Simulator Game Group report EB

Project Report – MoonLeaf Productions
Elliot Black – Team Leader - 15080731
Zech Ross – Deputy Team Leader - 15101740
Callum Deighton – Marketer - 15073903
Ben White – Sub-Project Investigator - 15067796
Jezwin Jacob – Financial Director - 15075565

Executive summary – Elliot Black
We are MoonLeaf Productions, A professional games design company that has created hand crafted
original games with very high production value 5 years in a row.
We mainly develop for PC using engines such as Game Maker, Unity and Unreal Engine and tailor
our games to suit our client’s needs. We create all our own assets and can work from a blank canvas
or use existing characters from popular IP’s.
Currently, we have 5 around the clock employees working tirelessly to create the perfect game for
you; Each of them with unique skills and knowledge that will pour their hearts into making the perfect
product.
With current in house games companies costing millions to set up and maintain, committing to
building an in-house studio for a business looking for a one-time game, can be way over the top for
the product that is needed. We are the perfect solution to this. As an independent developer studio,
you send us the assignment brief for the game you want completed and we work closely with you to
give you exactly what you want and more! Our team spans many professions including Game
developers, coders, testers, sound engineers and many more. By hiring us, you save on the hassle of
hiring employees, finding a suitable work location, setting up said location, etc.
We realise there are other independent studios doing a similar thing so how do we stand out from the
crowd? We are the first indie company to have our own marketers, financers and social media team.
Our experienced team is highly trained in the logistics of making and selling games so not only will
you have us create your game, we will help you sell it too!
Once we have finished out early discussions with the client and we know what you want, we begin by
performing a series of market research tasks, creating surveys and polls using our social media
platforms and contacts. We then relay this information to you and see if this feedback shapes the way
you want the game to be created. Once secondary talks are over we begin the production phase
creating concept art and working to get a prototype to the client as fast as possible to see if they
approve of the direction we’re taking the game. If they like our work, we continue, trying to push out
an alpha version and soon beta version of the game. Once the client reviews those and is happy, we
push through to the final stage where we finish up the game, whilst beginning work on promotional
material and begin the marketing phase. From this point, we work closely with the client to help them
market the game in the most effective way possible, giving them access to our journalist contacts or
setting up online ads for various popular websites such as YouTube, Facebook, Instagram etc. At any
point in this stage the client has the option to perform the marketing themselves, but we have very
experienced social media reps, that would love to help this game really fly with the rest o

Chapter 1 – Introduction – Zech Ross
Main aims
Our main aims are producing a short demo of a game for the showcase event so the
client and potential investors can see what we have accomplished and to get an idea
of the type of game we hope to make.
Objectives
The group worked well together to achieve our goals;
• Everyone had their own tasks to complete and deadlines to meet and considered
other team members time management and skill when requesting work to be done by
a certain date.
• When setting deadlines for tasks the team leader/deputy leader must give enough
time for the group to communicate with each other to get the resources they need
and complete the task.
• We formed a schedule of workflow usually 1 week for small tasks 2 weeks for large
tasks, this way the group can all meet on Monday afternoons each week to
communicate what has been completed and what their task for the next week will be.
• Opened a group chat for communication with the team to make sure everyone can
request any work or resources they might need, report on progress and discuss
plans for future work.
•
Software capabilities
The game should be playable with some basic art assets, which do not need to be of a high
standard at this point and high quality user interaction including interface and gameplay
elements. The game should have a mouse-controlled interface with on screen clickable
buttons for gameplay; the game should have an end screen for losing as well as a restart
feature that resets the game to default state and allows the user to begin again.
Project background and context of work and lead into sub-projects
Sub projects included marketing, which involved making posters, leaflets and adjusting the
game to make a demo version, which is simplified and shorter than the full game for the

showcase. Developing the demo, we reduced the score limit so people could try the game
and complete it in a short amount of time, which then showed a page advertising the game.
We also conduced market research including questionnaires of what people wanted to see
in the game and what gameplay elements are enjoyable for users.
User Requirements
The user needs basic game knowledge to be able to use the software. Very early in the
design process the team decided to make the game a point and click style game and not
something that requires a huge amount of skill, we chose to do this so that anyone who
wanted to play could learn to play relatively easily. Many other simulator games are available
on mobile devices, which we also based development around being easy to port to other
systems such as touch screen devices but at this stage, we focused on developing for only
PC. The user wants to have fun playing the game so we made it simple enough that the
player doesn’t have to spend a lot of time doing tutorials or reading a guide on how to play;
all buttons are labelled with their action and its entirely mouse based other than the user
typing their name at the beginning.
Pre System Evaluation:
1) Physical Resources:
As an indie company, we already have the setup needed for our solution, instead of a
normal in house dev team; we are an independent company that employers can
contract. As such, we have all the resources we need and are able to complete our
product using our solution as is.
2) Skills Required:
As deputy team leader, I feel I still need to learn a lot about leading a team; however,
I feel I can gain a lot of experience during my time in this role. For our sub project
investigator, he needs to learn how to code in GML and properly use the software
effectively to achieve the project goals.
3) Security:

All development is from our independent studio and therefore is not open to the
public, the only access to the code and resources are team members and clients.
The system is only complex as far as any other business is concerned.
4) Safety:
Workplace safety issues include standard issues present in most office places such
as backup copies of all files we use for the project. Health and safety is important in
the workplace to stop people causing damage to health, properties and themselves.
5) Time:
The project should take around 3 months to develop the game including time to
adjust the demo version for the showcase, marketing, testing and market research.
This is the schedule we made up based on predicted times of completion of each
task and everything that must be done before the project is finished.

Individual SWOT analysis
Strengths
My personal strengths include organisation and ability to organise others,
communicating with teammates both listening and speaking, responsibility, strategic
thinking directly related to efficiency. Often when working as a group to complete a
project the team members all do what they think is right and do tasks in the order
they feel like. I’m skilled at working out a pipeline of efficiency making sure all
planning and discussions take place early on in the project keeping everyone up to
date on what we need to do currently and what the next stages will be. If there are
detailed plans at the beginning of the project this speeds up the development time
since nobody has to wait on others for instructions of what to do once a schedule is
shared with the group.
Weaknesses
My main weaknesses are:
• Patience when others do not listen to ideas, I think everyone in the
team should be able to speak their ideas without criticism or being ignored.
Everyone in the group should be heard and ideas discussed.
• Speaking to large audiences can make me nervous and speak too
quickly or skip over information.
Opportunities
The project will give man opportunities to improve on my weaknesses;
• Public speaking will be practiced and hopefully improve my confidence
in presentations and the final showcase.
• I will have the chance to further improve my leadership skills by
working with the group as deputy leader, giving me a role in organising other
people, personal communication, workloads, schedule and planning.

• Learn new techniques and face problems that I must solve to help
increase my strengths
Threats
The project proposes many opportunities but also many threats, if team members
don’t get on with each other, don’t complete work on time or refuse to take part in
discussions this could cause problems that I will need to overcome.
• If team members do not get on I must remind them this is a
professional environment and they must act in a professional manner to work
together to complete tasks.
• If team members don’t/can’t complete work on time I will encourage
them to mention this to myself or the team leader and discuss why the work
hasn’t been completed so we can extend deadlines for their work or split the
work into smaller parts so multiple group members can work on it.
Chapter 2: Marketer – Callum Deighton
Research and document the background to the product and to be able to show potential
investors the benefits.
When doing research for our simulator game the first thing I wanted to do was look up how
successful other games in the “simulator” genre were and what made them successful. After
having a look on Steam (arguably the biggest platform for Simulator games on the PC) I
found some very promising results.

(1)
(2)
(3)
What I noticed was that the Simulator genre was a big market with a lot of variety in what
each game entailed. After having a deep look at all the various games, I found that the more
successful ones and the ones with the most positive reactions are the ones with a mix of
unique appearance and a lot of replay-ability. This shows that if you can make a game in the
Simulator genre that is unique and fun enough then there is a chance to grab a lot of
potential customers and make a lot of money.

