Kieran Beal changed the concept of their game from a strategy game to a 2D shooter after research showed the strategy aspects would be too complex. Their original research focused on strategy games and not shooters, so additional research into shooters may have helped. Most of the pre-production planning was not useful for the shooter concept. Time management could have been improved to include more planned content. The animation has similarities to Contra in gameplay but uses browns and greys instead of bright colors. While the minimalist style fits the post-apocalyptic theme, brighter colors may have improved appeal. Gameplay appeals to the target audience but includes minimal violence to compromise for those sensitive to it.

1. Evaluation
Kieran Beal

2. Research
• I changed my mind of having my game as a top down strategy to a 2D shooter
after my research into multiple strategy games, for instance Tom Clancy’s ‘End
War’ showed me there were far too many aspects to a real time strategy for
me to be able to complete the animation to a good standard. Case in point the
individual animations and design assets to each of the singular troops you (the
player) can control in the game, to create and independently move each one
would simply take too long and become incredibly confusing, as a result the
research helped me realise my original goal wasn’t exactly practical.
• The entirety of my research was based off of RTS (real time strategy) games,
meaning I had no research to assist me in the development of my new
animation, meaning a better idea may have been to go back and do some
research into the 2D shooter genre of gaming so that I could get a better idea
of what I could’ve added, even with a fairly sound knowledge on many games.
additional research into my chosen topic would have gone a long way to
creating a good environment, HUD etc…

3. Planning
• Regrettably my pre-production planning was based around a strategy
format game, which means most of planning I made there was rendered
useless by my final animation, on the other what was useful was
researching any post apocalyptic games and colour schemes, this inspired
me to create my landscape using the colour scheme that I had selected.
• Unfortunately due to most of this planning being unrelated to my final
product it does mean that I started my project lacing nearly any real
planning, this can and I believe did effect the overall quality of my work.

4. Time Management
• I think I could have done a better job at managing my time on this project,
because despite me completing the project a second time on schedule, if I
had managed my time better I may have been able to include the deleted
content I had.
• Naturally if I had more time I would have added the last parts of the
animation that I had designed but couldn’t include in the final product, if I
had time to do this I believe my animation would have been significantly
improved, with additional design aspects such as a boss with their own
larger health bar.

5. Technical Qualities
Gynoug (1991)
Contra (1987)
Defender (1981)

6. Technical qualities
My game has more similarities with a game such as contra, with the simplistic gunplay
and level design, a difference with level design however is that Contra uses a more
vibrant colour scheme, mainly consisting of greens, whereas I mainly used browns and
greys. My game doesn’t have much in common with defender, the pixel art I’ve used
in my animation is slightly more detailed and complex, as defender is mainly just a set
of lines on screen. That being said as far as gameplay aspects go defender is likely the
most similar, in the simplistic gun play mechanics, Gynoug and my game share some
similarities such as the easy to read HUD, something both Defender and Contra don’t
have, on the other hand though Gynoug has much more enhanced combat
mechanics.

7. Aesthetic Qualities
My animation has an art style that is very minimalist and simplistic, while it definitely
matches the concept of a post-apocalyptic world, I believe that was the main issue was
the concept of the animation itself, it prohibited me from using bright colours and as a
result makes the level design look unattractive to the eye and lacking creativity. As a
result of this I would likely change the concept of the game altogether in order to be
able to create a more appealing background and bright colour scheme.

8. Audience Appeal
I have appealed to my target audience in the respect of my gameplay, it is a simple aspect that
even new players to video games in general would be able to grasp very quickly, which according
to my questionnaire is something that my target audience is looking for, however a percentage of
my audience didn't want any violence. This was a problem for me as my entire game's concept
relied on some amount of violence, so I came up with a compromise, this was to put violence in
the game, but keep it to the minimum so that anyone sensitive to gore/blood wouldn't be
offended.