The Front Cover

Today we started off with a talk about our options after this course. The options include university, gap year and apprenticeship. I felt this talk was both informative and helpful as it helped to broaden my mind further when it comes to my future. We then moved on to talking about the key features of a front cover for a game. This included a title, an image of the main character, an age rating and much more. I felt this exercise was helpful because it aided me in my design of my front cover which we had to design later on. When it came to designing our front covers I felt mine was very good up until the issues I had with my canvas size. The canvas size had to be 120 millimeters I did not know how to change the size of the canvas originally but I do now. Finally we presented the front covers to the rest of the group. I was dreading this because when I had seen a few peoples just before hand they looked about ten times better than mine but I realised that some people hadn't even finished so I felt  that at least I managed my time well.

I enjoyed picking out our favorite game and talking about it's front cover. I liked this because I was interested in seeing everyone's favorite game and how they felt about it's front cover.

However I did not enjoy they initial problems I had with the canvas size of my games front cover. This was sorted eventually but only five minutes before we had to present our front covers to the rest of the class.

I feel that I do not need any assistance because I am not struggling or having any issues with anything that is still outstanding.

Overall today was a very good day because I manged to complete my games front cover and learn a bit more about my options after this course is finished. The only negative I did have was the canvas size issue that I have mentioned earlier in this blog.  

Designing The Games Key Features

Today we started off by playing two example games and stating what we thought about the characters, enemies, power ups and the background of the game. I thought this exercise helped me to understand what is required from the game I need to design and what features I need to add the game to make it fun and enjoyable. We then moved on to designing the key features needed in the game such as the enemies, power ups and what the main character will look like with this power up in effect. I felt I did quite good at this task because I looked at the tutorial for creating eight bit characters and followed it exactly in order to create the assets shown below.

 I feel that this unit has some benefit towards my future career because I want to be a web designer and a web designer has to understand about colour resolution and primary colours.

I enjoyed the first exercise of the day the most as it got us thinking about what we could put in our games when it comes to designing them and it was different from just having it shown to us on the board.

I feel I do not need any help at this current time because I fully understand the unit and what we have to do for this time being at least.

Overall today was a good day as I managed to have many of the assets for my game designed and ready to have in the final design when the unit comes around. I also made more corrections to my assignment one which I should now have completed very shortly.

Character Design

Today we started off with a PowerPoint about hygiene and what to do should we suffer any hygiene problems. I felt this talk was a bit pointless as we have already been taught at school about hygiene and how it effects our bodies. We then moved on to marking an example design log that had deliberate mistakes riddled through out it. I felt this exercise was a bit easy as most of the mistakes were quite obvious and were corrected with ease. We were then given the rest of the time before lunch to continue on with any work we were behind on. I used this time to polish up on my assignment one and address any mistakes that were highlighted to me in the marked version of my assignment one. I felt the concerns raised in the final marking were all addressed and I hope my assignment meets criteria. After lunch we had to come up with a design for our video game characters and it had to be eight bit. I came up with a robber and painted the eight bit character black and white to represent typical robber clothing. I felt this went very well because my character meets criteria and it matches the story line of my game as well as looking good.

I feel that I do not need any help at this present time as I do not have any outstanding work that needs dealing with other than my assignment one re submission which I am hoping to have up to standard and completed by the deadline.

Overall I felt today went very well as I achieved all of the tasks that were set today to the best of my ability and I particularly felt my eight bit character went well and I am hoping my assignment one that needs re submission meets the criteria.

The one positive from this week for me would be that I completed my design log to a great standard but then my video game character was also good so for me this week there was more than one positive outcome. On a side note I managed to get my phone I lost on the bus back so this week was very good for me.