An account and evaluation of the current market, its characteristics, including trends,
competitor share and how receptive the market is to new products such as yours.
In the last few years, video games have become a lot more popular in common media, with
new consoles such as the PlayStation 4, Xbox One and Nintendo Switch making millions of
sales as well as the increase in Computer gaming, with gaming services such as Steam,
Origin and Uplay making lots of money which increases every year
Doing some research on the most popular genres of games in the last few years, it appears
that according to statista.com, the most popular game genres tend to be the ones that are
more fast-paced and focus more on gameplay and replay-ability such as first person
shooters and fighting games.
Simulator games have been a quiet yet prominent staple in the video game industry, with its
beginnings coming from Maxis’s SimCity, released on the Macintosh Computer in 1989.
Since then the genre has slowly evolved, with multiple classics like The Sims, Kerbal Space
Program & Flight Simulator X being some stand out titles. In recent years, the simulator
genre has really expanded and become much more popular as games based off of things
such as jobs (like with Euro Truck Simulator, 911 Operator & Surgeon Simulator 2013)
becoming notable ones.

(An example of some modern
Simulator games)
When it came to creating our own simulator game, we decided to help our research by
conducting a survey with 10 people, asking them various questions about simulator games
and video games in general, so we could analyse their answers and directly use them when
it came to creating our game so we would know what to avoid and what to focus on. The

answers we received are as shown.

We were pretty happy with the results we got, as we managed to gain a lot of useful
information that went directly into the creation of our simulator game.
The Marketer is responsible for organising an event for potential investors - The Showcase
Event
I went about organising an event for our group’s project, a showcase event. The idea we had
was to get potential investors to come to this event and look at a definitive prototype of our
game, as well as explain to them our entire process of how we came about making the game
and all the pre-production that went into creating it as well as answering any questions they
may have.
We planned for the Showcase event to take place on Tuesday 21st
March 2017 at the
Manchester Metropolitan University’s business school atrium, where will have a table out
with two laptops on hand, one showcasing our game prototype and the other showing a
presentation detailing every detail that went into the planning and production of the game.
Develop a Logo for your named company
Here is the final design of our company’s logo. I went through many drafts and designs, and
after a lot of discussion with my other group members this is the final design we went with.

The reason we went with this design is because we think it looked very modern and clean,
and would be easily recognisable.
Outline the proposed Showcase event: include a plan and outline how it will be organised,
e.g. who will attend, location. Fully cost the event and include advertising and web marketing
of the complete project.
The plan we have is as follows:
On Tuesday 21st
March 2017 from 15:00 – 17:00, all members of our group will be at a table
to show to potential investors as well as the general public our finalised prototype of “Twik: A
Streamer Simulator”, our project. Whilst the consumer tries out the prototype, some of us will
be on hand to explain the rules of the game and what they need to do. Once the consumer
has played as much as they want, we will then offer them the option of viewing our
PowerPoint showing how the game was made and all the research we did for creating it,
including showing the survey and market research that we made.
When it comes to costs, I carefully counted all the prices as follows:
6ft 1.8m Folding Heavy Duty Table: £29.99
Folding Chair x2: £20.00
Poster Board: £7.50
2x Rented Company Laptops: £60.00
Various Confectionary: £9.00
How will you advertise the Showcase event? Give examples of this. For example - use of
social media, sending out email invites, create posters/flyers advertising the Showcase
event.

When it comes to advertising the Showcase event, my first decision was to create an official
Twitter account for our company which we would use as the primary platform to advertise
our upcoming Showcase event, sending out multiple tweets each day as well as showing
some in-production screenshots for our game so people could have an early look at what
they were going to be experiencing.
(6)
Soon after the account was up and running, I began designing various posters for the game
to stir up interest and made sure to place said posters around some of the Uni buildings so
some of the students and public could find out about our project, hopefully convincing some
of them to come check it out for themselves at the event.

Individual SWOT analysis before project starts.
References
Strengths
• Good Social Skills
• Open Minded
• Determined and Self-
Motivated
• Good Team Worker
Weaknesses
• Easily Distracted
• Can suffer from nervousness
• Can be indecisive at times
• Losing Track of Thought
• Can sometimes Oversleep
Threats
• Making sure all the other group
members are putting in the same
amount of effort and don’t slack
off.
• Trying to work with all the social
media and advertisement daily,
making sure it gets enough
Opportunities
• The experience of working in a
company and all the processes that
go into making it work as a group
effort.
• Social skills, and the experiences of
trying to sell a product to an
investor.

(1): http://store.steampowered.com/app/255710/ https://steamspy.com/app/255710
(4): https://www.statista.com/statistics/189592/breakdown-of-us-video-game-sales-2009-by-genre/
(5) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simulation_video_game
(6) https://twitter.com/MoonLeafProduc
Chapter 3 – Financial Accounts and Projection Jeswin Jacob
We were given a Master Budget of £80,000 for start-up costs. The Master Budget aids us in
dealing with some of the initial costs of starting development such as renting an office space,
purchasing capable hardware and software and paying bills. We acquired the Master Budget
through crowdfunding by advertising our project on Kickstarter and other social media
platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. This allows members of the public who
find our project proposal interesting or believes it has potential to donate a sum of money
towards reaching the Master Budget goal. As the Finance Director, I oversee the budget for
the project and keeping track of the cash inflows and outflows, making sure we’re not
spending more than we can afford to and cutting costs where needed.
Review of Master Budget

Jan-17 Apr-17 Jul-17 Oct-17 Total
RECURRING COSTS
Rent £1,500 £1,500 £1,500 £1,500 £6,000
Electricity £300 £300 £300 £300 £1,200
Internet Access £300 £300 £300 £300 £1,200
Insurance £750 £750 £750 £750 £3,000
Software License £240 £240 £240 £240 £960
Salaries £15,000 £15,000 £15,000 £15,000 £60,000
EQUIPMENT
PCs for 5 People £3,500 £0 £0 £0 £3,500
Dual Monitors for 5 People £1,500 £0 £0 £0 £1,500
Mice for 5 People £500 £0 £0 £0 £500
Keyboards for 5 People £750 £0 £0 £0 £750
Desks for 5 People £350 £0 £0 £0 £350
Chairs for 5 People £1,000 £0 £0 £0 £1,000
Total Expenditure in First Year £79,960
Initial Master Budget £80,000
Balance £40
This Master Budget review shows that we managed to stay under the Master Budget after
setting up the studio and paying bills for the first year. This includes ongoing costs such as
bills and software licenses which are a monthly expense. This does not consider profit made
from selling copies of the game on online marketplaces such as Steam.
Profit/Loss Forecast – Year 1
Jan-17 Feb-17 Mar-17 Apr-17 May-17 Jun-17
Sales 0 0 0 0 0 50 50
Gross Profit £0 £0 £0 £0 £0 £250.00 £250
Expenditure
Rent £500 £500 £500 £500 £500 £500 £3,000
Electricity £100 £100 £100 £100 £100 £100 £600
Internet Access £100 £100 £100 £100 £100 £100 £600
Insurance £250 £250 £250 £250 £250 £250 £1,500
Software License £240 £240 £240 £240 £240 £240 £1,440
Salaries £5,000 £5,000 £5,000 £5,000 £5,000 £5,000 £30,000
£6,190 £6,190 £6,190 £6,190 £6,190 £6,190 £37,140
Net Profit -£6,190 -£6,190 -£6,190 -£6,190 -£6,190 -£5,940 -£36,890

Jul-17 Aug-17 Sep-17 Oct-17 Nov-17 Dec-17
Sales 150 350 600 950 1250 1500 4800
Gross Profit £750 £1,750 £3,000 £4,750 £6,250 £7,500.00 £24,000
Expenditure
Rent £500 £500 £500 £500 £500 £500 £3,000
Electricity £100 £100 £100 £100 £100 £100 £600
Internet Access £100 £100 £100 £100 £100 £100 £600
Insurance £250 £250 £250 £250 £250 £250 £1,500
Salaries £5,000 £5,000 £5,000 £5,000 £5,000 £5,000 £30,000
£6,190 £6,190 £6,190 £6,190 £6,190 £6,190 £37,140
Net Profit -£5,440 -£4,440 -£3,190 -£1,440 £60 £1,310 -£13,140
We expect around 5000 copies of the game to be sold in the first year of release, with sales
numbers increasing exponentially per month as YouTube content creators and Live
Streamers pick the game up and provide exposure. We expect to roughly break even
coming towards the end of the year when the holiday season arrives and players have more
free time and money to purchase games. The number of copies sold will also increase
around holiday time as the Steam Christmas Sale takes place, where prices are reduced
which allows more copies of the game to be sold. We are not expecting to make any profit
as all the costs for the first year of production will be covered by the Master Budget.
Total Gross Profit £24,250
Total Yearly Expenditure £74,280
Total Net Profit £0

