Evaluation

​

Now that the exhibition has ended, I feel the need to reflect and evaluate my experience, not just of the exhibition but of the entire course leading up to it. By analysing different areas within my project, I will be able to see what skills I have developed and what skills I still need to progress with.

​

Within this project I have been given the role of lead games writer for Cyber Seal, with input from the class’ other teams, we have made a demo for a game called Domesday – an action/adventure, underwater, fantasy game with a cyberpunk twist. From the perspective of the ‘villain’ of the setting, the player must accumulate a high enough influence (AKA experience in other games) from hacking robots and helping NPCs to upgrade themselves - and the robots they have collected throughout the game - to escape the dome confining them.

​

Designing this rough plot was one of the first tasks the writers and I had to complete. Throughout the development of the game some details have been altered (Such as the backstory of some characters) but the rough premise has remained the same – all be it not as mechanically advanced as the completed game would be. There were four main areas within this project that helped develop and evolve our game/demo;   

 

Pre-production:

Being the first stages to games development, pre-production was crucial to the development of our game – especially from a games writer’s perspective; planning is crucial to make solid narrative foundations for a successful game. If other teams started production without completed pre-production from the writing team, the game’s narrative would be negatively impacted, with our choices making a lot of difference for the other teams. An example of this was my character mood boards, I made them one of my top priority pieces of pre-production, without them, the artists could have produced character designs that do not match the character at hand. An example of this being if I wrote a character backstory mentioning that a character lost an arm, if I didn’t give that information to the artists before designing them, the artists would lose time having to re-create the character’s design. Because of this, our decisions would impact the other teams – meaning we would have to be extra vigilant when it came to producing work for deadlines.

​

I managed to keep track with work and deadlines by producing a Gannt chart specifically for the pre-production stages of our game/demo – I found it easier to comply to a deadline if I saw the urgency visually. This was highly effective because it enabled me to stick to time restraints and therefore not hold back other teams’ work. I didn’t produce a personalised Gannt chart for the rest of the project however, I felt that it wouldn’t be necessary due to our work always being updated and worked upon, therefore the Gannt chart would be cluttered and defeat the idea of having a clear visual representation of my workload. To combat the issue of not having planned work, I instead produced a team tracker; adding key checkpoints for the writing team and I, showing where we should be at with producing work throughout the project, not just in the pre-production stages. This proved to be a neutral decision as it had its positives and negatives. The positives of this decision where that we had more control over our work – allowing us to produce it at our own rate instead of forcing potentially useless work. However, this also meant that the writing team and I were always at different stages of development throughout our project, meaning we often had to often catch up to exchange work – a bonus in itself as it meant we had a better idea of each other’s work, compared to the other writing teams.

​

This was another successful point within our project; our communication skills. Despite a few minor miscommunications, everyone kept channels of communication open, not just the writing team. By displaying our work to the class frequently, the class could gain a better understanding of our game/demo and would be more likely to work towards the same vision – eliminating any mistakes when it comes to designs/etc. This proved a very effective skill, even being used within the exhibition itself, with us being able to talk to each other as well as the public about our areas within the team.

​

Overall, my planning proved to be an effective contribution to the project but could use some development – as I would need to develop team planning as well as my own. To do this in the future, I will apply the knowledge gained from this project and produced a detailed team plan, whilst also producing a personal one too. By doing this, I will would aim to prevent any major setbacks – just like I did with this project – and allow for a clear and precise visual representation for planned workload. Additionally, I would ensure that, when working in a team, everyone communicates their developments to the whole team – therefore replicating the success of this project and keeping everyone on the same metaphorical page.

 

​

Research:

A vital area to feed into both production and pre-production is research. Research is key to developing and conceptualising ideas – without it, the game may flop due to lack of knowledge of its field. The research I carried out has influenced our game dramatically, with our overall game/demo and presentation being affected be PEGI ratings and our characters being formed through continuous audience/character research. The vast array of sources I have used to do this also proves very beneficial, with my results being fair and un-bias to a specific platform. This is crucial because gaining inspiration from multiple sources can show through the work it influences, allowing the audience to see originality being formed, not copied. With this, the player may feel more immersed and gain a greater sense of satisfaction whilst playing our game/demo because it was more researched into how to appeal to them specifically and not to another game’s audience.

​

Despite this, one area that needs developing within my research is my lack of primary research. Primary research can be produced to give a more tailored experience for the player, asking them directly whether my ideas would reach their approval. Because of this, I will focus on producing more primary research within future projects, therefore allowing me to achieve a more tailored design for our audience. To combat this within my current project, I decided to further carryout secondary research, producing more detailed documents then I would have done in previous projects. Doing this allowed me to get the same amount of research than primary but with more time and greater effort – something I will avoid within the future, as to gain more time to use on the project at hand.

