The document summarizes William Thirlaway's evaluation of his research, planning, time management, technical qualities, and aesthetic qualities for a survival game project. Some key points: - Research covered a variety of survival games (Minecraft, Don't Starve, Day Z, Dying Light) to draw inspiration from different aspects and styles. However, some games used survival as a secondary genre. - Planning involved creating a mind map of potential genres and settling on survival for its flexibility. A mood board further informed design choices. - Time management allowed completing the basic product on time but left no time for additional planned defense aspects or longer gameplay. - The aesthetic style drew from Don't Starve

1. Evaluation
William Thirlaway

2. Research
• For my research I looked at a variety of different types of survival games
ranging from 3D shooter/survivals, to 2D crafting and resource based survival
games. These games were Minecraft, Don't Starve, Day Z, and Dying Light.
• Looking at a different range of survival games served as a strength to my
research as it allowed me to pick and choose different aspects I could choose
from the games, and gave me a lot of flexibility instead of being limited like I
would've been with other genres. It also gave me a choice of different graphic
styles I could use, weather I wanted to use music or not and if so what style of
music I wanted to use, due to the genre of game being so widely
interchangeable with other genres.
• A downside of my research was that some of the games I researched used,
such as Dying Light, the survival genre as a secondary genre and were
primarily a different genre (in this case, a zombie shooter) which means that it
was a little difficult to identify which aspects were taken from the survival
genre, and which was taken from the other genre.

3. Planning
• For my planning I created a mind map showing a couple of different
genres of games which I could potentially create for my product and listed
different objectives, traits, and ways of creating the different games. In the
end I settled for the survival genre because I realised it had the widest
variety of different options and freedom compared to the rest of the
genres. Using this way to plan was a strength because it allowed me to see
the benefits of all the different genres of games I was interested in and
allowed me to make an informed decision instead of rushing into making
the first game that popped into my head.
• Once I had picked the survival genre I also created a mood board which
allowed me to see all the different elements of this genre in visual context,
and pick out which aspects I would want to take for my game.

4. Time Management
• I managed my time reasonably well, managing to complete the product
within good time to a reasonable length, which then allowed me to make
tweaks to the animations, making them smother, and then gave me time
to create my own music for the game, rather than using royalty free music
created by someone else.
• If I had more time I would've made the product longer and added in more
aspects to the game, as well as introducing another aspect of my game
which would've been the defence side of my survival game where hordes
of enemies were to attack the base which was created in the product and
the player would be required to create weapons and defences in order to
survive and fend off these enemies.

5. Technical Qualities

6. Aesthetic Qualities
• For my product I went with a 2D cartoony
art style which I took inspiration from
Don't Starve and other similar top down
games.
• A strength of this style is that it is easy to
draw and animate as the camera is fixed
in one perspective and all you have to do
is move around the background or objects
on screen. This meant I could animate
quicker and allowed me to spend more
time tweaking the animation.
• Something I would improve upon if I had more time would be the way my character is drawn. I
would spend more time making the character model look better and improving the animation
as well as adding other expressions and movements to the character to make them feel more
alive and real.
• I would also have added a larger variety of plants and trees to make the world feel more real
and believable as an actual place that exists.

7. Audience Appeal