Sales 1500 1250 1300 1600 750 750 7150
Gross Profit £7,500 £6,250 £6,500 £8,000 £3,750 £3,750.00 £35,750
Expenditure
Rent £500 £500 £500 £500 £500 £500 £3,000
Electricity £100 £100 £100 £100 £100 £100 £600
Internet Access £100 £100 £100 £100 £100 £100 £600
Insurance £250 £250 £250 £250 £250 £250 £1,500
Salaries £5,000 £5,000 £5,000 £5,000 £5,000 £5,000 £30,000
£6,190 £6,190 £6,190 £6,190 £6,190 £6,190 £37,140
Net Profit £1,310 £60 £310 £1,810 -£2,440 -£2,440 -£1,390
Total Net Profit £36,470

Sales 2000 2500 2000 2000 2500 4000 15000
Gross Profit £10,000 £12,500 £10,000 £10,000 £12,500 £20,000.00 £75,000
Expenditure
Rent £500 £500 £500 £500 £500 £500 £3,000
Electricity £100 £100 £100 £100 £100 £100 £600
Internet Access £100 £100 £100 £100 £100 £100 £600
Insurance £250 £250 £250 £250 £250 £250 £1,500
Salaries £5,000 £5,000 £5,000 £5,000 £5,000 £5,000 £30,000
£6,190 £6,190 £6,190 £6,190 £6,190 £6,190 £37,140
Net Profit £3,810 £6,310 £3,810 £3,810 £6,310 £13,810 £37,860
For the second year, we expect the sales of the game to fluctuate slightly as most of the
player base will have school and other responsibilities, with slight spikes during holiday times
such as Easter and then a larger increase in sales during the summer period and then again
during Christmas. This will be the first year that we will have made a profit from game sales
after taking out all the monthly expenditures. This is also the time you can expect a large
increase in copies sold as more and more content creators on YouTube and other video
platforms play the game to an audience, increasing publicity.
Sales 3000 2000 1500 1000 1000 500 9000
Gross Profit £15,000 £10,000 £7,500 £5,000 £5,000 £2,500.00 £45,000
Expenditure
Rent £500 £500 £500 £500 £500 £500 3000
Electricity £100 £100 £100 £100 £100 £100 600
Internet Access £100 £100 £100 £100 £100 £100 600
Insurance £250 £250 £250 £250 £250 £250 1500
Software License £240 £240 £240 £240 £240 £240 1440
Salaries £5,000 £5,000 £5,000 £5,000 £5,000 £5,000 30000
£6,190 £6,190 £6,190 £6,190 £6,190 £6,190 £37,140
Net Profit £8,810 £3,810 £1,310 -£1,190 -£1,190 -£3,690 £7,860

Sales 2500 1500 1000 1250 1250 3000 10500
Gross Profit £12,500 £7,500 £2,500 £6,250 £6,250 £15,000.00 £50,000
Expenditure
Rent £500 £500 £500 £500 £500 £500 3000
Electricity £100 £100 £100 £100 £100 £100 600
Internet Access £100 £100 £100 £100 £100 £100 600
Insurance £250 £250 £250 £250 £250 £250 1500
Software License £240 £240 £240 £240 £240 £240 1440
Salaries £5,000 £5,000 £5,000 £5,000 £5,000 £5,000 30000
£6,190 £6,190 £6,190 £6,190 £6,190 £6,190 £37,140
Net Profit £6,310 £1,310 -£3,690 £60 £60 £8,810 £12,860
For the third year, we expect sales to stagnate or decrease as players who want to buy the
game will have already purchased it by this point. Content creators will have lost interest in
the game by now and move onto other games. This would be a good time to release a
content update patch or a sequel to the game to bring back interest of the player base and
content creators alike.
Total Net Profit £20,720

Cash Flow Forecast
Year 1 - Q1 and Q2
Jan-17 Feb-17 Mar-17 Apr-17 May-17 Jun-17 Total
CASH INFLOWS
Investment £80,000 £0 £0 £0 £0 £0 £80,000
Sales £0 £0 £0 £0 £0 £250 £250
Total Inflows £80,000 £0 £0 £0 £0 £250 £80,250
CASH OUTFLOWS
Labour Costs
Leader £1,000 £1,000 £1,000 £1,000 £1,000 £1,000 £6,000
Deputy Leader £1,000 £1,000 £1,000 £1,000 £1,000 £1,000 £6,000
Marketer £1,000 £1,000 £1,000 £1,000 £1,000 £1,000 £6,000
Finance Director £1,000 £1,000 £1,000 £1,000 £1,000 £1,000 £6,000
Sub Project Investigator £1,000 £1,000 £1,000 £1,000 £1,000 £1,000 £6,000
Expenses
Rent £500 £500 £500 £500 £500 £500 £3,000
Insurance £250 £250 £250 £250 £250 £250 £1,500
Marketing £0 £0 £127 £0 £0 £0 £127
Equipment Cost £7,600 £0 £0 £0 £0 £0 £7,600
Software Licenses £60 £60 £60 £60 £60 £60 £360
Electricity £100 £100 £100 £100 £100 £100 £600
Internet Access £100 £100 £100 £100 £100 £100 £600
Total Outflows
Net Cash Outflow £13,610 £6,010 £6,137 £6,010 £6,010 £6,010 £43,787
NET CASH FLOW £66,390 -£6,010 -£6,137 -£6,010 -£6,010 -£6,010 £36,213
Opening Balance £0 £66,390 £60,380 £54,243 £48,233 £42,223
Closing Balance £66,390 £60,380 £54,243 £48,233 £42,223 £36,213

Year 1 - Q3 and Q4
Jul-17 Aug-17 Sep-17 Oct-17 Nov-17 Dec-17 Total
CASH INFLOWS
Investment £0 £0 £0 £0 £0 £0 £0
Sales £750 £1,750 £3,000 £4,750 £6,250 £7,500 £24,000
Total Inflows £750 £1,750 £3,000 £4,750 £6,250 £7,500 £24,000
CASH OUTFLOWS
Labour Costs
Leader £1,000 £1,000 £1,000 £1,000 £1,000 £1,000 £6,000
Deputy Leader £1,000 £1,000 £1,000 £1,000 £1,000 £1,000 £6,000
Marketer £1,000 £1,000 £1,000 £1,000 £1,000 £1,000 £6,000
Expenses
Rent £500 £500 £500 £500 £500 £500 £3,000
Insurance £250 £250 £250 £250 £250 £250 £1,500
Marketing £0 £0 £0 £0 £0 £0 £127
Equipment Cost £0 £0 £0 £0 £0 £0 £0
Electricity £100 £100 £100 £100 £100 £100 £600
Internet Access £100 £100 £100 £100 £100 £100 £600
Total Outflows
Net Cash Outflow £6,010 £6,010 £6,010 £6,010 £6,010 £6,010 £36,060
NET CASH FLOW -£5,260 -£4,260 -£3,010 -£1,260 £240 £1,490 -£12,060
Opening Balance £0 -£5,260 -£9,520 -£12,530 -£13,790 -£13,550
Closing Balance -£5,260 -£9,520 -£12,530 -£13,790 -£13,550 -£12,060
Total Inflows £104,250
Total Outflows £79,847
Net Cash Flow £24,403

