The document provides an evaluation of the author's game design project. It summarizes the strengths and weaknesses of the author's research, planning, time management, and technical and aesthetic qualities of the final product. The research was helpful in developing the game idea, but the author could have researched game mechanics and movement in more detail. Planning would have benefited from more extensive mind mapping. The author managed time well but the product would have benefited from more time. Technical qualities are compared to similar games, and lighting/shading is highlighted as an aesthetic strength, though higher resolution would improve it further.

1. EVALUATIO
N
YOUR NAME

2. RESEARCH
Strengths of my research were definitely the audience research, it helped me develop
my game idea a lot, and though I may not have a applied all aspects from the results of
the audience research, I definitely made a game that was very different (in a good way)
to the game I had originally planned. Another strong suit was that I researched very
similar looking games, this led me to quickly lock down an idea of what the game should
look like and therefore I had very little trouble creating a visual identity for my game.
I think I should have definitely looked into game mechanics and how the games I chose
run, look at the walk cycles and how the characters move and behave, I should have
looked at more gameplay videos and paid more attention to little details like the
mentioned movement and behaviour of the characters, how the character looks in
relation to his/her surroundings etc. If I had done this my product would have a had more
fluid and dynamic movement, as I do think the way my character moves and the way he
behaves in relation to his surroundings is quite unnatural and does not look very
accurate. It would have also led to creating a more constant/coherent look of the game,
as I feel my game changes colour a lot and therefore does not look ideal though this is
not a huge problem, it does break immersion as it does not look like a ‘real thing’ it
makes you realize it is animated and therefore it is hard to really get immersed.
(see slide 3 and 4 for reference to the Interviews)

3. INTERVIEW 1
• Q: Is it better to have one big boss that you fight throughout the game or a bunch of
medium bosses with different abilities mixing up the way you have to play? which do you
prefer and why?.
• A: I prefer both because I prefer mixing up the game a little throughout but then have a
big boss to fight at the and using all of the skills I learnt playing the medium bosses
• Q: Do you prefer games where you can choose to play as a character (male female) or
do you prefer it when you are given a character where you can’t tell the gender or face,
so you have to imagine what the character looks like? Why do you prefer one or the
other?
• A: I prefer choosing a character so then I can judge how good they will be looking at
their ability throughout the game.
• Q: In a puzzle game would you rather have easier puzzles, but lots of them to keep the
game flowing well, or would you rather have hard puzzles but fewer of them.
• A: Lots of easier puzzles just to break the game up.

4. INTERVIEW 2
• Q: Is it better to have one big boss that you fight throughout the game or a bunch of
medium bosses with different abilities mixing up the way you have to play? which do you
prefer and why?.
• A: I prefer to have one big boss that you fight throughout the game. This is due to
making the game more difficult, creating the game to be more competitive.
• Q: Do you prefer games where you can choose to play as a character (male female) or
do you prefer it when you are given a character where you can’t tell the gender or face,
so you have to imagine what the character looks like? Why do you prefer one or the
other?
• A: I prefer to choose the character I am going to play. This is due to giving it more of a
personal touch, making the character more suited to the person playing.
• Q: In a puzzle game would you rather have easier puzzles, but lots of them to keep the
game flowing well, or would you rather have hard puzzles but fewer of them.
• A: I would prefer easier puzzles and lots of them. This is because they give you breaks
through out the game. This is because if they’re too hard people will become stuck and
give up.

5. PLANNING
The strengths of my planning were definitely in the visuals, so the mood boards and the
mood board analysis. It greatly helped to get an idea of what the game should look and feel
like, this was when I really began to develop an idea of not just what the game should look
like(aka colours and brightness), but rather what I wanted to have on the screen, was it
going to be set in a town? A City? A forest ? A castle etc. I just looked through google and
picked out any picture I liked the look of, then I took that image and compiled a huge
selection, then once I had all these images I went through them one by one deciding if it
would fit for my video game, if it did, It was put into the PowerPoint, If not I deleted it. This
helped me narrow my selection down a lot, once I had this much smaller selection, I went
through those images and decided on what I could see myself creating and that was how I
got an idea of how my game was going to look and too a degree what the plot was going to
be.
My planning and product would have definitely benefited from a more extensive mind map
and just generally more idea generation. The problem is I tend to be a person who starts
something and sees where it goes rather than laying out a rough plan to follow and then
filling in the details as you go. This is something I will definitely need to start doing as then I
will have a clearer idea of where the product I am creating is going to finish etc. If I created
better mind maps and overall planning for the story and plot of my game, I would have been
able to complete the product a lot fasters as I would have had a certain amount of things to
do which I could list and tick off. Where as I was just creating stuff and seeing how I could
use that stuff within the videogame. This means the game would have been a lot more solid,
you wouldn’t have any trouble seeing the purpose of what the game is about and why things
are happening the way they are.

