Log #10: Oct/3/2024

• Getting back on track
• What's a game?
• MATH, coming soon!
• Living in my game

It's been a few days since I last wrote a blog post. We were asked to write posts about our experiences from the game jam we did, and since I already did that in September 28's entry, I will keep this one shorter. We were also tasked to write brief articles about the math we do. Math? Ew! Gross! I don't do math! I don't have do write about math as often, so I am going to put it off until later this week, because I am a little busier today.

Our game jam went well. We got off to a rough start, spending a long time to decide what we wanted to do. Part of this was because I wasn't clear to everyone else on what game I was willing to make, so next time I do a game jam I definately want to waste no time going along with an idea I don't want to work on.

Despite the rough disagreements about what kind of game we should make, once we got going, our team's writer made a story and we began to rough out what we wanted to do. Everyone on the team was super nice, and even though we pivoted on what technology we were going to use to make the game, everyone seemed willing to work together.

Our biggest problem was the planning. While the story got written nicely, it never got 100% translated into the tasks necessary to make it. This meant that when somebody finished all their work for the time being, they had no idea what to do in the meantime. I think this resulted in a lot of time not being put towards our game jam project. If we had had a clear plan, we could have even laid out "extra" things to create if people had the time. This is mostly on me because I volunteered to be the project manager. I did not really do this until the last day or two, and I wish I would have this on, like, day one.

But, somehow, everyone did good work. Even though the organization was messy, everyone did a good job on their work, and we were ultimately able to come up with a finished project. I would have liked it if we could have finished earlier and had somebody play test, because after seeing other people play the game, there is definately things I wish we had done differently.

All difficulties aside, I am very happy with what we made. I enjoyed making the game, and I found it incredibly rewarding to watch people play our project! You can check out our project on itch.io here, or just jump straight in by going to the website. You can also naviagate to the game from the Projects page.

We spent our first day after the jam playing each other's game jam submissions. I very much enjoyed playing other people's projects and was blown away by what other teams created. One group made a fun horror game, while another had created a clever platformer. Playing each other's games was interesting, and now I'm excited to do another game jam!

We spent the rest of that day getting back into our main project, ERASE, and figuring what was where when we were working last.

Because of my experience in our game jam, I wanted to make sure we had a clearer plan on our game. I had a lot of details to flesh out. It was not until today that I felt like I really got into a groove of figuring out what we needed for the game. I tried to imagine myself inside of our game, seeing what features I "encountered" as I played our game. This was surprisingly successful, and got me going on what I wanted the "gameplay" to be like, which helped me get to developing more of the game's plot.

Next, because our game takes place in an office that people live in, I decided to ask what sorted things people would need to survive. Talking with my father helped spur on more of these practical ideas. In our game's world, we could include bathrooms, laundry rooms, kitchens, entertainment options, and excerice spaces. We could have a sewer and janitor closets! So many possiblities!

Finally, I feel a little more comfortable going forward as our game's "roadmap" takes a more defined shape.

Doing this worldbuilding has also led to me to realize that maybe I should learn more about architecture. I spent some time today reading from an architecture book. Mostly about old doors and windows, but I think a more concrete perspective on buildings will be helpful as I design our game's office.

I also want to write about something else that happened. All of us designers got together with our teacher, and we spent time thinking about what a game is, and who are design documentation is meant for. I was introduced then to an interesting idea: a game is not just interactive entertainment, but interactive entertainment with conflict. Conflict is the difference between Unreal Engine and a game like Call of Duty. Without conflict, the project is a sandbox, which is more of a medium than a game. I thought this definition for games was interesting, and it has started to change the way I look at games.

From there, we talked about who our design documentation is for. Thinking about what my team needs when they read the documentation I write is something simple that I believe I have missed out on. Because I spent a lot of time unsure about our game, I used the documentation to help myself work out the game, producing designs on a what-my-team-needs-in-order-to-have-something-to-do basis. I don't think that mindset has produced the most helpful documentation. Now that I have a better idea of our game, turning and thinking "what does my artist need to know", or "what does my programmer need to know" gives me more guidance and will hopefully make the design documentation infinately more useful. Right on!

We also spent time talking about writing for investors, or even fans. Changing the focal point to be on what our audience care about. Thinking about audiences definately changes what makes sense to write about. Establishing, "this document is for my team of game developers" seems like a super helfpul thing to do. I have never thought about this much, but I think it would do me some good to pay attention to my audience!

A lot has happened as of late, and I'm hopeful as our project moves forward. I've got to get going for now, so take care and have a day!

-Luke Knotts