Year 2 - Q1 and Q2
CASH INFLOWS
Investment £0 £0 £0 £0 £0 £0 £0
Sales £7,500 £6,250 £6,500 £8,000 £3,750 £3,750 £35,750
Total Inflows £7,500 £6,250 £6,500 £8,000 £3,750 £3,750 £35,750
CASH OUTFLOWS
Labour Costs
Leader £1,000 £1,000 £1,000 £1,000 £1,000 £1,000 £6,000
Deputy Leader £1,000 £1,000 £1,000 £1,000 £1,000 £1,000 £6,000
Marketer £1,000 £1,000 £1,000 £1,000 £1,000 £1,000 £6,000
Expenses
Rent £500 £500 £500 £500 £500 £500 £3,000
Insurance £250 £250 £250 £250 £250 £250 £1,500
Marketing £0 £0 £0 £0 £0 £0 £0
Equipment Cost £0 £0 £0 £0 £0 £0 £0
Electricity £100 £100 £100 £100 £100 £100 £600
Internet Access £100 £100 £100 £100 £100 £100 £600
Total Outflows
Net Cash Outflow £6,010 £6,010 £6,010 £6,010 £6,010 £6,010 £36,060
NET CASH FLOW £1,490 £240 £490 £1,990 -£2,260 -£2,260 -£310
Opening Balance £0 £1,490 £1,730 £2,220 £4,210 £1,950
Closing Balance £1,490 £1,730 £2,220 £4,210 £1,950 -£310

Year 2 – Q3 and Q4
CASH INFLOWS
Investment £0 £0 £0 £0 £0 £0 £0
Sales £10,000 £12,500 £10,000 £10,000 £12,500 £20,000 £75,000
Total Inflows £10,000 £12,500 £10,000 £10,000 £12,500 £20,000 £75,000
CASH OUTFLOWS
Labour Costs
Leader £1,000 £1,000 £1,000 £1,000 £1,000 £1,000 £6,000
Deputy Leader £1,000 £1,000 £1,000 £1,000 £1,000 £1,000 £6,000
Marketer £1,000 £1,000 £1,000 £1,000 £1,000 £1,000 £6,000
Expenses
Rent £500 £500 £500 £500 £500 £500 £3,000
Insurance £250 £250 £250 £250 £250 £250 £1,500
Marketing £0 £0 £0 £0 £0 £0 £127
Equipment Cost £0 £0 £0 £0 £0 £0 £0
Electricity £100 £100 £100 £100 £100 £100 £600
Internet Access £100 £100 £100 £100 £100 £100 £600
Total Outflows
Net Cash Outflow £6,010 £6,010 £6,010 £6,010 £6,010 £6,010 £36,060
NET CASH FLOW £3,990 £6,490 £3,990 £3,990 £6,490 £13,990 £38,940
Opening Balance £0 £3,990 £10,480 £14,470 £18,460 £24,950
Closing Balance £3,990 £10,480 £14,470 £18,460 £24,950 £38,940
Net Cash Flow £630

CASH INFLOWS
Investment £0 £0 £0 £0 £0 £0 £0
Sales £15,000 £10,000 £7,500 £5,000 £5,000 £2,500 £45,000
Total Inflows £15,000 £10,000 £7,500 £5,000 £5,000 £2,500 £45,000
CASH OUTFLOWS
Labour Costs
Leader £1,000 £1,000 £1,000 £1,000 £1,000 £1,000 £6,000
Deputy Leader £1,000 £1,000 £1,000 £1,000 £1,000 £1,000 £6,000
Marketer £1,000 £1,000 £1,000 £1,000 £1,000 £1,000 £6,000
Expenses
Rent £500 £500 £500 £500 £500 £500 £3,000
Insurance £250 £250 £250 £250 £250 £250 £1,500
Marketing £0 £0 £127 £0 £0 £0 £127
Equipment Cost £0 £0 £0 £0 £0 £0 £0
Electricity £100 £100 £100 £100 £100 £100 £600
Internet Access £100 £100 £100 £100 £100 £100 £600
Total Outflows
Net Cash Outflow £6,010 £6,010 £6,010 £6,010 £6,010 £6,010 £36,060
NET CASH FLOW £8,990 £3,990 £1,490 -£1,010 -£1,010 -£3,510 £8,940
Opening Balance £0 £8,990 £12,980 £14,470 £13,460 £12,450
Closing Balance £8,990 £12,980 £14,470 £13,460 £12,450 £8,940

CASH INFLOWS
Investment £0 £0 £0 £0 £0 £0 £0
Sales £12,500 £7,500 £2,500 £6,250 £6,250 £15,000 £50,000
Total Inflows £12,500 £7,500 £2,500 £6,250 £6,250 £15,000 £50,000
CASH OUTFLOWS
Labour Costs
Leader £1,000 £1,000 £1,000 £1,000 £1,000 £1,000 £6,000
Deputy Leader £1,000 £1,000 £1,000 £1,000 £1,000 £1,000 £6,000
Marketer £1,000 £1,000 £1,000 £1,000 £1,000 £1,000 £6,000
Expenses
Rent £500 £500 £500 £500 £500 £500 £3,000
Insurance £250 £250 £250 £250 £250 £250 £1,500
Marketing £0 £0 £0 £0 £0 £0 £127
Equipment Cost £0 £0 £0 £0 £0 £0 £0
Electricity £100 £100 £100 £100 £100 £100 £600
Internet Access £100 £100 £100 £100 £100 £100 £600
Total Outflows
Net Cash Outflow £6,010 £6,010 £6,010 £6,010 £6,010 £6,010 £36,060
NET CASH FLOW £6,490 £1,490 -£3,510 £240 £240 £8,990 £13,940
Opening Balance £0 £6,490 £7,980 £4,470 £4,710 £4,950
Closing Balance £6,490 £7,980 £4,470 £4,710 £4,950 £13,940
Net Cash Flow £22,880
Break Even Analysis

In May of Year 1, you can see that after calculating all the monthly expenditures and profit
made from selling the game, we will break even by a marginal amount. From this point, there
should be an upward trend of net profit. This also means that we won’t have to rely on any
further funding from crowdsourcing or other sources to manage the running costs of the
business and can be self-sufficient.
SWOT Analysis
Strengths
- ISTJ – The Inspector
- Devoted to their work
- Always punctual
- Works best with a step by step
approach
- Determined
I am willing to do all I can to help my
team succeed and make sure everyone
does well. I have many years’
experience with Photoshop and this will
allow me to create a majority the art
assets for the game.
Weaknesses
- Emotionally distant
- Lack of confidence
- Easily distracted
My weaknesses mainly come from being
distracted when there is no sense of
urgency to finish the work; leaving it until a
day or two before the deadline to finish it
all, often resulting in a lower quality piece of
work than if I had worked on it periodically. I
also lack confidence when first put with a
group I am not familiar with, but that usually
fades after a few weeks.
Opportunities
- A chance to learn professional
image editing and poster making
techniques.
- Learning about the financial
requirements of starting up a
business and the time and effort it
takes to start making a net profit.
- An opportunity to dive deeper into
Excel and learn how to use the
software.
- A great chance to build my team
working skills and further knowledge
of the field.
Threats
- I’ve never done a large project like
this with a group in the past so this
is something that’s totally new to
me.
- There might be conflict between
team members on ideas and how
the product should turn out.
- I might leave my work until the last
minute and rush to do it all.
- Might not have enough to contribute
to the team or might not mesh well
with them.

Chapters 4-7: [Sub-project Investigator] - Ben White (15067796)
Our task for this project was to research and interesting idea for a ‘Simulation’ type
video game revolving around jobs, for example a Power Plant simulator, and develop
the mechanics and a working prototype game. Our group met and discussed various
job roles, developing a list of jobs accompanied by similar video games that had
already been made. Through our weekly meetings, we decided to develop the game
app for PC through a software called Game Maker Studio (GMS). We decided to
develop for PC as the game will be a prototype and PC would be much easier for
testing purposes before implementing such features as console support. GMS is a
game development engine some of team at Moon Leaf have had experience with in
the past, however we have had no experience developing a game such as this. Our
initial plans together saw us designing a 2D interface in which the game runs entirely
from as we have explored similar typed games that use an interface type system.
This interface would have buttons, variables, statistics/scores, timers and all sorts of
clickable/interactive objects the user could experiment with. Photoshop would be our
main program to develop art assets however GMS has a Sprite Editor equipped too.
Our aims for this project are:
- Develop a working prototype which meets user requirements and works
effectively without errors
- Design an interface which is easy to read/understand where the users will
have no problems solving in-game tasks
- Research similar games to develop and experiment with many ideas, art
styles, mechanics and so forth.

