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BATTLE YOUR DEMONS
ARTEFACT REVIEW – REFLECTION
Reflection: Text
Below, I will be reflecting on the overall production of my project and how I feel it went, what I did well, what I could have done better and how I can do better with these same things in the future and evaluating the project as a whole.
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You can scroll down to read through the review on this page or click the button to download and vie w the PDF file.
Reflection: Intro
INFORMING IDEAS FOR CREATIVE PRACTICE:
So, one of the very first things that we had to do was figure out what we actually wanted to do for our main project, which is generally where any creative project starts with, an idea. I came up with 3 initial ideas for my project, based on what I thought I had the best chance of doing due to the skills I have gained over the last couple of years at college.
Reflection: Intro
INITIAL IDEAS:
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My initial ideas were;
1 - My first idea was a 2D side-scrolling game based around mental health. I took a lot of inspiration from Celeste, although I haven’t played it yet I have watched videos on people reviewing the game and a lot of gameplay videos too. It is one of the best-selling indie games in recent years and delves into the murky world of the players mental health.
So, my first idea was a game based around mental health, it would look at 3 main forms, loneliness, depression and anxiety. It would see the player traversing either vast oceans or a large empty icy wasteland, descending into deep swampy valleys and climbing high mountains all whilst battling shadow demons that represent the players fight with mental health.
It is meant to show people that if you are living with mental health issues, it doesn’t mean it’s the end and that you can overcome and learn to live with them. It is set in another realm which is accessed via a portal from Earth, it takes you into the shadow realm your demons reside and look to bring you down with them. But the protagonist will show her strength and not be beaten down and dragged into the shadow realm like so many before.
2 - My second idea was based around climate change and would be a 3D environment which shows the devastating effects it can have on our world if we let things get more out of hand than they already are. It will take you through various cities that have been destroyed and
deserted due to climate change.
The cities will look normal at first with people going about their daily lives, then it would change to show them overgrown with vegetation and greenery with the buildings in ruins from cracks and falling apart. Cities that have been taken over by a barren and desolate desert wasteland, and cities that have been caught in a terrible ice age. These are the types of things that could happen if we let them, and I wanted to reflect this in the environment.
3 - This was another 2D game, either a side-scrolling platformer or a top-down game. It was based on both climate change and mental health and would see the player traveling through similar cities across the world while battling their mental health as they go. All whilst trying to find out what happened to the earth and is something that the player would have to balance. Walking through these types of cities when you suffer with mental health could have more of an effect on you, so you would have to find a way to cope with it all while traveling around through these cities and seeing what humanity has done to the Earth.
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I went with my first idea in the end, this was based on the secondary research I conducted but mainly on the primary too which was in the form of a survey I made, and people seemed to be drawn more to the first idea than an of the other 2.
Reflection: Intro
INITIAL INTENTIONS & EXPECTATIONS:
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I initially wanted to go with this idea as I felt it was the best option based on my skills, but I wanted to have several ideas to show that I didn’t just have a single option to choose from. The original plan was to make up to 7 levels with a minimum of 3, I managed 3 and am glad I didn’t go for 7 in the end as I thought that this was a little optimistic, and in the end, I don’t feel it was feasible in the time we had to make the project.
So, I went for 3 levels and based them on the 3 forms of mental health I wanted to focus on, loneliness, depression and anxiety. And since the overall theme was health and how we can make a younger audience more aware of effects they can have – not just mental health but also things such as food safety, road safety and climate change etc. So, I felt that my idea fit the theme well for what our client (the World Health Organisation).
My initial expectations were to spend time on my assignments like I did last year, which I spent most of my spare time on. And even though I was working I still managed to get good grades on all my assignments, but I struggled more this year which has set me back more than it should have done and means I haven’t gained the result I wanted on some of my assignments, I received a merit/distinction on my initial proposal submission and a merit on my initial pitch submission which I thought was still good but they could have been better.
