this had mainly consisted of hit counters and enemy creators, and 3 screens.
Wednesday, 18 December 2013
Task 2
During the process of tutorials of through flash we had created our own small variation of asteroids, through several weeks of demonstrations and tutorials, we had created several layers of graphics and codes to create a very basic version of asteroids.
this had mainly consisted of hit counters and enemy creators, and 3 screens.
this had mainly consisted of hit counters and enemy creators, and 3 screens.
Task 6
My Personal game review
My game in my opinion I found quite difficult to construct, there was alot of actionscripting i had to comply with, to construct the game to an industry standard. upon doing this and gathering the various images and creating the images to construct the play field for the game, I had added several items to the game including mute buttons and player controlled fire buttons to the tablet, including a soundtrack I had sourced from Sonic the Hedgehog 3 created by SEGA. on first appearances the game seems very retro in its final form, however its menu's do need tidying and maybe could do with a few extra sounds, overall I fee the game I have constructed has been well made.
From the reviews I have recieved I have been made aware of the blind spot problems, where the player cannot go into the blind spot and shoot the remaining enemies, which effectively cause death for the player, providing i have more time I would of liked to of fixed this issue. overall I did feel the game was thoroughly designed.
My game in my opinion I found quite difficult to construct, there was alot of actionscripting i had to comply with, to construct the game to an industry standard. upon doing this and gathering the various images and creating the images to construct the play field for the game, I had added several items to the game including mute buttons and player controlled fire buttons to the tablet, including a soundtrack I had sourced from Sonic the Hedgehog 3 created by SEGA. on first appearances the game seems very retro in its final form, however its menu's do need tidying and maybe could do with a few extra sounds, overall I fee the game I have constructed has been well made.
From the reviews I have recieved I have been made aware of the blind spot problems, where the player cannot go into the blind spot and shoot the remaining enemies, which effectively cause death for the player, providing i have more time I would of liked to of fixed this issue. overall I did feel the game was thoroughly designed.
Task 5
Beta testing reviews
1.
Lewis Wain
Beta testing
I really like your game and the explosions look good. One problem I did find with your game that it was lagging a little on my tablet due to the complex graphics.
I like the name of your game as it is unique and the icon stands out. The game icon is bright but as it an icon I cant really see it well.
1.
Lewis Wain
Beta testing
I really like your game and the explosions look good. One problem I did find with your game that it was lagging a little on my tablet due to the complex graphics.
I like the name of your game as it is unique and the icon stands out. The game icon is bright but as it an icon I cant really see it well.
Bradley Sedgeman
I found this game to be rather interesting with the attention to detail that was placed in the game. The fire buttons where well thought of and successful for the game type, unfortunately the game's detail became it's downfall as well, the enemies where straying off screen into a blind spot that couldn't be shot at, ending in the player's demise. Although these minor faults did stop the game from being at the peak of player interaction and enjoyment, overall it was a good idea and the good graphics/game play gave intense/enjoyable game play.
Overall Game Rating 6/10
Corey Reading
Beta testing
I found your game very interesting. I liked the click to shoot buttons, I also liked the mute button so you could turn the music off. The graphics for the enemies could have been a little better because I wasn't 100% sure what they were.
Corey Reading
Beta testing
I found your game very interesting. I liked the click to shoot buttons, I also liked the mute button so you could turn the music off. The graphics for the enemies could have been a little better because I wasn't 100% sure what they were.
Wednesday, 13 November 2013
Task 2 Flash Report
Flash 700 word report
Flash
is a useful tool for those wanting to try working their way into animations or
game creation, purely down to its user friendly interface, and its simple to
use techniques, granted flash can be complicated but once you get your head
round it it can be quite simple.
Flash
consists of various features which enable the user to create efficiently and
effectively, onion skinning for example helps users who prefer a slower and
effectively accurate approach to animation, which lets them see the previous
frames drawing so they can accurately draw the following frame, if the user is
doing frame by frame animation.