The main point of developing a ‘Simulator’ game is to reproduce something in the
real world in a brand-new and entertaining way. For example, ‘Tuber Simulator’
takes video game streaming into account as well. This is where a user streams
themselves playing a video game online to an audience and this is becoming quite
popular with services such as Twitch and YouTube providing fitting services for
creators. Our idea was to research deeper into this style of work and pinpoint what
streamers do, how/why they gain followers, how they earn and what they do to
achieve goals. Our team decided that we could add a survival system where users
are required to drink and eat, whilst taking on daily activities such as working for
money and then streaming, but would like it to be more fast-paced.
We also used the market research we gathered too which helped us understand
things we should avoid in our game. For example, people thought a lot of simulator
games were boring, with one person saying “Boring after a while”. To counter this,
we would add lots of attractive visuals, whilst making the prototype “short and
sweet”.
Our main difficulties developing this project was within Game Maker Studio and
learning its own specific programming language GML. This would require
experimentation and cooperation from the group as we can learn the syntax. To
solve this, I would investigate tutorials online as well as experiment by myself in
spare time with the previous experience of the Game Maker Engine I have and I
would share videos back to the team for them to have a look through.
The team would easily be able to share art and object assets, however a few
problems initially occurred at the start of the project involving the dimensions of the
art produced being too big or too small. To solve this problem, we set a size of
1024x768 for the main size of the room and we worked around developing sprites
and backgrounds from that. I would also set a size of 96x96 for each button on the
interface, which would also help with measurements, and we would discuss
dimensions before we would work on any art assets.
For our development approach, each week we would discuss what we thought was
best to work on for our game and then we would work together to develop it for the

next meeting. For example, we discussed the idea of having ‘health bars’ that
showed player statistics. We thought about having a Food, Drink and Sleep bar that
would decrease over time and we worked on developing code and art for all 3 bars.
For the final product, we developed just the Food and Drink bar as we believed 3
was too much to monitor when we tested our product and asked other users. We
developed a testing table in the final weeks to monitor what people thought of our
product and ways we could improve design or fix bugs in the prototype for example.
Testing with players
Name Summary of
game so far
Ideas or bugs? Our Solution
Vincenzo
Scialpi
“I believe
Streamer
Simulator is
nicely designed
and the
mechanics work
well from what I
have seen”
The ‘upgrade’ buttons
do not create a pop-up
when clicked
We modified the code so that the
upgrade buttons would be more
informative and tell users if they
do not have enough credits to
purchase the upgrade
Martin
White
“So far it plays
quite well and I
enjoy the
animations. I
like how buttons
are responsive
when you click
or hover”
Some of the fonts are
hard to read and
sometimes they
overlap
- I looked into the Array List and
changed some names to use
new lines to take up less space
- We looked at adding font styles
to some text to make statistics
clearer to the users
Ross
Lloyd
“It feels like
there needs to
be more
mechanics for
now”
Pressing the Space
Bar would sometimes
cause crashes on the
main level
I reworked the code in the
transition object to only occur on
the intro page and not the main
level

We used Photoshop and Game Maker Studio Sprite Editor to develop all the art
assets for our Streamer Simulator. We used Game Maker Studio and the GML
programming language to program all the assets and objects and created a ‘Moon
Leaf Productions’ group chat on Facebook Messenger. This is so we could
constantly keep in close contact with other members of the team. Messenger is quite
useful as you can also get mobile alerts so people will be instantly alerted to any
messages sent. Our group have also set up a Google Drive link so that we can
easily share content with each other.
Here we designed a very simplistic version of the prototype. It contains enough
objects and functions for a very small playable game with lots of statistics to watch
over. We wanted to take this further and develop more mechanics too.

Introduction
This room contains the logo
of MoonLeaf, instructions to
play the game, information
on the current build of the
prototype and the title of the
game itself.
Main level
This is where players will spend
most of their time. The bulk of
the game will be held in this
room with the majority of the
buttons, variables, counters,
objects and animations active at
once.
Game Over
Players will see this room if
they fail to keep their Food
and Drink variables >=1
Stats will display showing
Followers Gained and
Streams Made before failing.
Game Success
For the prototype, it has been agreed
that 150 followers would take a
sufficient amount of time to achieve.
Through testing, this amount takes
roughly 5 minutes which is a strong
amount of play-time and testing time.
Initially, we planned for 1000 however
this proved to be too high.
Credits
This room contains all of our
group members’ names and
email addresses for potential
investors or anybody who
would like to get into contact
with the team.
GAME
can be
RESET
GAME
can be
RESET
The creation of the initial story board consisted of showing the sections of the game,
also known as the ‘rooms’, and how the game would progress to move onto the next
room. We updated the story board to give descriptions of what happens in each
room in the final product.

Prototypes
Prototype V1
Our first prototype consisted of an empty background
room with 2 buttons and a timer object. The timer
was coded so that it would only count the seconds
and the buttons had no animation, basic design and
would only change a variable by +1. We set up this
basic room to experiment with a few basic
mechanics before moving onto full work. I began
implementing new features, such as Mouse Cursor
Events, where the cursor changes, Animated Buttons, Advanced Scripts and Pop-
ups, describing event changes when clicked.

• Timer – The timer created here is very basic as it only counts seconds so far.
I would change the code to count minutes and seconds as well as display the
time correctly to, for example, reset the second’s counter back to 00 once it
reaches 59 seconds.
• Buttons – The button in this prototype is very basic. When you click inside
the ‘WORK’ box, the Money variable increases by 1 upon each click and will
display instantly back to the user. Future updates will see animated buttons
for static, mouse-hover and mouse-click states, pop ups that inform the user
of how much money they have earned, more appealing visuals and improved
code to support arrays, animation sets and user experience. Finally, the
currency would be changed from ‘Money’ to ‘Credits’.
Prototype V1.1

On this prototype, we began inputting more finalized work on coding the interface, as
well as putting in final design ideas. I had now added Animated Buttons (Work, Eat,
Stream and Drink), improved the code to work with the mouse to do things such as
change the cursor when hovering over buttons and added multiple new functions:
• The Stream Button – This button is linked to an
array and a timer. When clicked, the array is told to
select a random name out of a list and display it on
screen. This function fits the purpose as it is
simulating a streamer picking a game to play and
then streaming that game online. The button will be
unclickable for 240 seconds to simulate the time
spent Streaming.
• Health Bars – At the top left of the screen room, there are two bars, one with
hearts and one with water drops. These convey food and drink. When the
player acquires an amount of credits(money), they can purchase food or drink
which will cause these bars to fill up by a certain amount. These bars work by
drawing an array of empty ‘heart containers’ (the black outlines) and draws

another array of over the top which fills the hearts in red. The number of
hearts produced depends on the player health variable and
decreases/increases by removing/adding from the last part of the array.
• Upgrades - The green arrow upgrade buttons cost more credits than the
food/drink. When activated, they will decrease the cost of the food/drink
(depending on which one was clicked) and increase the cost of the next
upgrade. A pop up displays next to the cursor to inform the user if the
selected upgrade was successful. The code uses ‘levels’ to keep track of the
upgrade progress and there are 3 levels of upgrades. Upon each upgrade, a
hidden variable will increase and once it reaches the value of ‘3’, the object
will destroy itself and will disappear from screen. The status will change to
‘MAXED’ to tell the user they are at the highest upgrade level for that
mechanic.
Prototype V1.2

This prototype demonstrates when we began to implement more art assets into the
game. New background, monitor and button sprites have been worked into the
game. This visual style is designed to have a small retro feel towards it due to
recently this style becoming more popular amongst 2D games. As you can see from
the image above, several new functions/objects have been implemented:
• Followers – This was quite a challenge to perfect. The script here randomly
selects a number of followers to gain OR lose, depending on how many
followers the player has in total, after every 2 seconds of in-game time. When
the player presses the ‘Stream’ button to begin a stream, they also acquire a
small number of followers. I had to find a way of keeping the numbers fair, but
demanding. The player will need to constantly check their follower count and
stream as much as they can if they wish to gain more followers and keep
them on track as the system can cause big losses if streams are not
scheduled.