I did speak to someone last year from student services which I feel did help a lot, but it’s still been a tough year due to Covid. But it has been a tough year for millions of people, so I am far from alone. I managed to get back on track but despite having much more time to concentrate on assignments in my second year, I haven’t spent as much time as I could have done on them to improve the quality of my work. But it is something to look back on and try learning from it, so it doesn’t happen again, especially if I get the required grades to get into university.
Reflection: Intro
MY PLANNED PRODUCTION:
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For my planned production, I wanted to add in new mechanics that I didn’t have in my last game, which included a wall jump, melee attack for the main protagonist and melee enemies, and there were 2 more that I added in later in production, one being an enemy health bar to show a visual representation of their health, and rotating and levitating pickups to draw more attention to the player, and lastly a loot system that would see some of the enemies dropping items upon death.
The wall jump was one of my main new mechanics and I wanted this to work as a continuous thing. So, the player would jump and hit a wall and jump straight off it, and then do another wall jump when hitting another wall but this didn’t work as intended. It does work, but the character only bounces off one wall every time the player jumps. But for now, it still works and I have added extra platforms to certain parts of my levels so the player can progress through.
The pickups were an idea based on a lot of games having them that either float, spin or do something to draw the players attention to them. I wanted to do the same, so I created some health and happiness pickups and created some different sprites in Photoshop so it looked like they were rotating, and then I placed them into a spritesheet and moved them up and down so it would also look like they are levitating. This worked fine from the beginning and I’m glad I added it in.
For my last game, all enemies were ranged and didn’t have melee attack animations, and neither did my player. The enemies only had a ranged shoot animation, and the player had a ranged shoot and throw animation – which threw a grenade. So, I wanted to try something different in this game and have a melee attack for my player and also have melee enemies too.
It generally works but it is a little weird sometimes. Sometimes when the player attacks the enemy it attacks multiple times at ones but doesn’t show the animation properly, it still plays the sounds but not always the animation but is something I will look into more later. I did try to look at it this time around but felt I was wasting too much time, so I carried on with the production of the game.
The enemy health bar also generally works as it should, it takes the amount of health specified with each player attack and goes down with each attack. But it doesn’t do this all the time, sometimes the enemy health bar stays full even though they are taking damage, but again is something I will look into more later. For now, it mostly works and at least shows an attempt to add something new that I haven’t tried before.
Reflection: Intro
PROBLEM SOLVING SKILLS FOR ADVANCED PRACTICE:
As mentioned above, there are a few issues that I have had during my production which I have tried looking into but can’t quite figure out why they are happening right now and I felt I was wasting time on trying to get them working, so I have left them for now so I could carry on with my production.
Reflection: Intro
PERFORMANCE EVALUATION:
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As mentioned, this year has been a hard one for many people around the globe due to Covid. Trying to stay motivated whilst in the middle of a pandemic, and while you have to stay in the house as you aren’t allowed to go out unless for essentials such as daily outdoor exercise and food shopping etc. it has certainly been an interesting year.
Due to me living with my parents and my mam being classed as vulnerable, I didn’t want to go out a lot. I’m generally an introvert anyway so it doesn’t usually bother me staying in. But when there’s a virus going around that can affect anybody, but mostly people with health issues and you live with a person with health issues, it makes you want to stay in all the time so you don’t catch the virus and pass it onto them as it can be potentially fatal. If it were just me, I wouldn’t have been as bothered as I’m generally a healthy person – even though Covid can affect anybody and not just people with health issues although they have been proven to be the most vulnerable to it.
But because I was trying to keep my mam safe, I stayed in a lot of the time and for the first lockdown I was off for around 6-7 months in total. Since March 2020, I have been off work for around 10-11 months in total which has been interesting. I feel that this is one of the main reasons I haven’t put as much time and effort into my second year as I did my first, despite having a lot more spare time in my second year. But being in all the time has given me less motivation to do things. And although I have been getting back into my training recently, this is something else I have not done a lot of over the last year too, which means I have put on weight and I feel more sluggish which is another thing that has made me less motivated to do a lot.