Flash
also consists of several abilities and options which enable an easy approach to
animation, take for example the tweening abilities, for which you have 3
different types of tweens which are capable of creating different types of
animations. Shape tweens are capable of creating a different approach to animation,
which allows you to transform shapes and objects in a more fluid approach. Flash
is also a very useful tool for creating vector images, which can effectively
turn real life images into a more cartoon appearance, which is extremely useful
for creating cartoon like appearances and animations. Flash has many tutorials
you can follow on YouTube which allow you to get step by step guides on how to
create the very many alternative creations that flash can give you. Flash also
consists of having code snippets which are little bits of code you can add into
your actions box to create different ways of making and playing a game. Flash’s
coding language is quite different to that of say C which focuses more in using
individual letters and numbers to create variations rather than action script 3
which use mathematical sentences instead to create animated or optional
outcomes. There are many different ways of creating animations, one of which
you can use onion skinning and frame by frame animations. Frame by frame
animations let you create drawings and move them ever so slightly to create an
animated drawing, onion skinning is a very useful tool for using this mechanic
because it enables you to see what your previous frame’s drawing was, while creating
your next frame which can be very useful for creating very accurate drawings.
Other
interesting points about flash is it’s ability to immediately export into
android and IOS, as these mechanics are built into the program, you do not need
to download the plugins, unfortunately it blackberry and windows mobile are
unsupported, as well as MAC which requires the plug-ins to be downloaded to
export into those operating systems. While creating games for IOS and Android,
you have to try and ensure that you are visualizing playing the game on IOS or
Android, because the operating systems support tilt, which allows you to move
the game objects by tilting either tablet or phone, or even having buttons on
the side of the game so you can add fire buttons or power up buttons etc. to
add to the complexity of the game. Another advantage to flash is its user
interface is much tidier than most other game builders due to their complexity,
although that’s not necessarily a bad thing for other game builders as if you
have the time to understand it, you have access to much better options and abilities
that you wouldn’t normally have in flash. Flash is limited to its art tools and
coding in action script, which doesn’t allow too many options, but this at the
same time is able to create a much more user friendly interface. Regardless with
what tools is possesses it still remains as one of the most used tools to date
to create web animations, advertisements, even games and cartoons alike, as any
program it retains time consumption so normally you’ll have teams of people
working on lengthy projects like cartoons.
Generally
all round it retains its ability to be one of the most used tools in the games
and animation industry, with its ability to create swift and smooth animation,
or even turn images into vector based graphics, it benefits any aspiring
animator or graphic’s designer and game designer. Flash will be used for the
years ahead, still competing against the technology that challenges it.
Wednesday, 6 November 2013
Wednesday, 25 September 2013
Thursday, 12 September 2013
Task 1
Evaluation
Examples of Asteroids
Asteroids
There have been many examples of asteroids over the years, mainly since consoles first came into existence to which we’re primarily looking at the Atari which was one of the first games consoles ever to be created for entertainment, created by Atari Inc. whom were an American video game and home computer company founded in 1972 by Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney, These two were mainly responsible for the birth of the video games industry and created a leap to entertainment for the future. The game “ asteroids “ was one of the most influential games of the golden age of arcade games selling 70,000 arcade cabinets.
Asteroids uses a vector display and a two dimensional view that wraps around in both screen axes. The player controls a spaceship in an asteroid field which is periodically traversed by flying saucers. The object of the game is to shoot and destroy asteroids and saucers while not colliding with either, or being hit by the saucer’s counter fire.
Most arcade games had levels of difficulty including asteroids, naturally each level completed would increase the difficulty by increasing the amount of enemies or increasing the speed of the enemies in the ways they attack.
Sinistar
Naturally asteroids influenced many games designers to follow in its footsteps and create a legacy of space shooter games, one of those games was a game called Sinistar by a company called WMS Industries otherwise known as “ Williams “ whom are an electronic and games amusement company. Sinistar belongs to a set of games called twitch games which test the players reaction times. The aim of the game is to collect crystals to be powerful enough to defeat “ the sinister 2 which is constantly under construction through gameplay by enemy worker ships, after a while the player’s ship will face the sinister which, while it has no weapons, if it comes into contact with the players ship it will destroy it, and it’s game over.