• Statistics – We decided it would be a good idea to display all the important
game stats on a monitor sprite in the game room. This simulates the
streamers computer and would display all the useful information a real
streamer would need to know. The player can survey the monitor on screen
and find out all the useful information about their streams and followers. The
screen will contain variables for a Total follower count, the Total streams
made, The Video Game currently streaming and a Speed boost checker.
Final Product – Prototype V2

This is a screenshot of the final version of the main game level playing in a
windowed state on a Windows PC. This screenshot shows the main interface as well
as all the buttons and variables etc. A lot has been upgraded in this version. New
sprites have been added such as the monitor which gives a lot more space to add
the variables. Font styles have also been worked in, being clear and having a retro
style. The layout has been changed to get the player focusing on many areas at
once. The players main time will be spent looking at the computer sprite assessing
all the variables, such as ‘Followers’, at the bottom left of the screen. The bottom
right is focused on earning credits and the top left is focused on survival aspects
which are food and water. I have also added handy text underneath or next to certain
buttons to explain how much they cost and what they do. Behind the scenes, a lot of
code around the buttons, streaming and timers have been improved to stop potential
errors and provide a nicer user experience with more interactivity, such as adding
new pop-up images upon clicking.

Above shows the initial screen to the game. Here, the player can choose a
username and see the controls, as well as the Moon Leaf logo before entering the
actual game. The logo was initially animated with a fade transition, however the
PROTOTYPE V2 text and ENTER button are also animated and we did not want too
many distractions on the first level.
Above are the GAME OVER and WIN levels. If you are successful in the game, you
will be directed to the room on the right, however if you are not, you will be directed
to the room on the left. We wanted to keep these screens very basic for the
prototype as they would be showing off the player’s statistics and important

A link to the downloadable .EXE on OneDrive can be found here:
https://goo.gl/2i4A2a
information such as emails. We decided it would be best to not have too many
animations and distractions. This gets straight to the point to match one of our aims
that gives players a friendlier interface and ease of access.
Justification for resources used
We chose Game Maker Studio as our research discovered that quite a lot of
simulator games, in the style want to use, use a 2D interface and usually 2D
graphics. GMS is built around and for 2D, making it run well with our project as an
interface is what we wanted to design. GMS also uses its own language too which is
simple to learn and easy to use called GML. This is a benefit as it is not complicated
to learn and I found myself being able to write much of the code without any aid.
Also, Game Maker Studio is a complete development engine, meaning it handles all
aspects of Video Game Design and Development including sound, font, sprites,
coding, level systems, timelines and more.
We used Photoshop however for visual design as it is a much more professional tool
to use rather that the GMS Sprite Editor. Photoshop gives us a lot more options to
experiment with and is overall easier to use. There are also plenty more features

there too with lots of visual effects and possibilities. I mostly used the Sprite Editor
available in Game Maker to make the initial prototype sprites for testing.
Google Drive was a great way of sharing content as the uploads were fast and we
could acquire shared content from anywhere. We were able to upload the majority of
our art assets, including schedules, initial plans and design work such as
storyboards.
Summary
Overall with the final product, I am quite happy with the result. It took quite a lot of
research, programming and development/design from my part and I am glad I could
keep up with the work load. The video game works as intended, so far it does not
crash or get stuck and the variables work well with each other. Most of my portion
was spent coding these objects. Feedback received from the showcase event
indicates a positive reaction from players and we have received some fantastic ideas
of how we can develop our game further, such as optional customization for an
avatar character.
Testing
What to
test
What to do Picture Success?
If the
Eat/Drink
buttons
respond
correctly to
how many
Credits the
user has
earned
Test what
happens
when I have
less than the
required
amount
Test what
happens
when I go
over the
Successful
The heart bar
does not
increase if the
user does not
have enough
credits.

required
amount.
The ‘Stream’
button
displays a
random
name when
clicked +
gives a
random
number of
‘Followers’
Click the
button 10
times, reset
the game and
test again
Successful
The game
selects
randomly from
an ARRAY and
displays a
game name
(“Class
Respect” in the
picture)
The TIMER
displays
MINUTES
and
SECONDS
correctly
when
counting
Check if the
TIMER
displays 1:00
when
reaching 0:59
seconds
Successful
The code
changes the
TIMER
depending on
the time
counted
When
inputting a
username
on the Logo
Screen, the
users input
passing
through to
the next
room and
displays
inside it
Input a
username
and test if it
appears in
the correct
place, size
and style on
the main
level
Input “This Is
A Test”
Successful
The “This Is A
Test” name
passed
through and
displayed in
the next room
If upgrade
buttons
Gain enough
credits for the
Successful
The Upgrade

disappear
once the
player has
“Upgraded”
3 times
upgrade,
then click the
Green Arrow
Upgrade
Button and
check if it
disappears
Button
disappears
and displays
“MAXED” to
inform the
user they
cannot
upgrade this
statistic
anymore
If the game
changes
level once
the player
has gained
150
Followers
Play the
game and
work towards
completing it
to check if it
correctly
transitions to
the Win Level
Successful
When
Followers >=
150, the level
transitions to
the last

SWOT Analysis – Ben White
Strengths
• INTJ – The Architect
• Organized
• Hard working and determined
• Have previous experience with
Game Maker Studio
• Organized
• Self-motivated
• Willing to learn
I am a fast learner of new software and
computer technology who is hard working
and organized. I have had previous
experience with the engine we are using
and I am self-motivated to develop the best
project I can with my team.
Weaknesses
• Communication skills
• Need to work on my confidence
• Need to work on my presentation
skills due to nervousness
• Easily distracted
My weaknesses come from communication
and confidence aspects. I believe the
presentation will be tough to handle and I
need to revise some techniques to improve
confidence beforehand.

Opportunities
An opportunity to develop my Video Games
Design career by developing and design a
game with a team. This would also build my
team-working abilities and would be good to
show on my CV
Gain a deeper understanding of
programming through GML which will aid
me when learning new programming
languages such as Java Script
Chance to showcase skills in the field and
impress visitors
Learning new things about an important
game engine and developing skills towards
mastering the tool
Threats
I may not be able to learn the game maker
programming language as well as I thought
which will reduce quality
I have not worked with many teams in the
past so teamwork still feels new
The Team may not work well together
Designing some layout/art/assets for the
game prototype may prove difficult
The work produced may not be enough to a
good quality standard
Chapter 8 - Conclusion: [Team Leader] – Elliot Black
Overall, the project has been a fantastic learning experience for all of us. We have all
had our highs and lows but I think we can all say we have taken something away
from this project and have strengthened some of our weaknesses we thought we
might have had when we first started.
Early SWOT Analysis – Elliot Black
Strengths
• INFP-T – Mediator
• Intuitive
• Experience with working in a
team that works to an
assignment brief
• Diplomatic
• Good team worker
• Willing to learn
I am a diplomatic leader who is open
to all opinions and suggestions from
Weaknesses
• Perseverance
• Confidence
• Easily distracted
• Struggles to take initiative
My Communication skills in public
speaking situations can be less than
optimal due to being shy around new
people and my trouble with taking
initiative means I usually hope

whoever they may be. I excel when
working with a team but also work
great independently.
someone else steps up before I do.
Opportunities
• Being able to say I was team
leader for a games design project
would be an extremely positive
thing to put on my cv when
looking for possible future games
design work.
• Have the opportunity to develop
my communication skills and
general confidence issues.
• Make a good impression with
possible employers at the
showcase event
Threats
• I don’t give my team enough
direction and our co-ordination
goes horribly wrong
• Personalities may clash in the
team and cause problems
• I may stutter and mess up when
presenting our project
Early SWOT Analysis – Group
Strengths
• Good Friends
• Most of us have experience
working together as part of a
team
• All open minded
• All eager to work
• All bring different skills
Most of us have all worked on a very
similar project before and feel we
know the basics of how to go about
tackling a project such as this.
Weaknesses
• Not used to being in fixed roles
• Not used to working directly with
a client
Although we worked on a similar
project in the past, it has never been
formal to this degree before. Also,
we have never had experience
working directly with a client.
Opportunities
• Being able to learn about working
Threats
• We don’t co-ordinate well enough

