In this powerpoint I reflect upon the entire project and describe the methods I used to create everything, where i got the ideas and it also includes some deleted content from the animation

1. Production Reflection
Kieran Beal

2. Enemy character
model
• This is my first and last character model that I have
created using Photoshop, the design is simplistic and I
used basic tools on Photoshop to create this model: the
pencil and quick selection tool primarily, to save time on
getting both sides of the body to scale however I was
able to highlight certain parts of the body and copy
them in order to easily ensure all the body parts are to
scale, I coloured the enemy in the way that I did to show
the adverse effects of radiation poisoning on people
after being exposed to radioactive fallout from a nuclear
warhead. Fortunately my game doesn't mock real life
radiation poisoning, I used green to show the idea of a
sickly individual as well as it clearly marking them as a
hostile entity to the player, I also used a brighter colour
green in some parts to show the idea that their skin is
glowing, my character model is inspired by the 'Glowing
one' enemy from the Fallout franchise, not a zombie but
not quite human either.
• I was able to produce the character model to an
acceptable level of detail however I would have
preferred that the hands had more detail to them than
they do in this image, the problem was emphasised in
the actual animation when the hands become basically
stubs on the end of the characters' arms, so it doesn't
even look like it has hands, this happened mainly due to
the resizing of the image, the level of detail on the
character dropped significantly. it doesn't affect the
overall quality of the character model too much
however I would have liked to have improved upon this
texture id I had time.

3. Player character
model
• This is my character model that the
player will use, it is inspired by the
peacekeepers armour from the hunger
games trilogy. My original idea was to be a
leader of a base, but instead of that I
decided to make the player one of the
grunts and make the game a side scroller,
initially this was the character model for
light infantry, but to save time I've decided
to make this the player model instead,
which works just as well, it suggests to the
player due to the modern design and
colours that they are part of an army
instead of a random survivor, set in the
future. The method I used for creating the
character model is exactly the same as the
method I used to create the enemy
character model.

4. Background
The process of creating the background to my game was slightly different, in order to properly
animate the movement of it much like that of the 2D Super Mario games, I've had to design
much of the background off frame then move left slightly frame by frame to demonstrate the
illusion of my player character moving forward. My background took longer to do because
instead of copy and pasting one design each part of the background is custom made which
means it took longer to finish and still hasn't yet been completed. However just like with the
character designs I used the same simplistic methods and tools, using dark and bland colours
I've tried to create a post-apocalyptic world despite the pixelated design, I try to use brighter
colours where I can to brighten up the world as much as possible but of course there are
limitations to how much I can do this, when nuclear bombs have been dropped on the world.
After finishing my background I've had to cut much of it from the animation which is viewable
below. The method I used to complete it was useful however it had it's limitations, for
instance it limited the level of detail I could put into the background due to the tools limited
functions, while it’s true the concept of the game would also be responsible for limiting what I
have in the background, even putting something in like more buildings behind one another, or
a ruined overpass would have gone a long way to making the background feeling less empty,
it could be argued that the focus should be on the player character anyway and as a result a
lack of background detail could be useful, however a well detailed background makes a game
seem more busy and engaging, and less empty, useless space.

5. Background
For the entirety of the animation I stuck with the idea
of a destroyed world and tried to carry that out in my
artistic choices, the problem was the lack of colour
variation as a result so I tried to use different colours
wherever it seemed appropriate.

6. Background
My original intent was to have an idle pose of the player
where the gun is lowered, however due to size
limitations of the file I had to cut this pose out and
instead the animation is now constantly in an aiming
position.

7. Background
In this part of my original animation it showed the
player character turning around to face the enemy,
however in the animation I changed this to keep the
structure of a classic arcade game, I also reduced the
amount of health taken off to make the enemy damage
more reasonable and real to life of an arcade game of
the time that this is based off of. The gradual but sure
decrease in health was an aspect of game design that
was used since the inception of videogame health bars
to now, this has the net result of making the player feel
like they have a chance, so when they died would make
them spend more money to keep playing.

8. Background
To animate the variations in the HUD as the animation
progresses, I created multiple layers of the same HUD
but all of them has slight variations in the amount of
vitality (health) and ammo left. This meant that I had to
create many layers with every bullet, every reload and
every hit point of damage taken, then vary which ones
were visible with each frame.