Space Invaders
while not a game based around shooting asteroids and so on, it is the same kind of game where you must shoot incoming objects before your ship is destroyed. Space Invaders was a arcade game which no doubt had asteroids influence, created by a man called Tomohiro Nishikado and was released in 1978. it was originally created and sold by Taito in Japan. Space Invaders is one of the earliest shooting games and the aim is to defeat waves of incoming aliens with a laser cannon to earn as many points as possible. It followed the same logic as other space shooters, where obviously the more points and levels you complete, the more difficult it becomes.
Galaxian
Galaxian was another space and aliens game, it was designed to compete with space invaders developed by namco in 1989, a fixed shooter-style game in which the player controls a spaceship and shoots oncoming enemies in various directions it spawned several sequels and lesser known sequels and became one of the most popular games since the golden age.
Phoenix
Phoenix is another outer space shoot em up that comes quite similar to space invaders, where the player controls a ship moving both left and right to shoot oncoming enemies of variation, including birds, the difference between this game and the others is that in Phoenix you can use various tactics one of which is a shield, which while in use you cannot move and must wait several seconds or so. the enemies also attempt to dive bomb the player, which make the game that bit more challenging.
Centipede
Centipede is a vertically oriented shoot em up arcade game also produced by atari in 1981. The game was designed by Ed Logg along with Dona Bailey one of the few female designers of the time. The aim of the game was to defend against centipedes, spiders, scorpions and fleas, completing a round after eliminating the centipede that winds down the playing field. Naturally it took a space shooter appearance and became quite popular even making its way into the Nintendo gameboy.
Replay values
Asteroid’s replay values were as it being an arcade game very replayable as most arcade games consisted of having scores and not having goals so you could replay it to beat your previous scores, Asteroid contained this which made it quite a popular game, as each of the games which followed in its footsteps, most games of the golden age including these 6 had a heavy amount of replayability, as they were not all focused around goals, more focused around how far you got, so thus the player could always return to try and beat their previous scores. some of the games for example centipede, focused on how much you killed, rather than how far you got, but even completing the level increased your score as well, retaining each of the games with high replayability.
Difficulty levels
Most arcade games had levels of difficulty including asteroids, naturally each level completed would increase the difficulty by increasing the amount of enemies or increasing the speed of the enemies in the ways they attack. All of the games mentioned in the above followed this logic, Increasing enemies, increasing speed, and increasing the difficulty of bosses and increasing the amounts of health they Possess. or even as an example of difference for centipede, centipede's difficulty revolved around an increased amount of enemies and increased amounts of health, which eventually lead to the players death, it also used the mechanic of speed, where if defeating all the enemies except one, it would send the last enemy into a frenzy racing to the bottom of the screen, this mechanic was also used in space invaders.
Scoring systems
each of the scoring systems synchronised with the difficulty level, naturally the further you got the more you scored, or even the more you killed the more you scored, some of the games like space invaders and centipede had score multipliers, which would only activate after certain feats were achieved. the feats would include picking up special weapons or special attacks, or killing multiple enemies with accuracy to multiply the score, or just how far you got. each of the games mentioned above had these traits, and used various ways of multiplying, even using certain enemies which revealed multipliers, or just advancing to the next level would multiply your score.
Themes/graphic styles
Asteroids
Asteroids's themes and graphics style was an old age black and white almost circular drawn arcade game, this aided its success because it was so simple, with having nothing but almost drawn features on it, with effective graphics, which helped lead it to its success.
Sinistar
Sinistar on the other hand had a very sketchy and colourful style, it contained boss battles with strange demonic faces, which you'd have to battle to the death in your spaceship. its colour and effects gave the game a very appealing appearance.
Space Invaders
space invaders appearance consisted of small pixelated monsters with the colours black, white and green, at the time this gave change to other games which consisted of your black and white genre, which no doubt helped space invaders become more successful.
Galaxian
Galaxian on the other hand had a advantage in its graphical capability, as it utilised a wide range of colour, which gave the game interest and used various effects with the colours, using different styling techniques gave galaxian a great advantage over the others.
Phoenix
Again, Phoenix used the same sort of tactic as galaxian, using a wide range of colours and graphical effects to give it an attractive appearance to the receiving audience, using varied colours in explosions and various other effects.
Centipede
Centipede had various versions, both with and without colour, but the gameplay almost resolved in being exactly the same in each of the versions described above, regardless with and without colour it became a popular game.