But I have still managed to get my work done and mostly submitted on time. My only assignment this year which I did not submit (mainly due to deleting the folder like a spanner) was my artefact production. All other assignments were submitted on time, albeit not all to the same standard I know I’m capable of doing.
My overall grades for the year are;
1 - Artefact Proposal – merit/distinction
2 - Artefact Pitch – merit overall
3 - Artefact Planning – distinction overall
4 - Artefact Production – TBC
5 - Artefact Review – TBC
I didn’t get a formal working at grade for my production due to not submitting the assignment and the review is going on my website ready for review when we get our overall feedback. I was going to look at additional information to my proposal and creating a new pitch video with more detail to improve my grade but just didn’t get around to it. It isn’t so much me not managing my time properly as I have been doing this with my production. In all honesty, I’m not 100% sure as to why I didn’t try to improve them as based on my feedback, there isn’t a lot I need to add to improve the grades for them all in all. But will look at doing this if a chance to resub occurs, and I don’t get the final grade I am working towards.
I have managed my time more effectively in the last couple of months compared to how I did when we started year 2. And again, this is mostly down to lack of motivation and have doubts in my self which has hindered me this year. But I just need to look past what has happened since it can’t be changed and work as hard as I can from now on to get the grades I know I can get.
Reflection: Intro
EXPECTATION EVALUATION:
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Again, based on my initial ideas & overall performance, my general expectations of how things were going to turn out and how they actually turned out were slightly different. I was initially going to design most of my own assets and only use outsourced assets for SFX, music and backgrounds.
I’m not really an artist, and this is down to never really practicing improving my drawing skills, and the older I got it came more down to not having patience to learn how to draw. So, it isn’t just down to not really being able to draw, it can also take me a long time to design simple looking sprites that look good, and I feel as though I waste too much time coming up with designs for things.
If I am using another image as a reference, then I can usually some up with something based on the image which I have done several times this year, including the guns you can see on the technical skills page on this site and on my concept document. The characters took a long time, and therefore I felt it would be best if I were able to outsource assets. I asked my course leader about this and he said that if I reference them and give credit to the creators then it is fine.
But I didn’t use them fully as they were, - some I did such as the background assets I used – but for the enemy and player sprites, I downloaded the sprites from a website called Craftpix and used the sprites as references to make my own smaller versions of them where I changed the colour. So, even though they were outsourced, I added my own thing to them to make them sort of my own too, and it worked out really well.
Some of the mechanics I wasn’t originally planning on adding them in, but I had a little more time than I thought (even after deleting my project twice, once on purpose and once by accident). But, I looked at them and thought they would be easy to implement, and it shows that I have tried new things that weren’t in my last game. The enemy loot system works fine but the enemy health bar needs looking into and finding out why it doesn’t work all the time and tweak it accordingly.
But generally, things have turned out almost how I expected them to, albeit changing a few things around, such as making the level maps taller and longer. They worked well when first put together, but there didn’t seem to be a lot of room for the player to move around in. I extended them so they weren’t as cramped.
And one thing that was sort of a happy accident which I wasn’t planning on is the rain in level 2. I made a rain particle system much the same as I did for my last game, and it worked as intended originally. It seemed to change when I copied the complete folder over to my desktop so I could package the game properly – I was initially having issues with this and a tutor noticed it was due to the file names being too long since I was trying to package it from my flash drive. But, when I opened the game up after packaging it, the rain in level 2 was black instead of the initial clear/white colour, but I left it as I think it goes well for the theme of the level which is depression.
Reflection: Intro
TECHNICAL SKILLS FOR CREATIVE PRACTICE:
I’ve certainly learned a lot of new skills since being at college which will help immensely for a career in the games industry, whether I join an existing studio or build my own indie studio. But regardless of what I choose to do, being at college has helped me figure out that games development is my main career goal and I am going to do what I need to so I can get in and keep a promise I made to someone special to me.