6. Examples of the mood boards

7. TIME MANAGEMENT
Before the project even began I knew I was going to be away from college for the last
week, therefore I knew I had to get all the work done before the end of the 4th week or
else I would simply not be able to do it. I think I managed my time quite well, I did do
a fair amount of work outside of college, but this was necessary in order to get a little
ahead so that I would not have to stress too much. Though I did complete my product
in time (the time I set myself) I think it came out quite well, it would have definitely
benefited from extra time. Depending on how much extra time (lets say 2 weeks) I
would have made the lighting, shading and shadowing a lot more precise and
realistic, I would have spent more time on creating extremely detailed walk cycles so
that I could make all my frames have a 0 second delay, this would have made a very
smooth game. I would have worked on making everything scaled correctly and fixed
any little errors perfectly. The main problem was that I had a bout 1.5 weeks for
production and therefore I was not trying to create a great video game, but a good
video game for the time I had. This meant that the game was not going to have the
greatest amount of detail or smoothness, which was a bit annoying buy I think it was
a useful learning tool to be pressured for time and learning how to get something
done as efficiently as possible, because I notice everything that made it less efficient
a lot more than normally.

8. TECHNICAL QUALITIES
(1) My game is similar to game called Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery, the
character design is quite similar however, the character is far smaller on the
screen than in my game they are both platformer indie style adventure games
with a nature/medieval theme and a fairly simple background. My game differs
from it in a couple of ways, Sword & Sworcery is a point and click game, where
as my game is ideally played with a controller or mouse and keyboard, another
difference is that in S&S you can move forward backwards and left to right, but
in little life you can only move left and right.
(2) The game I similar to Little Nightmares not so much in art style but in
gameplay, both my game and little nightmares work on puzzles and you have
to beat or outsmart bosses to progress within the game. Both my game and
little nightmares use the idea of fighting and outsmarting multiple bosses that
each have a different skillset, for example in little nightmares there is a boss
that is blind, but extremely aware of noises, equally there is a boss who is
neither blind nor sensitive to noises, but he is not very fast and quickly forgets
about you. So the similarity is that both games have differently skilled
smaller/medium bosses, that have different strengths and weaknesses
meaning you can acquire a skillset that you then use to defeat the final boss.
The game differs in the way that I think if I had made a full complete game, I
would have had more smaller bosses, that lasted a shorter amount of time and

9. TECHNICAL QUALITIES
The character is quite small
So you can see a vast amount
of the environment making the
game very dynamic and
oversee able.
Character is bigger meaning you
Can see less of their environment,
However it is more intimate and feels
More detailed as everything is bigger
And closer up.
(1) Superborthers: Swords & Sworcery

10. TECHNICAL QUALITIES
(1) Little Nightmares

11. AESTHETIC QUALITIES
I think my game looked quite good, I focused a lot of my time on lighting and
shading as I think to create something immersive you have to obviously mimic real
life, and one of the key things that you don’t really notice all that much is lighting
and shading, this is because you are used to it from everyday life so it doesn’t
stand out, however you’d instantly realise if the lighting is of or there is no shading,
as the image would look too flat and it would have no depth. (1) My favourite bit of
visual in my game is at the very beginning, as the character walks with the torch,
and the lighting changes around him, I added colour to the tress around him and it
changed intensity depending on the proximity of the torch, this is most noticeable
on the tree in the foreground. In order to improve the game I think I would have
liked to rework all the existing elements in a higher resolution project and give It
finer shading, added details giving the game more complexity and improving the
look more.
I think my game definitely was stronger within shading and lighting than actual
design. Parts of my video game don’t look like they are the same style (2) and there
fore it makes the image look quite odd and incorrect as half of the images art style
contrast with the other side of the image.

12. AESTHETIC QUALITIES
Lighting is relatively
soft and orange as we
are catching the corner
of the light.
A bit sharper, silhouetting the
tree using a brighter yellow
showing the flame is a bit
close to the tree.
(1)

13. AESTHETIC QUALITIES
(2)
Soft edges, it looks more painted
Than pixel art. It blends together
quite well therefore is very uninteresting.
Very sharp edges and repeated
Pattern, quite bold and attention
Grabbing vines give a little more
detail.

14. AUDIENCE APPEAL
Though the clip I have generated does not show it but the game was going to have
multiple medium difficulty bosses that linked in with puzzles so that the game would be
broken up a bit and you constantly felt like you were progressing. The game would have
lots of small puzzles like the lock picking that take no time at all but keep the game
interesting and keep you as the player entertained and engaged. These were all aspects
that the audience liked, and wanted in the game. If the game was full length and I had,
had more time on my hands I would have included the large overall boss fight and
introduced more puzzles and monsters into the game.
1) The audience were split between having one or multiple bosses, but 100% said they
preferred more puzzles to keep the game engaging and interesting, so I thought that
another way to keep the game engaging and interesting was to add medium and small
bosses, along with small simple puzzles to keep you occupied at all times.
2) The audience wanted to design and choose their own character this means that
having a selection of hairstyles and clothes they can customize and personalize the
character to look the way they want. Which is what was appealing to the audience.

15. 2) Character desig
1) Medium Boss