Animations
Asteroids
Asteroids Animations were fairly basic, a small mouse icon which was the player moving around on the screen, shooting dots at moving meteors, which would then half in size upon being shot, and change speed, a great effect to keep players shooting more intergalactic rocks.
Sinistar
Sinistar's animations had a great 90's style, and let you venture around the screen with a map, ultimately giving you space from the boss, but its 90's style consisted of well designed pixelated explosions and bullets, making it a great game.
Space invaders
Space invaders (1978) had a very basic animations effect, simple pixelated explosions with simple bullets, but still retained a good game as it had scores you could beat, no doubt in 1978 on release it was a very competitive game for the games industry.
Galaxian
Galaxian retained in itself to follow in a similar approach to space invaders, with a little more colour, it had the same effects with more aliens and special enemies which could weave down to your ship rather than just approach slowly. its animations mainly consisted of a similar basis to space invaders, with aliens moving from side to side slowly and then shooting down the screen every now and again. the bullets were fairly similar to, apart from being slightly bigger.
Phoenix
Phoenix had a gliding screen which the player would glide up, shooting different kinds of fast moving birds to score points, it had basic colours with tiny pixelated colours. each of the birds had a sort of cream colour with varying enemies with different effects and slightly different colours, but all in all appeared to be a well designed game appearance wise. its animations consisted of fast moving birds like previously mentioned with the player almost having legs moving side to side upon going left and right, its most interesting feature was the travelling screen scrolling down with stars on it, which made it quite unique.
Centipede
Centipede's animations were fairly simple with various creatures moving round the screen, with a little ship shooting at them and them exploding in a 1970's pixelated way, even though it was a simple game, its addictive score and range of creatures gave it variety.
Sound effects
Asteroids
Asteroids sound effects are very simple, it has a timed tone which bleeps in 2 different tones, the faster it bleeps the closer you are to the next round, the guns are one tone sounds and the saucer that comes in at the end of the round is a high pitched siren sound, something simple, for a simple and addictive game.
Sinistar
Again Sinistar had used the same approach, not using many sounds, and were simple sounds consisting of tones and bleeps for bullets fired and things destroyed. and high tones to signify messages.
Space invaders
Space invaders used a slightly different approach, instead of high tones, it used a deep tone of 4 bleeps that would state the distance between the player and the aliens, the closer the aliens got, the faster it bleeped, which added adrenaline rushes to the game, which no doubt had a positive effect on its popularity, its shooting and explosions consisted of short bursted single tones which helped the games audio effects.
Galaxian
Galaxian had a much more filled database of sounds, using varied tones and effects very closely mixed together to give the game a more full appearance, the colour and graphics mixed with the good amount of sounds, made this game a very popular game of the 80's.
Phoenix
Phoenix, like galaxian had a reasonable amount of sound effects included in it, including a small soundtrack in it which added music to the game to help it stand out more, it had various sounds which almost sounded like sirens, and sounds for explosions as well, which made it a well known game in the 80's for its great appearance and sounds.
Centipede
Centipede almost had a mixed audible appearance from all of the above, its sounds were simple yet different and effective, quite sharp and long for a more enjoyable experience, it consisted of long tones and quick tones to mix up the sounds and gameplay, with its mix of black and white and colour versions of the game, it became quite a popular title of its age.
Examples of Asteroids
Asteroids
There have been many examples of asteroids over the years, mainly since consoles first came into existence to which we’re primarily looking at the Atari which was one of the first games consoles ever to be created for entertainment, created by Atari Inc. whom were an American video game and home computer company founded in 1972 by Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney, These two were mainly responsible for the birth of the video games industry and created a leap to entertainment for the future. The game “ asteroids “ was one of the most influential games of the golden age of arcade games selling 70,000 arcade cabinets.
Asteroids uses a vector display and a two dimensional view that wraps around in both screen axes. The player controls a spaceship in an asteroid field which is periodically traversed by flying saucers. The object of the game is to shoot and destroy asteroids and saucers while not colliding with either, or being hit by the saucer’s counter fire.
Most arcade games had levels of difficulty including asteroids, naturally each level completed would increase the difficulty by increasing the amount of enemies or increasing the speed of the enemies in the ways they attack.
