"Rhythm Clicker" was an experimental idea that I and the rest of my team came up with, that took the Incremental Theme of this weeks TDEMO into a slightly different direction to the norm. Typically when you think of an Incremental, you think of games like Cookie Clicker (Thiennot, 2013) where you click to get a single resource, and can purchase certain modifiers to increase the amount of resource you get. While this was a kind of obvious choice, I wanted to kind of push the idea creatively and see how far I can stretch the “Incremental” narrative.
As we were in a team, I took up responsibility of managing the direction of the game and the roles that everyone had on the team, alongside other development roles. This involved dividing up the responsibilities among the team so people had an area they were strong in to work on. This was definetly an interesting task, especially with regards to Art Assets, as the different artists in the group had different styles and this would undoubtedly create some inconsistency. However, I figured that a way to make this work out is to make our game deliberately inconsistent, and almost push a very satirical feel to our players.
The team was divided up into 4 artists, 2 programmers and an all rounder (me) who would be able to pitch in with both sides, and this is where we started to work on our delegated aspects of the game.
As we were in a team, I took up responsibility of managing the direction of the game and the roles that everyone had on the team, alongside other development roles. This involved dividing up the responsibilities among the team so people had an area they were strong in to work on. This was definetly an interesting task, especially with regards to Art Assets, as the different artists in the group had different styles and this would undoubtedly create some inconsistency. However, I figured that a way to make this work out is to make our game deliberately inconsistent, and almost push a very satirical feel to our players.
The team was divided up into 4 artists, 2 programmers and an all rounder (me) who would be able to pitch in with both sides, and this is where we started to work on our delegated aspects of the game.
Planning
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Before we could fully start though, we needed to plan out our approach. In the initial idea suggestion stages, I came up with the concept of a progressive-rhythm design, that as you played, the background rhythm would increase, and so would the points you'd get. For this idea, I drew heavy inspiration from "DJ3K" from Club Penguin (Disney Interactive Studios, 2005) I pitched it to the group and with the help of other members, I was able to flesh out a full game loop in writing.
Planning out made it easy for the artists to produce their assets, and also to find sound assets in the future. However, I would argue that in industry, we would benefit from a full game design document, so given more time, I would have probably made one of these |
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For the sake of the main programmers on the project, we decided to make our project in Unity, and this created a few complications on my end. Outside of my theoretical knowledge of programming, I struggled to fully contribute in terms of lines of code in this project, because C# is a language I haven't learnt yet.
Reflecting on this though, this is actually something that is very important in industry. Knowing what is possible and the limits of whats achievable can help provide an accurate timeline for your employers as to how long a task will take. While you won't necessarily have a choice in how long you have for a given task if you have fixed deadlines, its a useful skill if you are managing a team, and can alievate alot of stress.
Reflecting on this though, this is actually something that is very important in industry. Knowing what is possible and the limits of whats achievable can help provide an accurate timeline for your employers as to how long a task will take. While you won't necessarily have a choice in how long you have for a given task if you have fixed deadlines, its a useful skill if you are managing a team, and can alievate alot of stress.
Creating Music
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For the first time, I delved into the world of audio and sounds. Since the game heavily relied on the use of rhythm and tunes, I needed to not only produce some music that would flow with the game, but also music that syncs up together on the same track, and loops for a long duration. (Freesound - Freesound, n.d.) to locate free bass or drum beats. I had to constantly trial and error with a variety of different sounds, while also keeping into account the licensing for those sounds to assure I'm using them fairly.
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My process involved acquiring sounds, whether through recording my own or utilising Freesound (Freesound - Freesound, n.d.) to locate free bass or drum beats. I had to constantly trial and error with a variety of different sounds, while also keeping into account the licensing for those sounds to assure I'm using them fairly.
I settled upon 5 sounds that I could then apply to the game. However, to assure this would work, I needed to head into Audacity, which is a audio editing software, and sync them up together so it sounds like a cohesive tune. Once this was done, I exported the sounds individually and forwarded them off into the Unity Project.
If I had anything to improve on this section, I would have definetly liked to have played some music for this game, but due to COVID-19, I was unable to do so. The audio would have felt alot more natural, but even so, this is a personal nitpick as the 5 sounds fit with the general satire nature of the game.
I settled upon 5 sounds that I could then apply to the game. However, to assure this would work, I needed to head into Audacity, which is a audio editing software, and sync them up together so it sounds like a cohesive tune. Once this was done, I exported the sounds individually and forwarded them off into the Unity Project.