Reflection: Intro
TECHNICAL SKILLS I’VE LEARNED:
The games industry, like most others, require you to know what you’re doing, and it is better for an individual to know about different aspects from programming, design, art, production and more. There’s no real need for a person to know absolutely everything there is to know about game development, but at least having basic skills in all or a lot of the different fields will give you an advantage. Most people will have their main field where they are experts but have experience in other fields too, and the same goes with the technology too.
I have gained many different skills in my time at Confetti which will all help me for a career in the games industry. My focus points have been on Unreal Engine 4 for development and Autodesk Maya for 3D modelling. I have worked with Unity too, but I do prefer UE4 as this is the engine I have most experience in.
One of the main reasons I preferred using UE4 to Unity from the beginning is due to the use of visual scripting with blueprints, but Unity focusses more on C#, and as far as I know, they didn’t have an option for visual scripting when I started using Unity and UE4 in my first year of college.
Autodesk Maya is my main choice when it comes to 3D modelling and I have gotten better at creating my own models with the more tutorials I have watched and PowerPoints my 3D modelling tutor has given us over the last couple of years. I have made a lot of my own models using this for either college projects or just as a side project.
I have also used Adobe Photoshop extensively, more so over the last year to make assets for my game and have become more component in using it. And there are other pieces of Adobe software I have basic skill in that I have used to edit things such as Audition and Premiere Pro.
Reflection: Intro
DEVELOPING THESE SKILLS:
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To put it simply, I have developed the above skills by practising them in my own time as well as at college. I have watched tutorials on how to implement new mechanics but some I have had to figure out myself as there isn’t always a tutorial to watch. Also, the official Unreal Engine documentation has been invaluable in developing my skills too.
Practising new skills is the best way to develop them properly and I will continue to do this as long as it takes to get to the point where I can work confidently without having to look into how things work and being able to put mechanics together myself. During college, I haven’t only worked with the software for our projects and assignments. I also worked on several side projects that have helped build my skills and become more confident in my abilities with the software, and they turned out better than I expected them to.
Reflection: Intro
STRENGTHS:
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Two of what I feel are some of my main strengths are visual scripting and 3D modelling which I have learned more about over the last couple of years at Confetti. And another I feel is something that I have learned naturally over the years, and that is design. I studied games design just over 10 years ago but gave up on it after around 6 months, but it was more to doubting my own abilities than finding it too difficult.
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VISUAL SCRIPTING:
I find visual scripting so much better than traditional coding, more because I don’t really have a lot of patience when it comes to the latter. I have used blueprints in UE4 a lot at Confetti, and I have also had a go at traditional coding using C# in Unity. I found that I much prefer visual scripting with UE4’s blueprint system, and it means that non-programmers are able to help create games and not have to rely solely on programmers. At the very least, it allows non-programmers to put things together to prototype.
I have learned quicker with visual scripting than I ever did with coding languages such as C++ and C#. This is mainly because I learn better if I find a subject more interesting, so visual scripting has been much easier for me to pick up.
3D MODELLING:
3D modelling is something I didn’t really like at first, more so because I found it difficult and didn’t really understand how it all worked. However, the more I have done it, the more it has grown on me and is one of my potential careers within the industry. I am more confident now and am able to create models myself without having to watch someone else do it first – dependant on what the model is as there are still many things I haven’t attempted yet.
DESIGN:
I have been interested in game design for a long time, and as mentioned above, I used to study design around 10 years ago, but gave up on it as I didn’t think I would do well. But design was one of my main focus points and I became very interested in what goes into designing levels and other aspects of a game.
I feel that design is one of my stronger points in games as I find it easier to come up with ideas and concepts for games. I am getting better at level design and have been getting better at the narrative of a game too which I think is important, especially when you want to create a game with a good story.
Although I do believe the 3 above points are my main strengths in game development, I am far from an expert in any of them. There are always new things to learn and with technology always improving, things are always going to get better and more complex. The only way I can get better with the above is by practising as much as I can and finding ways to better myself in each discipline, which is what I hope to do.
Reflection: Intro
WEAKNESSES:
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I believe that my 2 main weaknesses in game development are art and traditional coding that programmers use. I have done a little of both during my time at college, but I haven’t put a lot of practice into them as I find I don’t have a lot of patience with them, which is one of the main reasons I stay try to stay away from them.