in a team to industry standards
would be a valuable learning
experience
• Get the opportunity to develop
our communication skills and
presentation as a team.
• Make a good impression with
possible employers at the
showcase event
and don’t produce anything of
worth
• We don’t adhere to the deadlines
• The client isn’t pleased with the
work that we’ve done
The project has been very successful; We had a very strong planning phase,
including brainstorming ideas for game genre as well as possible mechanics and art
styles, then moving forward our production phase went off without a hitch with
everybody producing content relevant to their role. Each week we discussed the next
best piece of work for everyone to work towards and aimed to have it completed by
the next group meeting. Our co-operation was extremely good, for example the
marketer and sub project investigator had to work very close together so that they
could use art from each other and not have any discrepancies e.g. the MoonLeaf
logo. Our communication and organisation was also very good, we used Facebook
Messenger to communicate and keep tabs on everything, it is there where we did the
large bulk of communication with each other as well as organising ourselves about
what we needed to do before our next meeting.
However, we did have a few problems during the project. For example, during our
showcase event, our main laptop that was being used to display our project ran out
of battery with no charger. We quickly discussed solutions and ran to the library and
hired a new laptop and transferred the relevant files over.
Our strongest part of the project was working on the product, we all had fantastic
work ethic and a drive to complete at least a prototype for the game and to have it
look the best it can be and as professional as possible. In the end, we had not only a
prototype but an alpha build of the finished game. Our weakest part however was
showcasing and presenting our work. This had been our first showcase event and
we were all pretty nervous and due to this, some of us may have not have done a
large amount of talking or explained some things about our project too well. Despite
this I feel we did a great job at the showcase, but our public speaking skills require
work.

Post System Evaluation:
Openness: To take our project further, we would need to keep working on the
games polish, as of now the game currently has one screen with all the mechanics
on and would look a lot cleaner if the food and drink meters that you must keep filling
up were on a kitchen level for example. We also need to continue developing the
mechanics as they are currently in their base prototype stage, for example, the
‘stream speed boost’ feature could be incentivised a bit more as we found during
playtesting that people tend to only spend their money on food and drink instead of
buying the upgrade. We could also implement an upgrade shop where players could
buy better computers, streaming equipment and consumables, thus giving the player
a choice between spending money on food and drink or upgrading their environment
and changing how the game plays.
These improvements would take a large amount of time and work to implement, not
only from coding standpoint but from an art and design standpoint as well. The extra
levels would require new levels to be coded with all the relevant buttons and art
taken over to the new level, as well as a large amount of new mechanics and art to
populate that room. Incentivising the speed boost feature would also be a hard task
and a possible redesigning of the mechanics may be in order as there isn’t a simple
way to do it and this problem may extend over to other possible features that may be
added in the future. Adding an upgrade shop would probably be the hardest change
to make, not from a technical standpoint but from a design standpoint as the game in
its current state doesn’t accommodate spending money on anything but food and
drink at the moment, as such, tweaks to these mechanics are in order.
Reliability: The game in the current state is completely glitch and crash free,
confirmed with extensive testing from both developer and normal player. It can run
on almost any computer as it isn’t very system intensive at all and can be restarted
as many times as the player wishes. It runs at a smooth 60fps constantly with no
screen tearing or visual glitches whatsoever. The game’s purpose is to be a fun
experience that provides a sense of progression to the player while they’re climbing
the ranks. This is achieved by the follower amount and the money counter, both of
which provide a way of visualising progression made during playtime.

Usability: The game is slightly complex at first and we found that new players take
their time in order to understand everything. As of this build there are currently no
tutorials on how to play and requires some independent playing and testing of what
each button does before fully understanding what to do. New players might not
understand how fast the food and drink meters need to be refilled and may spend
their money elsewhere and lose the game due to not having enough money to
sustain themselves. Despite this, after one playthrough and the players have
realised how they died, they pick up the game relatively quickly and seem to enjoy it.
Elegance: The game’s artwork is very pretty and appealing to the eye. Great care
was taken to research colours that wouldn’t draw away from the buttons or distract
the player. The player’s currency, price of food and drink and all the buttons are very
distinct from the background and it is easy to tell what is interactive and what isn’t.
The buttons also have separate art styles to the upgrades in order to distinguish
them further, for example, the eat, drink, work and stream buttons which take up the
bulk of gameplay are all bright colours with big graphics and bubble text on them,
whereas the upgrades are all upward facing arrows with less vibrant colours and a
more technical vibe. The design in place to distinguish all these features is a pretty
clever one as it takes a fair amount of colour theory and strategic icon placement to
make sure the game doesn’t draw away from its key features, while also having an
appealing art style.
Productions, M., 2017. @MoonLeafProd. [Online]
Available at: https://twitter.com/MoonLeafProduc
Chapter 12 – Appendix
Include evidence that communication between group members has been effective and that the
responsibilities have been carried out.

All your weekly Action Plans from start to end of project/The minutes of all meetings held should
be included
Action On Who Estimated
Date to
complete
Date
Completed
Cost hours Meetings
Hours/Times
Research :Genres
• Target audience
• Cost of
development
• Salaries
• Publishing cost
• Advertisement
costs
Marketing Ideas
Everyone
Callum
Everyone
5/12/16
12/12/16
5/12/16
12/12/16
Salary :£1250/week Monday: 4-6PM

Develop Ideas for game and
genre
Research Art Style /
Design / Mechanics
Email client,
Producing concept of ideas,
Planning meeting,
Financial Ideas (e.g. Costs,
Important items)
Marketing Research/Ideas
Elliot, Zach
Ben
Everyone
Jezwin
Callum
5/12/16 5/12/16 Salary :£1250/week Monday: 4-6PM
Story Boards - Backstory,
Design, Narrative
Ben, Zach, Elliot 19/12/16 19/12/16 Salary :£1250/week Monday: 4-6PM
Gameplay mapping and
planning - Level Areas,
Mechanics
Everyone 09/01/17 09/01/17 Salary :£1250/week Monday: 4-6PM
Basic Coding for Mechanics
and Gameplay Elements
Advertising Techniques -
Basic Posters etc.
Financial document setup
Ben
Ben
Callum, Jezwin
Jezwin
16/01/17
09/01/17
09/01/17
16/01/17
09/01/17
09/01/17
Marketing,
Game art,
Game Level/Interface
Design
Game mechanics
Callum
Jezwin,Ben
Everyone
30/01/17
13/03/17
30/01/17
13/03/17
Put finishing touches on
game,
Finalize marketing and
documents
Ben, Jezwin
Elliot, Zach,
Callum,
13/03/17 13/03/17 Salary :£1250/week
Printing costs: £5
Monday: 4-6PM
Project Schedule