​

However, I will try to complete the same varied research I did within this project; as the variety of research was also greatly beneficial – allowing me to learn and develop several key skills instead of the same repeatedly used ones. By learning these skills, I have adapted our game/demo to allow for more success, an example being that I researched into characters and their dialogue within a popular table top role-playing game. From this research I saw that players often lose interest in a game if they encounter large blocks of texts they must read, they often skip over it and hope it didn’t contain anything important – thereby skipping over key facts or lore they would have otherwise learnt. As to prevent this from happening within our own game, I proofread my scripts and removed large blocks of text, breaking them up with some element of interactivity. Doing this would then prevent a loss of work as the player would be more inclined to consume it rather than skip over it.

​

Overall, I feel that my research within this project was essential to the success of our game; allowing me to adjust key elements to suit the audience’s needs and desires from our game. To replicate this success in the future, I will ensure to carry out a vast array of research across multiple sources, to allow for a range of beneficial results to apply to the project. Research from this would then prove useful and tailor the project specifically to its audience, thereby making it more successful and effective to its brief. However, within the future, I will also conduct more primary research as to make the game even more effective when appealing to its target audience, learning from this project’s mistakes.

 

​

Diaries:

Through the development of this project, I kept a blog where I posted diaries to show my progression and decisions; to allow for better user interaction, I split them into ‘Development Diaries’ and ‘Production Diaries’ – with development diaries showing impactful decisions/progress and production diaries explaining decisions made whilst producing finalised work; such as showing the application of research. By using this blog, it accurately shows my progression throughout the project whilst showing my flow of thought/work when producing material for it. This proved to be a valuable tool for me, allowing me to note down important events so I don’t forget the outcomes of them, an example being that I re-read my beginning diaries to provide my original ideas to then compare them to the final products. This proved very effective and demonstrated my skill and capability, allowing me to explain and justify my decisions – therefore providing proof of my work. I will continue to make diaries to log my development in the future, proving to be a useful resource to demonstrate skill whilst also acting as a source of notes to reflect upon.

​

 

Final Production:

Though discussed and evaluated within my exhibition diaries, the final production work was crucial for our game/demo, with it being the goal we are working towards.  I feel that the work I produced was to a professional standard and many exhibition goers agreed too. By using an aesthetically appealing format whilst reducing the amount of ‘walls of text’, they said that the script was plain and clear to read – therefore adding to their overall experience of our exhibition. To replicate this success, next time I would research into scripting formats and adjust it to suit the project at hand, just like I did with this project.

​

As stated within my analysis of my products, overall, I think my contribution to the game/demo was effective but could’ve been improved through producing more work to show the extent of my skills. If I were to attempt this project again, I would produce a thorough plan to visualise my end products wanted – not just the main goal of the script. By doing this, I would be able to allocate more time/resource to dedicate to producing more than just a script. The more final production work I can make, the more the skills and abilities I can develop/display and therefore increase the production value of the project, in turn helping to increase player satisfaction when playing the game.

 

 

Personal Growth:

Throughout this project, I feel that I have made large personal growths within several areas. Through becoming a team leader, my confidence has grown exponentially, allowing me talk to groups of people I otherwise wouldn’t have done. This confidence has helped me both personally and through the course, by being able to speak to crowds, I could commune my ideas and development with the class – keeping them up to date with work progression. This confidence helped with open communication and therefore helped the whole class with developing their areas of production. Utilising this newly developed confidence, I will be able to speak to masses of people and grow a more positive attitude towards myself – allowing for my charisma to grow and appeal to the public.

​

I have also learnt more about writing as a whole – not just games writing – through the research I have conducted, I have gained knowledge of script formatting and linguistically compelling narratives. Through constant iteration and development, my work has evolved and is an improvement compared to work through previous projects – ranging from the amount of detail to the professionalism of work produced. The professionalism of my work was also aided by the professional environment from within the work was produced. By working in a team like that of an indie development company, this experience has prepared me for possible future work within the games design industry – and any career that involves having to work in a cooperative team.

 

 

Overall, I feel that this project was essential to my personal development and has helped me expand my skillset. Within the future, I plan to utilise this skillset when in my university course, allowing me to apply these experiences and improve my future work. Applying skills like confidence and general knowledge of the games industry, I would then be able to gain an advantage on the course – learning from mistakes made within this project. Utilising this, I would be able to pre-plan work for my course and allow enough time to complete it – leaving room for time spent fixing inevitable mistakes.

​