Shapeman assignment wayne

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1GcME3iGMJaNWrvqRb9lDdFqPDAlEGg7Te6tS8e4nYnA/edit

James assignment 1

https://docs.google.com/document/d/18hshnMxDqEJ5qhW0sklWN1NsKiC_SCahpGrH6tWfV9M/edit#heading=h.gjdgxs

Stimulus

STIMULUS

What is a brief?

A brief is a set of requirements given to someone about what needs to be included in that finished products. Briefs can either be very strict with a set list of things that must be done in certain ways or very free with just a general idea of a concept, allowing the creator to be highly imaginative with what they do.

Client briefs are those given to you by the person you are working for to create their desired product whereas own briefs entail tasks and goals you set yourself to accomplish for the product.

Looking into products already on sale and other factors surrounding the market can be a great source of information to work from. Market research like this is a key part of any products development

Ideas Generation

An easy way to find inspiration and a new perspective on what you want to create is brainstorming, where by a creator will use anything that inspires them whether it’s listening to music, playing a game, looking at things others have created and much more

Mood boards are a collection of images and items gathered and placed together intended influence a person in the style they will take with what they create.

Thumbnail Sketching is a technique where an artist will sketch a small drawing as a quick way of exploring multiple ideas in a short time frame, helping them develop their ideas quickly and efficiently

Concept drawings are used to present an idea that someone wants put into the product. Concept art covers all aspects of things found in games like characters, objects, weapons, environments and much more.

Legal and Ethical Considerations

Copyright law is used by creators and artists to protect the product they have created, stopping others from simply taking their creation and using it as their own or anyone simply ripping them off in something that is created later.

Libel is a false statement put forward in an attempt to slander or damage a person or company’s reputation or public image. This can distort the view of the public and be highly damaging to the person(s) in question.

The debate about female characters in games is an old one with many people siding many different ways on the issue. Generally though games tend to over sexualise female characters by often giving them very revealing outfits or making their proportions take a very high focus with an early example of this being Lara Croft, though she herself was shown to be in control of her life and never needing to be rescued by a man constantly creating the conflict between the ideas of whether she’s an example of the objectification of women or not

Things such as race, religion and other factors have to be approached very cautiously when creating a game as not to create a product that is deemed offensive by anyone in order to avoid negative repercussions.

Creating concept art for video games

Creating concept art for video games

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1WMjRhleRhw-BK4VqYVxVxi2en0ZLLTgOail9gkYGFNs/edit

Josh Assignment 1

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1HaeAY_aEaJBxYlv8sBEr1EYtFFJkHBhJm5sGmtkVAMo/edit

Assignment 1 Wayne

Part 1
10 Genres and examples

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1yna4d4sXhJ6CN7CX4SXi5LMdA2PmPeH7-0t9Ci2qLKU/edit

Part 2
ETHICS: Impacts of computer games on society, The Good, The Bad and The Ugly

With games being more popular and mainstream than ever before the chances of someone getting hooked on one of these games to a dangerous degree is far more likely and even common in places such as South Korea. Examples of this type of addiction can have dire consequences with cases of people suffering fatal health problems like heart attacks or blood clots, other cases have been involve the death of a child due to neglect by their parents.

Other effcts that an excessive amount of playtime can have is to create an environment of social isolation, leading to a negative impact on social skills. in turn this may create a lack of socialization making them feel isolated in public and unable to communicate well in person. in turn this can cause them to isolate themselves further, retreating back to the games they've became hooked on for their faux social interaction. This feeling of only being comfortable within the life they've built in the game can also lead to health problems as the more time spent within the game the less time they have to maintain proper physical activity, showing the links between social isolation and an excessive amount of playing time.

Feeling the need to support this new virtual life they have created for themselves and stay ahead of the competition, they most likely will invest a rather large amount of money into having the best gaming rig that they can. This trend is far more predominant among PC gamers, who will often spend vast amounts of money on but a single component within their PCs. other costs of gaming can be things like a subscription service to play a game such as that employed by the popular MMORPG World Of Warcraft. A more underhand tactic often employed by games developers is to place "free to play" elements within their games, tempting the player to buy additional content and wearing the player down till they eventually give in and purchase the bonus content. in concept this practice is perfectly justifiable within the context of a game that is actually free to play as the developers do need to make money off of their product and the customer has not payed to play, but these elements have recently been making its way more and more into games that retail anywhere up to £50 with "free to play psychology" being a somewhat controversial topic within the games industry at the moment.

