs used for the creation of models and illustrations to aid in the process of creating games. However, now that I am actually involved in the pre-production of a game I finally get to use my skills. At first I saw this assignment as a sort of brainstorming practice to help us come up with concepts for games given constraints. Though now that the assignment has been expanded upon with several follow-up assignments I have put forth more effort in developing my game idea. The actual conceptualization for a game is a lot more complex than I hoped it would be, but it is all with good reason. The creation of mood boards, story boards, a pitch, a GDD, or even an art bible (though we aren't going to do one) are all vital to communicating what each member of the team sees the game as. One of the first problems I came across with my team when conceptualizing the game was deciding on the mechanics that the gameplay would be centered around. We all knew the general concept but we each had our own vision of carrying it out, so when we made our pitches they were slightly different. The difference isn't necessarily a bad thing though, the variety allows for more creative ideas to form from what could have just been disagreements. Beyond specific gameplay mechanics though my team seemed to also have a large amount of trouble coming up with a title. Personally I didn't think a title was necessary until our idea was more flushed out and could be used to create an innovative or clever title, but we agreed that we could at least give it a project name. Even so I wasn't too happy with the project name, but that just came to show me that we won't always agree with everything about how the perfect game should be made, if we did then there would be no reason to combine our ideas, as they would just result in the same thing. Confusion and disagreement seem more beneficial than I thought they would be, as they call for further elaboration and can possibly create new ideas that would otherwise be scrapped had the issue not been brought up. Overall the process is pretty interesting, we aren't even that far into developing our game yet but we already feel like game designers, personally I really enjoyed making my game pitch as it allowed me to express more of my personal opinions on the game to see if my team would support certain things we hadn't decided on yet. I hope to get to fully flush out some of my ideas and see more of what my team comes up with because at this point I'm quite invested in the development of our game, but I suppose I'll just have to wait and see what comes up in the next few weeks.
Main Points
When I was new to DSA I, probably like every other freshman, saw the digital art and game development pathway as a class in which we would be creating and playing games. From the very first day though I already saw that my chances of playing games in the class were near zero. I was not surprised though because I knew that with entering high school all of the fun things I did in middle school such as going outside for a recess period and playing games in the computer lab would come to an end. From that day forward I never expected to play any games in class for any reason. To my surprise though, now that it has been two years and we are about to start developing games, I finally got to do what I signed up for: playing games. That is not to say we were just playing them for fun though, playing games helped us to understand the fundamental mechanics that make games fun. The implementation of unique mechanics to keep gameplay interesting is what makes some games more enjoyable than others, and overall separates the different types of games. From this activity I got to experience games I had never played before such as King of Tokyo, which was my personal favorite, and Mario Kart 64. King of Tokyo really stood out from the rest of the games because it allowed for the creation of complex strategies in a more interactive way than games such as Fluxx. In Fluxx people could save cards or play combos of cards to win in one turn, but the feeling of achievement was short-lived as the cards were just collected to play another round. On the other hand King of Tokyo provided a survival of the fittest feel, with non-stop action the way I played. It allowed players such as me to go full aggressive and hurt other players as much as possible which ended up eliminating the competition rather quickly. The game was balanced as well because I didn't win just by fighting, it was actually another student who won by gathering enough points while holding off my attacks. Essentially from playing games in class I learned that action and strategy games can make for a lot of fun even when they can be simple in design, which I could use for inspiration if I were to make a game on my own.
