Self and project evaluation

LO1

1.1-            As I began Games development I had little to no skills of animation sprites, sound editing or any knowledge of how to use game maker. During these few couple weeks I have learned how to animate, create usable sounds, create pixel art and make a 2d game. I have taken my time doing these different tasks and haven’t put any pressure on myself, this has made me enjoy and feel comfortable with my work.

1.2-            I have communicated with the class by asking for ideas and been given advise on how to fix things, this includes asking people for what I could do to improve my designs and game. I have included screenshots and sources of websites where reference images have come from. Another way I have shown my ideas to the class is through the walk around thing we did, this is where we looked at each other’s work and voted on whose we liked the best. I was nervous about this for a while as it was happening but after the nice and helpful feedback I got I grew more comfortable with my own games and characters I had created.

1.3-            The communication skills in class has helped me develop different ideas to use in my pixel art, games and my own characters. When first creating our projects I had no idea what I wanted to do but due to class discussions about retro pixel games and reference sheets of different pixelated characters ideas began to come to me allowing me to begin the games we needed to create.

LO2

1.1-            As breakout was the first game I created, I wanted to experiment a little with it. At first it was bland with dark blue and red colours which didn’t standout on the screen. I wanted to use colours which will draw the player in and keep them interested. I used colours such as pink, yellow, blue, light green and black. The black in the game represents death and danger which is why it is so different from all the rest. The player will know to avoid it.

My space invaders game consists of colours such as: Dark blue (to represent and give it the feel of space), white, purple and a bluey pink. For my characters (Aliens) I have experimented in shading and using different shades of the same colour to make it look a little more realistic. The ship I have created is a changed reskin of the original ship in the original game.

1.2-         Experimenting with my work was a risk because I did not know whether it will work well with the topic of game. However the reskins worked well and gave the bland, boring levels I made first into a fun and eyecatching game with background music and sound effects. I grew more confident the more I designed my own things. I have worked hard to make my games look nice.

1.3-         My creative and technical skills effected my games in a good way, there isnt too much of something on the page that makes it lookfull and clogged, instead there is a simple design which is unique to the game. The sounds took a while to make fit with the subject of game, with me having to pitch and speed things up. For example with Breakout!, a slow and melodic background music wouldn’t sound right with the fast paced movements. The background music I have used is fast and catchy fitting the theme well. This is also with Space invaders and PacMan. In Space invaders the background music has a spacey feel to it, as the music contains zap like sounds. Pacman has a very fast background track to fit the theme of having the escape the aliens and finish the level.

My pixel drawings don’t feel out of place. For example: The bat in Breakout! Shares the same colour scheme of the barricades. This doesn’t make it feel out of place but instead fitting in with its surrounding area.