Mel created an animated video game about a penguin collecting fish to feed its baby. In the first week, Mel learned about game design elements and started planning ideas. Mel researched existing penguin games for inspiration and created pixel art experiments. Mel then animated the penguin walking, fishing, and returning home. Running short on time, Mel combined the character customization with an ending scene. Mel added sound effects and music before assembling the animation in Premiere and completing an evaluation.

1. Production Reflection
Mel Nuttall

2. Process
The first day of the video games rotation was starting a case study to practice
what we would need to look for in games when doing the research to fuel our
own ideas to fit the brief. This was interesting to do because I was able to
learn about all of the different things that just make up even the simplest
parts of a video game. An example would be the perspectives and if they are
first, third person, scroll to the side, have an arial view or switch between
several depending on what the player has to do. Learning about video game
addiction was also good to learn about it and made me think about how
much I play video games in relation to those who are considered addicted. I
definitely enjoyed looking at different art styles, already beginning to wonder
what I could do for my own game.
I then started to work on the initial plans pro forma. I bullet pointed down
what first came through my head in response to the brief. I then started to
transfer these onto a mind map that was just a brainstorm of collected ideas
that I could start to develop concepts to choose between based on what
would be the best to fit the brief and what I could make in the time available.

3. I did find some difficulty when choosing what would be the best option for
myself to take with what idea was best, as I thought both could work well and
I’m generally an indecisive person. To combat this, once I started my research,
I looked at both styles of game I was being indecisive about to help make my
decision. Once I had completed my mind maps, I started to put together a
mood board that I could then analyse to look for patterns and repetitions that
would be good for my project.
The end of the first week was starting to research existing products that were
similar to what I was thinking about creating. I enjoyed being able to look at
older more retro games that I myself have played in the past. That made
writing about the plot and setting easier since I had my own knowledge of the
games I was looking at. One that I looked at, I realised that I probably
wouldn’t be able to take a lot from that one in terms of style and music, but
as inspiration for the storyline and how I could design my characters; whereas
another one had a very similar art style and was much closer to what I was
thinking of creating. This was helpful as it allowed me to realise that even
simple games can be just as fun as the others.

4. Process
The second week of the video game rotation didn’t last very long at all, as I
was only in for one day. On Tuesday, our class started to create photoshop
experiments to reminds ourselves and gain ideas for what we would create
for our actual project. I spent a lot of time practising my pixel art for the
backgrounds and environment since I thought that it could give me more
inspiration for mine and that I could replicate the art I liked in my mood
boards.

5. The rest of the week I was unable to spend at college due to harsh snow
and weather conditions, but they did give me chances to think more
about the actual game that I would be making next week.
I managed to create a small animation of a penguin walking across an icy
bridge. The original intention was to replicate a separate image but I
ended up changing the setting to be more fitting and relevant to my
project. This was a better idea in my opinion because it was better
practice at drawing pixel snow and ice.

6. Process
Week three felt like it was rushed because I had to try to catch up on the work
I didn’t get to do in the lessons I missed the previous week. This involved
writing up my proposal and completing my pre-production in time to start
actual production by the end of the week. I had written a proposal twice
before while during my short film and print projects so understanding the
style of text that I would need; therefore making the process of writing it
quicker and easier. My next step was to complete my pre-production
PowerPoint. I created some colour palettes that I could transfer onto the
Photoshop file to make it easier for me to get the colour I want to use. I found
this a lot more helpful as I could get ideas for other colours for different parts
of my game. I then went online
and found some images on the
internet to help create a mock up
of what my game might look like.
I found this very useful as it meant
I could have more references to
create the textures I wanted to use
for the ice and snow.

7. I then moved onto writing down what sound effects I would need for when
the animation was finished, plus the contingency plan and the health and
safety. After being a bit worried at fist, to see that I could do these reasonably
stress free and more quickly than expected was comforting.

8. Process
The fourth week was straight into production, with this being our only full week
to get as much of our production done as possible. I was a little worried by this
because I wasn’t sure if I would be able to have two weeks worth of good quality
animation and video in just over one week. Thankfully, I did do better than I had
been expecting and I was able to get the majority of my animation done in that
week.
I started off my drawing in the
background and environment to have
the player’s character explore. This was
fairly simple so I took inspiration from
my layout screenshot to add in little
additions of white to help with
differentiating between snow and ice.
This looked better by the end in my
opinion. From there I could add in my
penguin non playable characters and the player in groups so I could animate
them all moving a little bit.

9. Animating each individual penguin, even if they weren’t moving a lot, on top of
the player moving was a bit more frustrating than I thought but I knew that it
wouldn't be for the whole animation so I found it more bearable than I would
have done. I decided to have the screen appear as if it loads as the character
move off screen instead of it scrolling as I found it would be easier and more
manageable because I could split the animation up into sections to have more
focus on sections that I could then put together in Premiere. With previous
experience in the past of trying to have them all on one file, this was much
easier to stage and animate.
Once I had completed the first part, I moved onto the second part of my
animation. I copied over the background layer, though this time I left the snow
to make the player feel like there are
different parts to the environment. I
drew in a series of layers to look like a
hole in the ice where the penguin
could fish. As a random decision, I
drew in a Leopard Seal to offer danger
for the penguin to avoid, causing it to
go in search of another ice hole. At
first I wasn’t sure about it, but once I
started animating, I kept it instead.