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TRADITIONAL CODING:
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As stated above, if given the choice I would much rather use visual scripting such as blueprints in UE4 than the C++ coding languages the engine uses, or C# which is used in Unity. I studied at The Open University around 9 years ago and one of my assignments was all about using JavaScript. Although I managed to pass the assignment, I didn’t like doing it as it involved coding. As I don’t intend to pursue a career in programming, I don’t see much benefit in learning how to code and feel it would be a waste of time.
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ART:
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Art is something else that I have never really put much practice into. I have made my own assets for my games over the last couple of years, but it can take me a long time to try designing simple sprites that other people will find a lot easier. If I am using a reference image – such as the weapons you can find on the Technical Skills page – then I can create sprites easier, although it will still take me time to get them right.
I am ok when it comes to simple concept art as shown on my concept document for Dragon’s Dystopia I did last year, storyboards and level designs. This is mainly because they don’t have to be amazing and can be very simple, to give an idea of what you are going for. They are also at least basic skills I feel are good for a designer to have as it can help to get your idea across in a visual way rather than just writing.
Although I’m not a fan of doing these myself, it isn’t to say that I don’t have respect for people who can. I have seen some amazing artists who can just draw stunning drawings with ease and programmers who can write code as if it were second nature to them. And if it wasn’t for artists and programmers, then games simply couldn’t be made. I just don’t have a lot of patience for them myself which is why I will avoid them if I can.
Reflection: Intro
TOOLS I’VE USED:
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The main tools I used for my game were Unreal Engine 4 and Photoshop, and Piskel.
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UNREAL ENGINE 4:
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I have used Unreal Engine 4 a lot in the last couple of years, and it is the engine I used to create Battle your Demons for my CIR project. The main reason I am using UE4 is because I feel I have more experience using this instead of other game engines such as Unity. And as mentioned, the reason for this if my fondness of the visual scripting system in UE4. I fund using the blueprint system so much easier than traditional coding like C++ or C#, and this is one main reason I haven’t used Unity a lot.
I saw that Unity have started using a visual scripting system now but as far as I know it wasn’t in use when I first started college. So, I may look into this and see if I can get on with Unity and their new visual scripting system. It will probably be a good idea to do regardless as it will give me basic knowledge in how it works, and something I have heard many people say – especially people in the industry – is that it is a good idea to work with more than one single platform, while keeping your focus on one main platform.
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So, with me it would be keeping my focus on UE4 whilst at least looking into other tools too to further my knowledge and understanding of how different things work. I may try to create a simple game using Unity to gain more of an understanding but will certainly keep my focus on UE4 for the future.
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PHOTOSHOP:
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Photoshop is the main image editing tool I have used to create or edit sprites for my game. I used it to create all tiles sprites I used, and edit all character/enemy sprites to what you see in the game. As seen in the dev log for my game, I purchased sprites from Craftpix and used them as a reference to create smaller sprites and edit the colour scheme to make them fit with the theme of the levels they are in. PHOTOSHOP:
Out of the software I have used at Confetti, Photoshop is the only one I have used before, albeit a long time ago. My knowledge and skill have improved more so over the course of our CIR project as I have used Photoshop a lot more and have become more confident in my ability to use it more independently.
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PISKEL:
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As well as Photoshop, Piskel is another tool I have used. Mainly to edit the colour of my sprites fast and easy. There are tools in Photoshop, but I find them a little awkward to use as they don’t always do what you want. But Piskel allows you to one colour with a single click to what ever colour you have selected at the time. This made creating my tile sprites that much easier and quicker.
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OTHER ADOBE SOFTWARE.
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ther Adobe software that I have used – not quite as much as the others – but I have gained at least basic skills in editing music and SFX in Adobe Audition, this was mainly to change the bitrate and file type of the sound files going into UE4, since they need to be 16bit .WAV files.
