Key Moments

This is a begining cut scene of what the last spirit shows the player of what scrooges future will be like and what might happen. It reminds the player about what happens in the book. This is to build the momentum going in the player while appealing to the story.

Game Design Document

Game Design Document (GDD)

Morality

(Engaging with an audience in art and design)

Version (1.0)

Created (29^th Jan/2016)

Last Updated (23^rd Feb/2016)

Table of contents:

1: Project Overview

1.1               Summary

1.2               Basic Concept (no backstory)

1.3               Core Gameplay

1.4               Genre

1.5               Target Audience

2: Game Overview

2.1   Overview

2.2   Story

2.3   Character

2.4   Environment

2.5   Level Overview(s)

3         : Gameplay

3.1   Combat

3.2   Abilities

3.3   Score

3.4   Power-up’s

4         : Menu Layout

4.1   Colour Scheme

4.2   Title Screens

4.3   Tutorial screen

4.4   Credits Screen

4.5   Game Win Screen

4.6   Game Over Screen

4.7   High Score Table

4.8   Level Select Screen

5         : Game Layout

5.1   Camera Set up

5.2   Game Controls

5.3   Game Mode(s)

5.4   Player Count

5.5   Hours of Gameplay

1: Project Overview

Summary

Morality is a fast paced educational game for English literature students, which enables the player to go over questions and riddles related to the story of “A Christmas Carol”. Similar to a revision tool to help them to memorize and know key facts of the main book/event.  Through this they will understand the story and the moral values of this story.

Basic Concept (no backstory)

The idea is that the player needs to answer question and riddles for him to score points and get the highest on the score board. Each time when the question or riddle I answered correctly then the player is rewarded, however if they answer wrong they will have to face consequences of what is to come whether it’s a bullet , arrow or even spike  they can either dodge it as it is possible. Slowly these will increase to make it more challenging.

Core Gameplay

The player controls the character

Genre

-          The genre of this game is a 2D platform scroller

Target Audience

-          My target audience are 16-18 students who study English literature will play this like a revision tool.

2: Game Overview

Overview

The game is to mainly improve the minds of students who study English lit in writing essays or revising key scenarios as well as reminding them about the story.

Story

-          Scrooge Ebenezer is a selfish and miserly old man who works as money lender in London. He is the sort of person that has no appreciation for fun and kindness and viewing it as a waste and loathed by everyone else around him.

During his supernatural visit by Jacob Marley and the Ghosts of Christmases Past, Present and Yet to Come, Scrooge has finally realised his mistakes and wrong doings in his life. Realising that his death will be meaningless and hell remain lonely. He has decided to become a better person; a new him. But he will have to act fast and change his ways as he races against time to outweigh his bad deeds. Scrooge now knows what he must do!

Character

-          You play as Scrooge Ebenezer. The silhouette style is to reason the mood he is as he feels like his a nobody

Environment

The environment will be based on each spirit and time period; based in the Victorian era so for example the past ghost was based in London with tall buildings and Ferris wheel in where scrooge first encountered the spirit. But near the time of the main event of the story the scenery will be based on what the spirits want to show.

Level Overview

The level will be continue if they player has survived as well as maintaining a good score to move on to the next level. The level will have its own background matching the spirit so it stays consistent throughout the game. Each level will have harder understanding questions so the player needs to have a good understanding in grammar.

3: Gameplay

Combat

There won’t be any combat involved as there isn’t any necessary violence occurring.

Abilities

-          Jump over traps and bullets

Score

Each “question” right, the player get 5 points

5 points = £10

Each “riddle” right, the player get 10 points

10 points= £20

Power-ups

-          Shield (last 1 hit)

-          Double Money

6: Menu Layout

Colour Scheme

The colour scheme will mostly consist of the grey scale as well as red, green and white.

The end, win, lose, level select , high score and other screen will have a gradient colour between grey and blue.

Title Screens

 

Evaluation

Evaluation

My target audience were people between the ages of 16-18 years old. They play video games, read books for English literature. I used the main character such as Scrooge to be in play in the game. The story of how he wants to change himself in order to change his future will give the player a purpose/reason on why they are playing.  By adding rewards in the game, it will give the player some motivation to continue to achieve the best score.

The colour I chose to appeal to my audience were known colours of subjects and moods to symbolize the theme such as Christmas were the colours red and green and the mood I determined on the way scrooge was hence the silhouette art style as it shows nothingness.

Since the style is a silhouette based, the greyscale would have come into play showing the mood of the environment. Film noir and German expressionism allows the audience to see the theme of the game. Since the book was based in the Victoria era I wanted create a black and white visual of the game. With hints of colour from my research won’t make the game look so bland and dull as I don’t want bore my audience by just the colour black and grey.

My knowledge of construct 2 has grown more, now that I have more knowledge and ways in which I can use certain buttons to do certain things. My art skills have improved by the sketches I did to upload and Photoshop more effectively.  Throughout this project I have done extensive research in order to perfect my animation walk cycle, learn basic and alternative ways to build a game as well as implementing objects in game.

If there was something I’d do differently in this project would be the game elements and the art style.

Evaluation - Personal Development

Evaluation – Personal Development

I learnt the basic elements and foundations of building a game in construct which helped improve my skillsets as a whole involving my drawing skills, photoshoping concept and generating art concepts that will be used to the foundation of the game.  I have learnt how the demographic can change the course of a game.

I believe the importance of this work is to expand my knowledge to help build a game if I was aiming it to as specific target audience and what certain element are allowed and what is restricted. It also helps understand what is needed to build a simple game using a game engine like Construct 2.

I put most of my effort in the animation and art work. Overall I do believe I put my best effort despise the time. I made quite a few mistakes while animating my character sprite but in the end I solved it by setting each frame separately and looking up walk cycle. If I was to try something different I would either change the art style or ask different questions in my questionnaire. I would also do more experiment with material such as paint.

The basic tutorials which I received my lectures on what is needed on each step was really helpful and effective as it opened my mind of what assets are required and art work. The group critique opened possibilities of how my game can be enhanced in various ways.

I never used pastels before as I was experimenting in creating silhouette buildings. I’ve never used to blog work however it has allowed me to keep track of things I’ve completed as well using a Gantter chart to make estimation of how many days it take to complete certain tasks as well as making time to time changes.

I could continue using E-blog as it helped to keep my work safe and it looks good to showcase to future employers. It keeps everything in order and looks professional depending on the layout, of course.

One main problem was implementing all my assets in construct 2 as I wasn’t familiar what certain buttons do which I never came across, so I took advice from my lectures and started watching some online tutorial. Another problem was animating my character as it was odd what playing the frames, for this I simply had some help from one of my lecturer and well as looking up walk cycle specifically for silhouettes.

Light/Theme/Style Moodboard

This is another mood board which I can use to refer to colours, lighting, camera angle.

Reference Images

This is my reference which I used to draw building shapes and took the proportion of it.

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Story Board

Scrooge Ebenezer is a selfish and miserly old man who works as money lender in London. He is the sort of person that has no appreciation for fun and kindness and viewing it as a waste and loathed by everyone else around him.

During his supernatural visit by Jacob Marley and the Ghosts of Christmases Past, Present and Yet to Come, Scrooge has finally realised his mistakes and wrong doings in his life. Realising that his death will be meaningless and hell remain lonely. He has decided to become a better person; a new him. But he will have to act fast and change his ways as he races against time to outweigh his bad deeds. Scrooge now knows what he must do!