Sinistar
Naturally asteroids influenced many games designers to follow in its footsteps and create a legacy of space shooter games, one of those games was a game called Sinistar by a company called WMS Industries otherwise known as “ Williams “ whom are an electronic and games amusement company. Sinistar belongs to a set of games called twitch games which test the players reaction times. The aim of the game is to collect crystals to be powerful enough to defeat “ the sinister 2 which is constantly under construction through gameplay by enemy worker ships, after a while the player’s ship will face the sinister which, while it has no weapons, if it comes into contact with the players ship it will destroy it, and it’s game over.
Space Invaders
while not a game based around shooting asteroids and so on, it is the same kind of game where you must shoot incoming objects before your ship is destroyed. Space Invaders was a arcade game which no doubt had asteroids influence, created by a man called Tomohiro Nishikado and was released in 1978. it was originally created and sold by Taito in Japan. Space Invaders is one of the earliest shooting games and the aim is to defeat waves of incoming aliens with a laser cannon to earn as many points as possible. It followed the same logic as other space shooters, where obviously the more points and levels you complete, the more difficult it becomes.
Galaxian
Galaxian was another space and aliens game, it was designed to compete with space invaders developed by namco in 1989, a fixed shooter-style game in which the player controls a spaceship and shoots oncoming enemies in various directions it spawned several sequels and lesser known sequels and became one of the most popular games since the golden age.
Phoenix
Phoenix is another outer space shoot em up that comes quite similar to space invaders, where the player controls a ship moving both left and right to shoot oncoming enemies of variation, including birds, the difference between this game and the others is that in Phoenix you can use various tactics one of which is a shield, which while in use you cannot move and must wait several seconds or so. the enemies also attempt to dive bomb the player, which make the game that bit more challenging.
Centipede
Centipede is a vertically oriented shoot em up arcade game also produced by atari in 1981. The game was designed by Ed Logg along with Dona Bailey one of the few female designers of the time. The aim of the game was to defend against centipedes, spiders, scorpions and fleas, completing a round after eliminating the centipede that winds down the playing field. Naturally it took a space shooter appearance and became quite popular even making its way into the Nintendo gameboy.
Replay values
Asteroid’s replay values were as it being an arcade game very replayable as most arcade games consisted of having scores and not having goals so you could replay it to beat your previous scores, Asteroid contained this which made it quite a popular game, as each of the games which followed in its footsteps, most games of the golden age including these 6 had a heavy amount of replayability, as they were not all focused around goals, more focused around how far you got, so thus the player could always return to try and beat their previous scores. some of the games for example centipede, focused on how much you killed, rather than how far you got, but even completing the level increased your score as well, retaining each of the games with high replayability.
Difficulty levels
Most arcade games had levels of difficulty including asteroids, naturally each level completed would increase the difficulty by increasing the amount of enemies or increasing the speed of the enemies in the ways they attack. All of the games mentioned in the above followed this logic, Increasing enemies, increasing speed, and increasing the difficulty of bosses and increasing the amounts of health they Possess. or even as an example of difference for centipede, centipede's difficulty revolved around an increased amount of enemies and increased amounts of health, which eventually lead to the players death, it also used the mechanic of speed, where if defeating all the enemies except one, it would send the last enemy into a frenzy racing to the bottom of the screen, this mechanic was also used in space invaders.
Scoring systems
each of the scoring systems synchronised with the difficulty level, naturally the further you got the more you scored, or even the more you killed the more you scored, some of the games like space invaders and centipede had score multipliers, which would only activate after certain feats were achieved. the feats would include picking up special weapons or special attacks, or killing multiple enemies with accuracy to multiply the score, or just how far you got. each of the games mentioned above had these traits, and used various ways of multiplying, even using certain enemies which revealed multipliers, or just advancing to the next level would multiply your score.
Themes/graphic styles
Asteroids
Asteroids's themes and graphics style was an old age black and white almost circular drawn arcade game, this aided its success because it was so simple, with having nothing but almost drawn features on it, with effective graphics, which helped lead it to its success.
