The End and yet I think we may see Arwynn, Fletcher and Celeste again...

1. Evaluation
Joe Duffy

2. Research
I think a strength of my research is that in my analysis I link how the style of the
game’s design to the key themes of the game’s world, investing the player in what
they’re doing. I also think a strength is how I describe that the visual design of the
moves, characters and the personalities as well as the user interface are integral
in interesting the player, which I attempted to carry on into my product, giving
each character a very different look and characteristics. I would have liked to have
produced a proper interface for battling but perhaps I can grow on my unused
ideas later on. On a couple of the games I analysed, I looked into the music and
how they cooperate with a scene or particular battle connecting to the player
both visually and through audio.
As for weaknesses, I believe I could have been clearer in the general Research
Analysis by giving examples from the chosen games on what they had as common
features as well as what specific parts of the games I would like to use in my
product instead of generalising as much as I did. This would have given me a bit
more clarity on the points I want to hit. I perhaps could have added more text
boxes describing even more different parts of the game’s design although, except
describing “Fire Emblem: The Blazing Blade”'s music, I think if I tried to do many
more I would definitely be retracing my steps.

3. Planning
I think a pretty big strength in my planning is my decently detailed week schedule, creating
a very clear idea of what I should do doing at a certain time. This helped me in producing
my animation as I knew if I was behind so I would try harder to catch up to where I should
be, or if I was ahead so could more time adding to my work. I also did a varied bibliography
that gave me ideas of what I should research to provide support in designing my game for
future reference. I also think my mood board did a good job of portraying the general area
of game I was honing in on, or a specific detail I thought would look nice in my work.
Although I wish I could have made it a little less sporadic looking! My second, more
specified mind map was also a great help in production as basically everything listed in it
came to fruition, showing it lay a concrete foundation it what I eventually aimed to
produce.
On the other hand, my original mind map was much simpler, so I would have liked to add
more genres and therefore games to portray a deeper knowledge of game types. This could
have helped to give me a broader field of view on which game genre I could have chosen or
borrowed ideas from. As with the analysis of my researched games, I could have picked
specific games and the images linked to them as examples of the descriptions I was taking
about to give me a direct visual comparison for my own work.

4. Time Management
Everything I made before my production was within the time restraints of what I made my
schedule to fit. However after the first day of production, where I ironically finished the
overworld faster than I expected, I was put into an uphill battle as the character creation took an
upsetting three days to finish, leading me to spend more than double the time in College, on a
couple of days, than I usually would. My wish to have scrolling text also left me pretty fatigued as
I had to produce each letter on a separate layer, eating into my Friday afternoon and evening. I
spent the weekend making audio as it didn’t require tech at College and spent the first part of the
next week finishing the overworld’s animation and putting it into Premiere. At this stage I had a
big decision on what I should do, leave the battle out completely and focus on what I had or rush
a shoddy animation of the full fight. I decided for a middle ground, in that I would animate the
opening sequence of the battle and have it fade out. I completed the background as quickly as
possible, leaving it as a still frame. This gave me time to draw out and animate the characters
moving into the fight. To finish this I spent the evening at College on Thursday and spent the
entire Friday creating the monster. To cut time, instead of separate layers of the same part, I
would shuffle the monster arms with the arrow keys. I almost finished the animation but College
shut earlier than usual. I entered on Saturday to finish it without realising the library was
completing shut off and on Monday, because I was using a different computer without all the files
saved on it, my Premiere work didn’t allow me access. I finally caught up on Tuesday and started
the post-production stuff according to schedule!!! The one thing I would have made if I had more
time would have been the complete battle with multiple moves from the characters.
Ironically in my Proposal, I found that I said the overworld would take a backseat to the rest!!

5. Technical Qualities
A strength of my technical work is that in the overworld I tried to give each part of the environment
more life by giving them multiple versions to keep the scene moving even if the frame stayed
stagnant. While I think that the area having very little wasted space is a strength, I didn’t have an
insane level of detail on most objects, making the overall look of the place seem fairly bland in terms
of colour. I could put this as a stylistic choice but if I had the option to make the world appear richer,
I wouldn’t pass it up. The battle, due to having less moving parts, meant I could add a bit more detail
to the background, with cracks in the wall and skull so they appeared to have more history. The
animation is fairly smooth, which is especially noticeable in the battle sequence which I was
particularly proud of since it was a late edition to the product, with the dragon’s wings being my
favourite part. I had to sacrifice movement in the background so the rest could have some polish. I
wasn’t annoyed with the flow of the overworld but there were parts that looked pretty choppy. I
would have liked to make the characters have a smoother movement but their models would have
eaten up far too much time. This is especially true considering the very short distance they walk,
making the movement too fast to spend so much time on. The game “Undertale” also uses a simpler
design for it’s overworld but adds details to the parts that would make the world feel more alive or
have more significance which I need to learn so I can improve the visual aspect of my work. If I had
more time I would have liked to have made a more advanced battle interface for attacking and using
items, as seen in Final Fantasy and Fire Emblem as well as a separate style that worked within the
world like Persona 5 to make the look more interesting.