10. Unfortunately I didn’t have as much time as I would have liked to be able to
animate more of the seal, but I decided to focus more on getting everything
with the player animated first and I could always return later. Sadly I didn’t
have the time but I still like the animation the seal had in the final product.
For the next section of my animation, I started to make it feel much more like
a game rather than an animation to watch by adding in a progress bar for the
player to fill up while fishing. I knew I was going to add a title screen and
character selection, but I’d decided to leave those towards the end to focus on
the main gameplay first. After
redrawing the background, I had
the player sit down by the hole in
the ice with a fishing rod. This bar
slowly fills up with drawings of
fish, but also a warning bar for a
danger the penguin has for
fishing. I thought that this would
be a good addition that I liked
how it turned out.

11. The next part of my video game was to have the character penguin head back
to the colony of other penguins in a similar way to how she came. I didn’t
want to just take the same one from last time so I changed it slightly to show
other penguins fishing to make it seem like the player actually went a different
way. This was definitely a good decision and I was happy with how quick and
easy this section was to do.
As the player returns to the penguin colony, I
decided to have a reason to actually bring back
the fish, for a baby penguin. If I’d had more
time I would have added in more for other
penguins but I wanted to make sure I got in
everything I needed first and would come back
to it if there was time.
I drew a small grey penguin that I managed to
animate a little bit to be stood by the other
parent penguin. There I added a button in to
appear to feed the baby penguin as the bar filled
with fish started to go down. I wasn’t as happy
with the animation as I would have liked but it
was better than having no animation at all.

12. It was towards the end of the week that I realised that I had no introduction to
my game and just jumped straight in. I’d planned to have a title screen and a
character customisation page, but I’d decided to leave it towards the end so I
knew how much time I would have to work on other parts of the gameplay
and therefore how much detail I could go into for the opening titles.
I used the font I found online during planning that I thought went well with
the style and was readable on my background in different colours. I decided to
have the player’s character walk down the screen to add an extra feature that
I was happy with while the options faded in. The option for ‘load game’ was in
a grey colour since the idea was that there wasn’t a game to load so the player
picks a new game. I had the text appear
blue when the player seemed to be
hovering over the option and then
flicker white to show if it had been
clicked on. I liked that addition I
made and thought it worked well.
Since I was able to make this quicker
than I had expected, I knew I would
have the time to do a character
selection page.

13. For the character selection pages I had two ideas that I thought about using. I
was either going to have different looking penguins that the player has to
choose from and then moving on to a customisation part where there would
be the option to add accessories to the penguin such as hats and ties,
presumably with more being unlocked as the player progressed through the
game.
To do this, I took the current version of the penguin I had and duplicated the
layers. I could then draw over each one with a slightly different design to give
a penguin its own look. Of course, having already animated most of the work, I
knew which penguin I would have the player choose. The other feature I
added to this screen was the option to choose a gender. This feature I liked a
lot because I could use more
inspiration I took from real life
penguins who have different
starting roles in parenthood. So I
decided to add that feature in.
Since I’d animated the job the
female penguins took, that’s what I
had the player select for their
character.

14. Unfortunately by this point, I knew that I was starting to run out of time and I
didn’t yet have an ending for the animation. I knew that I would have Tuesday
to put the clips together on Premiere and add in the sound effects that I had
downloaded along with the music background I was going to make.
I also knew that I hadn’t started the character customisation page that I was
going to do. For a moment I was starting to worry that I wouldn’t get both
done in time for the editing I knew I needed to do. So, to counter this problem,
I combined both to have the customisation as an unlockable accessory for the
penguin when the level was completed. I decided on a red bow tie as I knew it
would be fairly easy to draw and
the red would stand out against
the other colours. I could then
turn it into a screen that I could
end the animation on. In my
opinion this saved some time
but was a better decision in the
end and I’m really happy with
how it turned out.

15. Process
The final week of my video games rotation was going to be completely
dedicated to getting our evaluations done but due to the conditions the other
week, the class had been given the first day of our week to get anything that
we needed to finish, finished. I had completed my animations, and was now
moving the separate clips over to Premiere to put them all together.
But first, I decided to create the music
that would go on in the background
while the character moved
throughout the world. I went onto a
website named BeepBox where I
created a series of different mini
soundtracks that I thought would be
good in different parts of the
gameplay. This turned out to be really
helpful and I enjoyed testing out how
music can have an impact on how a
game is played.

16. Once I was happy with the music that I’d made, I moved onto Premiere. I
exported the photoshop animations as gif files and dropped them into premiere
in the correct order I wanted. Since all of them had been faded into and out of
black, each section flowed into each other easily so this part was incredibly
quick to do.
My next step was to add in my audio files and my music files. The audio files
weren’t difficult to do, the hardest part being getting the timings done right to
fit in for when the penguin was walking and when the penguin was not. I had
also decided to have different sounds for walking depending on if the player’s
character was walking on snow or
ice. While this did mean that the
process took a little bit longer, I
think that it was worth it in the end.
The main problem I encountered
was that the music and other sound
effects was so much louder than the
sounds of the penguin walking and
it took me a while to actually make
the walking sounds audible.

17. This became quite frustrating for a while and I had considered trying to find
new walking effects to go with the rest. But eventually I got the levels of sound
that I was trying to get where all of the sounds were audible and didn’t drown
each other out.
My final step was to watch and listen through everything to make sure I hadn’t
missed a sound or there was a gap in the clips. Once I was happy with it, I
moved onto my evaluation.
Having done many evaluations before in the past, I had a good idea of what to
expect and this made the process a little less daunting than previously. The
parts that were different to usual took a moment to understand the difference
but then I found them fairly easy to write about and compare to the existing
products I’d researched and took inspiration from.