If I had anything to improve on this section, I would have definetly liked to have played some music for this game, but due to COVID-19, I was unable to do so. The audio would have felt alot more natural, but even so, this is a personal nitpick as the 5 sounds fit with the general satire nature of the game.
User Interface and Art
On the Art Side, I helped flesh out the User Interface. We had initial plans to have a menu but this was scrapped due to time constraints and also that for a Incremental, it’s probably better if we just have them thrown straight into the game, as it isn’t like they’ll be navigating in and out of a menu constantly. That being said, I designed and programmed the UI to display figures as well as the active multiplier.
Unity has it's own UI engine, so I also needed to research this in order to work on it. As such, I observed a tutorial (Game Dev Guide, 2020) that demonstrated good practices with Unity's UI system, and then applied it to my work. I set out 3 text labels and then in C# (which is similar to C++ and one of the things I'm learning), programmed these to update depending on a change in value.
Initially, I had planned to have a separate “circle” holding the multiplier, and a lot more UI changes, but I didn't take into account the complexity of Unity's UI system and we had to settle for it being a simple text value. However, given more time to learn and a bit more knowledge, I would have probably implemented this fairly quickly.
Additionally, I should have performed double checks on the final UI, as we had accidentally shipped with a testing UI that indicated when you could click. In hind sight, this made the game a little more easier after reviewing what people had to say, but this wasn't intended. Given the feedback though, it implies that I could have added more visual cues for when the game reacts to a click, or when a click should be made, and I can do this in the future!
Initially, I had planned to have a separate “circle” holding the multiplier, and a lot more UI changes, but I didn't take into account the complexity of Unity's UI system and we had to settle for it being a simple text value. However, given more time to learn and a bit more knowledge, I would have probably implemented this fairly quickly.
Additionally, I should have performed double checks on the final UI, as we had accidentally shipped with a testing UI that indicated when you could click. In hind sight, this made the game a little more easier after reviewing what people had to say, but this wasn't intended. Given the feedback though, it implies that I could have added more visual cues for when the game reacts to a click, or when a click should be made, and I can do this in the future!
Presenting our Game
As part of our assignment, we needed to produce a 1-2 minute clip of our game and explaining what you do in it, so I undertook this role. Since our game was fairly satire, the first minute, which showed off our game, needed to be fairly satire and comedic to draw people into our game. However, it should be noted that the video needed to be done last minute, due to the need for a finished build in order to show off in our video.
Reflecting on this, it was very informative of how things can be held up in pipelines, and the need to set deadlines for certain tasks , to avoid stress and last minute crunch. While we organised what everyone did, some people made very last minute additions and this ultimately pushed our development time very thin. Setting deadlines and checkpoints would be of benefit to make sure we meet things on time and with relative calm.
Reflecting on this, it was very informative of how things can be held up in pipelines, and the need to set deadlines for certain tasks , to avoid stress and last minute crunch. While we organised what everyone did, some people made very last minute additions and this ultimately pushed our development time very thin. Setting deadlines and checkpoints would be of benefit to make sure we meet things on time and with relative calm.
In Reflection
In reflection though, I think that we ran into a lot of issues when it came to time management. It was very difficult to organise meetings with everyone, as members were busy with other things when others weren’t, and one was unluckily in another timezone, which made it slightly difficult for the programming side to work and call to talk about how they were going to achieve their tasks. However, we managed to get a game out which is better than nothing, and everyone contributed something to the final product!
If I had to change something, It’d be probably making sure that we have more frequent meetings and checkups. In the future, I’m going to probably try fit in some standups where people can just say what they’ve done and what they plan to do, as it’ll be beneficial for everyone that way!
If I had to change something, It’d be probably making sure that we have more frequent meetings and checkups. In the future, I’m going to probably try fit in some standups where people can just say what they’ve done and what they plan to do, as it’ll be beneficial for everyone that way!
Bibliography
Thiennot, R. (2013, August 8). Cookie Clicker [Video game]. Thiennot, R.
Disney Interactive Studios. (2005, August 24). Club Penguin [Video game]. Disney Interactive Studios.
Freesound—Freesound. (n.d.). https://freesound.org/
Game Dev Guide. (2020, February 18). Making UI That Looks Good In Unity. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HwdweCX5aMI
Disney Interactive Studios. (2005, August 24). Club Penguin [Video game]. Disney Interactive Studios.
Freesound—Freesound. (n.d.). https://freesound.org/
Game Dev Guide. (2020, February 18). Making UI That Looks Good In Unity. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HwdweCX5aMI
