The Before
Entering in to 247G I didn’t really have a clue on what to expect. I did expect it to be more focused on the digital aspects of design, which I was surprised when this wasn’t necessarily the case. I played a lot of games across a fair amount of genres and would say I’m reasonably knowledgeable about the culture. I considered play to be important since it dictates a lot in early childhood development; meaning I never undersold it. I will admit that I didn’t necessarily know all of the different types and aspects of play and players, though. I’ve always had a deep appreciation for game designers because people do tend to undersell how difficult their job tends to be since it is more often than not the case that these people have never even tried to make a game before.
The During
During 247G it is fair to state I learned a lot. For one: different types and stages of prototyping and how important it is became much more relevant. It’s a different type of feedback loop compared to standard software development in many ways. The things that stuck most with me were some of the mini lectures. Notably, the lecture on aesthetics (I forgot who presented it, sorry!) and Anthony’s lecture on balance were especially prevalent. In our game, we spent a long time on trying to get our entire aesthetic to match because the game never felt right when it didn’t. In terms of balance, we opted to make changes to empower the player and implement things that made the player feel good, even if it changed our original plans. This is most notable in our leniency with platforming and approaching skill disparities.
Still, developing an interesting puzzle platformer that considers skill disparities is a difficult task and our game wasn’t perfect in this regard at the end. We also struggled to implement some of the mechanics themselves which played into this. We rocked back and forth between feels good but perhaps too easy and very interesting but perhaps frustrating and had to pit it against our core concept and the asks of the teaching team, which was difficult.
I also enjoyed the discussion on AI in games and how the industry foresees future connections, given that I mainly study AI. It opens up a lot of questions about ethics in the gaming industry for me, which isn’t necessarily new. I do wonder about insensitivity often regarding AI and some processes. I think games are created best when there is an authentic idea and conceptualization behind it, which may be hard to do if everyone eventually resorts to the same pool of AI generation styles.
The After
At this point in time, I feel much more comfortable with Unity as a platform and the sketching out ideas, even if I’m not the best at it. I also grew very close with some of the people in my team which is something you can’t ever develop unnaturally in my opinion. I also grew more knowledgeable on navigating Git and branches, which is honestly extremely useful knowledge for future projects I have my eyes on. I think I want to change the direction of games I want to develop though. This game was cheerful and happy and focused a lot on growth, which I do like. But I envision a lot more sadness and adversity in the story games I’d like to make. Growth can happen through adventure, but more often than not I feel growth happens for most people as a reactive measure.