Sinistar
Sinistar on the other hand had a very sketchy and colourful style, it contained boss battles with strange demonic faces, which you'd have to battle to the death in your spaceship. its colour and effects gave the game a very appealing appearance.
Space Invaders
space invaders appearance consisted of small pixelated monsters with the colours black, white and green, at the time this gave change to other games which consisted of your black and white genre, which no doubt helped space invaders become more successful.
Galaxian
Galaxian on the other hand had a advantage in its graphical capability, as it utilised a wide range of colour, which gave the game interest and used various effects with the colours, using different styling techniques gave galaxian a great advantage over the others.
Phoenix
Again, Phoenix used the same sort of tactic as galaxian, using a wide range of colours and graphical effects to give it an attractive appearance to the receiving audience, using varied colours in explosions and various other effects.
Centipede
Centipede had various versions, both with and without colour, but the gameplay almost resolved in being exactly the same in each of the versions described above, regardless with and without colour it became a popular game.
Animations
Asteroids
Asteroids Animations were fairly basic, a small mouse icon which was the player moving around on the screen, shooting dots at moving meteors, which would then half in size upon being shot, and change speed, a great effect to keep players shooting more intergalactic rocks.
Sinistar
Sinistar's animations had a great 90's style, and let you venture around the screen with a map, ultimately giving you space from the boss, but its 90's style consisted of well designed pixelated explosions and bullets, making it a great game.
Space invaders
Space invaders (1978) had a very basic animations effect, simple pixelated explosions with simple bullets, but still retained a good game as it had scores you could beat, no doubt in 1978 on release it was a very competitive game for the games industry.
Galaxian
Galaxian retained in itself to follow in a similar approach to space invaders, with a little more colour, it had the same effects with more aliens and special enemies which could weave down to your ship rather than just approach slowly. its animations mainly consisted of a similar basis to space invaders, with aliens moving from side to side slowly and then shooting down the screen every now and again. the bullets were fairly similar to, apart from being slightly bigger.
Phoenix
Phoenix had a gliding screen which the player would glide up, shooting different kinds of fast moving birds to score points, it had basic colours with tiny pixelated colours. each of the birds had a sort of cream colour with varying enemies with different effects and slightly different colours, but all in all appeared to be a well designed game appearance wise. its animations consisted of fast moving birds like previously mentioned with the player almost having legs moving side to side upon going left and right, its most interesting feature was the travelling screen scrolling down with stars on it, which made it quite unique.
Centipede
Centipede's animations were fairly simple with various creatures moving round the screen, with a little ship shooting at them and them exploding in a 1970's pixelated way, even though it was a simple game, its addictive score and range of creatures gave it variety.
Sound effects
Asteroids
Asteroids sound effects are very simple, it has a timed tone which bleeps in 2 different tones, the faster it bleeps the closer you are to the next round, the guns are one tone sounds and the saucer that comes in at the end of the round is a high pitched siren sound, something simple, for a simple and addictive game.
Sinistar
Again Sinistar had used the same approach, not using many sounds, and were simple sounds consisting of tones and bleeps for bullets fired and things destroyed. and high tones to signify messages.
Space invaders
Space invaders used a slightly different approach, instead of high tones, it used a deep tone of 4 bleeps that would state the distance between the player and the aliens, the closer the aliens got, the faster it bleeped, which added adrenaline rushes to the game, which no doubt had a positive effect on its popularity, its shooting and explosions consisted of short bursted single tones which helped the games audio effects.
Galaxian
Galaxian had a much more filled database of sounds, using varied tones and effects very closely mixed together to give the game a more full appearance, the colour and graphics mixed with the good amount of sounds, made this game a very popular game of the 80's.
Phoenix
Phoenix, like galaxian had a reasonable amount of sound effects included in it, including a small soundtrack in it which added music to the game to help it stand out more, it had various sounds which almost sounded like sirens, and sounds for explosions as well, which made it a well known game in the 80's for its great appearance and sounds.
Centipede
Centipede almost had a mixed audible appearance from all of the above, its sounds were simple yet different and effective, quite sharp and long for a more enjoyable experience, it consisted of long tones and quick tones to mix up the sounds and gameplay, with its mix of black and white and colour versions of the game, it became quite a popular title of its age.
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