Individual Reflection – Elliot Black
I feel this project has been a great learning experience for me that helped me iron
out some confidence and team leading issues. I felt that I worked well with everyone
in my group, especially since three of the five of us have worked together on a
project like this before. My role was to organise everyone in our team, stay in
contact with the client, make the preparations needed for events such as the
showcase and help the other members of my team in any way that I could. At the
beginning of the project, I felt I worked with the client very well; discussing ideas,
fitting the game around their requests etc. However, further on into the project, the
client didn’t reply to a couple of my emails and at first I persevered and eventually
they replied but when they didn’t reply to my mail again I wasn’t sure if repeatedly
mailing was a bit too much so I took a step back and stopped mailing when in
hindsight I should have carried on until they replied as unfortunately the next time we
spoke was at the showcase.
Our teamwork throughout has been very good and I think we have co-ordinated
extremely well. We all talked through what we were going to do for the week in our
meetings and how that fit into the end goal for the project and at the end of the
meeting Zech and I took the minutes for the meeting and compiled them on our
google drive for referral. If anyone needed help we didn’t hesitate to help them,
despite what role they were. Ben did some fantastic work getting the game

showcase ready and really knuckled down to get the game where it is today. Callum
made some fantastic posters with some great artwork from Jezwin while Zech and I
organised it all for the showcase and made it ready to view. Callum also did a good
job of handling our social media (Productions, 2017) and marketing and really sold it
to people when time came around for the showcase. As Marketer, Callum also
produced surveys and layouts for designs and such and helped get some feedback
to help us shape our project into something that the client and consumers would both
enjoy and find appealing.
I feel my role at the showcase was good but I also saw many ways I could improve.
Callum always greeted the people who took an interest in our product and I stood
there only interjecting when he couldn’t talk about something anymore, whereas
being the team leader I should have been the one to greet everyone and then pass it
on to the others when questions relevant to their roles arose. Despite not
immediately introducing us to interested people, I feel that when I did speak I spoke
very well and confidently. I always had a friendly smile and posture and tried to
answer all questions posed to me or ones that couldn’t be answered by someone
else.
Overall, this project has had plenty of ups and downs but thankfully most have been
ups and as such I would love to work like this again and I know that I could do even
better next time having learnt all I have during this time I’ve spent on this project.
Individual Reflection – Zech Ross
I feel that during this project, I was a good deputy leader. During the meetings, I
assisted the team leader in organising and compiling notes, minutes as well as
schedule and helping direct the team in the right direction to achieve a high quality
final product at the end of the project. During the showcase I felt I performed well
communicating with clients and visitors at the stall, I also helped set up the stall with
Elliot and organised the booth to look attractive. Overall, the project went well
achieving most of our aims with little trouble with group work. Despite feeling I did
well in the showcase and project as a whole I feel I could have talked more during
presentations as our marketer Callum did most of the talking, when this should be
distributed more evenly throughout the team. I feel like I learned a lot during this

project and improved on some core skills such as communication, public speaking,
team work, organisation if I were to do this again I would try to be more forward with
my ideas and get more involved with the game development or art work of the game
and take less of a passive role.
The research side of the project went very well we did secondary research through
surveys with gamers and asked the gaming society for feedback, this heavily
influenced the direction that we took and after showing the client at the showcase he
agreed it was the right decision. We also did some research online for costs,
marketing, development and timescale.
Individual Reflection – Ben White
Overall, I believe this project has been very useful and quite a challenge at the same
time. Some members of our team have previously worked together on Video Game
projects in college and we discovered we were able to use that experience to work
well together. We also had to work with new members which was also a great
experience. It is challenging within a team to work well with other people, however I
believe our team at Moon Leaf Productions worked very well together. We would
stay in good contact, mostly through our group on Facebook Messenger and we
would always help others who were stuck on certain parts. My section of the project
involved a lot of programming in a unique language, so another challenge presented
itself here where I found myself getting stuck in certain areas of code. To solve this
problem, I conversed with the team to discuss issues and also found sets of very
helpful tutorials online in which I would share back to the group. In the planning
stage, we conversed frequently about ways we could achieve our goals and created
ideas on how we would carry it out. Game Maker was the strongest candidate to
develop most of the project and the group agreed well on this. Whilst we were
developing, there were a few issues with the art side about measurements, however
we learnt to always discuss and plan any assets that would be imported. Each group
member worked well on their side of the project. The Marketer produced surveys and
layouts for advertising and the team leaders always kept the group up to date and
would assess our development often, whilst giving us new ideas such as where
objects should be placed. The most interesting and useful part would be learning the

GML syntax to program in Game Maker Studio. I find this language easy to grasp
and quick to learn so I very much enjoy experimenting with it and after completing
this project, I feel as though I have a deep understanding of GMS tools. Through
interactions at the showcase event, our product has had quite a positive reaction,
however, many people did not quite understand how Video Streaming works and do
not understand how it can be classed as a ‘job’. Video Streaming is quite new and
not many people know of it, but it is certainly becoming more and more popular with
Gaming Competitions and Livestreams increasing in popularity. We even gathered
new ideas to implement at the showcase event, with one individual describing how
we could use customization on objects such as an avatar for the player that they can
see in game. I believe we could have improved our product by working more on
adding mechanics to the game. For example, we could add multiple screens to
navigate through which control different areas of gameplay, or add various
improvements, upgrades and animations. I definitely would have liked to develop
more for our project, however with the time-frame our schedule would exceed the
deadline and we would have unfinished work.
Individual Reflection – Callum Deighton
Looking back on the project as a whole, I definitely believe the positives outweigh the
negatives. Firstly I believe all 5 of us worked very well as a team unit, running into
minimal problems and having great/constant communication with each other, mainly
taking place through Facebook Messenger. All our work flowed well with each other
and we could properly cooperate throughout all of it. I didn’t feel too nervous working
with the other team members as I had either worked with them in the past or known
them as friend’s. I admittedly didn’t work too much on the actual Game Making side
of it, as I left all of that to the more experienced coders of the team whilst I solely
worked on the advertisement and marketing side of the project. Making the logo
design for the company and posters for the game proved to be really difficult at
times, as we struggled on agreeing to a specific design and name for our company
that was creative yet professional enough, and we kept debating on what aesthetic
we wanted our posters to have, as it was crucial in showing what we wanted the
game to be portrayed like. As we got underway with the research for the project I feel
like we did a good job of taking care of it, having multiple google doc’s open where
we all constantly updated and added ideas on what we could do to improve the

project as whole. Whether it was doing intensive research on the simulator genre or
doing an open survey to ask people about their opinions on simulator games, I feel
we managed to collect a good amount of research which ultimately boosted our pre-
production as a whole and was essential into making our final prototype as polished
as it was. When the Showcase event happened, I was initially very nervous with how
it was going to go but overall I feel we all did a great job. We all made sure to dress
up smart and appropriately enough for the crowd we received and we made sure to
keep ourselves looking approachable, openly keeping an eye out for people who
were interested in our project and if they decided to have a closer look, make sure
they completely understood the purpose of the project and answered any questions
they may have had. I specifically feel like I did very well in the event because I found
myself able to talk to them on a level where I could keep their interest and leave
them giving good opinions of the project. Reflecting on my personal experience of
developing and working with a group project, as well as the experience of setting up
a Showcase Event, presenting our finished product and talking to potential investors,
I feel like I got to learn a lot from this project and have gained a lot of essential
experience for the future if I was to be put in a similar situation in the future.
Individual Reflection – Jezwin Jacob
Reflecting on the time spent doing the project, I feel like as a team and individually,
we gained a lot of experience and learned a lot to further our skillset to help us in the
working world. I believe we all worked well as a team and synergised very well with
each other, with very minimal to no disruptions in work flow due to creative
differences in the art style of the game or mechanics. For the large majority of the
project we worked well together, with each of our works flowing well into each
other’s. I was a little nervous at the start as I never really worked on a large group
project such as this and I had also never worked with these guys before, so it was a
little daunting at first, but I quickly became familiar with them and those worries were
a thing of the past.
I mainly worked on the art assets of the game, providing input into some of the
mechanics that should be in the game and managing the finances of the group.
Definitely, the most enjoyable part of the project was creating art assets as I had

been looking for an excuse to use Photoshop again in a professional manner. I was
also pleased to receive positive feedback from the group members on the assets I
had created. We were constantly in communication with each other, sharing ideas
and helping each other with whatever they needed. I feel like I could use this project
as an example if I want to pursue a career in game design or any other art or media
related field.
For the finance section of this project, I did a lot of spread sheets for forecasts and
cash flows to see how much money we would make had we put the game for sale. If
I am being honest, it was not as exciting as I thought it would be I definitely did not
mind doing it as it was a new learning experience and I had a chance to learn
Microsoft Excel, which will help flesh out my CV.
During the showcase I believe I met my expectations of what I wanted to do, but I felt
like I could’ve done more, such as talking about the logistics of setting up a game
development company and the finances required as well as it is no simple venture as
I have found out. I also have to give credit to Callum as he was the one that
introduced us all and did a majority of the talking to the public and demonstrating the
game.
Looking back on the whole project from the start, I feel like I have learned a lot of
skills that I can use throughout my life and I was happy to make some new friends
through the group work. If we were to do something similar again, I would jump at
the chance as it was definitely a fun and positive experience.

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