As I described last time, class will begin promptly with a critique or play test. This is the first of those. Please come in and immediately post the strongest of your story-boards up on one wall in Wallace 109 (or whatever the number is for the classroom we met in last).

Critique
Each student will “Pitch” their concept explaining;

1. Who the game is for.
2. When they would play it.
3. What the reward is, why would they come back?

After each pitch we will leave a few minutes for questions and then move onto the next concept.

After everyone has had an opportunity to pitch their concept I will collect all of the portfolios with the sketches. Please make sure your name is somewhere on your portfolio. These will be graded on completion and communication. I will return the books in two weeks when I return and you can update them with your current work. Since this is our first round you can expect some pretty lenient grading.

Brainstorm

Today we are brainstorming general concepts that can help all of our projects instead of tackling specific problems. Now that you all have taken the time to actually consider building a game for someone we should have a pretty productive brainstorming on the topic. The rules for brainstorming are:

1. All ideas are welcome.
2. Do not argue, object, refute any ideas.
3. Write your ideas on a post-it.
4. Walk up to the wall and post your idea.
5. Say your idea allowed.
6. Elaborate if asked but do not defend or attack.

The purpose of the brainstorming is to create an open forum where creative people can jump from one idea to the next with little or no editing. Bulk is the goal. Lot’s of ideas quickly that everyone on their own can saw down to the one or two they want to use later. A brainstorming that goes well creates a very dynamic conversation where everyone feeds on each others ideas.

Brainstorming topics for this week are:

1. Who are the markets we want to tackle?
2. When are the times people play their mobile games?
3. How do you reward?

Retrospective

The retrospective gives everyone an opportunity to comment on what is working and what is not in the class. For the retrospective you need your sticky notes back out again. Please write down two things that have gone well for you in the class. Write down two things that have not gone well for you in the class. Write down one thing that blocked you from producing in the class.

Take these stickies and post them up on the wall with the others. I will group them into common themes and we will address each of the themes and discuss solutions. Solutions are assigned to either me or one of you to complete by the time we meet again.

House Keeping

1. I will review the grading system with everyone in detail.

2. The class schedule is maintained on this calendar. If you have questions you can reference the calendar easily from anywhere:

http://timlindsey.com/class-schedule-indd-5960-indd-6960/
The link is also in the Tutorial & Resources menu above.

Here are some dates to be aware of:

1. February 3rd via Skype.
2. February 10 in house but only until 2:30 and not 3:30.
3. February 17 in house – bonus.
4. February 24 in house and back on track.

Assignments

Tutorial 2 – Sequential Scripting using Kismet.

Get on it early, it’s harder. Mimic the tutorial. Show me you understand the tutorial by changing the Simon pattern. My pattern is:

Level 1: Blue
Level 2: Blue, Red
Level 3: Blue, Red, Yellow, Green

Sure the game is lame but it’s a good tutorial and you’ll be able to say you made your first game in a AAA game engine. Bonus, it is iOS compliant.

Assignment 2 – Pre-Production and Style.

Deliver One Concept Page. A Concept Page is little more than a single page questionnaire for a game designer. Building one is an exercise in seeing your true values for your product. What are the things that make your product what it is. Here you will find a concept page to download and complete. Build it. Do not just answer the questions. What I mean by build it is, consider each section carefully and make sure each section works together. It is all to easy to get off track.

http://timlindsey.com/resources/

Deliver One Style Guide. A style guide is simple. Put together a two page spread that illustrates your look. You should be focused on shapes and pallets at this point and not specific art for the project. Found imagery from the net as well as drawings are all fine. I strongly suggest you start building a color story at this point. The term “Color Story” is a term the game industry totally stole from the fashion industry but it is a perfect description of what you should be focused on delivering. In this case a color story is just a series of colored squares that illustrate your primary color choices and their accents. These colors will denote how a user should navigate the UI as well as how they should feel when playing your experience.

These examples from the 25th Anniversary of Zelda Artbook do a good job of illustrating what we are after. While they are character-centric you can see that shape and pallet are the goal for these spreads.

Deliver One Story Board. Build another that takes into consideration what you have written in the Concept Page and drawn from the Style Guide. This should be a more accurate representation of your gaming experience as well as be a stronger drawing.

The Tutorial Two scenes are done and posted but the video tutorial is not done yet. A nasty case of Bronchitis has made it difficult to record a demo that doesn’t sound atrocious.

• This reply was modified 116 days ago by  Tim.
• This reply was modified 116 days ago by  Tim.
• This reply was modified 116 days ago by  Tim.