The document summarizes the research and pre-production process for a pixel art game trailer targeted at a younger audience. It discusses researching other games' target audiences, mechanics, and presentations. Backgrounds, characters, and animations were created in pixel art style. Challenges included creating varied yet similar assets and managing time. The trailer shows the main character landing on a planet and meeting another character to hint at the story while keeping it simple for its young target audience.

1. FMP Diary
Research
I started off by looking at different pixel art games and their target audience and why they
have specifically aimed their game at a certain audience and what the sales figures were. I
then started to look countries and what the most popular game was and whatage ranged
played these games. I found that adults and young teens play more games than children
and they also played more violent and challenging games wherechildren played more
calming and relaxing games which were simpler and easier to play. I then went on to
looking at games that were target towards a younger audience and how they advertised it
and whatcolours they used for their posters and whatthe games were about. I found that
they used bright colours and made the posters funny and silly however simple with not
much to detail, so kids understand whatthey are looking at. I then went on to look at
games that were targeted towards an older audience and found that they were more
violent and their posters to advertise the game wheredark and contains guns.
I then started researching pixel art games and whatcolours they used and how they
advertisethem to match their target audience. I found that they used a consistent colour
scheme and kept their posters nice and simple with little detail so a younger audience can
understand whatis going on. I then started to look at certain games in more detail to see
how the game works and whatgameplay is included and how they tell the story of the
game.
I then started to research games that had an older target audience to see how they present
to themselves, so I got an idea of the key difference between games they werenot mean
for a younger audience and games for an older audience. I found that their posters where
more dark and violent and their games were more challenging, I then started to look at
specific games and what differences they had from a game targeted towards a younger
audience and found that their stories were more detailed and more graphic they also had
more death and violence.
I then started to look at specific pixel art games and where they weremade whataudience
they were targeted at and what type of game it was. I also looked at the mechanics of the
game and the gameplay to get a insight of other games like mine so I can see whatworks
for them and whatdoes not. I also looked at different game types for example a platform
game and how it worked and the mechanics of the game I also looked at whatcolours they
used and how they advertised it. Overall, I found that they all used bright colours and not
too much detail to keep in simple but effective as the games are not that challenging so it's
more relaxing and calming to play. I also found the games that were moresuccessfulwere
the ones who had a strong story behind it and where to complicated but kept it interesting

2. throughoutthe game.
Finally, I made a questionnaireto get other people's opinions on pixel art games to see
what kind of game they like for example adventureor action I also asked whatdo the most
enjoy about these games if they ever spentmoney on these games and also if they have
even played 2d pixel art games. This helped a lot as I found out a lot more about whatother
people think not justmyself, I also found out that a lot of it is if you'reactually interested in
these games and that these games can be played at any age and by anyonewho enjoys
them.
Pre-Production
Today I started pre-production and I started to look at what my game was going to look like
the colours I was going to use for my game and look some other games and what worked
for them. This is where my planning really helped as I already researched different types of
games and why they have done certain things to appeal their target audience. After looking
at some ways I was going to present my tailer I started to work on a plan of what I was
going to do on each production day, this was a must as in the past my time management
hasn’tbeen the best with production so I thought to tackle this I would startoff with a plan
of whatI was going to do on each day and how I would startmy production.
I then started to write out what my story was about and how the game actually works this
helps me when coming to production as it gives me more ideas of what I can include in the
trailer as I havethought more about the story behind the game and how it works. After I
wrotea bit of the story, I started to write abouthow the games combat and crafting system

3. works as this will also be shown in the trailer and I wanted to get more of a idea of how
everything worked beforeI went into production as then I won'tget stuck when making it.
After that I started to look at main characters from other games and how they are
presented I also did this with the background for games however there was some
challenges that I ran into for example some backgrounds I was looking atwere really big
and detailed which wasn’tthe look I was going for as I have a younger target audience I am
going for a more simplistic look. I then started to makesome assets of my own to go with
some I found fromother games this helped me get more practisewith making things in
pixel art and gaveme more of an idea of how I wantmy main character to look.