Despite all these factors gaming has a remarkable amount of benefits from how it can affect a persons way of thinking to things such as better hand eye co-ordination. Gaming has been proved to improve a persons reaction times, how many objects someone an track at once and strategic thinking thanks to things like RTS games and puzzel games particularly when introduced at a young age. Games have also been proven to help older people, helping them with their memory and focus. Games consoles such as the wii also help players to get a good exorcise and lose weight.

Part 3
Game Concept Sketch
Box character armor and obtainable armor set, Vagantem Lupus armor.

The tattered cloak around the head and shoulders connotes much use and due to its placement suggests its purpose may be to protect against less favorable weather such as rain or to conceal identity. The cloak beneath the armor plating is designed to link into the backstory to the armor set as it is from a land to the north, Yorossa, a land home to many mercenaries and sellswords. The lengthy blue coat under the armor grants some additional protection from the cold (a hint at its hidden higher defense against frost damage), this armor has a striking similarity to that of an infamous mercenary, its silver color has faded and dulled over time time. the placement of smaller pieces of less heavy plate armor means it provides adequate defense whilst leaving the user able to move fairly unrestricted. (a hint that this armor is designed for a lighter mid defense combat rouge type build)

Early game boss (eleventh out of twenty four regular bosses and one secret boss), Consuming Demon

One of the many demons to be released onto the earth when the seven hell gates were opens this is a fast moving demon with razor sharp talons and a barbed tail, it has four arms each with three claws designed for ripping through enemies, each attack does piercing damage instead of magic or crushing damage. one of its attacks is an animation where each of its arms grabs one of the player character's limbs and its torso opens up to reveal rows of fangs and teeth that bite at the player and then spit them out again if they still have health remaining. after the boss dips below 55% health it will start to spit acid from its torso mouth that lands as a blob on the floor and slowly does up to 345 damage whilst beginning to slowly eat away at the weapon degradation bar. this boss is designed to be tough to use a tank class again as it has a 20% chance of ignoring armor and a 40% chance of ignoring parma shields, 30% chance to ignore regular shields and a 15% chance to ignore greatshields. This boss is weak to lightning damage and resistant to magic damage.

End of game boss (twenty fourth out of twenty four regular bosses and one secret boss), Fallen King Raime

A once near god like figure with a seemingly endless lifespan, the old King Raime heralded an age of prosperity across nine kingdoms after coming to power, raising an army and overthrowing the magus tribes controlling the lands. A boss with good defences in all areas with particularly high resistance to all elemental damage types save for dark which he has a slightly lower resistance, thus making that his weakness. he has a higher defence against against crushing physical damage meaning players using weapons like maces or war hammers will find the battle harder than players using weapons with higher piercing damage like swords. when the boss' health goes down to 40% health he will change into his second form with his health going up to 90% again. tendrils will burst from his body and begin to wrap around his body and left arm, the hand he holds his sword in with some covering his sword making it in itself more corrupted and grotesque. his damage output will increase by 35% but he will become significantly slower. his defense against dark slightly but his defense against holy and lightning damage will fall in proportion to this. upon further fighting him further and lowering his health to 30% he will change into his third and final form, where more tendrils burst and change his form into a huge, unevenly proportioned monstrosity inspired by Dark Souls' Manus Father Of The Abyss. His attack patterns change and once again become stronger, but now loses no speed. his defense drops slightly in all areas making it easier to deal him damage. upon defeating him the player will a highly distorted sentence among his death scream where he will thank the player. through out the fight the player will hear him making strange noises and sounds that are sentences that have been reversed and edited to sound more demonic, these will be thngs like warnings to the player where he will tell you to get away quickly, or him asking you to kill him. showing some remnants of the former kings humanity within the twisted husk he now inhabits.

