Game Development
Name: TANG YUYING
Student ID: 0370676
Programmed: Interactive special design
Module name: Interactive Design (202504-Lecture)
Introduction
In this blogger, I will record my learning process and the production process of our group assignment.
Design concept:
Players control the young witch as she ascends the tower, collecting rare ingredients, brewing magical potions, and unlocking new skills. A single misstep sets her back but with every encounter and discovery, she gains new herbs and powers that help her ascend the tower with ease.
Character:
NPC(1): NPC will give items, quests or lore to the player during their journey
Main character: Witch
The player progresses by using her potions to traverse through levels. Each time the little witch clears a quest, she unlocks a new abilities and potions to craft. As she ascends the tower, she obtains new and exotic herbs & ingredients, which she uses to brew powerful magical potions.
Cat
When the witch passes through some narrow passages, she will transform into a cat to help her get through.
Week 1
In the first week, what we mainly did was to familiarize ourselves with the goals and assignments to be achieved throughout the course. Then the most important thing is to form teams, which is very important for our subsequent group assignments.
We are very grateful to the teacher for helping us form teams, because there are more designers in our class who are studying it. So, the teacher helped two of us designers' team up with a classmate who studies it. In this way, it would be much easier for us to make games in the group.
Week 2
In the second week, I, we got to know and understand the software Unity that we need to use this semester. The teacher also explained some basic programming knowledge to us in class. Actually, it was very practical for me. Although we have some understanding and knowledge of programming, our foundation is still unstable. Therefore, the teacher's lectures are still very necessary for us.
Then we mostly discussed the game that our group was going to make. Our group plans to create a pixel game. The reason for choosing to use pixels is that its production method is not so difficult and there are more creative directions. We discussed that this would be a game about alchemists, related to things like growing herbs and clearing levels. However, there is still room for discussion. Our group decided to seek some inspiration from steams. To be honest, it was quite challenging for me, who doesn't play games very often.
This is the idea I shared at the beginning:
“Animals that wander in the city collect energy at night and can transform into warriors to protect people from the attacks of demons. However, during the day, it will transform back into an animal (there will be a switch between day and night modes during the game). Be careful not to be killed by the monsters so that you can transform when night falls. The criterion for clearing the level is to kill a specified number of monsters.”
During the discussion, my idea was still somewhat challenging for our group. So we decided to make the previous game about alchemists because everyone thought this theme was relatively limited. Then we could also integrate other gameplay elements to make innovations.
Then, based on our group's ideas, I wrote a game background story
A little witch was born into a powerful family of sorcerers, where every member was expected to master a formidable form of magic. Some learned to control fire, others commanded water—but the little witch showed no interest in these elemental powers. Instead, her heart was drawn to the art of alchemy and the crafting of magical potions.
In a household that valued raw magical strength above all else, alchemy was looked down upon as a lesser skill. No one took it seriously, and certainly, no teacher would come to guide her. So each day, the little witch immersed herself in ancient books, teaching herself the secrets of alchemy and experimenting with potion-making in solitude.
One day, while flipping through a dusty old tome, she discovered a passage that spoke of an ancient tower, hidden far away, said to contain a vast collection of rare and mystical herbs. With these enchanted ingredients, one could brew potions of immense power—elixirs that few in the world had ever laid eyes on.
At that moment, a spark ignited in the little witch’s eyes. She knew what she had to do. She would find this tower, gather its magical herbs, and use them to craft wondrous potions—potions that could heal and help others.
Without hesitation, she packed her small bag, bringing along her handmade alchemy tools and a few unstable experimental potions. She quietly bid farewell to her family and set off on a journey into the unknown, determined to find the ancient tower and unlock the secrets hidden within. Her adventure had just begun…
Week 3
In the third week, we determined the direction of the game production. We will use pixels to create a game about the little witch of the Alchemist obtaining potions. It needs to constantly clear the level by jumping. During this process, once she falls, she will return to the starting point.
Presentation of the game concept：
In this ppt, we present the game ideas and design concepts of our group. It includes our game background, character skills, level mechanisms, conditions for clearing levels, and so on.
Feedback:
In fact, the teacher thinks that the design of our game is quite good and innovative. However, there are still significant challenges in the completion aspect because it involves some changes in the characters, constantly changing scenes and some adjustments in the mechanisms. This actually requires a lot of time for us, and each part needs to be sketch-based and then transformed into pixel drawing. So the teacher's advice to us is that we can complete the first level first, and then talk about the second, third and fourth levels that we want to plan to do.
Felling for group work:
However, during the entire process of making the PPT for the group, I felt extremely uncomfortable because our group members needed to have a design for the PPT, so the style of the PPT never met their expectations. I need to spend time looking for and designing, and during the entire PPT production process, the vast majority of the pictures and content were completed by me. So for me, I would feel that this job is more like being done by me personally. They just issue commands to me online and then I do the production. Here, but considering that we still need to cooperate later, I didn't say anything. But I can guarantee that we won't be in the same group as them again next time.
Week 4-week 5
In Week 4, we decided to pixelate the character sketches we had drawn so that we could quickly turn them into models for testing in the game.
草图：
However, during the drawing process, we encountered a communication problem. I had been using the sketch from the presentation as the basis for the pixel art. At the time, everyone had no issues with the design of the sketch, and during the meeting, they were just urging me to finish the pixel artwork as soon as possible. So, I spent an entire day familiarizing myself with the pixel art software and completed all the pixel character drawings.
第一次我绘制的图：
But my teammate said he wanted all the characters to be in chibi style, so I redesigned the concept art and then colored it again.
As a result, I spent extra time redrawing all the character designs. Below are the updated character artworks:
- Size：64*64
- Format ：PNG
- Frame：
- Main character(There should be variations in clothing, hairstyle and posture.):
- Jump*2
- Running*6 (Three on each side)
- Standing* 4
- Fall*4
- Cat:
- Waling*6
- Standing*4
- NPC1:
- Standing: 4
- Plant Bridge
Running:
So, I had no choice but to wait until class to bring up the issue with the teacher. After the teacher helped us communicate, I started working on the second version of the drawings.
Through the discussion with the teacher, I realized that there were indeed some problems with my drawings. Although it was my first time creating this kind of animation frame, I saw it as a valuable learning experience. Now, I feel I’ll be more prepared when working on similar design assignments in the future. Overall, trying to stay positive really helped me.
What frustrated me the most was that he completely refused to acknowledge his part in the issue. For example, regarding the running animation frames, he was the one who initially said we needed to draw three frames facing left and three facing right. Both I and another teammate heard the same thing and even confirmed it with him before we started drawing. If only I had made a mistake, I could accept that it was my fault. But when two people heard the same instructions and made the same mistake — how could that not mean the problem was with how he communicated?
Then he told us he wanted to have a meeting on Friday that week, saying there were still some things we needed to adjust. During the meeting, he asked us to draw a background for the homepage, design the buttons, and also find suitable background music for him.
Then, the other teammate who was also responsible for drawing and I divided the tasks like this: I would draw the background image for the homepage, and she would design the buttons and find the background music.
We split the work this way because I had four assignments due on Sunday that week. I told them that once I finished my submissions, I would help her find suitable background music too.
Background：
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