Exhibition & Evaluation

Exhibit Planning And Setup

For my planning, I decided that I was gonna do something similar when it came to making the titles and so I was gonna use spray paints to make the title. After that, I was thinking about something that I could do is make a card back that people could interact with. Also finally I wanted to go into more detail about why I made the pictures that I did, what made me come up with the ideas.

For my setup for my Exhibition, I decided that I would Have to titles for each board. One for each of the two boards that there are. I drew my logo for my game scanned it and then used a laser cutter to cut it out. I used this stencil to spray paint my title on a piece of cardboard. I used the stencil for one side and for the other side I put the cardboard. On my first board for my exhibition, I decided to put some card-backs and that I designed. I cut some cardboard rectangles and painted them to represent the card-backs. 


Evaluation

My task for this unit was to make an animation or a game on any theme that we chose. I thought this was really cool because this meant that I could be more creative since last year the theme was London then and now. Also, this meant that I didn't have to make sure that I include things to follow the theme of London since the theme that I was having was a lot broader. The skills that I was going to include in this project was coding and artistic skills such as drawing and coloring and then also some maths as well.

There were multiple Ideas that I brainstormed. The main Idea would be that you would be able to play monsters, spells, and traps from your hand. I was going to include a bunch of different mechanics such as having 1 reaction per turn. The reaction would let you play a trap from your hand on to the field. The way that it would work is that you would have a few slots on the field, 2 rows, 1 would be for the player and one would be for the Ai/opponent. The way spells would work is that you play it and then whatever the effect says and it happens, before it goes into effect the opponent has a chance to react to it and play a trap from their hand. Once traps or spells are played on the field, once the effect happens, they are removed. I also brainstormed the fact of how the summoning and activation of cards would work. For the project, the idea I went with is that you can play one card a turn and on the enemies turn you can play 1 reaction trap. The second idea came up with was the same mechanic in terms of when you can play the card, but you could play as many, but I thought this would lead to some people possibly winning in the first turn. Also if someone stops it with one trap, then they will have a really bad chance of winning so this allows it so that it's fairer and it doesn't depend to who has the better cards but more of timing.

The other games that I did research on were Yu-Gi-Oh and from playing it myself I found out that the game is really fast paced and that it is possible for people to win on there first turn. When I looked at the game I looked mostly at the mechanics and wanted to compare them to the game that I would make. Because of the mechanic I have in my game, it is not possible to win in the first turn and not also that but the life system is different since Yu-Gi-Oh has 8000 health points and my game there are 10 health points. The reason why I choose 10 health points is that I think if there was more the game would be too long since the game will be quite slow paced.

My idea from the pre-production hasn't changed from making the game. I think the problem with the game is that I was really over ambitious with making the game and the time that we had to produce and put the game together. I thought that the game would be easier to put together but I did encounter a few problems and that is what led to me not finishing the product. What influenced me is my love for card games and then when I play I see some of the things that I don't like and I thought it would be fun to have a go at making a game myself.

In the production, the things that I had problems with is making the card go on the board and making so that you cannot click on the same card to move it to another position. I think it would have been better if I used a different program to make it. The reason why I used to construct 2 is that I thought it would be simpler and I underestimated how challenging it would have been to make a card game. Also, I think I could have been more practical with the time that I had to create the cards and I think maybe since it took longer to create the cards I should have made them simpler and had more planning so that I knew exactly what I was gonna draw. Another problem that I had was the sound as it wouldn't upload to construct 2 properly and I tried different formats and it still didn't work.

The way that I resolved these problems is by being persistent about them and keep trying to fix them to make it work for example the sound, I fixed it by saving my work closing the program and then after trying to import it again and that time it worked. With the card problem, I made a global variable that allowed me to have an on and off switch, this made it so when I have selected the first card it can't be selected again. I had to re-use the code for all the cards and this worked for the first round. I was semi-successful fixing this problem the reason is that this worked for the first round but after that, it stopped working and I tried using the same code and it wouldn't work.

The skills that I have learned is time management and that to be not as ambitious and choose a target that is possible for me to reach. Other skills that I may have not learned but improved upon is my coding since there was code that I had to change. Debugging and through doing this project it has given me a better understanding. Music creation since within the time of this project I created 4 beats that I could use for my game. I have looked at the music that I created and asked myself "How can I improve this". By having a mindset like that I have made the beats that I made a lot better than I can show people and they will tell me that in their opinion the last one that I made was a lot better. This is how I ended up with the final audio.

In the production I looked at these games as well as just looking at them I played them so I can get a better understanding of how the games works and thinking about the audio, art-styles and the mechanics, I focused on this stuff instead of trying to win the game this helped because I could see different things. For example, when I looked at Yu-Gi-Oh I could see how clear the mechanics were and see if people understood them properly. I tested this on a website called Dueling Book a Yu-Gi-Oh simulation of the game. The way Dueling book works are that you make your deck of 40 cards and then you play but it's not an automated system and the players play like that. So they all follow the rules themselves, if they come to a disagreement then an Admin comes in the room who knows all the rules. When I played a few people only 1 came to a disagreement this was because of the wording of the card and it was confusing.

I think for the project outcome it could have come out a lot better since it's not a complete project and it would have been nice to have a system that works properly. For this, I think the solution for that would have been to use a different program this would have allowed me to set up a system that could have continuously happened since construct 2 I had to code every round.

Overall I think this project has not been too successful but has been in terms of experience what I have learned from this overall. The game Hasn't changed too much from the original design but if I did make changes I would have made a lot for example, I would have decided to change the program I used another thing that I would have done is make it so that it was Lan so that it could have been played against someone instead of setting it up this way I could just randomize both of the settings for the cards since the cards for the opponent was set and wasn't random. This way I think it would have been better to test since I could get 2 people to play it and see if they find any bugs and this helps me because then I get verbal feedback about the game as well.