4. I started to move away fromthe trailer and look at different posters for games and how I
was going to lay mine out I also had a look at other pixel art game posters to give me some
ideas of how I can lay it out and present it in a way for my target audience. However, I had
some challenges along the way for example one thing I noticed when looking at other pixel
art games posters was, they weren’t actually made in pixel art which meant it was hard to
find someinspiration for my own poster. After that I started looking at someother things, I
can add into my trailer to give it more detail and make it simple for my audience, so I
decided to add somesubtitles into the trailer to show my audience that the story is easy to

5. follow and isn’t complicated to understand.
Production
Production day I started on the background work for the startof the trailer and how I was
going to start the trailer off and transition into the opening scene of the game I found this a
challenge as it was hard to make it look away that looked natural to go from an opening
scene into the startof the trailer one problem I had was finding a good dimension size for
the background as the bigger the background themore pixels which might mean it takes
me longer to makethings therefore not using my time efficiently. With the backgrounds I
tried the best I could to try and add simple but effective detail to make them look detailed
enough for my target audience to understand them and be engaged by them. The
screenshotbelow is one of the backgrounds I madefor my trailer I wanted to keep it simple
with not many assets however detailed enough to keep it engaging while keeping your eye
on the main character. At this point I started to realise that the animation is going to be
harder than I thought as it had to make multiple assets of the same thing however change
them slightly to create the look of whatever I wanted them doing.

6. I started with a black background to startthe trailer as the story starts in space, I thought
the intro in the trailer could relate to that. When I got the start of the trailer done I started
to work on a rocket. Something that worked well was the idea of starting off the trailer for
the game with the start of the story I think this gives a good insight of what the game is
about without giving to much away and it also keeps it simple which is good for my target
audience as it keeps it engaging. I then started creating the trees for the background
however I realised that in order to great the feel of a forestI need to try and make the
same looking trees at differenthights however I thoughtI would come back to that in the
future.
After I started the opening scene and the background, I started to animate it moving down
onto this new planet. this wasn'tto challenging however I didn't know how many frames i
should use so that the rocket would come down a good speed and then the frames
wouldn't look choppy. I then made a different version of the rocket for the scene whereit is

7. landed on the ground. I did this by trying to copy the rocket i made and justadding more
pixel in length to fit the screen.
I then started to make the trees around it to show that the rocket has landed in the forest. I
started by copying the firsttrees and adding more pixel in length to match the rocketafter I
did this I started adding detail to the trees to make it more detailed but also simple at the
same time. I did this by adding different shades of green at the top to show the sun is only
shining on one side. I think this turn out better than expected considering how my other
trees went and how I didn’t look like much of a forest.
I then made my main character for the game and then him moving around and looking at
this new place he has justlanded. However, iran into a massiveproblem which was that I
couldn't get another version of my character that looked he was running so I tried my best
to do what I could as I didn't have much time to try and make it work as I knew it would

8. take me so long. Eventually I found something that kind of worked so I went with that. This
is wheredoing more experiments in my research would have helped however, I did not
think it was that important at the time. I did not spend enough time on actually looking at
how to makethese assets which had a massiveimpact in my wholeproject as I didnt have
the experience in making them.
I then started to make another character which looked my mysterious which would help tell
the story better. I then started to animate them to meeting with changing the background a
bit to give the feeling that the time of day has passed for example I moved the clouds and
added somedarker colours to the trees to give the feeling that it's starting to get dark. This
character did go better than my last one which proves if I spentmore time learning about
how to makethem effectively my projectwould be a lot better one problem, I found was
making the text box and writing small text into it so started making different text boxes to

9. find the right size for my scene.
With only a few words I keptthe main story mysterious and unknowing to the viewer, so it
makes people wantto know moreabout the game. I think this also helps my target
audience as the game is aged at a younger audience this keeps it simple and easy to
understand. After that I started to work on the other backgrounds to showcasethemoff in
the trailer to show there is loads of different areas to explore in the game, so I added a few
blank screens with some text and started to animate the backgrounds with the main
character in each one and show him getting more gear. For example, in the desert scene he
has a backpack to show the viewer that throughoutthe game you can pick up new items.
At this point I have handled my time badly and only havea few days left to complete my
production, so I decided to finish it off here with the title of the game at the end and the
release date. And then looked for somemusic to go with the trailer so I can put it into

10. premier pro and synchronise Itall up. I started my listening to the beat of the soundtrack
and trying to make the scenes change on the trailer line up with the beats. I think this was a
success as I had more experience with premier pro then I did with photoshop however
when exporting it fromphotoshop it lost a lot of quality. I then uploaded it to YouTube as I
had little time left.