Structure of Game Design

So this past month, I had a class in which we were given one month to make a game of our choice. I chose to do a platformer which I called "Just Beyond".

The concept of it was you were a teddy bear who was accidentally dropped out a car window on a road trip, and spent every waking moment trying to find the boy who owned him. I'm pretty proud of what I achieved, however incomplete it may be (I plan to polish it up and put it up over spring break). However, The class taught me some really valuable lessons about designing a game.

Know your limits:

By limits, I mean both deadlines (time limits) and what you can achieve. I tend to have the attitude that whatever you put your mind to you can achieve, and I truly believe that. However, having the first game I made being a platformer with three different levels, all with (digitally) hand drawn graphics made by myself, that's a bit much to do in one month. I did get surprising amounts of it done, but unfortunately, alot of graphics fell by the wayside, which leads into another important fact...

Feature Creep:

It's called creep for a reason, those little "wouldn't it be cool if..." moments we ALL have that just slide into our minds while we're doing something. What makes it worse, is when you have an art program, or a compiler in front of you, you have the ability to try out that idea right then. Break that habit now, right now. It's great to have ideas, but when you have a plan, stick to it. Write the new ideas down, and set them aside, finishing what you have planned first, that's why you have the design doc. 

For instance, when I made the projectiles that my character throws (blueberries) I had them hit the ground, splat, then slowly drip and leak over the edge of the platform. It looked great, and it came from one of those "wouldn't it be cool if" moments, but I ended up spending an entire afternoon working on that, that could have been better spent getting my data saving and loading from the game. In the end, I had to disable that animation anyways, because I didn't have an animation for when they hit the walls, and didn't have time to make one.

Never Give up:

Take the term deadline seriously. The nights before both of my milestones were due, me and some buddies from class had study groups that lasted from 11am one morning to 5pm the next day. All of that was coding, with maybe a couple 10-20 minute breaks for food or caffeine. The point is, we were going to work our hardest to knock our games out of the park, even if that meant not sleeping til after we turned in the assignment and left class. If this is what you want to do, prove it to yourself, and your instructors, by stepping up to the plate and putting all your energy into what you're making. The game will come out better for it, and you'll have something you can be proud of in the end.

All in all the class was a great experience, and alot of fun. I have alot of things to keep in mind for my next projects, but having experienced them first hand, I'll be all the more prepared for them the next time they come around.

Game Design Challenge

After many a month of school, having this blog (that up to this point I've done nothing with due to time constraints) , and reading such sites as Gamasutra and GameCareerGuide, I have finally decided to start doing the GameCareerGuide Game Design Challenge. My hopes are that from this, I can help hone my design abilities in preperation for looking into a job in Game Design. I'll be sure to post here on how that goes as I work on it.

In school news, I'm into Programming 3 and Physics now here at Full Sail, and this course has been living up to my expectations so far. It's really challenging, but it's also alot of fun, and I find myself enjoying the challenges put infront of me. The schedule, however, I'm enjoying alot less. Here's to hoping that next month we won't have classes that end at 1am and start the next day at 9am.

On the subject of 'we', the class I'm a part of, as a whole, is really amazing. Just about everyone knows where they want to go and what they want to do when they are done here. This is probably the most solid class of people I've ever had the joy of learning with.

That being said, I'm off to prepare for Programming 3 (today is learning Exception Classes!).



Tom

The Beginning of the Road

Well, I made this blog to track my exploits throughout my school career, and into my true career after school. This is as much a tool for me as it can be for other people interested in game design, and it allows me some time to reflect on the things I've learned so far.

To start things off, let me explain a bit about myself. I've been interested in video games as far back as I can remember. I didn't really get into the concept of making games as a possible career until I was introduced to one of those RPG Maker programs when I was in the 6th or 7th grade. A year or two in that and I started to not only realize that I wanted to have even more control, but that this was truly what I wanted to do with my life. after that I spent a lot of my time learning computer animation with Maya and Blender, as well as started getting my feet wet in C++.

I first heard of Full Sail from a good friend of mine who was looking to go there as well. I didn't think too much of it at the time, but when I kept hearing the name, I decided to check it out. Needless to say, it seemed like the place for me, intense courses focused on Game Design. Flash forward about 3 years, and my dreams of going to Full Sail went from being just dreams, to me in my car full of belongings driving to Florida, in less than a months time.

That brings us to the here and now. At this point in time, I am about 5 weeks into school here, working through their Design Fundamentals and Principles of Programming classes. Look forward to most likely weekly, or even daily posts covering my progress through school towards my dream job.