evaluation

1. Evaluation
Your name

2. Research
I entered the project knowing that I wanted to do a
mobile game as it is the platform I’m most familiar with. I
then began to look at games I had downloaded on my
own phone and played several of them in attempts to
understand how most of the interfaces worked. From this
I found the best option was to have the playable character
move via the player sliding their finger along the screen.
Space was the theme that interested me the most. I
downloaded games such as space frontier, dune and space
invaders and played them all in order to grasp different
types of space-themed games. From this I concluded that
a gentle and warm colour scheme was to be used as it
seemed popular amongst these apps. Playing space
invaders allowed me to figure out how to involve conflict
in my game as the other two didn’t involve it at all. From
space frontier and dune, I settled on a reward system to
include in my game.

3. Planning
Planning began with me creating two mind maps about two separate game ideas. It’s
a strength to have backup plans just in case your initial idea encounters difficulty. I
described the concept, the colour schemes and other design features and I did both in
the same amount of detail. Following this, I designed a mood board which included
inspirations for colour design, screen layout, sprite design and animation style. My
planning allowed me to create a vision for my game and meant that I didn’t go into
production with no clear destination.
I could have improved my planning by going into a lot more detail than I did. This
would allow for a lower production time due to less time being wasted deciding on
aspects during production.

4. Time Management
This was the schedule I created to allocate
time. The first week consisted of creating
experiments, doing research an my initial
response to the brief.
Week two was going to involve me continuing
research and the proposal, as well as planning
out my final idea.
The third and fourth week were dedicated to
actual production of the game, incorporating
all that I had done prior to this.
Finally I had to evaluate my work. I reviewed
all of my intentions at the beginning of the
process to see whether they correlated with
my final outcome.
If I were to redo this project I would abide
by the schedule more rigorously than I did
this time round as it has caused
complications for me.

5. Aesthetic Qualities
I think a strength my game has
is its colours. The background
is calming and although it isn’t
an exact replica of space, it is
still recognisable. One of the
aims of this game was for it to
be relaxing and the soft colours
definitely relay this. The only
issue I have is with the ufo. It
isn’t as calming and is
somewhat jarring, however,
this could work in my favour as
it is the enemy in the game
and is meant to alert the
player. My game definitely looks like a typical 8-Bit
video game. The health bar and currency meter
help this. Another thing that helps is the design
of the rocket. The colours are very typical (white
and red) and the design is also recognisable
from when 8-Bit games were popular.
An area of improvement
for me would be to fix the
excess space at the lower
half of the screen. To fix
this I would have included
upgrades and other ways
to spend currency at the
bottom, allowing the
player to use their coins
in-game. The icons for the
upgrades would be greyed
out until the player had
enough coins to buy
them.