6. Technical Qualities ImagesI would have tried to split the paragraph but pictures wouldn’t correlate well with the descriptions as random parts are all over the
place in the writing.

7. Aural Qualities
I think the music set a tone that related to the part it was focused on with a deep base
line and a fast tempo to match the high panic of the character’s situation. I added a bit
of a change in the beat’s pattern but I want to learn how to create a long un-repeating
piece with a little more complexity like those of Persona. My battle music has far more
sporadic highs and lows, giving the scene a lot of intensity so if a person actually played
this, they would feel a lot more pressure when choosing their moves. I decided to
produce some voice clips to coordinate with the dialogue which worked well as I used
Garage Band to crush my amazing voices into a bit like audio. However the timing of
animation and voice was pretty far off so it could be improved. If I do dialogue again I
think I will try using more “murmur” like sounds instead, as used in games like
Undertale. I made simple sound effects for the battle sequence to indicate which
character was being selected, with the beep being deeper the lower character was on
the screen. The Hydragon also had a roar at the start of the fight, with three separate
pitches to signify the three heads that helps to give it some more life. The use of more
voices would have added even more character during the battle for the heroes as is
seen with most RPGs including even Pokémon.

8. Aesthetic
Qualities
Pt. 1
I think my work looks pretty good but I know I could envision it with some more details. This
goes for the overworld in that the walls and bath could have a lot more cracks or the like to
truly show that they are made of a rock material as I did better in the battle background.
However I think the lighting effect on the dragon’s skull from the torch light is interesting as it
gives a somewhat realistic depiction of the world and adds an extra splash of colour to the
setting. As with the lack of detail on the rocky surfaces, while I added a few lines and bubbles,
I would have liked to have shown more motion in the lava by having different uses of colour
that moved around to give of the impression of liquid. On the other hand, I do enjoy how the
text boxes have a slight transparency so the background is still visible while text is fully
coloured, making it the focus point for the reader. I am proud of the amount of detail I was
able to put on the small character models, in both design and mostly their characteristics to
make them feel very unique compared to each other, but I also believe as I did with the
skeleton, it would have made them feel more within the world if they had a slight light
reflection off their faces and clothes. The skeleton had slight shading detail on each bone
which gives them more literal depth of which I wish I could have given the gems so they they
didn’t look quite so like paper glued onto the wall in their minimal detail.

9. Aesthetic
Qualities
Pt. 2
I think the layout of the battle looks clear and simple which works well so the player
isn’t overwhelmed but I think the AA metre could be made more appealing to the
eyes or more obvious considering in the battle it’s supposed to hold a more crucial
role. I do like my Hydragon design, especially with each head having a slightly different
look without straying too far way from the core look and its larger size looks more
imposing. If I had more time, I would have liked to add to the visual design of the
Hydragon by adding smoke or different spurts of fire while in it’s idle animations. As
with overworld, I do really like the character designs when in battle although I would
want to give any facial feature to show off their personality. Speaking of personality, I
really like the expressions given by the profile images of the characters when talking,
making each line feel more personal to the person that a sentence any of them could
say. This is especially true with Arwynn who has more exaggerated features, giving me
more leeway in how I portray her emotions.

10. Audience Appeal
I believe that the overall theming of the game would appeal to my target audience
of teenagers with it’s heavy fantasy appearance. I suppose the more male
demographic would be excited by the setting having a dragon skeleton, showing
them a really cool part of the environment, with very little cuteness, except perhaps
the lead character! I hope that the characters varied personalities allow all players
to relate or be drawn to one of them as they can see themselves as the hero or like
how they act. With Arwynn being timid but will do what she must to protect others,
Fletcher giving off an overly confident persona to hide his insecurities and Celeste
often coming off as cold and impatient so she finish her given mission despite her
hidden fondness for her team. I suppose the female demographic could be fond of
the fact that a majority of the cast is their gender, representing strong leading
characters for who they can look up to. The older audience would also find more
enjoyment in the game compared to children with it’s more story based
progression, making the player more enveloped in the character whereas the latter
would be confused and bored.

11. The End
Or is it?!!!!