It's visual style is a mixture of photo realistic and exaggerated as it features more realistic looking textures, objects and characters but also incorporates a lot of unrealistic fantasy elements such as the creatures, enemies, environments and many other things scattered throughout the world.

Part 4

game: Dying Knights
genre: rpg fantasy hack 'n slash
Dying Knight is a dark souls inspired game in which your creatable character awakens battered and bruised in a dark forest with no idea where you are, how you got there, or even who you are as you quest onward in search of answers you see that the world you find yourself in is dying and decaying with a once proud civilization all but crumbled before you. as you journey on you find that small pockets of the former kings own sorcerers guild had brought about this apocalypse by dabbling in black magic and eventually opening up 7 gates of hell, releasing countless demons and corrupting the souls of man, giving some horrifying new forms. you must carry yourself forward through these dark times to seal these gates and stop the endless flow of darkness consuming the world, with few sane humans left you must decide whether they will wish to help you or harm you in their own branching character quests. with a wide range of both human and demonic enemies and you being all nearly entirely alone in this bleak once great land the challenges you face will be great your strength will be tested. the main bosses are 3 arch demons summoned when the hell gates opened, a corrupted high priest, the fallen kings guard, the monstrous malevolent corrupted queen, and the final boss being the old king himself, now almost unrecognizable and filled with both demonic and angelic powers as you try to defeat him to seal the final hell gate to save the land as an attempt to reclaim your identity but on your journey in this new nightmarish land you learn that even as you come across those finding you familiar, its not who you were that matters now, but who you will become and the legend you will craft

the gameplay will be heavily centered around the combat, with fast and flowing movements added to its more methodical style of medieval combat, making the player think about how they're going to approach each enemy and what the best equipment for the job is. there will be a wide range of damage types with two purely physical ones (crushing and piercing) worked better against different types of enemy, as well as elemental damage types such as fire, lightning, frost, holy, dark, and poison each infusable on to weapons for bonus damage and effects against enemies. on top of that there will also be a large amount of attribute types used to upgrade your character, with the player being given a starting class with certain attributes that the player can then freely upgrade or ignore entirely allowing them to create a build unique to them. there will also be no restrictions on any class being able to wear certain types of armor or use certain types of equipment leaving more freedom for the player to shape the character how they so choose. another aspect of this will be the customizable character creation where a player will be able to change how they look to suit themselves.
Another key part of the game will be the focus found within its boss fights. these boss fights will be designed to be challenging, making the player focus at all times and have to come up with strategies to defeat each one. the sense of triumph upon vanquishing one of these bosses should feel highly rewarding, making the player feel as if they've over come a great challenge

Computer Game Graphics

Computer Game Graphics

Pixel Art

A form of design in game where an image is built up and edited through the use of many pixel with them being the smallest building block within design, often taking the form of a 2D sprite or 3D isometric sprites. Often found in older games or in those created by indie developers some famous examples of these are Mario, 2D Zelda games, Castlevania, and Super Meat boy.

Concept Art

Used to showcase an idea or design, concept art can be used to present the look of things such as an ingame item, weapons, vehicles, characters, environments and many more such as these used in the creation of Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain. This concept art shows the lead protagonist and player charcter, Big Boss, and clearly shows is details of the characters over all appearance such as his clothes, hair, facial feature, robot arm and makes clear where an unseen insignia would be placed.

Texture Art

Texture art is used in finalising the appearance of something with it often being applied to things in the landscape in order to help add to the atmosphere within a game, a clear example of this is within the silent hill series where the player enters the distorted world and is a hellish environment designed to evoke a sense of dread within the player. Another use is a games skybox which is present in many many 3D games, aiding in giving the enviorment a 3D look and feel. Texture art has always been a key part of game design with an obvious example being the brick texture in the original Super Mario Game

Background Graphics

Like my earlier example of graphics, objects that build up the location’s scenery like lakes, mountains, any type of buildings (e.g. a castle) and trees are made to become part of a background creating depth within the world. Levels that use things like snow to create atmosphere add things like rain par5ticles giving the world around the player a more alive feeling immersing the player even

more.