9. End goal
• Some items in the game I have had to
create separately, case in point the medical
supply cabinet in the hospital at the end of the
animation. I designed it as an objective for the
player to reach instead of having a game over
screen, with this in mind I've had to design the
medical cabinet to stand out from the
background so that the player knows what
they are supposed to be looking for or in this
case know what they're supposed to be
looking at in the animation, subtly highlighting
objects like this in the world without outright
announcing their presence is a way to make
sure that it's still immersive but not so blended
with the background that it looks like it can't
be interacted with, this is a problem that many
point and click adventure games from the 90's
had, I tried to fix this problem by making the
object stand out more without placing a giant
arrow above it.
• Unfortunately due to me downsizing the
animation, I also had to cut this from the game
too as it would've made no sense to find a
random medical supply cabinet like this lying
around outside a military base.

10. Shortened
duration
• Due to time restraints I again
had to shorten down the
duration of the video by cutting
out much of the background
which is displayed below. Instead
the game now ends with the
player character reaching the
safehouse as stated above.
Instead of finding medical
supplies in a hospital.

11. Deleted
content
This part of the background was mostly done as filler to
make it feel like the hospital and the military base were
separated out. (The text on screen that says "safehouse
secured is not mean to be there and was just a layer glitch I
should have fixed before uploading the screenshot) it is the
same problem in the next screenshot.

12. Deleted
content
The hospital was going to be the final part of the
animation, and the design options I chose for it were to
hint to the viewer that this was going to be a more
dangerous location, this is because I was planning on
putting a 'Boss' section to the game with a larger mutant,
however due to time constraints I cut this section out of
the game entirely.

13. Deleted
content
In an attempt to serve as a transition between two scenes I was
planning on having a loading screen with a small turning radioactive
sign at the bottom of the screen, to allow for a smoother transition
between the exterior and interior of the hospital. This is because
since the hospital was part of the background, and the entrance to it
wasn't on the edge of the screen there was no way for to smoothly
transition between the two scenes, however without it snapping
between the loading screen and the other scenes I would've had to
have had a way to fade the background in and out, this would have
been an incredibly time consuming task. Not to mention how long it
would have taken to animate the circle spinning.

14. Deleted
content
This is where I was originally planning to have the boss
fight and the final segment of the animation, having the
player controlled character securing the supplies and
killing the boss (who would have had their own health
bar), instead for the end of the animation I decided to
shorten it by having the alternate goal of having the
player reaching a safehouse at the military base earlier
on in the animation.

15. Original PCC
(player
controlled
character)
model These were my original options for my PCC, along with custom
animations to play one of the three available emotions on their faces.
There are many differences between these and the PCC model I ended
up choosing, mainly the limbs, these characters are missing legs
altogether. This is because my original game idea was to have a real
time strategy, as a result it would've made more sense to have a small
player avatar if nothing else, much like they did with the original DOOM
(1993) having the face of Doomguy (the player character's name,
unofficial but neologically acknowledged by everyone) in the HUD with
some minor animations. However with the change from a top down
strategy to a 2D shooter, it was clearly necessary to give the PCC legs as
it wasn't a first person shooter (FPS), I also felt it necessary to make the
PCC look less like a commander, and more like a battle ready soldier for
exploring the wasteland. The hunger games is also set in a dystopian
future after a nuclear war so it seemed fitting to model my soldier after
their peacekeepers.

16. The deleted content shown above was created using the same methods and tools as the
content included in the animation, the simplistic method used here allowed me to create the
16 bit level of detail I was looking for with more precise detail, for example using the pencil
tool it allowed me to draw exact pixel by pixel measurements to create detailed art, as
opposed to the paint brush tool which will blur the edges of the colour gradually blending it
with the background, this would give off more of a rounded personality to all of the models
instead of the square, pixelated, angular edges I was trying to give them.
I did however use the paint brush tool in some areas and aspects of design, for example I used
the paint brush tool to create the clouds, I also mainly used it to patch any mistakes in design.
Due to the fact that I used screenshots from my previous animation instead of completely re-
designing it, there were a few texture errors and parts of the screenshot missing colour
altogether, and using an enlarged paint brush it is far easier to use this to fill in mistakes that
don’t require huge levels of detail.
Methods and
tools