This final blog post is all about self reviewing and evaluating my game project. Along the way I have always reviewed my work as I went along and I would state my opinion on how the work went. It is important to look back and discuss what went well and not so well through out the projects production and pre-production. I will leave some writing below based on want went well and not so well in each part of the project, I will start with the Pre-production:
Pre-Production:
In the pre-production the main purpose is always to plan ahead and take necessary steps in making the idea come to life. Techniques such as video research, model and level design and art styles and aesthetic are important to look into for planning and visualizing what to do when the production of the game starts. Ideas generation is key and is achieved my making art work and researching styles and aesthetics, all this is incredibly important when researching for a game.
Negatives
Starting with the negatives of the Pre-production phase I will be talking about what I feel could have been better if I was to do this again. I think one slight negative to take from the pre-production is the art that I produce for my level design, although I am very happy with the turn out I think that the size and scale of my drawings could have been bigger to show and express more detail within the levels design. Having more detail in the sketches would have been great for improving idea generation and would all in all improve the chances of a good grade. Although the sketches could of been better they were quite good and portrayed my ideas clearly.
Positives
Now that I have the negatives out the way it is time to talk about the positives of my pre-production, starting with the inspirations, I created several mood boards that contain imagery from my favorite game Sea of Thieves that is my main inspiration for the game I have made. The mood boards contain some of my favorite items from the game and items that I wish to re-created for my own game. These mood boards work well to show of what inspires me to make my own pirate like game and how I wish to do it. Not only do I think that the mood board worked well but the gameplay video from Sea of Thieves that I created is a massive help in showing of my ideas development and generation. Moving on to another positive, I want to mention how well the research towards art style and aesthetic went as I was able to find asset packs and describe them with great detail because of my video creation. These ten minute videos worked great in showing you how I am going to implement the models and assets into my game level.
What I would do next time
If I was to do the pre-production of my project again I would focus on improving the following things;
sketches,
Photoshop art,
These main points above are what I feel could be better, so I would spend time on refining and making them better if I was to to this again. To improve the sketches I would increase the scale and size to allow for better detail in each sketch. To improve the Photoshop artwork I would use and include more techniques such as shading with the brushes that have opacity and flow settings.
Production:
In the production phase the main aim is creating my models and my mechanics as well as my level design features. The production phase includes everything that I make and all the problems that I solve as well. I have used techniques such as videos to capture and explain in great detail what I have made and the route I have taken to do so. The problem solving is included under every video to talk about how the process went and how I solved any problems along the way.
Negatives
Starting with the negatives of the Production, I will talk about what I feel could have gone better during this phase. I think that one slight negative in my production phase is the lack of screenshots used to show of beauty shots of my models and level props. The reason I consider this a negative is because without these shots I think that you miss out on seeing some cool looking beauty renders that really show of my work in a nice professional way. I would take shots of the island and the level to use as more work to improve the professional practice grade for this project.
Positives
Moving on to the positives of the production, I will be talking about how I felt the production went as a whole. To start of I think that taking the same approach as the Acropolis project was a good idea as the video strategy works very well to explain and showcase everything I have done through out the project. The positive part of making videos is that it is more engaging for both me and who ever wants to see my project, the videos in general are more interesting and show that I have really put in the effort to make sure that everyone who sees my work can understand the process that I take in order to create my content. Another positive of the production is that my problem solving was shown below every video, the paragraphs I wrote contained an overall opinion as to how I felt the process went and then I made sure to express how I solved any problems and identify what the problems caused.
What I would do next time
If I was to do this production phase of my project again I would focus on improving the following things;
Beauty shots.
This main point is something I would of liked to add as it makes my production look more professional as I would be showing off and displaying nice pictures of my finished work. These renders would be short and sweet but they would really show of and flesh out my blog that little bit more.
Conclusion
In conclusion I am very happy with how my project has unfolded from the begin and has really came to life just how I had planned it to. Of course there are many things I could say about this project in terms of how to make it better and all of the things I could of added, but with all things considered I am more than happy that I have even made a game that works. There are many positives to take from this project that I am going to move forward with and have the mindset of producing more great work through the course of next year. I also look forward to improving anything I felt negatively about so that all in all I can become better as a game designer.
To finish of this project I will leave you with a short clip of my working game:
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