There was also Premiere Pro that I used to edit my pitch; I recorded the different sections of my video using the Windows 10 screen recording tool. So, I have at least the basic skills to edit and add videos together which is how I made my pitch.
These are some things I would like to improve for the future, just so it becomes easier in the future and again, having skills in multiple bits of software shows that you have put time and effort into learning these new skills, and generally looks good to a potential employer.
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REFLECTING ON MY SKILLS:
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Another thing is that I understand more now how UE4 uses sprites. My last game works well, but you can see from certain animations in Alien Project X, such as when the character goes into their throw or crouch animations, the character becomes larger or smaller. This is more noticeable with the level 3 boss, when the Robot Defender dies, the death animation is a lot smaller than the actual robot is meant to be. I wondered why this was, but I now know it is because of how I set up the sprites.
In Battle your Demons, I set the sprites up in set boundary – an example is the main protagonist being set in a 96x96 box, the sprites themselves are aet at 64x64 pixels. So, with 8 sprites in a spritesheet, I set the spritesheet at 284x192 pixels in Photoshop, and placed all the sprites within a 96x96 box boundary within the spritesheet. This way when they are imported into UE4 and made into sprites, and then a flipbook, the animations stay the stay size when they are call within the game.
I didn’t do this for Alien Project X, but now I know what caused the issue, it can be easily fixed so sprites all the stay the same size within the game.
All in all, I have gained more knowledge of how the above software works in the last year. I have used different tools to create new mechanics for my game in Unreal Engine 4, and there are a couple of new tools I have used in Photoshop – such as the 3D tool so I could create simple rotating pickups for my game. As mentioned though, I am far from becoming an expert in any of them and can only carry on using them further my skills and knowledge of how they work so I can better myself in my career.
Reflection: Intro
CONSIDERING LEGAL & ETHICAL PRACTICES:
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There are many legal and ethical practices to consider when taking on any sort of creative project. For our CIR project it was no different.
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BRANDING:
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Our CIR project is based on making something for the World Health Organisation. Our theme was health and we had different topics we could choose from based on health. But we can’t use any sort of WHO branding unless we got approval prior to beginning. But as a rule, I have only used their name several times since this isn’t classed as branding, but I have kept any branding out.
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COPYRIGHT & LICENSING:
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Copyright is similar to branding, if I used any WHO branding without consent it would eventually lead a copyright breach and could lead to possible legal action from the WHO.
It is the same for any outsourced assets that I have used, if I somehow managed to obtain these without consent then it could lead to legal issues later due to breaching copyright laws. This is why I made sure the licensing of the assets gave me the rights to use them, and I am able to use them for commercial purposes too which is our future goal for the game.
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RACE & ETHNICITY:
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This was one thing I had to consider. Right now, both protagonists (although I am currently using one, which is Claire) are Caucasian. It is something we will think about adding later, giving the player the chance to choose their race so it doesn’t look as though we are favouring one race or another, and it could potentially allow us to reach out to more people.
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GENDER:
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Like race and ethnicity, this is something we will look into further. Giving the player the ability to choose their gender before starting the game. Again, it will show that we are not favouring one gender over another.
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VIOLENCE & GORE:
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This is something I had to consider for the CIR project. Because it is being made for World Health Day to make a younger audience more aware of the different health risks and how they can be avoided, or how mental health can be overcome. The WHO more than likely don’t want to be associated with violence and gore, and since our target audience is 15-24-year old’s. This means that my game must be at least PEGI 12 which allows for mild violence.
Reflection: Intro
CONSIDERING THE CLIENT & TARGET AUDIENCE:
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These are important and in s sense go with some of the things above, such as with considering the branding of your client, age of your target audience amongst other things.
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THE CLIENT:
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Knowing the needs of your client is very important if you are creating something for them. You can’t go into something without first discussing it with them first as what you make will most certainly be completely different from what they are looking for.
So, this again goes with things such as violence and gore. With our client being the WHO, they most likely don’t want to be associated with this as it isn’t what they stand for. So, I had to consider the needs of our client before commencing with my project.