Design Logs and a Quiz

Today we started off by learning about how we could broaden our descriptive vocabulary and not constantly repeat ourselves by using the same words over and over again. I felt this was very to understand and it will now help when it comes to writing this blog post and future blog posts. We then moved on to our design logs which was separated into 7 tasks which were to put an introduction at the beginning, put a header and footer in, put two mind maps in, the second being more detailed, pick three images to use as our game backgrounds that were royalty free and to pick a colour for each of the main characters in the three game ideas. I thought this went very well because I came up with five game ideas and managed to narrow them down to three and come up with background images and colour choices for all three. Finally we moved on to a quiz subjected around one six minute video about artificial intelligence. Unfortunately I could only manage to achieve a 4 out of fifteen but I did manage not to come last as we all found the quiz to be very difficult.

I feel that I need a bit of help with narrowing down my three ideas to just one because I think all three of my ideas are great but hopefully I can think about it this evening and come up with just one idea that I can use as my final design and I can then feel prepared for the games design unit that is coming up in the near future.

Overall today was both fun and interesting as I learned new things and had fun during the quiz and I currently am not struggling on anything too major and I am not behind on any work.

Game Concepts And More

Today we started off by learning about their they're and there and mainly when to use each of them in a sentence. We also talked about homophones which are words that sound the same but are spelled differently for example the word bear or bare which sound the same but are spelled differently and mean a completely different thing. We then went on to watch two videos about colour both had different information in them. The first video was about the basics of colour which is things like the three primary colours and when mixed the outcome becomes what is called a secondary colour. The second video was more about the different types of colours you get when you mix white with red or black with blue this is called tint and shade. I felt the second video was better than the first because I thought the information was given to me clearer and the voice was less annoying. After lunch we were given a drawing exercise where we were given eight different words we had to draw and then we had to go around the room with green pieces of paper and put them on who's drawing we felt was the best. I realised that I still cannot draw anything well and this was especially shown when we had to draw a cat which I am not good at. Finally we had to come up with five different broad game concepts and finally narrow them down to three.

I enjoyed the drawing exercise the most as I liked going around the room and comparing everyone's drawings and seeing what they associated with different words.

I did not enjoy watching the first video we were told to watch as I found the presenter to be a bit boring and her voice was particularly annoying.

I felt I did well at coming up with five different game concepts because I found it to be a very easy task because I am a very imaginative person.

I did not to well at drawing because I have never really had the talent for drawing this was evident form today's work.

I feel that I do not need any help with anything at his current time although I would like to improve my drawing skills at some stage.

Overall today was a good day as I found the activities to be fun and interesting and I did not struggle with anything.  

Colours And More

Today we started off by learning about the primary colours which are red, blue and yellow. We then talked about what kind of emotions and objects these primary colours remind us of. We also learned about secondary colours which are green, purple and orange and what emotions or objects these secondary colours remind us of. We then talked about the colour of video game characters and how the colour of them reflect how the character behaves. We then looked at our own chosen video game characters and how the colour or clothing on them represent the behavior of the character. We finally learned how to edit the colour of video game characters on Photoshop and learned about the monotone, duotone, complementary, analogous and contrasting tools on Photoshop.

I enjoyed changing the colours and tones of our chosen video game characters because it helped us out with our Photoshop skills and it gives us good experience for future units.

I did not enjoy picking out words and objects that we felt were associated with a certain colour because I particularly struggled with picking out 5 important objects or things that are yellow. Not many objects in the world that are yellow are important to me.

I feel I need a bit of help with understanding some of the colouring tools on Photoshop as I do not know what some of the tools do individually.

Overall today was a good day as I learned new things about colours and the psychology behind them and I learnt new skills in Photoshop and I hope I can improve on my Photoshop skills in the near future.

 

I lost my phone

Today did not start so brightly as I left my phone on the bus. When I got to Develop we continued on with our assignments and then had to feedback on our peers' assignments as well. We were then given a lecture on how to put things in a bin, wash things up and learn how to switch things off after use.

I felt I did well in evaluating a fellow peers' work. I also got some feedback and hope to iron out the negative points that were given to me by my peer

I did badly at keeping the common tidy, at least we all did and since we have learnt on how to tidy things up we hope not to make this mistake again.

Overall today was a bad day for me although there were a few highlights such as the lecture about bins and a fellow peer having to clean the common room badly. The bad points were my missing phone and the results of my assignment 1 which I hope to have rectified.