Main Points
When it comes to art on paper I've never been too confident about my skills. My parents have always told me that my art is great but I'm not sure if that is because I am their son or if it is their honest opinion, and I thought it would be rude to ask. So through the years I never practiced my art because I was afraid that if someone else saw it they would judge me for it, plus I'm not a very creative person when it comes to thinking of something to draw. It wasn't until this class assigned extension art assignments that I've actually taken time to practice my art skills. Knowing my work will be graded I now spend hours upon hours working on it, trying to mimic as closely as possible the original artist's style. I know for sure my work won't look as good as the examples I draw from, but at least I get to practice fundamental skills required for improving it. While at first I was not a huge fan of having another large homework assignment each week, I've come to appreciate the much needed practice these extension assignments have provided me. The extension assignments also provide a clear skill to focus on and practice each week, which is often the reason I am unable to challenge myself when I do individual art. On the rare occasions that I create art on my own freetime I often only draw things I know I can confidently draw and say look good, which is why I don't normally create art on my freetime. Though now that I have done these drawing extensions I have witnessed my own artwork getting better, even without templates or copying as best I can from an existing image. I've learned new techniques that make what used to seem impossible, such as drawing an accurate or proportionate human face, as common tasks. Unfortunately if I must be honest, the knowledge, confidence, and practice these activities have provided me are somewhat wasted. I would actually have the confidence to practice on my own time now if it weren't for the three other AP classes I'm taking that combined provide just as much homework as this class but without the fun to it. Work is only fun when you want to do it, which is why I have made it my focus to become a better artist even if other classes try to prevent me from doing so, hopefully I will find a way to balance my time so that I can practice without the stress of deadlines.
Main Points
Warframe is a game that is fun for both new players and for those who have thousands of hours dumped into it. It starts the player off by throwing them directly into combat after they are woken up by the mysterious Lotus, they must then learn quickly to defeat the tutorial enemies. There is very little guidance, allowing the player to become familiar with the rather simple interface and controls very quickly. Beyond the tutorial the player can accept optional quests that further reveal the lore of the story and provide the player with much more powerful gear and abilities. The feeling of pure satisfaction achieved when the player finally has enough resources to build their first new warframe (new character) is quickly shot down when they are met with a 72 hour wait before their warframe is fully built and able to be used. Fortunately, each warframe brings a fresh experience and can be used for hundreds of hours before becoming boring, making the wait worthwhile. New gear is constantly required if the player wants to level up, allowing them to access even more warframes and weapons to build. Gameplay quickly turns into the player grinding missions over and over to obtain resources and build new gear. Surprisingly though it does not become boring, as Warframe has three main factions: the Grineer, Corpus, and Infested, that each have their own goals aside from defeating the Tenno (the player race), that keep the game interesting. Instead of killing the same enemy over and over the three factions each have a wide array of unique enemies to be encountered that keep the game from becoming stale or easy. Aesthetically the game looks great and the music fits right with the tone of it, immersing the player in fast-paced space combat. Overall the game is nearly perfect, especially considering it is a free game with no pay-to-win aspects whatsoever, the only downside to it is the surprise of lengthy build times to experience otherwise amazing content.
This year in game art design the work has been quite different. First of all we're actually practicing our physical 2D art as well as our digital art skills now. The practice has been quite nice, as I've never really taken the time to actually practice or improve my art skills on paper. Although it does take quite some time to actually practice I think the time put in will pay out in the end, in fact I've already noticed my art improving from what it used to be. Besides the new art practice homework I've noticed that this class now assigns much more homework than it ever used to while work in class has been minimal. I can't say I like the new workflow but I suppose I can get used to it, I just find it strange how little time in class we have to work on our assignments now. To be honest it is only the third week of school so it may just be that our presentations and class discussions make this downtime valid, but I do hope that as the school year goes on we will get to work on the computer more, as currently time is very limited to complete assignments. In all fairness tutoring is available quite often, so if I took advantage of that none of this would really matter but I still thought it was important enough of an issue that I should bring it up in some way. Overall though the amount of work for this class has surprised me, totaling more than all three of my AP classes combined yet coming from a single class and still we're given just enough time to complete each assignment assuming we do it perfectly the first time.
Main Points
|
AuthorMy name is Andrew Prichard and the this is my first digital arts class, I look forward to a good year with lots of hard work. Archives
May 2021
Categories
All
Last updated 5/14/21
|