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TARGET AUDIENCE:
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Our target audience are 15-24-year-olds, so again overly graphical violence is a no go. Mainly because the game must have a PEGI 12 rating, so I had to think of what could be added in to make it suitable for the audience.
I went with a game that focuses on mental health based on the research I conducted for my proposal document. It showed that mental health issues occur more with people aged 12-25 which is within our target audience age. I wanted to create a game to make younger people more aware of the effects mental health can have and that they can be overcome.
Reflection: Intro
PROFESSIONAL SKILLS FOR CREATIVE PRACTICE:
This is something I struggled with when I was younger, managing my projects effectively when it came to time management mainly. I never really planned things out to make them easier, but I guess this is something people learn to do the older they get which is what I have done. I have gotten better at time management the older I have become, more out of necessity than anything.
Reflection: Intro
MONITORING MY PROJECT:
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The last time I was at college and when I studied with The Open University, I had a habit of leaving things until the last minute to start my assignments, I did manage to get hem done and in, but I didn’t get the grades I could have done if I put more effort into it. But this was all down to me and – like I have done a little this year – in doubting my own abilities to do well.
I have gotten to the point now where I know this is probably one of the last chances for me to do something. I was always interested in the military when I was younger and never really had a back up plan. I’ve been interested in games design and development for a long time, but I never really thought of it as a career, as I was only interested in pursuing a military career for a long time. In hindsight, I wish it hadn’t taken me so long to realise that the military just wasn’t a viable option as I could have done something about my future earlier, but then again, I wouldn’t have met the friends I have, especially the friend I have started a small game dev studio with.
There is another reason why I have decided to do something now, and why I chose to go back to college in my early 30s Again, it shouldn’t have taken for it to happen for me to decide to work so I can think about my future and have a good career, but it did, and it is my motivation to work as hard as I can.
All in all, I have worked hard in my last couple years at college as I can’t afford not to. So, my time management has gotten a lot better this time around, I have spent a lot of free time – albeit not quite as much in the second year, despite having more free time than the first. But still, I have worked hard so I can gain good grades and finish the course with the best qualification I can.
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SETTING TARGETS:
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I set up a Gantt chart at the beginning – which has been updated to go with the new time I worked on my project, from when I deleted my file etc. Weekly sprint sheets which have helped me keep on top of things, I have never used them before but are very helpful for staying on track as you can set what you plan to do in the next week, explain what you did in the last week and comment on anything that may have gone well or bad and how things can potentially be improved in the future to avoid lagging behind. And using the management system I decided to go with has helped to keep things simple and easier to work on as I haven’t gotten myself bogged down in trying to do too much at once, which is also something I used to do. Taking on too many things at once and not always getting them finished in time or getting them finished but not to the best standard I could.
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PRIORITISING:
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Along with setting specific targets, I also prioritised certain tasks based on how important I felt they were, or whether I could continue or not based on a certain mechanic. This is again something that can be brought into everyday life, prioritising things to make your day run smoother and can be better in the long run.
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REVIEWING:
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Reviewing my work has been important to make sure it is the best I feel it can be – at least at the time. Things such as proof-reading to make sure there are no spelling or grammar mistakes, which admittedly I have noticed even after proof-reading and submitting assignments.
When I was making Battle Your Demons, I played it multiple times – generally when I added a new mechanic or animation just to see if it worked properly. And if it didn’t, then I went back and edited it until it worked as I wanted it to. Although there are some sections of the game where you can get stuck, but this is more down to collision than mechanics and is something to be looked at further.
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FEEDBACK:
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Gaining feedback has been paramount for me improving my grades on assignments. I have yet to gain feedback on my production – this is down to missing the deadline in March due to deleting the game prior and starting again. But my other assignments such as my proposal and pitch, I haven’t gone through and edited them yet but will do if I get a choice to resubmit as I feel from the feedback I received that there isn’t too much I need to add to them to improve my overall grades for them.
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IMPROVEMENTS:
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This goes with reviewing and feedback. When I came across any issues when reviewing myself then I attempted to rectify them straight away, but you can’t always find all issues yourself, so this is why it is a good idea to get other people to check over the work for feedback, and then work with this to improve what you have done.