In Game Interface

An ingame interface is either an or a set of icons giving the player information about what is happening within the game, often called a Heads Up Display (or HUD for short) it shows the player charcter vital information such as their health bars, objective, any sort of time linit there may be or any other bars and status ailments. Some games such as Dead Space intergrate the heads up display into the character themselves to add an extra layer of immersion with the ammo counter being holographically didplayed by the gun and the health bar being displayed on the suit.

Print Media

Print media covers many things such as promotional images and posters, manuels, game and more.

Print media needs to catch the eye but be faithful to the title it advertises as to not give the wrong impression of the game such as confusing the genre of the title by showing a 3D game and actually being a 2D platformer. The box art will often prodominantly feature the main protagoinist showing any potential buyer the character they’ll be in control of and a more generic blank charcter with no real identity if it’s a multiplayer focused game showing its not about a certain character and their storyline.

Artistic styles in games

Art Styles In Games

One of the most important part of a game can be its art design. Although falling under certain categories an imaginative and individual style can be a truly effective way to make your game stand out from the rest. A clear example of this can be found in the Indie Games industry with such highly acclaimed games such as Limbo, Braid, and super meatboy with all being a 2D platformer but having very different looks making each easily recognisable. Some of the examples of types of art styles within the game industry are…

Exaggerated

Exaggeration is an art style most commonly found in JRPGs, with the style being used to reflect the popular Medias of manga and anime. As the name would suggest this art style consists of highly exaggerated objects and features with two popular examples being the Devil May Cry and Final Fantasy series with their oversized objects such as swords and their facial features like their eyes being quite sizable when the character is sad. The body types of the characters will follow a similar way with male characters being strong and muscular and female characters often being overly sexualised.

Minimalistic

An art style more recently found gaining popularity within the indie circuit. The minimalistic style like that found in the popular puzzle platformer Limbo, minimalistic is an art style that heavily uses paired down design elements and simpler images to make up the games. This often features heavier emphasis on shadow and colour over things such as textures. The colour palates used will also regularly feature more muted colours to build up a more three dimensional look.

Cel Shaded

An art style based on comic books and how they are designed. The picture to the right is from Telltale’s game The Wolf Among Us, which serves as a prequel to the popular comic book series Fables. Cel shading is used here because of its bold colours and distinguished lines adding to the effect of this game being an interactive comic book and making the most important things in the environment such as characters and items easily detectable by the player.

Photo Realistic

This art style is based around making a game look as close to the real world as possible often using the most powerful engines and tech in the industry to accomplish this. The highly detailed graphics used in these games can often be one of the highest selling points in a game and can be used as a way to bring in the next generation of consoles in an attempt to make people upgrade to the newest model in order to run these new games. With the highly realistic graphics often adding to the player’s immersion it has become highly prominent within the triple A market and can be seen in titles such as the recently released Metal Gear Solid V.

Games Design Level 3 game review homework, Dark Souls 2 script

DS2 review script

With most games nowadays being about as difficult as a used dot to dot picture, most people were taken aback when a few years ago from software decided that throwing us in the deep end wasn't challenging enough and proceed to drop us down the Mariana Trench, an idea that worked surprisingly well and became rather infamous as the first triple A game to truly challenge the player for years. So you'd think that its sequel would take the difficulty scale to new heights right? Right?