There are several things I changed in my game due to peer feedback, nothing major but more little things that people didn’t fully understand what they were. And I will continue to do this in future, gaining feedback from people for any potential improvements, and depending on how many people talk about the same issue then I will look at implementing changes as necessary.
Reflection: Intro
CONTINGENCIES & BACKUPS
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This is something else I struggled with in the past. Not having backups of work or any contingencies if something went wrong or just wasn’t possible in the time I had. This time around, it is something else I couldn’t really afford not to have, if I lost work this time then it wasn’t so easy to start it again. Last time I was at college the assignments weren’t really too tough, but it was down to my mindset to why I didn’t do as well as I could have. So, if I lost work and had to start again it wasn’t quite as bad.
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BACKUPS & VERSION CONTROL:
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At Confetti, the work has been too important to not have backups just in case, and there have been a few occasions where I have lost work due to corrupted files or something else, but I have had backups this time, so I didn’t lose too much. Backups and contingencies are a fact of life, and if you don’t have them, you may not get to where you want to be.
I have made sure to have not just multiple backups this time around, but also different versions of work, so I have older copies of some work too just in case. For backups I have 1 internal SSD and 1 internal HDD, 2 external HDDs, 3 USB flash drives – that I use specifically for college work – and 3 forms of online storage with Google Drive, OneDrive and Dropbox. So, I am not taking any chances with my work at Confetti, and it has come in very handy on a few occasions.
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CONTINGENCIES:
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I have also set several contingencies for a few assignments, mainly the practical ones I have made. Which are simply additional things that I can fall back on if the things I want to do just don’t work properly. An example of this was the wall jump in Battle Your Demons, it does work but not as intended. It was meant to be a continuous thing where the player jumps from wall to wall without stopping, but they only wall jump once after every normal jump. To counter this so the player can still progress, I have added extra platforms for the player to land on and perform another wall jump to continue.
Reflection: Intro
PRODUCTION:
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As mentioned above, I initially had 3 ideas for my project. I went with mental health as I feel it isn’t spoken about enough and from research, I conducted for my proposal document, more people need to be made aware that it is an ever-existing threat and can have negative impacts on your life.
I started the production of my game in late February and was going for between 3 and 7 levels in total, I wanted the levels to represent 3 main forms of mental health problems, loneliness, depression and anxiety. As time went on, I wasn’t spending as much time on it as I should have or that I wanted to. Although I did manage to get it finished by the final 7th May deadline, it could have gone better than it did.
I got so far into the production and things kept going wrong, so I deleted it and started again. It went well at first and I started to come across some issues again, albeit not quite as bad as before. But when the deadline for the production came in March, I accidentally deleted my project from the Epic launcher without realising that this also deleted it from the source. So, I didn’t submit anything for that deadline for any feedback, which I was disappointed in myself for as it is the first time in the last 2 years at college where I hadn’t submitted anything.
But I carried on with the production and got back underway again. I still came across issue but by this point I had gone through it 3 times, so I found a solution for some of them, albeit not a perfect solution but for now, they worked.
Reflection: Intro
CONCLUSION:
Reflection: Intro
ll in all, I feel that things went ok with the overall project, even though I didn’t get quite the grades I wanted on some assignments. Hopefully however, I will get a chance to resubmit these to improve my grades for them and give me a better chance at gaining the overall grade I would like for the end of the 2 years of college.
Things definitely could have gone better, but it’s down to me to make sure I don’t falter in the future and get my head down with every future assignment. And also ask for help if needed, which admittedly I didn’t do quite as much this time around. But as always, there were some mistakes that I made during the project as a whole and all I can do is learn from them, so they don’t happen again in the future.
My motivation to do well and secure a good career for my future is a promise I made to my daughter which I don’t intend to break, no matter how tough things get in life. I want to prove to myself that I can do well and I want to make her proud of what I know I can accomplish.
Reflection: Intro
Reflection: Intro
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