Well sadly not, not to say this is an easy game. Roughly 90% of players will certainly find this a challenging one but just isn't as tough as the first one. One thing from the first one that is lacking is the famous difficulty spike. Gone are the days of, here's how to do the basic attack, dodge, pan the camera now take on this boss who's clearly got a few too many shares in McDonald's stocks. Which I can kinda understand, I'm well aware that a lot of new player were turned off from the souls series because of its difficulty spike reminiscent of Mount Kilimanjaro. But unfortunately I'm not a noob to the series and being a seasoned souls veteran by the time this game dodge rolled around, I merely found the introduction a little lack luster and left me longing for the soul crushing challenge of the previous title. And another thing that stood out to me was the clear drop in the standards of its level design. Unlike the firelink shrine in the first game your hub in this one, majula, may connect to many different places throughout the world yes but doesn't manage the same level of intuitive design as the aforementioned firelink shrine with shortcuts little details that became opened up and discovered the more you went on, encouraging exploration of the world which in itself was very rewarding. With the focus on the world and its lore placed in view of the player but not thrust upon them like most NPCs from Bethesda games seem to take up as their hobby, standing there shouting exposition at you till you've got more knowledge of the land's past than a local history graduate. Now before I make these next few comparisons let me say this, I like Skyrim to an extent I just don't like it as you do, yes you XxDovahkinFanboy420 so put down your pitchforks and torches and listen. Where as the lore of skyrim was incredibly broad and covered a lot of things, it always felt like it was very surface level and nothing more. Where as dark souls goes for the more in depth approach. With out wishing to go into examples to me skyrim felt like it was the size of an Olympic swimming pool but it never quite got deeper than its shallow end, instead in dark souls it's a pool half the size but it's depth has a kraken swimming around in it somewhere. But it's focus of narrative has clearly shifted since the first game and become more in line with other fantasy RPGs like skyrim no longer being as centered around the world and more aimed towards your player character, such as how a previously mentioned elder scrolls title often felt like half the NPCs were merely there to scream "you are dovahkin!!! You are the chosen one!!! And the sun shines out of your-" you get the picture. That's not say dark souls 2 doesn't focus on its world at all or changed its style of how it tells its tale, which when discovered will make you feel that little bit more intuitive as it's mostly picked up through item descriptions and personal tales told by what few NPCs there are. On the whole Dark souls 2 goes for intrigue rather than intrusion.

One the big pluses for dark souls 2 over its predecessor is the combat. Now the combat from the first is improved upon by fixing a few glaring issues that the first had such as how when locked on to an individual enemy the dodge button swiftly became akin to a teleportation to getting into the optimal position for a back stab, taking rather a lot of challenge away from many enemies, with its improvements the feeling of getting a back stab is all that much more satisfying and the bosses are for the most part well designed and pose a different challenge to the last, prompting the player to think more tactically than most modern boss battles where the key is to go and mash buttons at the boss till you win. Although that's not to say it's not without its glaring issues, such as the collision detection, cause I'll be damned if i managed to get through an entire boss battle without suffering from said bug. Not to say it ruins the game mind you, there have been many an occasion where I've been but one hit away from victory and low and behold the game decides, nope we're not having any of this victory malarkey and sends you back to your last bonfire thanks to an attack from an enemy in a different post code.

But for a game with the tag line "prepare to die" dark souls certainly makes death feel important rather than a slight slap on the wrist for you little scamps you, like say assassins creed does. No death in dark souls has a few effects, such as losing your humanity! Reverting you to your hollowed state leaving you looking like shrek after the Atkins diet, and upon losing ones humanity you will no longer be able to summon phantoms to help you in your ever so slightly challenging journey. On top of that you'll lose all the souls that you have acquired, with souls being the games currency. You can reclaim your list souls should you make it back to where you last died but all the enemies you killed will have respawned so have fun with that! You're max health will also drop little by little each time you are slain, making the already challenging journey even harder, in an obvious call back to a similar system found in demons soul's. Upon your near inevitable death you will respawn at a bonfire, bonfires serve as you check point, and resting at one will refill your healing item "the Estus flask", recover any lost health, restore any weapon degradation and remove all status effects placed upon your character.

The art style too has a very dark aesthetic, reflecting the themes of life's inevitable decline as you look upon the ruins of a once great Kingdom, so an all round uplifting experience then!

Both the visuals, gameplay and sound design help convey an atmosphere of pure dread which suits the game and I haven't felt since the first time I picked up a silent hill game many a year ago though with less being pursed by a dude with his head stuck in a novelty cheese grater.

All in all, it's a fun and challenging game with great replay value, and where not as intuitive as the first in many aspects it's still going to grind you into the dirt for daring to pick up the controller that day, but one final gripe I have is one level in particular, now think of the most generic video game level there is....yep that's in there, and to be honest I was surprised when a little mustachioed plumber didn't run by off his head on shrooms!